E. Howard Hunt
E. Howard Hunt was an American intelligence officer and novelist, born on October 9, 1918, in East Hamburg, New York. He served in the U.S. Navy and the Office of Strategic Services during World War II before joining the CIA in 1949, where he played a significant role in various covert operations, including the 1954 coup in Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. After leaving the CIA in 1970, Hunt became involved in political activities, notably as a member of President Nixon's Plumbers unit, which sought to prevent leaks of sensitive information. His involvement in the Watergate scandal, where he and G. Gordon Liddy planned a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, led to his conviction and imprisonment for conspiracy and burglary.
Hunt's notoriety was further complicated by allegations linking him to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with some suggesting he was present in Dealey Plaza at the time of the shooting. Throughout his life, he authored numerous spy thrillers, blending fact and fiction while navigating the complexities of his past. The Watergate incident had lasting repercussions on American politics, eroding public trust in government and prompting significant reforms. Despite his controversial legacy, Hunt remained a public figure, engaging with media and maintaining a presence in the literary world.
E. Howard Hunt
American CIA operative (1949-1970) and consultant to the Nixon White House
- Born: October 9, 1918
- Birthplace: East Hamburg, New York
- Died: January 23, 2007
- Place of death: Miami, Florida
Also known as: Edward Howard Hunt (full name); John Baxter; Gordon Davis; Robert Dietrich
Major offenses: Burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping
Date: 1949-1974
Locale: Latin America and Washington, D.C.
Sentence: Thirty-three months in prison
Early Life
Edward Howard Hunt (huhnt) was born in East Hamburg, New York, on October 9, 1918. He graduated from Brown University in 1940 with a degree in English literature and then joined the Naval Reserve. During World War II, Hunt served in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Air Force, and the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In 1949, he joined the CIA and, while stationed in China, met and married Dorothy Hunt. He remained in the CIA from 1949 to 1970. He began writing fictional books in 1942 and continued to do so throughout his life.
Espionage and Administrative Career
As a CIA operative, Hunt initially served in China and then in Latin America, blazing the trail of CIA involvement there. In 1949, he established the first postwar CIA station in Mexico City. During this period, the U.S. government feared communist influence on Latin American politics and the possible takeover of Latin American nations. CIA missions against communist-influenced governments, even when democratically elected, were therefore considered justified. Hunt was the architect of the 1954 U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala, which deposed President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. He was also a major participant in the 1961 Bay of Pigs operation—the failed attempt to overthrow Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. This episode is regarded as one of the biggest disasters in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
Hunt retired from the CIA in 1970 and joined a Washingtonpublic relations firm. A year later, he accepted a part-time consultancy in the Nixon White House. He became a member of President Richard Nixon’s Plumbers group, a special investigations unit so called because it was established to stop leaks of information from the administration to the media. Hunt also was one of the White House operatives who broke into the office of the psychiatrist who was treating Daniel Ellsberg. The Nixon administration wanted to find material with which Ellsberg could be discredited, because he had given the Pentagon Papers—a classified government study of the origins of the war in Vietnam—to The New York Times. The Pentagon Papers revealed that the U.S. government understood early in the war that it was probably unwinnable and that continuing the war would likely lead to exponentially more casualties than were being admitted publicly.
Hunt secured his notoriety, however, on June 17, 1972, when five men broke into the Democratic Party’s National Committee office at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The men were discovered in the office and arrested for breaking in. While Hunt was not one of the five men arrested, he and G. Gordon Liddy were the architects of the plan.
Legal Action and Outcome
Hunt was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping and served thirty-three months in prison. The Rockefeller Commission of the U.S. Congress in 1974 regarded Hunt and Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis as suspects in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Witnesses placed Hunt in Dealey Plaza at the time that Kennedy was killed nearby. Attorney Mark Lane’s theory about Hunt’s and the CIA’s role in Kennedy’s murder can be found in the 1991 book Plausible Denial.
Impact
The Watergate scandal led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, contributed to changes in campaign finance reform, and was a major factor in the passage of amendments to the Freedom of Information Act in 1986. The U.S. presidency would never again engage the automatic trust and respect it had enjoyed earlier in the century. Moreover, Watergate led to the news media becoming far more aggressive in reporting and investigating the activities of politicians. The scandal also resulted in a substantial loss of confidence of the public in political leaders and government agencies.
The criminal and subversive activities of E. Howard Hunt and others like him also contributed to the scaling back of the CIA’s prerogatives following hearings by the Church Committee in 1976.
Throughout his career as a soldier and spy, Hunt remained a prolific author of spy thrillers. His novels mix fact and fiction, with details altered, locations blurred, and identities changed so that they cannot be recognized. The books he wrote while working for the CIA always had to be submitted to his superiors for approval. In his later years, he continued to enjoy fame tinged with notoriety, occasionally appearing as a guest on television shows and maintaining his own Web site.
Bibliography
Blight, James, and Peter Kornbluh. Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998. Blends declassified documents and firsthand accounts of participants into an interesting and updated analysis of the Bay of Pigs disaster.
Cullather, Nick. Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. Describes the involvement of the CIA and Hunt in overthrowing the Guatemalan government of Arbenz, despite its being democratically elected.
Olson, Keith. Watergate: The Presidential Scandal That Shook America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Olson calls his book a “layman’s guide to Watergate,” and as such, it provides a complete and readable analysis of the scandal and its aftermath.
Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. All the President’s Men. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974. The definitive book on the Watergate scandal by the Washington Post reporters who investigated and broke the story. In addition to crucial information on the scandal itself, this book is also an invaluable look into the process of investigative journalism.