E. Howard Hunt dies

[Douglas Caddy]

I think it would be a great mistake for anyone to take from Mr. Hunt's wild ride that he was an evil man. He undoubtedly told the truth much of the time. His "you can't handle the truth" attitude the rest of the time was something he learned from above. He was just more honest about it. While his "LBJ might have done it" farewell might have been to sell books, it might also represent his final judgment on both the assassination and his career in public service. While men like Hunt were conditioned to believe they were fighting the great evil--communism--as often as not they were merely helping corrupt politicians get elected. Hunt came to understand this after Watergate. He mentioned previously that LBJ used the CIA to spy on Goldwater. While one might use this to insist Hunt's "truth-telling" was limited to anti-Democrat "truth-telling," one should also remember Hunt's comments in "Give Us This Day". While most CIA apologists insist that Kennedy got scared and canceled the second air strike, and this doomed the Bay of Pigs invasion, Hunt's attitude is surprising. He points out that Kennedy asked Cabell if the second strike was absolutely necessary, and that Cabell said "NO." He blames Cabell for the failure. He also points out that, after it was clear the brigade needed more air support, Kennedy authorized a second strike with U.S. jets flying cover. Unfortunately, someone forgot to synchronize watches and, well, you know, it ended up being a suicide mission...

Men like Hunt are complicated. When we attempt to put them in evil bad guy boxes we do the truth, and ourselves, a disservice.

You're joking right???? Hunt "told the truth much of the time"? I'd ask you to name just one time...but I know where that would lead. A bit naive is an understatement. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, however, I do not think it's shared on this forum.

Dawn

I can name one time that Howard Hunt told the truth.

As The New York Times notes in its obituary today, Hunt served as an intelligence officer in China during World War II.

Soon after I met Hunt in 1970, he told me of his wartime service. He and a few other intelligence officers were able to infiltrate behind the Japanese lines. One of the officers was captured. Hunt and the others, vastly outnumbered, had to remain hidden while they listened in agony to the screams of their fellow officer as the Japanese flayed his skin while he was alive. When Hunt finished recounting this horrific story to me, there was tears in his eyes. His sorrow and frustration at what happened still burned within him.

RIP, Howard Hunt.

[Shanet Clark]

What was in Hunt's safe?

John Dean, the White House counsel, gave the contents to

Pat Gray, the FBI Director, who destroyed the notebooks

and other items.........

What was in Hunt's Nixon White House safe?

[James Richards]

Men like Hunt are complicated. When we attempt to put them in evil bad guy boxes we do the truth, and ourselves, a disservice. (Pat Speer)

I have to agree with Pat on this point. Intelligence work is intricate and produces complicated people. It requires the ability to lie, deceive and to manipulate - that is just the nature of the beast. We need to understand this so in the cold light of day we can peel away the layers of illusion; an unemotional study of motive within a historical context.

Hunt was arrogant, there is no doubt and with comments like, "No one is entitled to the truth," one can be excused for a fiery outburst.

We can learn so much from individuals like Hunt, but not if we make it personal.

Just my opinion of course.

James

[Pat Speer]

He mentioned previously that LBJ used the CIA to spy on Goldwater.

Can you recall the source for Hunt's remarks about CIA helping LBJ in his 1964 campaign against Goldwater?

I could have sworn he mentioned his spying on Goldwater in Undercover. My books are currently in storage. If I misinterpreted something he wrote please let me know.

And Dawn, do you believe Hunt was lying when he blamed Cabell for the canceled air strike and not Kennedy? I didn't think so. Hunt's Cuban friends would undoubtedly have preferred for him to dump the whole thing on Kennedy's lap. That he refused to do so is an indication that he had some integrity. He also is one of the main sources for the contention that Nixon was an early mover and shaker in the Castro assassination plots. Was he lying then, as well? Why? Was Nixon, the mover and shaker in the overthrow of Allende, sentimental about his bearded friend Castro? I don't think so. I think it's fair to say that Hunt told the truth most of the time. It's just hard for some to figure out when he was and when he wasn't.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

What was in Hunt's safe?

John Dean, the White House counsel, gave the contents to

Pat Gray, the FBI Director, who destroyed the notebooks

and other items.........

What was in Hunt's Nixon White House safe?

It now seems we can guess what was among the "other items".... Two and a half weeks ago, I posted the following in the Watergate Forum:

Apparently the Diem cables weren't the only thing to evaporate from Hunt's safe, we now come to learn. The following is from Forum member Gary Buell's blog at:

http://coverthistory.blogspot.com/2007/01/e.html

"E. Howard Hunt's Missing Report on The Kennedy Assassination"

This is the title of HSCA document #180-10112-10479, which consists of a 35-page report by a House Select Committee on Assassinations investigator Mike Ewing. It is an interesting read and I will give a few excerpts. The report opens with a well-known excerpt from the Watergate tapes.

Nixon: "...well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things."

Haldeman: "That's what Ehrlichman says."

Nixon: "Of course this Hunt, that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things...This involves these Cubans, Hunt and a lot of hanky-panky..."

...information which has only recently become available indicates that Hunt was, at the very least, quite interested in - and concerned about - the asassination of President Kennedy. This new information further indicates that a secret report about certain aspects of the Kennedy assassination (aspects particularly related to Cuba and Fidel Castro) was prepared by Hunt and his future Watergate burglar associates - and was in fact circulated to Charles Colson and the Nixon circle as well as officials within the CIA.

As will be seen from this information, and other long obscure Watergate data, a picture seems to be emerging which places the secret Hunt report on the Kennedy assassination at the heart of the feverish cover-up activities in the immediate days following the Kennedy assassination.

The Watergate burglars were arrested on the night of June 17. John Erlichman had phoned John Dean early on the morning of June 19. The FBI was already hot on the trail of Mr. Hunt due to the fact that his name and White House phone number were found in the address books of two of the burglars. Dean in turn called Charles Colson, who had brought Hunt to the Withe House. Colson confirmed Hunt's status as a White House "consultant" and then, according to Dean, "Colson also expressed concern over the contents of Hunt's safe." The safe was drilled open and the contents destroyed later that same day. The contents of the safe included material related to his work with the Plumbers, including his investigation of Chappaquiddick, as well as forged State Department cables which Hunt had himself fabricated, linking Kennedy to the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.

Information which has only recently come to light indicates that in addition to that last item about the Diem murder, the secret Hunt safe also contained information resulting from yet another Plumbers probe - into some of the circumstances of another 1963 assasination - the assassination of President Kennedy.

That information included an interview with Hunt, conducted in late November of 1975, by two reporters for the Providence Journal. Hold told them of a secret probe which included interviewing a Cuban woman who "claimed to have been in the Castro household with one of Fidel's sisters" at the time of JFK's assassination.

Apparently Castro was shocked and saddened by the assassination of the President. One wonders if Hunt had the same reaction. (Actually I suspect that Hunt knew about the assassination even before John Kennedy.) Why was Hunt interviewing this woman? According to Ewing, the most likely explanation is that he was ordered to.

Hunt told the two reporters that he sent a copy of the report to the CIA (as Barker had originally stated) and further, that he had also given the report to his own White House friend and patron, Charles W. Colson.

Hunt's own copy of the report he put into his White House safe. One can only imagine the reactions of White House officials, including Nixon, when they found a report related to the Kennedy assassination in Howard Hunt's safe. This report has still not seen the light of day.

As scrambled as the testimony is at this point, a couple of things are clear. The Hunt report related to the Kennedy assassination is missing. No copy of it has ever surfaced, nor have the tapes that Hunt, Barker, Martinez, and Sturgis made during the probe ever been found.

The last thing in the workd the Nixon men needed at that point was a secret report about the Kennedy assassination coming out of Hunt's safe - written and producted by Hunt and his burglar friends Barker, Martinez, and Sturgis.

If we posit that Hunt continued to work for CIA even after being insinuated into the White House - a rather common speculation these days, and on good basis - the Hunt Report on the JFK assassination takes on a rather self-serving aura. While nominally employed by the Nixon White House, had Hunt's interest in the JFK assassination come to light, it would have implicated Nixon as the interested party, rather than Langley, which likely had a greater interest in the topic than did Dick Nixon.

[Charles Black]

I think it would be a great mistake for anyone to take from Mr. Hunt's wild ride that he was an evil man. He undoubtedly told the truth much of the time. His "you can't handle the truth" attitude the rest of the time was something he learned from above. He was just more honest about it. While his "LBJ might have done it" farewell might have been to sell books, it might also represent his final judgment on both the assassination and his career in public service. While men like Hunt were conditioned to believe they were fighting the great evil--communism--as often as not they were merely helping corrupt politicians get elected. Hunt came to understand this after Watergate. He mentioned previously that LBJ used the CIA to spy on Goldwater. While one might use this to insist Hunt's "truth-telling" was limited to anti-Democrat "truth-telling," one should also remember Hunt's comments in "Give Us This Day". While most CIA apologists insist that Kennedy got scared and canceled the second air strike, and this doomed the Bay of Pigs invasion, Hunt's attitude is surprising. He points out that Kennedy asked Cabell if the second strike was absolutely necessary, and that Cabell said "NO." He blames Cabell for the failure. He also points out that, after it was clear the brigade needed more air support, Kennedy authorized a second strike with U.S. jets flying cover. Unfortunately, someone forgot to synchronize watches and, well, you know, it ended up being a suicide mission...

Men like Hunt are complicated. When we attempt to put them in evil bad guy boxes we do the truth, and ourselves, a disservice.

You're joking right???? Hunt "told the truth much of the time"? I'd ask you to name just one time...but I know where that would lead. A bit naive is an understatement. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, however, I do not think it's shared on this forum.

Dawn

I can name one time that Howard Hunt told the truth.

As The New York Times notes in its obituary today, Hunt served as an intelligence officer in China during World War II.

Soon after I met Hunt in 1970, he told me of his wartime service. He and a few other intelligence officers were able to infiltrate behind the Japanese lines. One of the officers was captured. Hunt and the others, vastly outnumbered, had to remain hidden while they listened in agony to the screams of their fellow officer as the Japanese flayed his skin while he was alive. When Hunt finished recounting this horrific story to me, there was tears in his eyes. His sorrow and frustration at what happened still burned within him.

RIP, Howard Hunt.

RIP, Howard Hunt ? ? ?

Tears or no tears.....How would you have the slightest idea that his Japanese story is true?

How would anyone know what he "really believed" about LBJ playing a part in a conspiracy ? As a matter of fact, I don't think that he had any "beliefs" regarding the assassination....I feel that he had the facts....and he died with them as all good little spies do!

How do you define where smoke and mirrors end? Smoke and mirrors were his life..his career !

How do you know that he publicly EVER told the truth and was merely not doing his job? Just because he did "hard time".... that does not necessarily sever intelligence connections.

I understand that he was well paid for his "hard time" !

I don't believe his whereabouts on 11/22/63 can be proven!

I would doubt anything that I thought this man wanted me to believe !

Charlie Black

[Shanet Clark]

Thanks Robert

I suspected as much; a file on JFK '63...........

thanks also for reminding me about the forged State Department

cables implicating Kennedy in the Diem coup/murder.

The DESTRUCTION of these two documents in Hunt's safe,

the forged DIEM cables

and a JFK assassination intelligence file

were central to the EARLIEST cover up and criminal conspiracy within the White House.

....................

Nixon paid off Hunt to keep quiet and this is why.........

(((If I remember correctly Hunt couldn't even get his own children to testify

that he was in Washington when Kennedy was shot, even after he put them on

the stand to do so)))

Edited January 25, 2007 by Shanet Clark

[Gene Kelly]

Men like Hunt are complicated. When we attempt to put them in evil bad guy boxes we do the truth, and ourselves, a disservice. (Pat Speer)

I have to agree with Pat on this point. Intelligence work is intricate and produces complicated people. It requires the ability to lie, deceive and to manipulate - that is just the nature of the beast. We need to understand this so in the cold light of day we can peel away the layers of illusion; an unemotional study of motive within a historical context.

Hunt was arrogant, there is no doubt and with comments like, "No one is entitled to the truth," one can be excused for a fiery outburst.

We can learn so much from individuals like Hunt, but not if we make it personal.

Just my opinion of course.

James

James:

I enjoy your insights, and sense you have a good feel for the entirety of this mystery. My own strong instincts (plus 20 years of reading and informal research) tell me that Hunt had both knowledge and involvement. I can't prove this.. but his associations and politics provide motive and means. The few pictures available (coincidence?) always strike me as an individual with deceptive and "beady" eyes. His face gives me the 'spooks' (pun intended). Many respected researchers independently suspect his hand in the murder. Mailer's book "Harlot's Ghost" paints an interesting profile. Lane's "Plausible Deniability" makes a strong case. All my senses point towards a perpetrater. Somehow -- when asked for the 'short list' of people I'd most like to have put under truth serum and interrogate (e.g. Nixon, Harvey, Morales) -- EH Hunt would've made the cut. Pity that he's gone. Your thoughts? -- Gene Kelly

[John Simkin]

He mentioned previously that LBJ used the CIA to spy on Goldwater.

Can you recall the source for Hunt's remarks about CIA helping LBJ in his 1964 campaign against Goldwater?

I could have sworn he mentioned his spying on Goldwater in Undercover. My books are currently in storage. If I misinterpreted something he wrote please let me know.

Page 133. The order did not come directly from LBJ. Hunt was told to spy on Goldwater by Stanley Gaines. Hunt reported the information back to Chester Cooper, the CIA officer attached to the White House. Hunt did not like the mission as he was a "vocal Goldwater partisan" but as he points out, he was also a "career officer of the CIA".

If the CIA had been involved in the assassination of JFK it would have been in their best interests to make sure LBJ was elected in 1964.

[Sid Walker]

Folk interested in E Howard Hunt (RIP) might like to tune in to Michael Collins Piper's radio show -

The link is HERE - click on Thu., January 25, 2007

The entire hour is devoted to Hunt.

Piper worked at Liberty Lobby at the time Spotlight was sued by E Howard Hunt, in the case Hunt ultimately lost after cross examination by Mark Lane.

It is, IMO, a most interesting hour of radio.

Edited January 26, 2007 by Sid Walker

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I could have sworn he mentioned his spying on Goldwater in Undercover. My books are currently in storage. If I misinterpreted something he wrote please let me know.

Page 133. The order did not come directly from LBJ. Hunt was told to spy on Goldwater by Stanley Gaines. Hunt reported the information back to Chester Cooper, the CIA officer attached to the White House. Hunt did not like the mission as he was a "vocal Goldwater partisan" but as he points out, he was also a "career officer of the CIA".

Thanks for the reference on this. Hunt's true motives and intentions are never easy to figure out, but somewhere in one of his books, (probably Undercover or Give Us This Day) Hunt says that ultimately a spy works only for himself.

[James Richards]

Men like Hunt are complicated. When we attempt to put them in evil bad guy boxes we do the truth, and ourselves, a disservice. (Pat Speer)

I have to agree with Pat on this point. Intelligence work is intricate and produces complicated people. It requires the ability to lie, deceive and to manipulate - that is just the nature of the beast. We need to understand this so in the cold light of day we can peel away the layers of illusion; an unemotional study of motive within a historical context.

Hunt was arrogant, there is no doubt and with comments like, "No one is entitled to the truth," one can be excused for a fiery outburst.

We can learn so much from individuals like Hunt, but not if we make it personal.

Just my opinion of course.

James

James:

I enjoy your insights, and sense you have a good feel for the entirety of this mystery. My own strong instincts (plus 20 years of reading and informal research) tell me that Hunt had both knowledge and involvement. I can't prove this.. but his associations and politics provide motive and means. The few pictures available (coincidence?) always strike me as an individual with deceptive and "beady" eyes. His face gives me the 'spooks' (pun intended). Many respected researchers independently suspect his hand in the murder. Mailer's book "Harlot's Ghost" paints an interesting profile. Lane's "Plausible Deniability" makes a strong case. All my senses point towards a perpetrater. Somehow -- when asked for the 'short list' of people I'd most like to have put under truth serum and interrogate (e.g. Nixon, Harvey, Morales) -- EH Hunt would've made the cut. Pity that he's gone. Your thoughts? -- Gene Kelly

Hi Gene,

I agree that Hunt had intimate knowledge of what happened in Dallas that day. As to his involvement, I am still not 100% convinced there although the likelihood seems to be high.

I think the conspiracy to murder JFK (not the cover-up) was a rather simple operation but by nature implicated many with guilt by association. I think Manuel Artime is another who falls into this catagory.

IMO, Larry Hancock's book goes very close to laying out the frame-work for the assassination with deception on all levels being a prominent factor.

Cheers,

James

[Shanet Clark]

I think alot of us have a problem with Hunt and Dallas.

Structurally, we know he was intimately mixed with the Bay of Pigs veterans and CIA domestic

activities and directly implicated in the characters of interest.........

But many of us no longer think he was the "third tramp" despite our earlier

interest in that angle, same with the KGB forgery of the LHO-EHH correspondence.

Hunt either was a known JFK assassin who made Nixon xxxx his pants

........or maybe he wasn't...........

neat counter intelligence case study ,

that old rascal and bohemian author who thought he was America's 007

EVERETTE HOWARD HUNT

Edited January 27, 2007 by Shanet Clark

[Sid Walker]

I think alot of us have a problem with Hunt and Dallas.

Structurally, we know he was intimately mixed with the Bay of Pigs veterans and CIA domestic

activities and directly implicated in the characters of interest.........

But many of us no longer think he was the "third tramp" despite our earlier

interest in that angle, same with the KGB forgery of the LHO-EHH correspondence.

Hunt either was a known JFK assassin who made Nixon xxxx his pants

........or maybe he wasn't...........

neat counter intelligence case study ,

that old rascal and bohemian author who thought he was America's 007

EVERETTE HOWARD HUNT

If anyone cares to listen to Piper's hour long radio show on E Howard Hunt, the story of how Hunt came to be promoted as one of the tramps is explained in some detail therein.

According to Piper, a number of well-known (and some less well-known) characters were responsible for promoting the story, including Angleton and none other than the Prince of Darkness himself, Richard Perle. One might expect that a story promoted by characters such as these is almost certainly misleading and diversionary. That is indeed Piper's conclusion.

The link is HERE - click on Thursday, January 25th 2007

[Douglas Caddy]

I think alot of us have a problem with Hunt and Dallas.

Structurally, we know he was intimately mixed with the Bay of Pigs veterans and CIA domestic

activities and directly implicated in the characters of interest.........

But many of us no longer think he was the "third tramp" despite our earlier

interest in that angle, same with the KGB forgery of the LHO-EHH correspondence.

Hunt either was a known JFK assassin who made Nixon xxxx his pants

........or maybe he wasn't...........

neat counter intelligence case study ,

that old rascal and bohemian author who thought he was America's 007

EVERETTE HOWARD HUNT

January 28, 2007

Word for Word | Spilt Ink

You Can Teach a Spy a Novelist’s Tricks

By THOMAS VINCIGUERRA

The New York Times

E. Howard Hunt Jr., who died last week at 88, is best remembered as the man who helped plan and bungle the 1972 Watergate break-in. An ex-C.I.A. officer with a background in dirty tricks, sabotage and other skulduggery, Mr. Hunt was particularly qualified to be a “security consultant” for President Richard Nixon. In 1954, he helped overthrow the government of Guatemala, and he was later involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

He was also the author of more than 80 espionage and detective novels, many written under pseudonyms. Did his life imitate his art, or vice versa? It’s not always easy to tell.

Mr. Hunt was a maverick who attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis. So is the deputy director of Central Intelligence in “Dragon Teeth” (1997):

Vice Admiral USN (Ret.) Logan “Buck” Doremus had acquired his nickname as a famed Naval Academy fullback whose ball-carrying trademark was bucking an opponent’s defensive line. And within the Agency it was often remarked that he really should have worn a helmet while playing.

In 1971, Mr. Hunt tried to discredit Dr. Daniel J. Ellsberg, who had leaked the Pentagon Papers, by burglarizing Dr. Ellsberg’s office.

In “On Hazardous Duty” (1965), Mr. Hunt had already explained the art of stealing secrets:

Mentally he saw them opening the door, masking the windows with black plastic and tape, setting the suction mike near the safe dial, and feeding its output into the Base computer as Harry went through dial-rotation procedures. With the safe open they would Polaroid-photograph the interior to guide them in replacing the contents. Then the laborious work of photographing page after page of documents by the illumination of the argon flashlight, methodically repositioning documents by the Polaroid picture, locking the safe, undraping the windows, and moving out.

After a highly checkered career, Mr. Hunt left the C.I.A. in 1970. In “The Berlin Ending” (1973), the fictional narrator, Neal Thorpe, describes leaving the agency:

I could have had a good career there, too, he reflected, but I felt things closing in, becoming too circumscribed, too stratified and bureaucratic. I wanted more freedom, so I got out. ...

Maybe my problem isn’t in making decisions but in making too many of them. Is my dissatisfaction valid or is it only restlessness — like the typist who quits her job and reapplies for it two weeks later? I’d hate to think that, but what’s the answer?

Mr. Hunt was fascinated by spy hardware and technology, as he demonstrates in “Murder in State” (1990):

“Last year we were waiting for a defector to come out of the UN building. A man jabbed an umbrella tip in his butt and our guy died on the UN steps. We saw the poison injected, but whatever it was, the forensics couldn’t detect it. Verdict: heart attack. The moral,” he said with a grim smile, “is to avoid umbrellas.”

Gumming up the opposition’s works was Mr. Hunt’s specialty, as he relates in “Body Count” (1992):

He leaned over the speedboat transom and unscrewed the gas tank cap, emptied the pouch of mothballs into the tank, and replaced the top. There was enough gasoline in the fuel lines to back the boat into open water, after which the naphthalene-gasoline mix would foul the carburetor and stop the engine. It was the first sabotage trick he had ever learned.

President Nixon’s downfall came after revelations of secret tape recordings and demands by Mr. Hunt and others for “hush money.” In “Angel Eyes” (1961), cash and recordings also intersect in a case of political blackmail:

I said, “There’s something for sale, Zellerhaus. Something new on the market. Yesterday it was offered for the first time. The asking price is $10,000.”

“Wha ... what is it?” he burbled.

“You’re the wizard with the built-in radar,” I sneered. “Figure it out. It’s what got Peachy Bolac killed. It’s the recording she made of you and Quinby that afternoon not so long ago. Made public it’s enough to put you and Quinby on the rock pile until they run out of rocks. The killer’s got it, Zellerhaus. He wants ten thousand skins.”

During Watergate, there were reports that Mr. Hunt kept a gun in his White House office. His alter ego, Jack Novak, packs heat in “Sonora” (2000):

At a gun shop where I was well and favorably known, I bought four boxes of .45 ACP ball ammo for the Tommy gun and a box of Black Talon .38s for my H& K pistol. From a large selection of rifles I chose a .308 caliber FAL with flash suppressor and 20-round magazine, and had it fitted with an 8-power Leupold scope while I waited.

Like Mr. Hunt, David Morgan, the hero of “The Hargrave Deception” (1980), is an ex-intelligence agent involved in an illegal covert operation. And like Mr. Hunt, he testifies before a Senate committee:

“A little while ago I was asked to comment on a question of morality,” he said. “Your inquiry raises deep moral issues, Senator — at least for me — since I gave my word as a representative of the United States that their participation in an activity in which this government was a coequal conspirator would never be made public by me. These men,” he went on as a wave of sound swept up around him, “were brave men, patriotic in their own view and responsive to what they felt to be the call of a higher moral duty.”