Loeb evidently approached Representative Cleveland, for The Crimson obtained a copy of a letter from Cleveland to Loeb referring to a letter from Hoover and asking if the Congressman could be of further service.

The Hoover letter, which The Crimson also obtained and which was verified by the Boston FBI office, acknowledged that Gill had worked for the FBI but claimed that the Bureau had paid her.

Gill explained that Cleveland had misunderstood and contacted the wrong intelligence chief. She said the FBI had paid her all along; the CIA was in arrears.

THE TWO letters were written in early February 1972. Gill said the CIA finally evened its accounts with her March 3, 1972, when she said two agency agents--including Cambridge agency chief Herman A. Mountain--traveled to North Conway to pay her the $350.

What happened between February and March to send the agency to New Hampshire remains unclear, but evidently more strings were pulled in Manchester and Washington. Neither Gill nor Loeb will describe how the mix-up was rectified.

Investigative reporter Egan has an interesting sidelight on the affair. He said Morrissey clandestinely tape recorded the transactions, that he has heard the tape although he does not know where "it is, and that the two men definitely indentified themselves as CIA agents.

"You gotta play sneaky with those boys too," he explained. "Carol took our office's 'Sneaky Pete' tape recorder to North Conway for the meeting."

The entire affair, even the means by which it was unearthed, is rife with people playing sneaky. The Crimson obtained the letters that revealed Gill's role and threw the fantastic case wide open because someone else must have played sneaky.

Playing sneaky is fun for little kids, but it loses its humor in what is supposedly an open and free environment. Gill comes out of the affair looking fairly quixotic, but the FBI and possibly the CIA appear simultaneously sinister and bumbling.

SDS has never been on the government's list of 'subversive' organizations, so the supposed rationale for spying on it is not present. The chilling effect of domestic government surveillance, now prominent with the unravelling revelations in the Watergate 'caper,' hardly needs documentation. FBI interference in Harvard's affairs, confirmed in the case of Dean Whitlock's secretary, may pale into insignificance beside electronic eavesdropping in presidential campaigns, but it is no less excusable.

Yet one marvels at how the FBI projects its own image onto that of its enemies, assuming that because it plays sneaky, they must also. J. Edgar Hoover himself could have appeared at a Harvard SDS meeting and gleaned as much useful information as Gill obtained. Her work was probably at best a minor nuisance to SDS, probably not worth the $50 the FBI allegedly tossed her every now and then. They surely could have invested their money more wisely.

Gill herself probably suffered most from the escapade. She probably contacted the FBI for a mixture of reasons: a sincere desire to counter what she was as the SDS threat to national security and an eagerness to enter the exciting world of espionage. The FBI callously used her, and seemingly gained nothing for its exploitation.

A former SDS leader provided perhaps the best assessment of Jessie Gill. "She was a lonely person who appeared to have no friends," he said. "She found a group of them in SDS."

The FBI could hardly have found easier prey.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE