Robert Hunt

E. Howard Hunt Jr. served as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer from 1949 to 1970, playing a significant role in U.S. foreign policy actions, including the 1954 Guatemalan coup and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was also a member of the Nixon administration's "White House Plumbers," a unit tasked with investigating government leaks.

Hunt was convicted for his involvement in the Watergate burglaries and served time in prison. Following his release, he continued to write, producing numerous books. His career and activities have been the subject of considerable public interest and speculation, including theories related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Born in Hamburg, New York, E. Howard Hunt Jr. was the son of an attorney and Republican official. He graduated from Hamburg High School in 1936 and went on to study at Brown University, an Ivy League institution, where he completed his degree in 1940. During World War II, Hunt served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Mayo and also in the U.S. Army Air Corps. His military service extended to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in China, the organization that preceded the CIA.

Hunt joined the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1949, working in the Office of Policy Coordination. He held significant positions, including Station Chief in Mexico City, where he supervised William F. Buckley Jr. and was involved in operations that contributed to the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz. He later served in Japan and Uruguay. Hunt was instrumental in organizing Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a mission he later expressed bitterness over due to perceived lack of commitment from the Kennedy administration. He also led the CIA's Domestic Operations Division and worked on projects involving manipulation of media organizations.

Hunt became a key figure in the Nixon administration's "White House Plumbers," a group formed to stop government leaks. He and G. Gordon Liddy were central to planning the Watergate burglaries and other covert actions. For his role in the Watergate scandal, Hunt was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping, resulting in a 33-month prison sentence. After his release, he lived in Mexico and Miami until his death in 2007. Hunt's life and actions have been the subject of persistent conspiracy theories, particularly concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

E. Howard Hunt was a prolific writer, publishing 73 books during his lifetime. He authored novels under his own name, such as "East of Farewell" and "Limit of Darkness," and also used various pseudonyms, including Robert Dietrich and Gordon Davis, for spy and hardboiled fiction. His writing often reflected parallels with his experiences in espionage and the Watergate scandal. After his release from prison, he continued to write, publishing nearly twenty spy thrillers between 1980 and 2000. In 1946, his literary talent was recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship.

“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.”

“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.”