E. Howard Hunt

File:E. Howard Hunt Birthplace.jpg]]

Hunt was born in Hamburg, New York,{{cite news |last=Weiner |first=Tim |author-link=Tim Weiner |date=January 24, 2007 |title=E. Howard Hunt, Agent Who Organized Botched Watergate Break-In, Dies at 88 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/obituaries/24hunt.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=July 7, 2015 |archive-date=January 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118024807/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/obituaries/24hunt.html |url-status=live }} the son of Ethel Jean (Totterdale) and Everette Howard Hunt Sr., an attorney and Republican Party official.

He attended Hamburg High School in Hamburg, where he graduated in 1936 along with fellow classmate Howard J. Osborn.{{cite news |title=Hamburg Senior Class is Large |work=Buffalo Evening News |issue=21 |date=June 9, 1936}}Szulc, Compulsive Spy, p. 56 He then attended Brown University, an Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated in 1940.

During World War II, Hunt served in the U.S. Navy on the destroyer USS Mayo and the U.S. Army Air Corps. He also served in China with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.{{cite magazine|last=Hedegaard |first=Erik |title=The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=April 5, 2007 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt/1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080618150441/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt/1 |archive-date=June 18, 2008 }}

Hunt was a prolific author, publishing 73 books during his lifetime.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bookfinder.com/author/e-howard-hunt/|title=E.Howard Hunt: used books, rare books and new books @ BookFinder.com|website=www.bookfinder.com|access-date=January 24, 2022|archive-date=October 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171030093617/https://www.bookfinder.com/author/e-howard-hunt/|url-status=live}} During and after World War II, he wrote several novels under his own name, including East of Farewell (1942), Limit of Darkness (1944), Stranger in Town (1947), Maelstrom (1949) Bimini Run (1949), and The Violent Ones (1950). He also wrote spy and hardboiled novels under an array of pseudonyms, including Robert Dietrich, Gordon Davis, David St. John, and P. S. Donoghue.

Some parallels exist between Hunt's writings and his experiences during the Watergate scandal and espionage.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/weekinreview/28vinci.html|title=You Can Teach a Spy a Novelist's Tricks|date=January 28, 2007|author=Thomas Vinciguerra|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=June 15, 2020|archive-date=October 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171030094355/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/weekinreview/28vinci.html|url-status=live}} He continued his writing career after he was released from prison, publishing nearly twenty spy thrillers between 1980 and 2000.{{cite web|author=James Rosen|date=February 6, 2007|title=Howard Hunt's Final Mission|url=https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2649.html|access-date=June 15, 2020|work=Politico|archive-date=May 5, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150505025424/http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2649.html|url-status=live}}

In 1946, Hunt was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his writing.

Prior to 1949, Hunt served as an officer in the Information Division of the Economic Cooperation Administration, a predecessor of the Mutual Security Agency.[https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10194-10023.pdf Letter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104215209/https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10194-10023.pdf |date=November 4, 2021 }} from Westmore Willcox, Chief of Special Mission, to W. Averell Harriman (November 19, 1949).

Shortly following the end of World War II, the OSS was disbanded. In 1947, with the Cold War emerging and intensifying, the absence of a central intelligence organization was seen as a national security deficiency, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was formed. In October 1949, just as Warner Bros. acquired the rights to Hunt's novel Bimini Run, Hunt joined the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). He was assigned as a covert action officer specializing in political action and influence in what later came to be the CIA's Special Activities Center.Prados, John (2006). Safe For Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, p. xxii.

{{Further|Operation PBFortune}}

In 1950, Hunt was appointed OPC Station Chief in Mexico City, where he recruited and supervised William F. Buckley Jr., who worked under HuntHendershot, Heather. "Firing Line and the Black Revolution." The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, vol. 14, no. 2 (Fall 2014), p. 25. {{JSTOR|10.5749/movingimage.14.2.0001}}. "Even as Nixon was trying to wipe out Firing Line with the other public affairs programs, he suggested, at the height of the Watergate scandal, that the administration could get Buckley to write a positive newspaper column about Howard Hunt, under whom Buckley had served in the CIA." in his OPC Station in Mexico from 1951 to 1952. Buckley and Hunt remained lifelong friends, and Buckley became godfather to Hunt's first three children.William F. Buckley Jr. (January 26, 2007), [http://www.uexpress.com/ontheright/index.html?uc_full_date=20070126 "Howard Hunt, RIP."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927010257/http://www.uexpress.com/ontheright/index.html?uc_full_date=20070126 |date=September 27, 2007 }}. Buckley describes their early friendship in Mexico in his introduction to Hunt's posthumously-published memoir, American Spy.

In Mexico, Hunt helped lay the framework for Operation PBFortune, later renamed Operation PBSuccess, the successful covert operation to overthrow Jacobo Árbenz, the democratically elected president of Guatemala. Hunt would later say, "What we wanted to do was to have a terror campaign, to terrify Arbenz particularly, to terrify his troops, much as the German Stuka bombers terrified the population of Holland, Belgium and Poland."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/obituaries/24hunt.html|title=E. Howard Hunt, Agent Who Organized Botched Watergate Break-In, Dies at 88|first=Tim|last=Weiner|newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 24, 2007|access-date=February 15, 2017|archive-date=January 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118024807/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/obituaries/24hunt.html|url-status=live}}{{cite book |title=State Violence and Genocide in Latin America: The Cold War Years |publisher=Routledge |page=121}}

Hunt was then assigned as Chief of Covert Action in Japan, and later as Chief of Station in Uruguay, where he was noted by American diplomatic contemporary Samuel F. Hart for controversial working methods.

{{Further|Bay of Pigs Invasion}}

Hunt was subsequently assigned responsibility for organizing Cuban exile leaders in the United States into a suitably representative government-in-exile that would, after the Bay of Pigs Invasion, form a pro-American government that could replace Fidel Castro.Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (New York: Viking, 1974), 78.

Planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion began during the Eisenhower administration, but Hunt was later bitter about what he perceived as President John F. Kennedy's lack of commitment to the operation, which was designed to attack and overthrow the Castro government.Rosenberg, Carol (June 28, 2001). [http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/howard-hunt.htm Plotter of Bay of Pigs, Watergate conspirator: 'File and forget' Castro.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070528022317/http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/howard-hunt.htm |date=May 28, 2007 }} Miami Herald In his semi-fictional autobiography, Give Us This Day, Hunt wrote, "The Kennedy administration yielded Castro all the excuse he needed to gain a tighter grip on the island of José Martí, then moved shamefacedly into the shadows and hoped the Cuban issue would simply melt away."

In 1959, Hunt helped CIA Director Allen W. Dulles write The Craft of Intelligence.Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 95 The following year, in 1960, Hunt established Brigade 2506, a CIA-sponsored group of Cuban exiles formed to attempt the military overthrow of the Castro's government in Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion commenced on April 17, 1961, but was quickly aborted and viewed as a fiasco. Hunt was then reassigned as executive assistant to Dulles.[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/Hunt_11-3-78/html/Hunt_0054a.htm HSCA Deposition (November 3, 1978)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220930223202/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/Hunt_11-3-78/html/Hunt_0054a.htm |date=September 30, 2022 }}, Part II, p. 6:10–17

In 1961, President Kennedy fired Dulles for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Hunt then served from 1962 to 1964 as the first Chief of Covert Action for the CIA's Domestic Operations Division (DODS).

In 1974, Hunt told The New York Times that he worked for DODS for approximately four years, beginning in 1962, shortly after the agency's establishment by the Kennedy administration over the objection of Richard Helms and Thomas H. Karamessines. Hunt said that the division was assembled shortly after the Bay of Pigs operation, and that "many men connected with that failure were shunted into the new domestic unit." He said that some of his projects from 1962 to 1966 dealt largely with subsidizing and manipulating news and publishing organizations in the United States, which he said "did seem to violate the intent of the agency's charter."Seymour M. Hersh, "Hunt Tells of Early Work For a CIA Domestic Unit," The New York Times (December 31, 1974), p. 1, col. 6.

In 1964, John A. McCone, then deputy chief of intelligence at the CIA, directed Hunt to take a special assignment as a Non-official cover officer in Madrid, Spain, tasked with creating an American answer to Ian Fleming's British MI-6 James Bond novel series. While in Spain, Hunt was covered as a recently retired U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer who moved his family to Spain in order to write the first installment of the nine-novel Peter Ward series, On Hazardous Duty, published in 1965.

After a year and a half in Spain, Hunt returned to his assignment at DODS. Following a brief tenure on the Special Activities Staff of the Western European Division, he became Chief of Covert Action for the region in July 1968, and was based in the Washington metropolitan area. Hunt was lauded for his "sagacity, balance and imagination", and received the second-highest rating of Strong signifying "performance ... characterized by exceptional proficiency" in a performance review from the Division's Chief of Operations in April 1969. However, this was downgraded to the third-highest rating of "Adequate" in an amended review from the Division's Deputy Chief, who recognized Hunt's "broad experience" but opined that "a series of personal and taxing problems" had "tended to dull his cutting edge."{{Cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10194-10023.pdf |title=Archived document |access-date=November 9, 2017 |archive-date=November 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104215209/https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10194-10023.pdf |url-status=live }}

Hunt later said that he "had been stigmatized by the Bay of Pigs", and had come to terms with the fact that he "would not get promoted too much higher."{{cite book|author1=E. Howard Hunt|author2=Greg Aunapu|title=American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=96UjNz1lBV4C&pg=PA157|date=February 26, 2007|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-78982-6|page=157}}

In his final years with the CIA, Hunt began to cultivate new contacts in society and the business world. While serving as vice president of Brown University's club in Washington, D.C., he befriended and commenced a strong association with the organization's president, former congressional aide Charles Colson, who was working on Richard Nixon's presidential campaign.Hunt, Give Us This Day, 13–14

Hunt retired from the CIA at the pay grade of GS-15, Step 8{{Cite web |url=http://www.privateintelligence.us/dock/Jewels/E_Howard_Hunt_CIA_Internal_Paper.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=October 15, 2017 |archive-date=October 16, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016014425/http://www.privateintelligence.us/dock/Jewels/E_Howard_Hunt_CIA_Internal_Paper.pdf |url-status=dead }} on April 30, 1970.

After retiring from the CIA, Hunt neglected to elect survivorship benefits for his wife. In April 1971, he requested to retroactively amend his election but was rebuffed by the agency. In a May 5, 1972, letter to CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston, Hunt raised the possibility of returning to active duty for a short period of time in exchange for activating the benefits upon his proposed second retirement. Houston advised Hunt in his May 16, 1972, response that this "would be in violation of the spirit of the CIA Retirement Act".

{{Further|Robert Mullen Company}}

Immediately following his retirement, Hunt went to work for the Robert R. Mullen Company, which cooperated with the CIA; H. R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff to President Nixon, wrote in 1978 that the Mullen Company was in fact a CIA front company, a fact that was apparently unknown to Haldeman while he worked in the White House.The Ends of Power, by H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, 1978 Through CIA's Project QKENCHANT, Hunt obtained a Covert Security Approval to handle the firm's affairs during Mullen's absence from Washington.{{Cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000904662.pdf |title=CIA document. Memorandum |access-date=April 13, 2021 |archive-date=August 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804052728/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000904662.pdf |url-status=live }}{{cite web |title = ARRB REQUEST: CIA-IR-06, QKENCHANT |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |url = http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp?doc_no=0000904662&no_pages=0005&showPage=0001 |format = gif |date = May 14, 1996 |access-date = June 11, 2010 |page = 3 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120308121801/http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp?doc_no=0000904662&no_pages=0005&showPage=0001 |archive-date = March 8, 2012 }}

{{Watergate|White House}}

In 1971, Colson, who was then director of Nixon's Office of Public Liaison, hired Hunt, where he joined the White House Special Investigations Unit, specializing in political sabotage.

Hunt's first assignment for the White House was a covert operation to break into the Los Angeles office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Lewis J. Fielding.Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 128 In July 1971, Fielding refused a request from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for psychiatric data on Ellsberg.Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 127 Hunt and Liddy cased the building in late August.Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 130 The burglary, on September 3, 1971, was not detected, but no Ellsberg files were found.Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 131

In the summer of 1971, Colson authorized Hunt to travel to New England to seek potentially scandalous information on Senator Edward Kennedy related to Chappaquiddick incident and Kennedy's possible extramarital affairs. Hunt sought and used CIA disguises and other equipment for the project.Marjorie Hunter, "[https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/30/archives/colson-confirms-backingkennedy-inquiry-but-denies-knowing-of-hunts.html Colson Confirms Backing Kennedy Inquiry but Denies Knowing of Hunt's CIA Aid] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419065204/https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/30/archives/colson-confirms-backingkennedy-inquiry-but-denies-knowing-of-hunts.html |date=April 19, 2021 }}," New York Times (June 30, 1973), p. 15. | NYT archives The mission eventually proved unsuccessful, with little useful information uncovered by Hunt.

Hunt's White House duties included assassinations-related disinformation. In September 1971, Hunt forged top-secret U.S. State Department cables designed to prove that President Kennedy had personally and specifically ordered the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, during the 1963 South Vietnamese coup. He offered the forged documents to a Life magazine reporter.Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 134–135. Hunt later told the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973 that he fabricated the cables to show a link between President Kennedy and the assassination of Diem, a Catholic, to estrange Catholic voters from the Democratic Party, after Colson suggested he "might be able to improve upon the record."David E. Rosenbaum, "Hunt Says He Fabricated Cables on Diem to Link Kennedy to Killing of a Catholic; Testifies Colson Sought To Alienate Democrats," New York Times (September 25, 1973), p. 28.

In 1972, on Colson's orders, Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy were part of an assassination plot targeting journalist Jack Anderson.{{Cite news|last=Feldstein|first=Mark|date=July 28, 2004|title=The Last Muckraker|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19730-2004Jul27.html|access-date=September 3, 2020|archive-date=October 14, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014005839/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19730-2004Jul27.html|url-status=live}} Nixon disliked Anderson because Anderson published a 1960 election-eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother,Mark Feldstein, [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/2000/0001.feldstein.html "Getting the Scoop"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204043632/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/2000/0001.feldstein.html |date=December 4, 2010 }}, which Nixon believed was a factor in his election defeat to John F. Kennedy. Hunt and Liddy met with a CIA operative and discussed methods of assassinating Anderson, which included covering Anderson's car steering wheel with LSD to drug him and cause a fatal accident, poisoning his aspirin bottle, and staging a fatal robbery. The assassination plot never materialized because Hunt and Liddy were arrested for their involvement in the Watergate scandal later that year.

{{Main|Watergate scandal}}

Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that the Nixon White House tapes show that, following the assassination attempt on George Wallace on May 15, 1972, Nixon and Colson agreed to send Hunt to the Milwaukee home of the gunman, Arthur Bremer, to place McGovern presidential campaign material there. The intention was to link Bremer with the Democrats. Hersh wrote that, in a taped conversation:

Nixon is energized and excited by what seems to be the ultimate political dirty trick: the FBI and the Milwaukee police will be convinced, and will tell the world, that the attempted assassination of Wallace had its roots in left-wing Democratic politics.

In his memoir Hunt reports that the day after the assassination attempt he received a call from Chuck Colson, asking him to break into Bremer's apartment and plant "leftist literature to connect him to the Democrats". Hunt recalls that he was highly sceptical of the plan due to the apartment being guarded by the FBI but investigated the feasibility of it anyway due to Colson's insistence.{{cite book |last1=Hunt |first1=E. Howard |title=American spy : my secret history in the CIA, Watergate, and beyond |date=2007 |publisher=John WIley & Sons |page=207}}

Later that year, Hunt organized the bugging of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex office building.Reynolds, Tim. "Watergate Figure E. Howard Hunt Dies." Associated Press. January 23, 2007. On June 18, 1972, five burglars were arrested by police at the Watergate. Hunt and Liddy were indicted on federal charges three months later.

Hunt put pressure on the White House and the Committee for the Re-Election of the President for cash payments to cover legal fees, family support, and expenses, for himself and his fellow burglars. Key Nixon figures, including Haldeman, Charles Colson, Herbert W. Kalmbach, John Mitchell, Fred LaRue, and John Dean eventually became entangled in the payoff schemes. Large sums of money were passed to Hunt and his accomplices in an attempt to secure their silence at the trial, by pleading guilty to avoid prosecutors' questions, and afterwards.Blind Ambition, by John Dean, New York, 1976, Simon & Schuster

The Washington Post and The New York Times later reported on the payoff scheme, publishing many articles that proved to be the beginning of the end for the cover-up since prosecutors felt obligated to follow up on the media reports. Hunt also pressured Colson, Dean, and John Ehrlichman to ask Nixon for clemency in sentencing, and eventual presidential pardons for himself and his Watergate break-in partners, which eventually helped implicate and snare those higher up.All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, New York, 1974, Simon & Schuster

Hunt was sentenced to 30 months to eight years in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal,{{cite news |title=E. Howard Hunt Released After Serving 32 Months |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/24/archives/around-the-nation-e-howard-hunt-released-after-serving-32-months.html |access-date=September 4, 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=February 24, 1977 |archive-date=April 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419065202/https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/24/archives/around-the-nation-e-howard-hunt-released-after-serving-32-months.html |url-status=live }} and spent 33 months in prison at Federal Correctional Complex, Allenwood and the low-security Federal Prison Camp at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, on a conspiracy charge; he arrived at the Eglin Air Force Base prison on April 25, 1975.Braxton, Sheila, "Hunt Arrives at Eglin – 'Equal Treatment' Is All He Asks", Playground Daily News, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Sunday April 27, 1975, Volume 30, Number 68, page 1A. While at Allenwood, Hunt suffered a mild stroke.{{cite book|author=Charles W. Colson|title=Born Again|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AKCIMP42E6MC&q=howard+hunt+later+suffered+a+mild+stroke+Allenwood&pg=PA247|date=September 1, 2008|orig-year=1976|publisher=Chosen Books|isbn=978-1-58558-941-8|page=247}}

Hunt supported the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.{{cite news |last=Mabe |first=Chauncey |date=April 12, 1992 |title=Plumber Sailor, Author Spy |url=http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-04-12/features/9202020750_1_everette-howard-hunt-watergate-spy |newspaper=Sun-Sentinel |location=Fort Lauderdale, Florida |access-date=August 16, 2014 |archive-date=August 19, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819085003/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-04-12/features/9202020750_1_everette-howard-hunt-watergate-spy |url-status=dead }}

{{Main|Three tramps}}

File:E. Howard Hunt & One of the Three Tramps Arrested after JFK Assassination.jpg]]

Shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, The Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram photographed three transients under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository.{{cite book |last=Bugliosi |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Bugliosi |title=Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy |year=2007 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-04525-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl/page/930 930] |url=https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl/page/930 }} The men were later known as the three tramps.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=930}}

According to Vincent Bugliosi, allegations that these men were involved in a conspiracy originated from theorist Richard E. Sprague who compiled the photographs in 1966 and 1967, and subsequently turned them over to Jim Garrison during his investigation of Clay Shaw.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=930}} Appearing before a nationwide audience on the December 31, 1968, episode of The Tonight Show, Garrison held up a photo of the three and suggested they were involved in the assassination.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=930}}

Several years later, in 1974, assassination researchers Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield compared photographs of the men to people they believed to be suspects involved in a conspiracy and said that two of the men were Hunt and fellow Watergate conspirator Frank Sturgis.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=931}} In 1975, comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory helped bring national media attention to the allegations against Hunt and Sturgis after obtaining the comparison photographs from Weberman and Canfield.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=931}} Immediately after obtaining the photographs, Gregory held a press conference that received considerable coverage, including in Rolling Stone and Newsweek.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=931}}{{cite book |last1=Weberman |first1=Alan J |author-link1=A. J. Weberman |last2=Canfield |first2=Michael |title=Coup D'Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy |edition=Revised |year=1992 |orig-year=1975 |publisher=Quick American Archives |location=San Francisco |isbn=9780932551108 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780932551108/page/7 7] |ref={{harvid|Weberman and Canfield|1975}} |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780932551108/page/7 }}

In 1975, the U.S. President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, also known as the Rockefeller Commission, investigated the allegation that Hunt and Sturgis, on behalf of the CIA, participated in Kennedy's assassination.{{cite book |title=Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States |url=http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=930&relPageId=1 |date= June 1975 |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |page=251 |chapter=Chapter 19: Allegations Concerning the Assassination of President Kennedy |chapter-url=http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=71095 |ref={{harvid|Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States, Chapter 19|1975}}}} The commission's final report stated that witnesses testified that the derelicts bore a resemblance to Hunt or Sturgis "were not shown to have any qualifications in photo identification beyond that possessed by an average layman".{{sfn|Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States, Chapter 19|1975|p=256}} Their report also stated that FBI Agent Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, "a nationally-recognized expert in photoidentification and photoanalysis" with the FBI photographic laboratory, had concluded from photo comparison that none of the men was Hunt or Sturgis.{{sfn|Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States, Chapter 19|1975|p=257}}

In 1979, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that forensic anthropologists had again analyzed and compared the photographs of the tramps with those of Hunt and Sturgis and also with photographs of Thomas Vallee, Daniel Carswell, and Fred Lee Chrisman.{{cite book |title=Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives |url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/ |year=1979 |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=91–92 |chapter=I.B. Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. Other scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations |chapter-url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1b.html |ref={{harvid|Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chapter I, Section B|1979}} |access-date=August 26, 2017 |archive-date=April 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200403232215/https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report |url-status=live }} According to the committee, only Chrisman resembled any of the tramps, but determined that he was not in Dealey Plaza on the day of Kennedy's assassination.

In 1992, journalist Mary La Fontaine discovered the November 22, 1963, arrest records that the Dallas Police Department had released in 1989, which named the three men as Gus W. Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John F. Gedney.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=933}} According to the arrest reports, the three men were "taken off a boxcar in the railroad yards right after President Kennedy was shot", detained as "investigative prisoners", described as unemployed and passing through Dallas, then released four days later.{{sfn|Bugliosi|2007|p=933}}

In 1973, Viking Press published Compulsive Spy, a book about Hunt's career, by Tad Szulc, a former correspondent for The New York Times.{{cite news |last=Cheshire |first=Maxine |date=October 7, 1973 |title=New Book Places Hunt In Second Bay Of Pigs Plot |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zAJPAAAAIBAJ&pg=3718%2C3387753 |newspaper=The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) |location=Toledo, Ohio |page=C3 |access-date=April 12, 2015 |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709182547/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zAJPAAAAIBAJ&pg=3718,3387753 |url-status=live }} Szulc wrote that unnamed CIA sources told him that Hunt, working with Rolando Cubela Secades, had a role in coordinating the assassination of Castro during an aborted second invasion of Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Szulc wrote that Hunt was the acting chief of the CIA station in Mexico City in 1963 while Lee Harvey Oswald was also in Mexico City.{{cite news |last=Seaberry |first=Jane |date=September 6, 1978 |title=Hunt Sues to Obtain Data Linking Him to Assassination |url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20Assassination%20Clippings%20Folders/House%20Select%20Committee%20On%20Assassinations%20Cips%20And%20Inventory/HSCA-JFK/HSCA-JFK%2007.pdf |newspaper=The Washington Post |location=Washington, D.C. |page=A6 |access-date=April 13, 2015 |archive-date=November 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105061203/http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20Assassination%20Clippings%20Folders/House%20Select%20Committee%20On%20Assassinations%20Cips%20And%20Inventory/HSCA-JFK/HSCA-JFK%2007.pdf |url-status=live }}{{cite news |author= |title=Source Ruling Goes Against Hunt |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19781104&id=dn9IAAAAIBAJ&pg=6064,709129 |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |volume=52 |issue=83 |location=Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |agency=Associated Press |page=10 |date=November 4, 1978 |access-date=April 13, 2015 |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709182230/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19781104&id=dn9IAAAAIBAJ&pg=6064,709129 |url-status=live }}{{#tag:ref|Szulc wrote: "As I mentioned above, Hunt spent August and September 1963 in Mexico City in charge of the CIA station there."{{cite book |last=Szulc |first=Tad |author-link=Tad Szulc |date=1974 |title=Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt |publisher=Viking Press |page=99 |isbn=9780670235469 }}|group="nb"}}

In June 1975, the Rockefeller Commission investigated allegations that the CIA, including Hunt, may have had contact with Oswald or Jack Ruby,{{sfn|Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States, Chapter 19|1975|pp=267-269}} concluding that one "witness testified that E. Howard Hunt was Acting Chief of a CIA Station in Mexico City in 1963, implying that he could have had contact with Oswald when Oswald visited Mexico City in September 1963."{{sfn|Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States, Chapter 19|1975|pp=269}} The report concluded, however, that there was "no credible evidence" of CIA involvement in the assassination, reporting that, "At no time was [Hunt] ever the Chief, or Acting Chief, of a CIA Station in Mexico City.{{sfn|Report to the President by Commission on CIA Activities in the United States, Chapter 19|1975|pp=269}}

Released in the Fall of 1975 after the Rockefeller Commission's report, Weberman and Canfield's book Coup d'Etat in America reiterated Szulc's allegation.{{#tag:ref|Weberman and Canfield wrote: "According to former Times reporter Tad Szulc, Howard Hunt just happened to be CIA station chief in Mexico City in August–September 1963."|group="nb"}}

In July 1976, Hunt filed a $2.5 million libel suit against the authors and the book's publishers and editor.{{cite news |author= |title=Hunt files libel suit over death charges |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19760729&id=WWMzAAAAIBAJ&pg=592,3858418 |newspaper=The Miami News |location=Miami |date=July 29, 1976 |agency=Associated Press |page=4A |access-date=August 16, 2014 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} According to Ellis Rubin, Hunt's attorney who filed the suit in a Miami federal court, the book said that Hunt took part in the assassination of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

As part of his suit, Hunt filed a legal action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in September 1978 requesting that Szulc be cited for contempt if he refused to divulge his sources. Three months earlier, Szulc stated in a deposition that he refused to name his sources due to "the professional confidentiality of sources" and "journalistic privilege". Rubin said that knowing the source of the allegation that Hunt was in Mexico City in 1963 was important because Szulc's passage "is what everybody uses as an authority ... he's cited in everything written on E. Howard Hunt". He added that rumors that Hunt was involved in the Kennedy assassination might be put to end if Szulc's source was revealed. Stating that Hunt had not provided a sufficient reason to override Szulc's First Amendment rights to protect the confidentiality of his sources, Albert Vickers Bryan Jr., the U.S. District Court judge, ruled in favor of Szulc.

On November 3, 1978, Hunt gave a security-classified deposition for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). He denied knowledge of any conspiracy to kill Kennedy. The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released the deposition in February 1996.{{Cite web|url=http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/Hunt_11-3-78/html/Hunt_0001a.htm|title=Assassination Archive and Research Center|website=ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES|access-date=June 5, 2007|archive-date=October 11, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011113057/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/Hunt_11-3-78/html/Hunt_0001a.htm|url-status=live}} Two newspaper articles published a few months before the deposition stated that a 1966 CIA memo linking Hunt to the assassination of President Kennedy had recently been provided to the HSCA. The first article, by Victor Marchetti – author of the book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (1974) – appeared in the Liberty Lobby newspaper The Spotlight on August 14, 1978.

According to Marchetti, the memo said in essence, "Some day we will have to explain Hunt's presence in Dallas on November 22, 1963."Victor Marchetti, "CIA to Admit Hunt Involvement in Kennedy Slaying," The Spotlight (August 14, 1978) He also wrote that Hunt, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Patrick Hemming would soon be implicated in a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy.

The second article, by Joseph J. Trento and Jacquie Powers, appeared six days later in the Sunday edition of The News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware.{{cite news |url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/H%20Disk/Hunt%20E%20Howard/Item%2044.pdf |first1=Joe |last1=Trento |first2=Jacquie |last2=Powers |newspaper=Sunday News Journal |volume=4 |number=34 |page=A-1 |date=August 28, 1978 |title=Was Howard Hunt in Dallas the Day JFK Died? |access-date=August 11, 2014 |archive-date=April 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417012749/http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/H%20Disk/Hunt%20E%20Howard/Item%2044.pdf |url-status=live }} It alleged that the purported memo was initialed by Richard Helms and James Angleton and showed that, shortly after Helms and Angleton were elevated to their highest positions in the CIA, they discussed the fact that Hunt had been in Dallas on the day of the Kennedy assassination and that his presence there had to be kept secret. However, nobody has been able to produce this supposed memo, and the United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States determined that Hunt had been in Washington, D.C., on the day of the assassination.{{cite web |url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hunt_sturgis.htm |first1=Magen |last1=Knuth |title=E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis: Were Watergate Conspirators Also JFK Assassins? |access-date=May 6, 2015 |archive-date=August 29, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829144724/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hunt_sturgis.htm |url-status=live }}

Hunt sued Liberty Lobby – but not the Sunday News Journal – for libel. Liberty Lobby stipulated, in this first trial, that the question of Hunt's alleged involvement in the assassination would not be contested.[http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/824/916/ Hunt v. Marchetti, 824 F.2d 916 (11th Cir. 1987)]. "In arguing that the stipulation should be binding on retrial, Hunt attempts to characterize the statements of the Liberty Lobby attorney as stipulating to the fact that Hunt was not in Dallas on the day of the Kennedy assassination. The statements, however, are more accurately viewed as a stipulation that the question of Hunt's alleged involvement in the assassination would not be contested at trial. They thus served merely to narrow the factual issues in dispute." Id. at 917–18 (citations omitted). Hunt prevailed and was awarded $650,000 damages. In 1983, however, the case was overturned on appeal because of error in jury instructions.[http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/720/631/ Hunt v. Liberty Lobby, 720 F.2d 631 (11th Cir. 1983)]. "Libel Award for Howard Hunt overturned by appeals court," New York Times (December 4, 1983).

In a second trial, held in 1985, Mark Lane made an issue of Hunt's location on the day of the Kennedy assassination.[http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/824/916/ Hunt v. Marchetti, 824 F.2d 916 (11th Cir. 1987)]. "Hunt was aware throughout discovery prior to the retrial that Liberty Lobby intended to make Hunt's location on the day of the Kennedy assassination an issue on retrial." Id. at 928. Lane successfully defended Liberty Lobby by producing evidence suggesting that Hunt had been in Dallas. He used depositions from David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, Liddy, Stansfield Turner and Marita Lorenz, plus a cross-examination of Hunt. On retrial, the jury rendered a verdict for Liberty Lobby.[http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/824/916/ Hunt v. Marchetti, 824 F.2d 916 (11th Cir. 1987)]. "The jury on retrial rendered a verdict for Liberty Lobby. We affirm." Id. at 918.

Lane claimed he convinced the jury that Hunt was a JFK assassination conspirator, but some of the jurors who were interviewed by the media said they disregarded the conspiracy theory and judged the case (according to the judge's jury instructions) on whether the article was published with "reckless disregard for the truth."John McAdams, [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/denial.htm "Implausible Assertions"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514094951/https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/denial.htm |date=May 14, 2021 }} Lane outlined his theory about Hunt's and the CIA's role in Kennedy's murder in a 1991 book, Plausible Denial.Isaacs, Jeremy (1997). [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/interviews/hunt/ Cold War: Howard Hunt interview excerpts] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071106000444/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/interviews/hunt/ |date=November 6, 2007 }} and [http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-18/hunt1.html full transcript] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041215012532/http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-18/hunt1.html |date=December 15, 2004 }}. CNN

{{Main|Mitrokhin Archive}}

Former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin indicated in 1999 that Hunt was made part of a fabricated conspiracy theory disseminated by a Soviet "active measures" program designed to discredit the CIA and the United States.{{cite book |last1=Andrew |first1=Christopher |author-link1=Christopher Andrew (historian) |last2=Mitrokhin |first2=Vasili |author-link2=Vasili Mitrokhin |title=The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVndU5P4V-8C |year=2001 |orig-year=1999 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-465-00312-9 |pages=225–230| chapter=Fourteen: Political Warfare (Active Measures and the Main Political Adversary) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVndU5P4V-8C&pg=PT204 }}{{cite book |last1=Trahair |first1=Richard C. S. |last2=Miller |first2=Robert L. |title=Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3LtFS3rl9MC |edition=First paperback / Revised |year=2009 |orig-year=2004 |publisher=Enigma Books |location=New York |isbn=978-1-929631-75-9 |pages=188–190 |ref={{harvid|Trahair|2009}}}} According to Mitrokhin, the KGB created a forged letter from Oswald to Hunt implying that the two were linked as conspirators, then forwarded copies of it to "three of the most active conspiracy buffs" in 1975. Mitrokhin indicated that the photocopies were accompanied by a fake cover letter from an anonymous source alleging that the original had been given to FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley and was apparently being suppressed.

According to Kerry Thornley, who served with Oswald in the Marine Corps and wrote the biographical book The Idle Warriors about him before the assassination of the president (the manuscript was seized during the investigation and was kept as physical evidence for a long time).{{Cite web|title=Thornley's personal file in the Weisberg documents.|url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/T%20Disk/Thornley%20Kerry/Item%2015.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812085308/http://jfk.hood.edu:80/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/T%20Disk/Thornley%20Kerry/Item%2015.pdf |archive-date=August 12, 2011 }}

Thornley met regularly met with a man in New Orleans known to him as Gary Kirstein, with whom they discussed the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Also, according to Thornley, Kirstein in those years wanted to organize the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and planned to "frame a jailbird for it."{{Cite web|title=Kerry Thornley's Memoir As Rendered by Sondra London. Martin Luther King.|url=http://sondralondon.com/tales/confess/06.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923122923/http://sondralondon.com:80/tales/confess/06.htm |archive-date=September 23, 2013 }} In "Confession to Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK by Kerry Thornley as told to Sondra London" he said that after Watergate, when photos of Howard Hunt appeared in the media, he found that he was very similar to his acquaintance Kirstein, along with whom they discussed organizing the assassination of the president.{{Cite web|title=Kerry Thornley's Memoir As Rendered by Sondra London. Watergate.|url=http://sondralondon.com/tales/confess/05.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923122918/http://sondralondon.com:80/tales/confess/05.htm |archive-date=September 23, 2013 }}

After Hunt's death, Howard St. John Hunt and David Hunt stated that their father had recorded several claims about himself and others being involved in a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.{{cite news|last=Williams|first=Carol J.|title=Watergate plotter may have a last tale|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-mar-20-na-hunt20-story.html|access-date=December 30, 2012|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=March 20, 2007|location=Los Angeles|archive-date=July 14, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130714234227/http://articles.latimes.com/2007/mar/20/nation/na-hunt20|url-status=live}} Notes and audio recordings were made.

In the April 5, 2007, issue of Rolling Stone, St. John Hunt detailed a number of individuals purported to be implicated by his father, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips, Frank Sturgis, David Morales, Antonio Veciana, William Harvey, and an assassin he termed "French gunman grassy knoll" who many presume is Lucien Sarti.{{cite book|last=McAdams|first=John|title=JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy|year=2011|publisher=Potomac Books|location=Washington, D.C.|isbn=9781597974899|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2OJeNytAOZkC|author-link=John C. McAdams|access-date=December 30, 2012|page=189|chapter=Too Much Evidence of Conspiracy}} The two sons alleged that their father cut the information from his memoirs to avoid possible perjury charges. According to Hunt's widow and other children, the two sons took advantage of Hunt's loss of lucidity by coaching and exploiting him for financial gain and furthermore falsified accounts of Hunt's supposed confession. The Los Angeles Times said they examined the materials offered by the sons to support the story and found them to be "inconclusive".

Hunt's memoir, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond,{{cite news|last=Minzesheimer|first=Bob|title='Deep Throat': Source of additional books?|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2005-06-01-bchat-watergate_x.htm|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=USA Today|date=June 1, 2005|archive-date=April 17, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417180130/http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2005-06-01-bchat-watergate_x.htm|url-status=live}} was ghost-written by Greg Aunapu and published by John Wiley & Sons in March 2007.Reed, Christopher (January 25, 2007). [https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,1997920,00.html E Howard Hunt obituary.] The Guardian

According to the Hunt Literary Estate, Hunt had intended to write an update to his 1974 autobiography Undercover and supplement this edition with post-9/11 reflections, but by the time he had embarked on the project, he was too ill to continue. This prompted John Wiley & Sons to search for and hire a ghost writer to write the book in its entirety. According to St. John Hunt, it was he who suggested to his father the idea of a memoir to reveal what he knew about the Kennedy assassination, but the Hunt Literary Estate disputes this as scurrilous.

The foreword to American Spy was written by William F. Buckley Jr.{{cite news|last=Buckley Jr.|first=William F.|title=Howard Hunt, R.I.P.|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/article/?q=MDYzM2MyMDIwMjRiNWZlY2RlZjc3ZDY4YjAxMjBiM2Q=|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=National Review|date=January 26, 2007|author-link=William F. Buckley Jr.|agency=Universal Press Syndicate|location=New York|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120722232539/http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/article/?q=MDYzM2MyMDIwMjRiNWZlY2RlZjc3ZDY4YjAxMjBiM2Q=|archive-date=July 22, 2012}} According to Buckley, he was asked through an intermediary to write the introduction but declined after he found that the manuscript contained material "that suggested transgressions of the highest order, including a hint that LBJ might have had a hand in the plot to assassinate President Kennedy." He stated that the work "was clearly ghostwritten", and eventually agreed to write an introduction focusing on his early friendship with Hunt after he received a revised manuscript "with the loony grassy-knoll bits chiseled out".

Publishers Weekly called American Spy a "breezy, unrepentant memoir" and described it as a "nostalgic memoir [that] breaks scant new ground in an already crowded field".{{cite web|title=American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond|url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-471-78982-6|work=publishersweekly.com|publisher=Publishers Weekly|access-date=January 5, 2013|author=Publishers Weekly|author-link=Publishers Weekly|date=February 5, 2007|archive-date=February 23, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223170728/http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-471-78982-6|url-status=live}} Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times said it was "a bitter and self-pitying memoir" and "offers a rather standard account of how men of his generation became involved in intelligence work".{{cite news|last=Rutten|first=Tim|title=Book Review: Hunt, ever a true believer – in himself|url=http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/28/entertainment/et-rutten28/2|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=February 28, 2007|author-link=Tim Rutten|location=Los Angeles|archive-date=March 6, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140306165148/http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/28/entertainment/et-rutten28/2|url-status=dead}}

Referencing the book's title, Tim Weiner of The New York Times wrote: "American Spy is presented as a 'secret history,' a double-barreled misrepresentation. There are no real secrets in this book. As history it is bunk."{{cite news|last=Weiner|first=Tim|title=Watergate Warrior|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Weiner-t.html|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 13, 2007|author-link=Tim Weiner|location=New York|archive-date=April 19, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419124529/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Weiner-t.html|url-status=live}} Weiner said that the author's examination of the Kennedy assassination was the low-point of the book, indicating that Hunt pretended to take various conspiracy theories, including the involvement of former President Johnson, seriously. He concluded his review describing it as a work "in a long tradition of arrant nonsense" and "a book to shun". Joseph C. Goulden of The Washington Times described it as a "true mess of a book" and dismissed Hunt's allegations against Johnson as "fantasy".{{cite news|last=Goulden|first=Joseph C.|title=E. Howard Hunt's 'memoir' and its glitches|url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/apr/07/20070407-095756-2489r/print/|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=The Washington Times|date=April 7, 2007|location=Washington, D.C.|archive-date=December 24, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224102939/http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/apr/07/20070407-095756-2489r/print/|url-status=live}} Goulden summarized his review: "I wish now that I had not read this pathetic book. Avoid it."

Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, Daniel Schorr said "Hunt tells most of his Watergate venture fairly straight".{{cite news|last=Schorr|first=Daniel|title=Remembering Watergate's field commander|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0216/p09s02-cods.html|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=The Christian Science Monitor|date=February 16, 2007|author-link=Daniel Schorr|archive-date=October 3, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151003003533/http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0216/p09s02-cods.html|url-status=live}} Contrasting this opinion, Politico's James Rosen described the chapters regarding Watergate as the "[m]ost problematic" and wrote: "There are numerous factual errors – misspelled names, wrong dates, phantom participants in meetings, fictitious orders given – and the authors never substantively address, only pause occasionally to demean, the vast scholarly literature that has arisen in the last two decades to explain the central mystery of Watergate."{{cite web|last=Rosen|first=James|title=Howard Hunt's Final Mission|url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2649.html|work=Politico|publisher=Politico|access-date=January 5, 2013|date=February 6, 2007|archive-date=February 6, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206053832/http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2649.html|url-status=live}}

Rosen's review was not entirely negative and he indicated that the book "succeeds in taking readers beyond the caricatures and conspiracy theories to preserve the valuable memory of Hunt as he really was: passionate patriot; committed Cold Warrior; a lover of fine food, wine and women; incurable intriguer, wicked wit and superb storyteller." Dennis Lythgoe of Deseret News said "[t]he writing style is awkward and often embarrassing", but that "the book as a whole is a fascinating look into the mind of one of the major Watergate figures".{{cite news|last=Lythgoe|first=Dennis|title=Book review: CIA spy tells his side of the Watergate story|url=http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660201922/CIA-spy-tells-his-side-of-the-Watergate-story.html?pg=all|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=Deseret News|date=March 11, 2007|location=Salt Lake City|archive-date=June 3, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603014139/http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660201922/CIA-spy-tells-his-side-of-the-Watergate-story.html?pg=all|url-status=dead}} In National Review, Mark Riebling praised American Spy as "the only autobiography I know of that convincingly conveys what it was like to be an American spy."{{cite news|last=Riebling|first=Mark|title=His Long War|url=http://markriebling.blogs.com/files/american-spy-2.pdf|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=National Review|date=April 30, 2007|author-link=Mark Riebling|page=46|archive-date=February 27, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120227001508/http://markriebling.blogs.com/files/american-spy-2.pdf|url-status=live}}

The Boston Globe writer Martin Nolan called it "admirable and important" and said that Hunt "presents a livelier, tabloid version of the 1970s".{{cite news|last=Nolan|first=Martin|title=Secret service How the machinations of two unlikely allies defined – and deformed – an era|url=http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/05/06/secret_service/?page=full|access-date=January 5, 2013|newspaper=The Boston Globe|date=May 6, 2007|author-link=Martin Nolan (journalist)|location=Boston|archive-date=June 3, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603021623/http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/05/06/secret_service/?page=full|url-status=live}} According to Nolan: "It is the best moment-by-moment depiction of the June 17, 1972, burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters I have ever read."

Canadian journalist David Giammarco interviewed Hunt for the December 2000 issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine.[http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,1086,00.html Cigar Aficionado] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060902002344/http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,1086,00.html |date=September 2, 2006 }}, November/December 2000 Hunt later wrote the foreword to Giammarco's book For Your Eyes Only: Behind the Scenes of the James Bond Films (ECW Press, 2002).

Hunt was portrayed by Ed Harris in the 1995 biopic Nixon. In the 2019 film The Irishman, Hunt is portrayed by stage actor Daniel Jenkins. In the 2022 series Gaslit, Hunt is portrayed by J. C. MacKenzie.{{cite web|url=https://collider.com/gaslit-cast-and-character-guide-julia-roberts-sean-penn/|last=Schriesheim|first=Rebecca|date=April 26, 2022|website=Collider|publisher=Valnet, Inc.|title='Gaslit' Cast and Character Guide: Who's Playing Who in the Starz Thriller Series?|access-date=May 2, 2022|archive-date=May 2, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220502233352/https://collider.com/gaslit-cast-and-character-guide-julia-roberts-sean-penn/|url-status=live}} In the 2023 HBO miniseries White House Plumbers, Hunt is played by Woody Harrelson.{{cite web| url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-watergate-show-white-house-plumbers-trailer-hbo-1235278797/| title=Woody Harrelson, Justin Theroux in Watergate Show White House Plumbers| website=The Hollywood Reporter| date=December 9, 2022| access-date=December 10, 2022| archive-date=December 10, 2022| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221210075226/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-watergate-show-white-house-plumbers-trailer-hbo-1235278797/| url-status=live}}

A fictionalized account of Hunt's role in the Bay of Pigs operation appears in Norman Mailer's 1991 novel Harlot's Ghost.

On the television series The X-Files, the antagonist known as Cigarette Smoking Man (portrayed by William B. Davis) was a shadowy intelligence operative partly modeled on Hunt.Richard A. Hall (2020). The American Villain: Encyclopedia of Bad Guys in Comics, Film, and Television. Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 9798216047506 The episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", fleshed out the character's backstory as unsuccessful author of mystery/suspense fiction in his spare time. When meeting Lee Harvey Oswald, prior to the JFK assassination, he goes by the alias 'Mr. Hunt.'{{cite web | url=https://cleigh6.tripod.com/CTP/CTP-musingsofcsm.html | title=Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man | access-date=June 15, 2022 | archive-date=October 7, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221007193753/https://cleigh6.tripod.com/CTP/CTP-musingsofcsm.html | url-status=live }}

Hunt's first wife, Dorothy Louise (née Wetzel) Day Goutiere, was born on April 1, 1920, in Dayton, Ohio.{{cite book |last1=Hunt |first1=Saint John |title=Dorothy, "an Amoral and Dangerous Woman": The Murder of E. Howard Hunt's Wife : Watergate's Darkest Secret |date=2015 |publisher=Trine Day |isbn=978-1-63424-037-6 |language=en}} Wetzel was a CIA employee in Shanghai, and later served as secretary{{cite book |last1=Behrman |first1=Greg |title=The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When America Helped Save Europe |date=August 7, 2007 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4165-4591-0 |page=196 |language=en}} to W. Averell Harriman in Paris during the Marshall Plan. Hunt and Wetzel had four children, including two daughters, Lisa and Kevan, and two sons, St. John and David.{{cite book |last1=Hunt |first1=Saint John |title=Bond of Secrecy: My Life with CIA Spy and Watergate Conspirator E. Howard Hunt |date=January 1, 2013 |publisher=Trine Day |isbn=978-1-936296-84-2 |language=en}}

Dorothy Hunt was killed in the December 8, 1972,{{cite web |title=6 - Rabbit Holes - Transcript |url=https://slate.com/transcripts/ZXZKTnZYckpIV1dnMXg1dnFuQnhyMHI3L2xGOTM4TXpZb0F6ZnByekZvUT0= |website=SLOW BURN: WATERGATE |publisher=Slate |access-date=May 23, 2023 |language=en |archive-date=October 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231013190919/https://slate.com/transcripts/ZXZKTnZYckpIV1dnMXg1dnFuQnhyMHI3L2xGOTM4TXpZb0F6ZnByekZvUT0= |url-status=live }} crash of United Airlines Flight 553 in Chicago. Congress, the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the crash, and concluded that the crash was caused by accidental crew error.[http://amelia.db.erau.edu/reports/ntsb/aar/AAR73-16.pdf NTSB report] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070620171338/http://amelia.db.erau.edu/reports/ntsb/aar/AAR73-16.pdf|date=June 20, 2007}}

Some sources have suggested and stated that "much more than"{{cite news |last1=Oglesby |first1=Cari |title=Crash Of Flight 553 Watergate Paymistress Murdered Or Who Killed Dorothy Hunt {{!}} Ann Arbor District Library |url=https://aadl.org/node/195839 |access-date=May 23, 2023 |work=Ann Arbor Sun |agency=Boston Phoenix |publisher=Ann Arbor District Library |date=August 8, 1973 |location=Ann Arbor |archive-date=May 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530043712/https://aadl.org/node/195839 |url-status=live }} $10,000 in cash was found in Dorothy Hunt's handbag in the wreckage.{{Cite web|url=https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/lt/date/2005-12-09/segment/03|title=Deadly Plane Skid in Chicago; New Jersey Snow Storm; Hostages In Iraq; Holiday Shipping Tips - 10:00 ET|date=December 9, 2005|website=Transcripts.CNN.com|access-date=January 24, 2022|archive-date=January 24, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124235210/https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/lt/date/2005-12-09/segment/03|url-status=live}}

Hunt later married teacher Laura Martin, with whom he raised two more children, Austin and Hollis. Following his release from prison, he and Laura moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, where they lived for five years before returning to the United States, where they settled in Miami.{{cite book |last=Hunt|first=E. Howard|date=2007|title=American Spy – My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate & Beyond|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc.|page=320|isbn=978-0-471-78982-6}}

File:EHowardHuntGraveMarker.jpg]]

On January 23, 2007, Hunt died of pneumonia in Miami, at age 88.Cornwell, Rupert (January 25, 2007). [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2183811.ece E. Howard Hunt obituary.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070524115830/http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2183811.ece |date=May 24, 2007 }} The Independent He is buried in Prospect Lawn Cemetery in his hometown of Hamburg, New York.{{cite web|title=History Of Prospect Lawn Cemetery|url=http://www.prospectlawncemetery.com/about-us.html|publisher=Prospect Lawn Cemetery|access-date=January 2, 2013|author=Prospect Lawn Cemetery|location=Hamburg, New York|archive-date=December 15, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215071309/http://www.prospectlawncemetery.com/about-us.html|url-status=dead}}{{cite news |title=E. Howard Hunt, Watergate Organizer, Dies |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e-howard-hunt-watergate-organizer-dies/ |access-date=May 23, 2023 |work=CBS News |date=January 23, 2007 |archive-date=June 14, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240614202617/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e-howard-hunt-watergate-organizer-dies/ |url-status=live }}

• Give Us This Day: The Inside Story of the CIA and the Bay of Pigs Invasion, by One of Its Key Organizers. New Rochelle: Arlington House (1973)
• Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent (1974). New York: Berkeley Publishing Corporation
• American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond (2007), with Greg Aunapu. Foreword by William F. Buckley, Jr. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons

• Foreword to For Your Eyes Only: Behind the Scenes of the James Bond Films, by David Giammarco (2002)

• East of Farewell (1942)
• Limit of Darkness (1944)
• Stranger in Town (1947)
• Calculated Risk: A Play (as Howard Hunt) (1948)
• Maelstrom (as Howard Hunt). (1948)
• Bimini Run (1949)
• The Violent Ones (1950)
• The Berlin Ending: A Novel of Discovery (1973)
• Hargrave Deception / E. Howard Hunt (1980)
• Gaza Intercept / E. Howard Hunt (1981)
• Cozumel / E. Howard Hunt (1985)
• Kremlin Conspiracy / E. Howard Hunt (1985)
• Guadalajara / E. Howard Hunt (1990)
• Murder in State / E. Howard Hunt (1990)
• Body Count / E. Howard Hunt (1992)
• Chinese Red / by E. Howard Hunt (1992)
• Mazatlán / E. Howard Hunt (1993) (lists former pseudonym P. S. Donoghue on cover)
• Ixtapa / E. Howard Hunt (1994)
• Islamorada / E. Howard Hunt (1995)
• Paris Edge / E. Howard Hunt (1995)
• Izmir / E. Howard Hunt (1996)
• Dragon Teeth: A Novel / by E. Howard Hunt (1997)
• Guilty Knowledge / E. Howard Hunt (1999)
• Sonora / E. Howard Hunt (2000)

• Cheat (1954)
• One for the Road (1954)
• Be My Victim (1956)
• Murder on the rocks: an original novel (1957)
• House on Q Street (1959)
• Murder on Her Mind (1960)
• End of a Stripper (1960)
• Mistress to Murder (1960)
• Calypso Caper (1961)
• Angel Eyes (1961)
• Curtains for a Lover (1962)
• My Body (1962)

• Dublin Affair (1988)
• Sarkov Confession: a novel (1989)
• Evil Time (1992)

• Festival for Spies
• The Towers of Silence
• Return from Vorkuta (1965)
• The Venus Probe (1966)
• On Hazardous Duty (1966)
• One of Our Agents is Missing (1967)
• Mongol Mask (1968)
• Sorcerers (1969)
• Diabolus (1971)
• Coven (1972)

• I Came to Kill (1953)
• House Dick (1961)
• Counterfeit Kill (1963)
• Ring Around Rosy (1964)
• Where Murder Waits (1965)

• A Foreign Affair. New York: Avon (1954)
• Unfaithful. New York: Avon (1955)

• {{cite book |last1=Morley |first1=Jefferson |title=Scorpions' Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate |date=2022 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1250275837}}
• Szulc, Tad (1973). Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt. New York: Viking Press. {{ISBN|978-0670235469}}.
• Staff writer (May 20, 1974). "The Spy Whom Nixon Feared." People Weekly.{{cite web |title=People Weekly, May 20, 1974, E. Howard Hunt, The Spy Whom Nixon Feared |url=https://www.ebay.com/itm/163181389685 |website=eBay |access-date=May 23, 2023 |archive-date=May 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523152120/https://www.ebay.com/itm/163181389685 |url-status=live }}

{{Portal|Biography}}

• G. Gordon Liddy
• James W. McCord
• All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{IMDb name|0402431}}
• E. Howard Hunt collection in the Harold Weisberg Archive at Internet Archive
• [https://vault.fbi.gov/everette-hunt Everette Hunt records] at FBI Records: The Vault
• [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2004/10/scavenger_hunt.html Interview] with Slate
• [http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2649.html "Howard Hunt's Final Mission."] Review of American Spy by James Rosen in [http://www.politico.com/ The Politico] (February 7, 2007)
• [http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/V%20Disk/Vidal%20Gore/Item%2001.pdf "The Art and Arts of E. Howard Hunt."] 1973 review by Gore Vidal in The New York Review of Books
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/books/review/Donadio.t.html "Literary Agent."] Review essay by Rachel Donadio in the New York Times Sunday Book Review (February 18, 2007)
• [http://www.mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=44 Obituary and bibliography of Hunt's novels]
• [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/contents.htm Deposition for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1978).] Released in 1996.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, E. Howard}}

Category:1918 births

Category:2007 deaths

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:American anti-communists

Category:American male novelists

Category:American people convicted of burglary

Category:American spies

Category:American spy fiction writers

Category:Brown University alumni

Category:CIA agents convicted of crimes

Category:Cold War spies

Category:Florida Republicans

Category:Members of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President

Category:Military personnel from New York (state)

Category:People associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy

Category:People convicted in the Watergate scandal

Category:People from Hamburg, New York

Category:People of the Office of Strategic Services

Category:United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II

Category:United States Army Air Forces soldiers

Category:Watergate Seven

Category:Writers from Buffalo, New York

Category:World War II spies for the United States