Steve Dunnington

Consistent with Michael Beschloss' observation that "the most likely explanation for the cause of Kennedy's death lies in his policies,"[1] the convergence of CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile operations with the events surrounding the President's assassination provides strong circumstantial evidence of the motive and means for that crime. But there is more direct evidence. In a 1985 libel trial, E. Howard Hunt ("Eduardo") filed suit contesting an assertion in an article written by former CIA officer Victor Marchetti implicating him in the assassination, including an alleged 1966 memo initialed by CIA Director Richard Helms and Deputy Director for Counterintelligence James Angleton, which discussed Hunt's presence in Dallas and the possibility that "a cover story, giving Hunt an alibi for being elsewhere the day of the assassination, 'ought to be considered.'" Speculating on why such an extraordinary cover-up would be put in writing, a high level CIA source said, "The memo is very odd. It was almost as if Angleton was informing Helms, who had just become director, that there was a skeleton in the family closet that had to be taken care of and this was his response."[2]

Castro's former mistress-turned-CIA agent, Marita Lorenz, testified of her direct knowledge of Hunt's participation, as well as that of other anti-Castro Cubans, in the events in Dallas leading up to November 22, 1963. She claimed to have been in a two car caravan with Frank Sturgis, Orlando Bosch and others traveling from Miami carrying numerous weapons. Upon their arrival in Dallas they were met at their motel on November 21st by their old paymaster, "Eduardo." An hour after Hunt delivered the money and departed, another character out of history arrived: Jack Ruby.

In that trial, an amazing exchange took place after Hunt testified that, "like thousands of other Americans, millions," he, his wife and children had huddled together at home that fateful weekend, "and watched the burial services."[3] Yet, despite providing his own children as alibis, he had also asserted his legal damages to be the doubts in their minds about their own father's activities. The question was asked:

"Mr. Hunt, why did you have to convince your children that you were not in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, if, in fact, as you say, a fourteen-year-old daughter, a thirteen-year-old daughter, and a ten-year-old son were with you in the Washington, D.C. area on November 22, 1963, and were with you at least for the next forty-eight hours, as you all stayed glued to the T.V. set?" After a long pause, Hunt lamely asserted that. "it was less a question of my convincing them that I was in Washington, D.C. with them-rather, reminding them that I was-than it was to assure them that none of the charges...had any substance to them at all." The magazine's attorney followed up with: "What I want to know is since they knew how outrageous the lies were, why did they have to be convinced by you that you weren't in Texas?" Hunt simply replied: "Reminded, reminded."[4]

Hunt had failed to anticipate that the two elements of his story-that his children were with him the entire weekend and that his children were unsure of where he had been at the time-were mutually exclusive. Hunt lost his lawsuit. The jury did not even debate the malice issue because the truthfulness of the assertion had been sufficiently proven.

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion fiasco, April 17, 1971, E. Howard Hunt had traveled to the Bay of Pigs Monument in the Little Havana area of Miami to recruit exile veterans for a new operation. Resurrecting the dream of overthrowing Castro, Eduardo had assured them that "the whole thing is not over."[5]

Subsequent events would expose a high level role played by these terrorists when a team of Bay of Pigs veterans was caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Found among the burglars' effects was evidence that they were being coordinated by E. Howard Hunt, who had an office in the White House. In addition to political burglary, Hunt had been given the high-level assignment of manufacturing evidence of President Kennedy's complicity in the assassination of South Vietnam's leader in 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem.

President Nixon subsequently managed to remain in power for more than two years, withstanding remarkable disclosures, until the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that he had to turn over tape recordings of certain Oval Office conversations. Nixon was out of office within two weeks, primarily because of the disclosure of a taped discussion about Hunt that occurred a few days after the break-in. This tape recording has become known in history as the smoking gun conversation.

During that incredible exchange that would topple a presidency, Nixon ordered his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, to meet with Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, and tell him to call off the FBI's investigation of the burglary for national security reasons. Nixon suggested that Hunt's involvement be used as a lever to make sure the CIA would cooperate. The transcripts of President Nixon's rantings about Hunt are perhaps the most factually revealing evidence of deep politics in history:

"Hunt...will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things.... Tell them we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves. When you get the CIA people in say, "Look, the problem is that this will open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again." So they should call the FBI in and for the good of the country don't go any further into this case. Period. Just say (unintelligible) very bad to have this fellow Hunt, ah, he knows too damned much.... If it gets out that this is all involved, the Cuba thing would be a fiasco. It would make the CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs which we think would be very unfortunate-both for the CIA, and for the country, at this time, and for American foreign policy. Just tell him to lay off....[6]

Haldeman recorded Helms' dramatic reaction to the threat: "Turmoil in the room, Helms gripping the arms of his chair leaning forward and shouting, 'The Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this'" Despite this, Helms acquiesced and Haldeman was able to report to the President that "his strategy had worked," that Helms would be "very happy to be helpful." But the remarks and Helms' behavior raised the question in Haldeman's mind: "What was such dynamite in the Bay of Pigs story?" The more innocuous explanation is that Nixon, as the chief White House official involved with the Eisenhower administration's Cuba invasion planning, knew of the government's use of Mafia assassination assets in the efforts against Castro. However, following years of study, analysis and reflection, along with his personal knowledge of the players involved, Haldeman asserted a more astonishing answer to that question: "It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination." Given his reaction, it is apparent that Helms clearly understood Nixon's message.[7]

Aside from such an interpretation of the dark secret to which Nixon was alluding, he and the CIA director had a more current mutuality of interests. Helms wanted to suppress the CIA-Hunt relationship because it violated the Agency's charter regarding domestic spying. Nixon wanted to suppress the White House-Hunt relationship because it would reveal precisely for whom the chief Watergate burglar was working. E. Howard Hunt clearly represented a problem for more than one major Washington power center. Nine months after the smoking gun conversation, when Hunt was about to be sentenced, Nixon was told that Hunt had issued a blackmail demand in lieu of revealing some of the "seamy things" he had done for the President. Nixon's response was unequivocal: "Well, for Christ's sakes...get it."[8]

1. Jefferson Morley, "November 22, 1963: Why We Need The Real History Of The Kennedy Assassination," Washington Post, (November 24, 1996).

2. Joe Trento and Jacquie Powers, "Was Howard Hunt in Dallas The Day JFK Died?" Wilmington Sunday News Journal, (August 20, 1978).

3. Mark Lane, Plausible Denial, (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991), 282.

4. Ibid., 283-284.

5. Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War. (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1976), 277.

6. H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power, (New York: Times Books, 1978), 33.

7. Ibid., 38-39.

8. Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith, (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1975), 199-200.

E. Howard Hunt does appear to be involved in both the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate. As Hunt relates in "Undercover" his position at the CIA from late 1961 to 1965 was Chief of Covert Action for the Domestic Operations Division. CHIEF OF COVERT ACTION ........for DOMESTIC OPERATIONS.....for THE CIA ???? Hunt claims he wrote books and articles to provide dis-information. I think he was at the center of the domestic plans and schemes of the CIA. I believe I had read that the domestic operations division was responsible for de-briefing all U.S. citizens who had visited the Soviet Union and other Soviet bloc nations.

I am unsure about the domestic operations divison .....I would greatly appreciate any info anyone might have....if true however the implications are far far reaching

Howard Hunt "retired" from the CIA in 1970 and went to work for the Robert Mullen Company. Shortly thereafter he went to work at the White House, as a plumber and a part-time burgular. He still worked at the Mullen Company though.

However the Mullen Company was a CIA front; used to place agents and assets overseas and apparently at the White House. So Hunt's retirement was faked so his cover could be established at Mullen. A CIA agent employed at the White House......who implemented this plan????? Helms and who?? I can't believe it was Nixon. He would have not wanted Hunt reporting his special tasks back to Helms and the agency.

E. Howard Hunt does have alot of explaining to do. But that will never happen. This former chief of covert action needs to answer alot of questions....alot

1) Was the Mullen Company a front for the CIA so 'cover' could be given to agents ????

2) If so... did you continue to have any contact with the agency after leaving Mullen, were you any kind of an asset for the purposes of domestic or foreign intelligence????

3) Did your association with the Mullen company, Howard Hunt and other Watergate individuals lead you to any contacts that brought on your representation of Billie Sol Estes????

4) Was General Foods your cover employer at Mullen Company ???

5) Are you the same Douglas Caddy who as an attorney based in Houston, TX has written extensively on laws and regulations in the insurance industry???? ( I 'googled' your name and found some articles by one, Douglas Caddy)

I'll have some more questions soon...... that was a great article in The Advocate , by the way.

(1) The Mullen Company was a front cover for the CIA and, in fact, had been organized as an entity by the CIA. Its CIA background was disclosed in Senator Howard Baker's supplemental statement to the Senate Watergate Committee's final report.

I have never been employed by the CIA or any other intelligence organization. I did at one time join the Association of Former Intelligence Officers as an Associate Member by paying a one year's dues of $10 but did so because I was interested in receiving materials published by the organization. I never attended any of its meetings or met anyone associated with the organization.

When I was graduated from New York University School of Law I became an employee of General Foods Corporation at its White Plains, N.Y. headquarters. One of the reasons the company employed me was that while attending law school, I worked as an employee in the New York City private offices of then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, on the staff of Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. I was conversant with the New York political scene as well as national politics.

At no time while working for General Foods was I informed that the Mullen Company, which it retained to represent its Washington interests, was a CIA front. In 1969 General Foods assigned me from its headquarters to work in Washington as a prelude to opening its own office there with my being its chief spokesman in Washington. The company told me that for the first year I would be working out of the Mullen Company offices in the Kiplinger Newsletter Building. During that first year there several things occurred that raised questions in my mind about the Mullen Company but I never reached the ultimate conclusion that it was actually a CIA front. Howard Hunt came on board the Mullen Company some months after I began working out of its office, which was how I came to make his acquaintance. At no time was I ever on the payroll of the Mullen Company. I was exclusively employed by General Foods.

I should add that there has always been a question in my mind whether I was used by General Foods and the CIA unwittingly to provide "cover" for the Mullen Company. For example, I served on the Washington Representatives Committee of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, representing General Foods, which lent the air of legitimacy to the role of the Mullen Company being retained by General Foods. By the way, besides General Foods, the Mullen Company's second major client was the Mormon Church. Robert Mullen, a Christian Scientist by religion, was the author of a book on the history of the Mormon Church.

(2) I never had any contact with the Mullen Company after I left employment by General Foods other than my legal representation of Howard Hunt, who was a Mullen employee. Robert Bennett, now Senator Robert Bennett of Utah, apparently was misquoted by Woodward-Bernstein in the Washington Post after Watergate broke about my time at Mullen. He subsequently wrote me a letter of explanation. Bennett, a Mormon, had purchased the Mullen Company from Robert Mullen, apparently at the CIA's direction, about the time I left General Foods to join a law firm in Washington.

Bennett's letter is included in my professional files on the founding of the modern conservative movement, Watergate, Billie Sol, and other matters that I donated some years ago to the University Library Archives of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon.

(3) No person that I was associated with at General Foods, Mullen Company, or in Watergate led me to representing Billie Sol. As I have previously explained, this came about through my acquaintance with Shearn Moody, a trustee of the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas.

(4) General Foods was my sole employer when I worked out of the Mullen Company offices at the behest of General Foods. I have concluded that General Foods knew the Mullen Company was a CIA front and that General Foods cooperated with the cover operation and undoubtedly benefitted from it by receiving "inside? government information that was beneficial to its corporate interests, much akin to the United Fruit Company.

(5) I am the author of two books on insurance, both published by the Texas A&M University Press.

Thank you Mr. Caddy for your answers to my questions. I have some great concern about Howard Hunt's status with the Mullen Company, the CIA and his employment at the White House. Since Mullen was controled by the CIA , Hunt must have been planted as a CIA operative at the White House. I can draw no other conclusion and would like to know if you agree or disagree.

The ramifications concerning Watergate are tremendous.!!!! But a bigger question is who engineered the entire " Hunt at the White House " scenario ???? And why??? Your comments and opinion would be appreciated

1) Was the Mullen Company a front for the CIA so 'cover' could be given to agents ????

2) If so... did you continue to have any contact with the agency after leaving Mullen, were you any kind of an asset for the purposes of domestic or foreign intelligence????

3) Did your association with the Mullen company, Howard Hunt and other Watergate individuals lead you to any contacts that brought on your representation of Billie Sol Estes????

4) Was General Foods your cover employer at Mullen Company ???

5) Are you the same Douglas Caddy who as an attorney based in Houston, TX has written extensively on laws and regulations in the insurance industry???? ( I 'googled' your name and found some articles by one, Douglas Caddy)

I'll have some more questions soon...... that was a great article in The Advocate , by the way.

I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread where we vote and speculate on who killed JFK.

I will start the ball by suggesting the Military Industrial Complex. The operation was a complete success and the group achieved all its objectives. This includes the cover up that involved the implication of several groups and individuals in the plot. One reason for this was to guarantee the help of these individuals and groups in the cover up. This involved implicating LBJ, the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service. It also involved implicating the Kennedy brothers in other terrible events. This ensured that the Kennedy family and its close associates joined in the cover up. This cover up included both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee of Assassinations (this involved a change in tactics with the finger now being pointed at the Mafia).

It also included a far more sinister cover up that will have long term implications for the history of the world. I believe that the CIA and FBI were involved in destroying a large number of documents relating to the assassination in November/December, 1963. These were replaced with false documents that have yet to be released. These documents will only become available when all those who are referred to are dead. These documents, because of the fact they have been held back, will be believed to be genuine. They will do two things: (1) They will show that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. (2) They will link the Kennedy brothers with a series of crimes and wrongdoings, including the murder of Marilyn Monroe. Others smeared will be those associated with what the Military Industrial Complex would refer to as dangerous radicals (Martin Luther King, etc.)

I believe that the people behind the assassination were representatives of what Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex. The main objective was to ensure the continuance of the Cold War. To achieve this they had the convince the American public that they faced a real communist threat. The presence of a revolutionary communist government on its doorstep (Cuba) was permanent evidence of this. So also was the presence of WMD in the Soviet Union and China. As in Iraq, we now know the CIA and MI5 exaggerated this threat.

Therefore we have to identify the representatives of the Military Industrial Complex in the government. Their main man was John McCone, Director of the CIA. That is not to say that the assassination of JFK was a CIA operation (although it did use a CIA agent, David Morales, to organize the assassination).

McCone is a classical case of a representative of the Military Industrial Complex. The owner of a small engineering company before the war, between 1942-45 his new company, California Shipbuilding, made $44 million in profits from an investment of $100,000.

After the war McCone was brought into the government and served as Deputy to the Secretary of Defense (1948) and Under Secretary of the Air Force (1950-1951). What did he know about these matters? Only that it was in the best interests of MIC to spend increasing amounts of money on the arms trade. McCone was an ardent Cold War warrior and in 1956 attacked the suggestion made by Adlai Stevenson that there should be a nuclear test ban. McCone accused American scientists of being "taken in" by Soviet propaganda and of attempting to "create fear in the minds of the uninformed that radioactive fallout from H-bomb tests endangers life." Read that quote again if you did not get it the first time. Now that is what I call disinformation.

In 1958 Eisenhower appointed McCone as Chairman of the Atomic Energy commission. After the Bay of Pigs disaster, President John F. Kennedy sacked Allen W. Dulles as Director of the CIA. Under pressure from right-wingers in the intelligence community, Kennedy appointed McCone as the new director.

Morales was put in charge of the assassination. He employed people he had been working with in Miami to undermine the government of Cuba. This included figures in the ant-Castro Cuban community. It also involved American military advisers to groups like Alpha 66. The Cubans believed that the reason for this plot was that after the assassination of JFK, LBJ would order the invasion of Cuba. In fact, this was never the objective. It was part of the overall conspiracy to keep Castro in power. The presence of a communist state so close to the United States helped to reinforce the communist threat and the need for massive arms spending.

The Cubans would obviously feel betrayed when they realised Castro would not be toppled. Those Cubans who knew anything about the assassination had to be got rid of. Soon after the assassination most of this group were sent on a mission to kill Castro and create a reason for the United States to invade Cuba. This group was betrayed to the Cuban Secret Service. As a result they were executed in Cuba. A few Cubans remained. Some of these were the victims of hit men (who had no idea why they were killing them).

I believe one or two of these survived. They, like me, took out an insurance policy. They recorded what they knew about the case and placed the information with lawyers, solicitors, etc. These documents, tapes, etc. were only to be released in event of their dying in suspicious circumstances. These people have become untouchable. They are the only ones who will ever be able to provide any hard evidence of this conspiracy. Even if they do talk, they will only have evidence of a small part of the plot. No one will have information that implicates anyone higher than Morales. The conspiracy was a complete success. Or can we fight back?

Your assertion that the Bay of Pigs was meant to fail has been on my mind for years. Yes, a Soviet satelite 90 miles offshore is just what the Military Industrial Complex needed, wanted and were not about to get rid of. So my vote for JFK's assassin goes to this ,quite still active group. I always thought Allen Dulles' insistence that he be out of town to attend a scheduled confrence on " invasion day " at the BOP was so irresponsble!!!!!!!! His claim that canceling his trip would be a signal to the Soviets to be aware is pure cover. He did not want to be in D.C. He let General Cabell take the fall for an operation he knew was doomed to failure. Allen Dulles also was behind the planned failure of the U2 flight of Gary Powers. Which led to the failed Paris Summit. Esienhower really wanted to leave office making the end of the cold war a possibilty. A pursuit of peace was sabotaged and replaced with rancor and mistrust. In the biography Dulles, ( about John Foster, Allen and Eleanor) Bisselll says the U2 was built to last 2 years and it was now 5 years. In the meeting to approve the U2, Bissell said their flight would put them close to the Paris Summitt date. Esienhower says he did NOT want the mission to possibly jeopardize the summit. No flight was approved and Bissell and other assistants left, leaving Ike with Allen Dulles, the Sec'y of State and I think the joint chief chairman. Bissell said that Dulles showed up 2 hours later, happy as lark, he had got the flight windows approved[. The flights had to be completed two weeks before the summit was to start. The last day to go was May 1st....Mayday......Bissell said that if May 1st was necessay, they would NOT GO with the flights and risk really offending the Soviets , would they???? Dulles said the Russians would be celebrating and enjoying their holiday.. no problems should be anticipated........Gary Powers shot on May 1st......Summit a failure. Thank-you Allen Dulles. The Military Industrial Complex hard at work. Your John McCone assertions are on target. Did not McCone spend all day 11-22-63 with RFK ?? Is this when Bobby asked McCone if the CIA killed his brother??? Someone let me know please.

I was born in Lancaster, Ohio in 1958. I graduated from Ohio State University in 1982 with a BA in political science. I have lived in the Phoenix area for twenty years and currently work for Microchip Technology of Chandler, AZ.

I started as a Watergate researcher/'buff' after college. I shook Richard Nixon's hand and spoke breifly to him at a fundraiser in Columbus in 1983. So now I became a dedicated Watergate historian, not trying to exonerate Nixon but fully knowing there had to be more to the scandal. Halderman's book of course relates Nixon's obsession with 'THE BAY OF PIGS' and wanting all the CIA's files on the invasion (denied by Helms). Halderman's assertion that the Bay of Pigs was a euphimism for JFK's assassination brought me closer to researching 11-22-63. Remember John Erlichmann's 'novel' 'The Company'......it's about a 'fictional' President being blackmailed by the Director of Central Intelligence. Of course the blackmail concerned secrets about a presidential assassination. But that's Erlichmann's fiction..?? I'd like to explore this on the forum, the Watergate/JFK connections.

Also from a newspaper my mother saved from Sunday 11-24-63 I found an article with a by-line by Aubrey Rike. Mr. Rike was one of the ambulance drivers who picked up the seizure victim, Jerry Belknap near the TSBD and took him to Parkland. I sent copies of the article to Mr. Rike and in a telephone call to him he denies writing the article at all. It is written in first person. I'm thinking of going to the Columbus Dispatch and see if they'll print a retraction or at least an aknowledgement that 42 years ago they ran a fabricated story with an unauthorized byline. Disinformation ??Harmless journalistic license ??? Maybe the forum can help me find some answers.