Who Killed E. Howard Hunt?

Yesterday, former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt died mysteriously. He was only 88. President Nixon once called Hunt the man who "knows too damn much" and there were certainly many people who wanted to shut him up. Although his family is making the unlikely claim that he died of pneumonia, this is no doubt a cover story they have come up with while investigators track down the conspirators behind his murder. There certainly are a number of unanswered questions about his death, which may never be resolved.

Hunt was involved in some of the most important and sensitive missions ever carried out by the U.S. government and his theory of executive power, which was once controversial, is now accepted as standard operating procedure in the Bush Administration. "I had always assumed, working for the CIA for so many years, that anything the White House wanted done was the law of the land," he told People magazine back in 1974.

Although best known for masterminding the Watergate break-in, Hunt was also involved in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, the Bay of Pigs, the 1954 coup in Guatemala, and, some claim, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His modus operandi was to make each of the missions he was involved with only seem like fiascos, instead of the great accomplishments they actually were, which was why Presidents continually sought out his expertise. During the last years of his life Hunt was ostensibly working on a memoir, which is coming out in March, but there are many aspects of the War in Iraq that seem to have the hallmarks of a Hunt mission. We may subsequently discover that the War in Iraq was his last and greatest mission.

E. Howard Hunt was a real-life Jack Bauer who uncomplainingly did what needed to be done while giving plausible deniability to the Presidents he worked for. In 1954 he helped plan the coup that overthrew Jacobo Arbenz, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, which led to 40 years of military dictatorship, protecting that country from Communism. Although 200,000 people died in the civil war that followed, Hunt was always proud of the fact that he was able to save Arbenz from assassination, just one of the many humanitarian acts he performed. Asked to comment by Slate in 2004 on the other 200,000 people he was not able to save, Hunt said "Deaths? What deaths?"

In 1961 he helped plan the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which did not go quite as well. Although it did not succeed in its goal of toppling Fidel Castro immediately, it did destabilize his regime, and the effects of the invasion are slowly but surely beginning to come to fruition. If Castro's government does fall in the next few years, as many predict, we can thank Hunt for the work he did in helping set Castro's fall in motion.

Hunt was always bitter that President Kennedy got cold feet at the last moment and pulled out his support for the Bay of Pigs invasion. This has led some to speculate that Hunt may have been involved in the Kennedy's assassination. Although Hunt modestly claimed he was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the assassination, some believe that he was actually one of the men photographed on the Grassy Knoll or was one of the "tramps" arrested after the assassination, along with Charles Harrelson, actor Woody Harrelson's father, and Frank Sturgis. When asked if he was involved in the assassination by Slate in the 2004 interview, he coyly said, "No comment." In his new book he claims that Lyndon Johnson was actually behind the assassination, but Hunt was a man who often shied away from taking credit for his deeds.

In 1970 Hunt left the CIA but that did not end his service to our country. Hunt brought the skills he had learned in overseas missions to the homefront. As a member of President Nixon's "Plumbers" he helped neutralize dissent that was damaging the war effort in Vietnam. To get dirt on Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, Hunt broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. When antiwar candidate George McGovern threatened to take over the country by manipulating the electorate to vote for him, Hunt masterminded the Watergate break-in to find information that would expose McGovern as a Communist mole.

Unfortunately, back in the pre-9/11 era of the early 1970s spying on American citizens was frowned upon. Like 24's Jack Bauer, Hunt was used as a scapegoat by the politicians he served and never got the appreciation he deserved. For his service to our country, Hunt spent 33 months in jail. In 1972 his wife was killed in a mysterious plane crash. She was carrying $10,000 in cash in her handbag. The official investigation blamed "pilot error" although many believe that Hunt was being sent a message.

Just as we may never get to the bottom of the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, we may never learn who killed E. Howard Hunt. Hunt had many enemies and it is a testament to his survival skills that he was able to stay alive as long as he did. President Bush should use all the means at his disposal to investigate Hunt's mysterious death -- breaking into psychiatrist's offices, planting bugs, destabilizing governments that may have been involved in the conspiracy to assassinate him, rounding up suspects and subjecting them to harsh interrogations -- methods that Hunt himself pioneered. There would be no greater tribute to Hunt than to use the tools he helped develop to break the conspiracy against him.

I don't know who had Hunt killed, but I do know that his enemies are America's enemies. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the announcement of his death was just a clever ruse to give President Bush an excuse to expose our enemies. It may turn out that Hunt is not really dead at all but has in fact gone into deeper cover.

Update: Howard Hunt's son, David Hunt, responds: Mr. Swift, As intriguing and romantic as an assassination plot to kill Howard Hunt would be ... I can assure you he died of old age and the complications of pneumonia. I was with him until his death and would never allow anything to happen to my father. He had an incredible life and above and beyond anything he was a true patriot. His loyalty to the president cost him everything dear to him. God Bless. David Hunt

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Jon Swift, E Howard Hunt, CIA, Kennedy, Bush, Cuba, Nixon, Watergate, Castro, Iraq, Vietnam, Politics, Foreign Policy