The Importance of St. John Hunt

[J. Raymond Carroll]

St. John Hunt, eldest son of Howard Hunt, has offered significant evidence further implicating his father in the assassination of JFK. The recent Rolling Stone article has been discussed on other threads, but the full importance of St. John Hunt's new revelations has not yet been absorbed by the JFK community, and certainly not by the community at large.

St. John bears witness to things he dared not speak about while his father was alive. I am referring here not to the conspirator's list his father wrote, which has little evidentiary value, but to the things that St. John himself perceived, with his own eyes.

From the Rolling Stone article, here is the key testimony:

"One evening in Eureka, over a barbecue meal, St. John explains how he first came to suspect that his father might somehow be involved in the Kennedy assassination. "Around 1975, I was in a phone booth in Maryland somewhere, when I saw a poster on a telephone pole about who killed JFK, and it had a picture of the three tramps. I saw that picture and I ####ing -- like a cartoon character, my jaw dropped, my eyes popped out of my head, and smoke came out of my ears. It looks like my dad. There's nobody that has all those same facial features. People say it's not him. He's said it's not him. But I'm his son, and I've got a gut feeling."

When I first studied COUP D'ETAT IN AMERICA, by Canfield & Weberman I was dubious about the authors identifications of Criswell & Sturgis, but I was immediately struck by the resemblance between Howard Hunt and the Oldman Tramp. I made multiple photocopies of each photo of Hunt and each photo of the Oldman Tramp. I matched both halves of Hunt's face with halves of the tramp photos and repeated the experiment in every combination and permutation I could think of, whether vertical, horizontal, or crosswise. I examined all these combinations under a magnifying glass, the only piece of technology I had readily available.

I was frightened by what I saw. Howard Hunt was the Oldman Tramp as sure as God made little apples. Like St. John Hunt, I knew it in my gut. It was 1986 and I knew that Howard Hunt was very much alive.....

I was not a qualified expert in facial recognition and I never discussed the tramp photos, or the opinions of the HSCA experts in any detail with other researchers. I found that there was plenty of other evidence to be studied, and that none of it to me seemed inconsistent with the theory that Howard Hunt was arrested in a boxcar, masquerading as a tramp, in the railroad yard behind Dealey Plaza. There have been pretenders to the title, Chauncey Holt, et al, but to my eyes none of them comes close to matching the Oldman tramp. Howard Hunt was there.

But what of Hunt's various alibis? It seems that every alibi Hunt proposed has collapsed under scrutiny, with one exception up to now. That exception is his claim that he was home with his family that evening. Here is a further extract from Rolling Stone:

"He chews his sandwich. "And then, like an epiphany, I remember '63, and my dad being gone, and my mom telling me that he was on a business trip to Dallas. I've tried to convince myself that's some kind of false memory, that I'm just nuts, that it's something I heard years later. But, I mean, his alibi for that day is that he was at home with his family. I remember I was in the fifth grade. We were at recess. I was playing on the merry-go-round. We were called in and told to go home, because the president had been killed. And I remember going home. But I don't remember my dad being there. I have no recollection of him being there".

Does St. John's inability to remember his father being home that day constitute direct evidence that Hunt was somewhere else? Further questioning of St. John will probably help clarify that, but I think the truth is obvious.

I was in boarding school on November 22nd, 1963. I was 13 years old, whereas St. John I think was 8 years old. My most vivid memory is of the two teachers who were on study duty that night (it was about 6.45 Pm GMT, and already dark when we heard the news). As kids we all looked to our authority figures at such a shocking moment. I am quite certain that if I had been home that evening, I would remember my father's presence, if not the actual words he spoke.

I think we can thank Rolling Stone for bringing this new evidence to light. The question is what can we do with it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story...e_howard_hunt/4

[J. Raymond Carroll]

St. John bears witness to things he dared not speak about while his father was alive. I am referring here not to the conspirator's list his father wrote, which has little evidentiary value, but to the things that St. John himself perceived, with his own eyes.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story...e_howard_hunt/4

This evening I did a google search for: rolling stone st. john hunt howard hunt and finally realized the kind of power McAdams wields on Google. My post on the importance of St. John Hunt came in second only to the Rolling Stone article itself, but it was the version I posted on Google Groups, on the McAdams forum called alt.assassination.jfk

[Tony Frank]

I just ran across this thread and thought I would add a little something that I came up with when the story first made the news.

The Rolling Stone article states that Hunt’s son, St. John Hunt, “had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years,” and had come to Miami “borrowing money to fly because he was broke.” It was then that he allegedly heard his father's confession about the JFK assassination.

The article continues, “At the moment, Saint doesn’t have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs.”

“In 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/138...e_howard_hunt/1

The whole story from "St. John Hunt" was a bunch of garbage, and that's why the story quickly died.

Edited June 7, 2008 by Tony Frank

[Tim Gratz]

I agree with Mr. Frank that St. John's story was garbage. It is difficult to evaluate whether E. Howad knew anything about the assassination since his accounts were so often contadictory.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I just ran across this thread and thought I would add a little something that I came up with when the story first made the news.

This little something you came up with is hardly worth repeating here. We can find the same stuff being propagated almost verbatim on MAX HOLLAND's infamous website.

The Rolling Stone article states that Hunt’s son, St. John Hunt, “had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years,” and had come to Miami “borrowing money to fly because he was broke.” It was then that he allegedly heard his father's confession about the JFK assassination.

The article continues, “At the moment, Saint doesn’t have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs.”

“In 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/138...e_howard_hunt/1

I note that you are citing the above information as Gospel truth, and its source unimpeachable. Do you realize that the source for everything you quote above is St. John Hunt himself?

St. John will be gratified that you do not doubt a word he says about his own life story.

But then you begin to engage in a very big non-sequitor:

The whole story from "St. John Hunt" was a bunch of garbage

So everything St. John says is totally credible, except the part that you (& Bugliosi, & Max Holland etc.) do not like.

and that's why the story quickly died

In your dreams.

Read this interview with St. John. It may be one of his last "media" interviews. His next may be given under oath, if all goes well.

http://cadeveo.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/th...-one-last-time/

[Douglas Caddy]

I just ran across this thread and thought I would add a little something that I came up with when the story first made the news.

The Rolling Stone article states that Hunt’s son, St. John Hunt, “had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years,” and had come to Miami “borrowing money to fly because he was broke.” It was then that he allegedly heard his father's confession about the JFK assassination.

The article continues, “At the moment, Saint doesn’t have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs.”

“In 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/138...e_howard_hunt/1

The whole story from "St. John Hunt" was a bunch of garbage, and that's why the story quickly died.

There is the little matter of the tape recording left by Howard Hunt to be played by St. John after his father's death. I knew Howard quite well and I can attest that it is his voice on the recording. So even if one wants to question the credibility of St. John, which I don't, the real story is the actual tape recording of his father's words implicating LBJ and certain named CIA agents in JFK's assassination.

[Pat Speer]

I just ran across this thread and thought I would add a little something that I came up with when the story first made the news.

The Rolling Stone article states that Hunt’s son, St. John Hunt, “had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years,” and had come to Miami “borrowing money to fly because he was broke.” It was then that he allegedly heard his father's confession about the JFK assassination.

The article continues, “At the moment, Saint doesn’t have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs.”

“In 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/138...e_howard_hunt/1

The whole story from "St. John Hunt" was a bunch of garbage, and that's why the story quickly died.

There is the little matter of the tape recording left by Howard Hunt to be played by St. John after his father's death. I knew Howard quite well and I can attest that it is his voice on the recording. So even if one wants to question the credibility of St. John, which I don't, the real story is the actual tape recording of his father's words implicating LBJ and certain named CIA agents in JFK's assassination.

When you listen to the tape, it's clear that it's Hunt and that it is a "confession". The only questions then are is it a faked confession by Hunt the elder to help his son make some money, or is it a let's play make-believe session taped by the younger, or is it...the real deal. St. John can go a long way to demonstrating the latter by letting the tape be submitted to some tests--to make sure it wasn't spliced together--and also to release the whole tape and all other tapes he made of his father in the period--so that context can be better established. I presume he's working on a book as we speak. Hopefully, said tests will be conducted independently and discussed in the book. One wonders of course if the CIA will plan a disinfo campaign against Hunt. If Vince Palamara suddenly appears as an expert on Hunt watch out. (A joke).

[Guest David Guyatt]

I just ran across this thread and thought I would add a little something that I came up with when the story first made the news.

The Rolling Stone article states that Hunt’s son, St. John Hunt, “had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years,” and had come to Miami “borrowing money to fly because he was broke.” It was then that he allegedly heard his father's confession about the JFK assassination.

The article continues, “At the moment, Saint doesn’t have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs.”

“In 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/138...e_howard_hunt/1

The whole story from "St. John Hunt" was a bunch of garbage, and that's why the story quickly died.

There is the little matter of the tape recording left by Howard Hunt to be played by St. John after his father's death. I knew Howard quite well and I can attest that it is his voice on the recording. So even if one wants to question the credibility of St. John, which I don't, the real story is the actual tape recording of his father's words implicating LBJ and certain named CIA agents in JFK's assassination.

Douglas, forgive me for going off topic slightly, but with your personal knowledge of HH, do you have any insight into his motives for writing the five novels under his pen name David St. John? The subject matter of these 5 books is more than curious I think?

David

[Tony Frank]

I note that you are citing the above information as Gospel truth, and its source unimpeachable. Do you realize that the source for everything you quote above is St. John Hunt himself?

St. John will be gratified that you do not doubt a word he says about his own life story.

So everything St. John says is totally credible, except the part that you (& Bugliosi, & Max Holland etc.) do not like.

I suppose Hunt Jr. could have lied about his living situation and tried to cover up his drug dealing and felony convictions and his twenty-tear meth addiction. He could have also pretended to have a job and money.

But lying about all that stuff would have made his"confession" story a lot less believable.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

But lying about all that stuff would have made his"confession" story a lot less believable.

Right. People who tell lies are not believable, while people who tell the truth ARE believable. You don't have to be rich or even prosperous to tell the truth.

St. John seems to have no fear of telling the truth, regardless of the consequences, which makes him a credible witness.

[Douglas Caddy]

I just ran across this thread and thought I would add a little something that I came up with when the story first made the news.

The Rolling Stone article states that Hunt’s son, St. John Hunt, “had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years,” and had come to Miami “borrowing money to fly because he was broke.” It was then that he allegedly heard his father's confession about the JFK assassination.

The article continues, “At the moment, Saint doesn’t have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs.”

“In 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/138...e_howard_hunt/1

The whole story from "St. John Hunt" was a bunch of garbage, and that's why the story quickly died.

There is the little matter of the tape recording left by Howard Hunt to be played by St. John after his father's death. I knew Howard quite well and I can attest that it is his voice on the recording. So even if one wants to question the credibility of St. John, which I don't, the real story is the actual tape recording of his father's words implicating LBJ and certain named CIA agents in JFK's assassination.

Douglas, forgive me for going off topic slightly, but with your personal knowledge of HH, do you have any insight into his motives for writing the five novels under his pen name David St. John? The subject matter of these 5 books is more than curious I think?

David

No, I can provide no insight into his motives. In the months prior to the Watergate break-in, Hunt had asked me as his attorney to represent him in his dealings with publishers on several books that he was working on. That effort ended, of course, when Watergate broke.

I am not familiar with the curious subject matter of the 5 books that he authored under the pen name David St. John. Could you enlight me on this? I am certain other forum members would be interested in this also.

[Robert Howard]

But lying about all that stuff would have made his"confession" story a lot less believable.

Right. People who tell lies are not believable, while people who tell the truth ARE believable. You don't have to be rich or even prosperous to tell the truth.

St. John seems to have no fear of telling the truth, regardless of the consequences, which makes him a credible witness.

Regarding St. Johns credibility, throws you straight back into the whole conundrum of the old day's, whether its Rose Cherami talking about a sailor getting of a boat to do a heroin deal, or Vernon Bundy seeing Oswald with Clay Shaw; Sometimes facts are useless when the person dictating them has a background filled with drug arrests, and/or a criminal record; that does not usually play well in a courtroom, as we all know.

But getting back to E.H. Hunt, I would add that in American Spy, Hunt's roleplaying as the conspiracy theorist it is the ultimate irony. Kind of going from one extreme to the other.....Wouldn't you say.

When you get down to it, one of the biggest questions about E. Howard Hunt is whether he had been to Madrid in 1963, why?

We'll for one thing, according to a source of Dick Russell, Gilbert La Cavelier told Russell that in "March-April 1963," Hunt was in Madrid meeting with Jean Souetre, 1 which becomes all the more interesting when you realize that according to Russell, "On November 28, [1963] Osborne postmarked a letter from Madrid, Spain noting that he planned to return to the United States in about a week." 2

Not to mention the fact that General Charles Willoughby also felt quite at home in Spain, as both an ideological and personal acquaintance of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. It is also interesting that Arthur Wyndham Allen Cowan ostensibly died in Malaga, Spain allegedly on November 10, 1964.

Declassified documents regarding E Howard Hunt are unequivocal in the assertion that Hunt was never in Madrid in 1963, but he did go to Spain after 1964......So Le Cavelier's assertion is pretty important.

I have meant to ask Dick Russell whether he still feels confident about Le Cavelier as a reputable source, all these years later......But I have one of those types of inquiries directed to William Turner about his allegation in his article "The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy"

and I am still waiting on that.

For the record William Turner wrote "The DA was also suspicious of Ferrie’s nervous and evasive demeanor. On November 25, he decided to arrest Ferrie and turn him over to the FBI for questioning; but they [FBI] released him quickly when they determined his plane could not fly that weekend. Evidently they were not concerned that Ferrie would not need his plane in Houston and already arranged for another plane to be waiting there.” 3

1. See TMWKTM page 562 1st Ed

2. ibid; page 486

3. The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy by William Turner page 47 Ramparts Magazine.

Edited June 8, 2008 by Robert Howard

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Regarding St. Johns credibility, throws you straight back into the whole conundrum of the old day's, whether its Rose Cherami talking about a sailor getting of a boat to do a heroin deal, or Vernon Bundy seeing Oswald with Clay Shaw;

Not even in the same ballpark.

We have only hearsay about Rose Cheramie, and Vernon Bundy never claimed to have witnessed anything of any importance or even relevance to the JFK assassination..

[Robert Howard]

Regarding St. Johns credibility, throws you straight back into the whole conundrum of the old day's, whether its Rose Cherami talking about a sailor getting of a boat to do a heroin deal, or Vernon Bundy seeing Oswald with Clay Shaw;

Not even in the same ballpark.

We have only hearsay about Rose Cheramie, and Vernon Bundy never claimed to have witnessed anything of any importance or even relevance to the JFK assassination..

You need to get your facts straight, my friend.

Fruge was deposed by the HSCA on April 18, 1978...According to HSCA Vol 10 pages 197-210 “for her part she was to obtain $8,000 from an unidentified source in Dallas and proceed with the two men to Houston to complete a drug deal. Cheramie was also supposed to pick up her little boy from friends who had beenlooking after him. She said reservations had been made at the Rice Hotel in Houston. The trio was to meet a seaman who was bringing in 8 kilos of heroin to Galveston by boat; Cherami claimed that she knew the name of the seaman and the name of the boat he was arriving in. According to the HSCA’s account Lt. Fruge contacted the head of U S Customs in Houston who verified the scheduled docking of the boat as well as the name of the seaman. According to Fruge the customs agent had tailed the seaman as he disembarked from the boat but had “lost the man’s trail.” FN 70

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=206

The Silver Slipper’s owner was Mac Manual, according to Cherami, the Silver Slipper was also a brothel.

The following is from The March 2007 Issue of the Dealey Plaza Echo page 8

...when they arrived in Houston, they were met by Nathan Durham and two other agents and checked into a Holiday Inn. The customs agent called the Rice Hotel and verified the reservations Cheramie had told them about. They also got the name of the man who was holding Cheramie’s baby, an underworld character who was a suspected drug dealer. One of the customs agents by the name of Bob Woody checked into the Rice Hotel with Cheramie and acted as her sugar daddy. Customs agents later tried following the seaman who got on a bus from Galveston to Houston, but lost his trail. No one contacted the hotel and Cheramie missed her time schedule for meeting the sailor. The dope deal fell through. Cheramie declined to tell her story to the FBI, so the customs agents put her back on the street.

This is from The Strength of the Wolf pages 312-314......On 27 November, Fruge interviewed Cheramie again, and she expounded on her story. She said the Italians were taking her to Dallas to obtain $8,000, so they could buy eight kilograms of heroin from a seaman. The seaman was to meet them in Houston after disembarking in Galveston. ....When contacted by Fruge, the Customs agent in charge of Galveston verified that the seaman was being investigated for drug smuggling. The Coast Guard likewise confirmed that it was interested in the ship named by Cheramie regarding its role in drug smuggling operations. The HSCA let this promising lead drop without attempting to talk to Customs agents like William Hughes, who vividly recalls “Nutty Nate” Durham as the feckless agent in charge of Galveston in 1963.

As far as Vernon Bundy goes, you may consider this as a memory refresher.....

Vernon Bundy, confined in the Orleans Parish Prison for parole violation, sent a letter to the presiding judge, Bernard Bagert, concerning the assassination.

He would later testify at the preliminary hearing for Clay Shaw that, as Bundy prepared to give himself a "fix" of heroin on a New Orleans lakefront, he saw Shaw and Oswald together in summer of 1963,

he heard Shaw call the other man "Pete" (Vernon Bundy, Jr., interview at Orleans Parish Prison, with William Gurvich, Charlie Jonau, and Cliency Navarre, March 16, 1967).

[J. Raymond Carroll]

You need to get your facts straight, my friend.

Fruge was deposed by the HSCA on April 18, 1978...According to HSCA Vol 10 pages 197-210 “for her part she was to obtain $8,000 from an unidentified source in Dallas and proceed with the two men to Houston to complete a drug deal.

Fruge was deposed, but do you have a deposition from Rose Cheramie?

Fruge's testimony (so far as it relates to Cheramie's story) is pure HEARSAY.

As far as Vernon Bundy goes, you may consider this as a memory refresher.....

Vernon Bundy, confined in the Orleans Parish Prison for parole violation, sent a letter to the presiding judge, Bernard Bagert, concerning the assassination.

He would later testify at the preliminary hearing for Clay Shaw that, as Bundy prepared to give himself a "fix" of heroin on a New Orleans lakefront, he saw Shaw and Oswald together in summer of 1963,

he heard Shaw call the other man "Pete" (Vernon Bundy, Jr., interview at Orleans Parish Prison, with William Gurvich, Charlie Jonau, and Cliency Navarre, March 16, 1967).

Thank you for the memory refresher.

So he saw Shaw and Oswald together, so what? There is no law against two men talking together. If my memory hasn't failed me, the only words he claimed to have heard were "what am I gonna tell her?

If you think this is important evidence, I'll show you a hill of beans that is more important evidence.