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Was E. Howard Hunt's "Big Event" Confession A Hoax?


Joe Bauer

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Mr. Caddy, did you ever have any interactions with either Mr. Maheu or Howard Hughes.  If so, can you elaborate?

Did you know if Mr. Hunt did?  If so, can you elaborate?

Thank you.

Edited by Cory Santos
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6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

WN:

Hunt did not run the DOD at that time, Tracy Barnes did.

 

Sean:

Thanks for that and again, I had no idea the two were that close until I started reading your book.  

Thanks, Jim. Glad to hear you're reading it. 

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21 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

Mr. Caddy, did you ever have any interactions with either Mr. Maheu or Howard Hughes.  If so, can you elaborate?

Did you know if Mr. Hunt did?  If so, can you elaborate?

Thank you.

 

Cory:

No, I never met Howard Hughes or Robert Maheu.  Howard Hunt  never mentioned their names to me.

Robert Bennett, who was elected Senator from Utah after Watergate following in the footsteps of his father, played one of the most evil and nefarious roles in Watergate and was directly tied to Hughes.  Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia’s biography of him:

"In 1963 he went to Washington as Press Secretary to a Utah Congressman, Sherman P. Lloyd, and later as Administrative Assistant to his father. He became the head of the Governmental Affairs office of the J. C. Penney Company in 1965 but resigned from Penney's to accept an appointment in the Nixon Administration, as Director of Congressional Affairs in the United States Department of Transportation. He held this position through 1969 and 1970, leaving in 1971 to purchase the Robert Mullen Company, a Washington, D.C. public-relations company.[citation needed]

"Bennett's principal client was Summa Corporation, the holding company of billionaire Howard Hughes. In 1974, he closed the Mullen Company and joined Summa full-time as the public relations director for the parent firm and Vice President for Public Affairs for Hughes Airwest, the airline. After Hughes' death, Bennett left Summa Corporation to become president of Osmond Communications."

     Here is an excerpt from an undated internal CIA report of one of its agents who met with Bennett shortly after Watergate broke:

      “Mr. Bennett related that he has now established a “back door entry” to the Edward Bennett Williams law firm which is representing the Democratic Party in its suit for damages resulting from the Watergate incident. Mr. Bennett is prepared to go this route to kill off any revelation by Ed Williams of Agency association with the Mullen firm if such development seems likely. He said that he would, of course, check with the CIA before contacting Mr. Williams for this purpose.”

In the Senate, Robert Bennett represented the CIA.

 

Edited by Douglas Caddy
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2 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

 

Cory:

No, I never met Howard Hughes or Robert Maheu.  Howard Hunt  never mentioned their names to me.

Robert Bennett, who was elected Senator from Utah after Watergate following in the footsteps of his father, played one of the most evil and nefarious roles in Watergate and was directly tied to Hughes.  Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia’s biography of him:

"In 1963 he went to Washington as Press Secretary to a Utah Congressman, Sherman P. Lloyd, and later as Administrative Assistant to his father. He became the head of the Governmental Affairs office of the J. C. Penney Company in 1965 but resigned from Penney's to accept an appointment in the Nixon Administration, as Director of Congressional Affairs in the United States Department of Transportation. He held this position through 1969 and 1970, leaving in 1971 to purchase the Robert Mullen Company, a Washington, D.C. public-relations company.[citation needed]

"Bennett's principal client was Summa Corporation, the holding company of billionaire Howard Hughes. In 1974, he closed the Mullen Company and joined Summa full-time as the public relations director for the parent firm and Vice President for Public Affairs for Hughes Airwest, the airline. After Hughes' death, Bennett left Summa Corporation to become president of Osmond Communications."

     Here is an excerpt from an undated internal CIA report of one of its agents who met with Bennett shortly after Watergate broke:

      “Mr. Bennett related that he has now established a “back door entry” to the Edward Bennett Williams law firm which is representing the Democratic Party in its suit for damages resulting from the Watergate incident. Mr. Bennett is prepared to go this route to kill off any revelation by Ed Williams of Agency association with the Mullen firm if such development seems likely. He said that he would, of course, check with the CIA before contacting Mr. Williams for this purpose.”

In the Senate, Robert Bennett represented the CIA.

 

Thank you sir.

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On 1/4/2019 at 9:04 PM, James DiEugenio said:

WN:

Hunt did not run the DOD at that time, Tracy Barnes did

Thanks for clarifying that one, Jim.  I think I did read about Tracy Barnes leadership role in the Domestic Op Division in a Church Committee transcript.

But I have been confused by a Seymout Hersch NYT article from 1974 that describes Hunt becoming Chief of DOD in 1961.

Hunt Tells of Early Work For a C.I.A. Domestic Unit

By SEYMOUR M. HERSHDEC. 31, 1974

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About the Archive

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

December 31, 1974, Page 1 The New York Times Archives

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30—E. Howard Hunt Jr., a Watergate burglar who pleaded guilty, told the Senate Watergate committee last year in still unpublished testimony that he served as the first chief of covert action for the Central Intelligence Agency's Domestic Operations Division.

Mr. Hunt, testifying before the Senate investigators in closed session on Dec. 18, 1973, revealed that his domestic activities included the secret financing of a Washington news agency as well as the underwriting of the popular Fodor's travel guides.

A copy of Mr. Hunt's testimony before the Watergate committee, marked “confidential,” was made available today to The New York Times.

[In a report to President Ford, William E. Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, has confirmed allegations that the C.I.A. spied on thousands of United States citizens under previous Administrations, according to The Los Angeles Times.]

In a telephone interview today, Mr. Hunt said that he spent about four years working for the Domestic Operation Division, beginning shortly after the unit was set up by the C.I.A. in 1962.

 

Mr. Hunt, who is now free and living in Miami pending the appeal of his Watergate conviction, denied any involvement or knowledge of domestic spying on radicals and other dissidents by the Domestic Operations Division. But he said that some of his projects from 1962 to 1966—which dealt largely with the subsidizing and manipulation of the news and publishing organizations—did seem “to violate the intent of the agency's charter.”

The New York Times, quoting a former undercover agent for the Domestic Operations Division, said in Sunday editions that the agent was directly involved in the monitoring of antiwar dissidents and radical groups in New York City beginning with the student uprisings at Columbia University in 1968.

Mr. Hunt's testimony suggests that questionable domestic activities by the C.I.A. had apparently begun under the Kennedy Administration, continued during the Johnson Administration and, as well‐informed sources have told The Times, reached a peek during the antiwar outbursts in opposition to President Nixon's Vietnam policy.

The Times also Sunday that the new domestic unit was formed in 1964, but Mr. Hunt recalled that it was assembled shortly after the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation in late 1961. Many agency men connected with that failure were shunted into the new domestic unit, Mr. Hunt said.

Edited by W. Niederhut
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On 12/29/2018 at 1:41 PM, Joe Bauer said:

I've never seen much commentary on E. Howard Hunt's recorded JFK assassination confession.

Was it all a hoax?

If so, why do this and allow his son to tape record it, knowing it would be shared with the world after his death?

I always wondered why hardly anyone of literary and media stature would barely touch this Hunt confession, considering not just it's Earth shaking guilty parties revelation but also E. Howard Hunt's extremely high placed career positions in our agency government for decades and his closeness to and dealings at times with many of those so high up in our elected government.

Hunt was the opposite of a crazy nobody. He was a highly placed and highly intelligent somebody.

What made his confession so ignored?

Whether the story is true or not, why would he create such a mind blowing tale?

Was it his last act of agency loyal disinformation?

Was his "Big Event" JFK assassination confession a gift to his son as a possible block buster book deal ( even if it was made up ) that could hopefully have brought his son a huge book publishing advance fee?

Hunt wrote many spy books that were supposedly fiction mixed with elements of true spy craft experiences.

Maybe this confession was a book idea he had in mind?  

Hunt lied so much in his later years when confronted with investigatory committee questions. His whole adult career life was wrapped around this MO.

Still, because of Hunt's prolific involvement in our highest rungs of covert intelligence and for decades, It seems illogical to not give his end of life JFK "Big Event" guilty party confession more weight than it has been given imo.

Hunt's confession has been treated with no more seriousness than that given to some nut standing up in a JFK conference event audience and shouting " I KNOW WHO KILLED JFK...IT WAS WALT DISNEY!"

Anyone like to give their theory as to Hunt's "Big Event" confession? And why he would put out a false hoax like this?

Simple answer from me..... A limited hangout to protect the agency, blame Democrats for tearing themselves apart, downplaying hiss own involvement, and leaving something sellable for his son that might also serve as protection for St. John. I wold be surprised if St. John did not have some more valuable and authentic goods stashed-away, as well.

On a side note...Perhaps I missed it but, our own @William Plumlee Tosh Plumlee, as well as St. John Hunt have recently stated that Hunt was on board Plumlee,s flight to Dallas on 11-22-63. I checked-in here a few times, after that story came out but I, surprisingly, did not see it here.

Michael

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