RIP Howard
Posted on 01/23/2007 2:21:13 PM PST by Borges
MIAMI - E. Howard Hunt, who helped organize the Watergate break-in that led to the greatest scandal in American political history and the downfall of Richard Nixon's presidency, died Tuesday. He was 88.
Hunt died after a lengthy bout of pneumonia, according to his son, Austin Hunt.
The elder Hunt was many things: World War II soldier, CIA officer, organizer of both a Guatemalan coup and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, and author of more than 80 books, many from the spy-tale genre.
Yet the bulk of his notoriety came from the one thing he always insisted he wasn't — a Watergate burglar. He often said he preferred the term "Watergate conspirator."
"I will always be called a Watergate burglar, even though I was never in the damn place," Hunt told The Miami Herald in 1997. "But it happened. Now I have to make the best of it."
While working for the CIA, Hunt recruited four of the five actual burglars — Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Rolando Eugenio Martinez and Frank Sturgis, all who had worked for Hunt a decade earlier in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
All four also had ties to Miami, where part of the Watergate plan was hatched.
"According to street gossip both in Washington and Miami, Mr. Castro had been making substantial contributions to the McGovern campaign," Hunt told CNN in February 1992. "And the idea was ... that somewhere in the books of the Democratic National Committee those illicit funds would be found."
The idea was wrong, and the fallout escalated into huge political scandal.
Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. Twenty-five men were sent to prison for their involvement in the botched plan, and a new era of skepticism toward government began.
Hunt declined repeated interview requests from The Associated Press in the final years of his life, which he spent quietly in a modest home in Miami's Biscayne Park neighborhood with his second wife, Laura.
I could never trust a man who goes by the initial of his first name, middle name and then last name.
G. Gordon Liddy?
J Jonah Jameson?
J. Edgar Hoover
Kennedy assassination buffs felt the same way. Hunt was always a villain in their fantasies.
We don't know that. Did the DNC open it's books so people could investigate the allegation? No. We just have the DNC's word for it. And they are proven liars.
RIP Howard
"the Watergate break-in that led to the greatest scandal in American political history"
Stealing classified documents that possiblty show a CinC's malfeasance that lead to the deaths of thousands is hardly a scandal, I guess. Looking at Dems campaign strategies, now, WHOOO, that's a scandal.
at least the most penalized political scandal....
R. Lee Irmey?
you will probably be able to count the days before revelations about Hunt in Dallas start to come out....this cat was involved in the JFK hit
"J Jonah Jameson?"
lol, i never trust someone who has the same three initials. :)
I don't know if that's true, but Nixon was killing McGovern. There was no reason to resort to desperate measures.
BTW, weird, stupid, evil stuff always seems to have some link to Miami.
he was the main tattle-tell on G Gordon Liddy. He turned into a witness for the prosecution. Him, the FBI technical expert, and the 5 cubans. Only Liddy held his tongue on what happened - that is, until he was released and he wrote a tell-all book about it and made lots of money.
Ernest P. Worrell?
....wait, that don't fit the pattern, don't it, Vern?
HUNT BLAMES JFK HIT ON LBJ
January 14, 2007 -- E. HOWARD Hunt - the shadowy former CIA man who organized the Watergate break-in and was once eyed in the assassination of President Kennedy - bizarrely says that Lyndon Johnson could be seen as a prime suspect in the rubout.
Only the most far-out conspiracy theorists believe in scenarios like Hunt's. But in a new memoir, "American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate & Beyond," due out in April, Hunt, 88, writes: "Having Kennedy liquidated, thus elevating himself to the presidency without having to work for it himself, could have been a very tempting and logical move on Johnson's part.
"LBJ had the money and the connections to manipulate the scenario in Dallas and is on record as having convinced JFK to make the appearance in the first place. He further tried unsuccessfully to engineer the passengers of each vehicle, trying to get his good buddy, Gov. [John] Connolly, to ride with him instead of in JFK's car - where . . . he would have been out of danger."
Hunt says Johnson also had easy access to CIA man William Harvey, who'd been demoted when he tried to have Fidel Castro poisoned in defiance of orders to drop covert operations against Cuba. Harvey was "a ruthless man who was not satisfied with his position in the CIA and its government salary," Hunt writes.
"He definitely had dreams of becoming [CIA director] and LBJ could do that for him if he were president . . . [LBJ] would have used Harvey because he was available and corrupt." Hunt denies any hand in the assassination, insisting he wasn't one of three mysterious hobos who were photographed at the scene.
On Watergate, Hunt says he saved G. Gordon Liddy from gagging on urine-tainted booze as they got ready to break into Democratic National Committee headquarters, telling him, "I know you like your scotch, but don't order it . . . Last night when we were hiding in the closet, I had to take a leak in the worst way, and when I couldn't bear it any longer, I found a fairly empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Red - and now let's just say it's quite full."
Source: Page 6, NY Post, 1/14/07
E. Howard Hunt - brother of C. Mike Hunt?
"Loyalty is a two way street" said E. Howard. May he RIP
laterldf
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