E. Howard Hunt – 1918-2007

Hunt had been an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative during World War II and was a CIA agent after the war. He was instrumental in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, the abortive attempt to overthrow Cuba’s Fidel Castro in 1961. In the Nixon White House, Hunt, with G. Gordon Liddy, was one of the socalled Plumbers, a secret and illegal band of operatives whose job was to plug information leaks and secure political intelligence for the Nixon administration. He and Liddy planned the burglary of Democratic National Headquarters at Washington’s Watergate office complex in 1972, the exposure of which led to the downfall and resignation of the president. Convicted of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping, Hunt served 33 months in prison. A colorful character—a prolific author of pulp spy novels—Hunt was also sinister, deemed by the Rockefeller Commission of the U.S. Congress in 1974 a suspect in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.