In The Spirit of Physical Science and Current Events...Meet E. Howard Hunt

E. HOWARD HUNT WITH THE GREATEST REMINDER
If you are all done clipping coupons for the weekend and have gotten over the firing of Tony Franklin, give yourselves a few moments of sundown time because here is something to think about.

The short story I’m about to share with you has probably been touched upon by the New York Times, the nation newspaper in Nigeria and The Sun newspaper in the United Kingdom. It has probably been thrown around by several major news conglomerates around the world for a little while and is currently struggling to find its’ place in the international collective consciousness. So if you have a moment to tear yourself away from trying to solve supernatural mysteries in the Bermuda Triangle and can wait until tomorrow to answer that trivia question about the most visited city in the world, you should probably pay close attention to the next few words.

A few years ago there was a blockbuster series of films produced based upon the celebrated television series Mission Impossible. The films were pretty good. I think I may have seen them. The name of the lead character played by Tom Cruise was Ethan Hunt. He had a comprehensive understanding of all things related to the secret organization that he worked for. In the event that anything ever happened to him, his employers maintained complete deniability by separating themselves from everything he did. He did a lot of bad things. He knew a lot of bad things. Therefore, if anything horrible ever happened to him or if he got caught doing something horrible his employers could make like Ethan didn’t even exist. If you saw the movies, you probably know all this already.

What you may not know however is that Hunt’s character is loosely based on a real person, E. Howard Hunt. Much like the fictional character, Mr. Hunt worked for a government agency, the CIA. He was involved in a number of highly covert operations that on occasion did not go as planned. Some of his work involved some of the most highly publicised intelligence operations in history including the Bay of Pigs and Watergate. His involvement in the latter had him implicated and sent to jail.

Despite unfortunate events leading to his public humiliation, Mr. Hunt was still very good at what he did. If the agency didn’t want to work with him, others still would and did. He was sought out as a consultant. You see, Mr. Hunt had done many things for the Agency. He knew about even more things. He was operating during a time of incredible development in the international community. With development of the magnitude the world was experiencing, there came the creation of secret organizations to maintain the peace and preserve the freedoms that so many had fought and died for.

Throughout the course of his career he was questioned about his involvement in numerous world events. The most highly publicised perhaps was the assassination of President Kennedy. One of The Greatest presidents the country ever had. For years he denied ever having any involvement or knowing anything about a plot to kill the President. The years went by and Hunt stayed silent. As he got older he became ill. He had to urinate into a bag that he would later empty into jars that would sit under his bed. He was almost completely deaf and had lost a leg due to other complications. He believed he was dying. It was time for him to share what was on his mind.

Mr. Hunt chose his son, Saint John, to share his story. He told everything he knew, shocking his adult son into disbelief. The story had names including LBJ, Cord Meyer and Bill Harvey. He spoke about a meeting in Miami with a man named Frank Sturgis about a “big event” where he was asked “are you with us?” When Hunt inquired as to what exactly Sturgis was talking about, Sturgis replied, killing JFK. Hunt claims to have walked out and never had anything to do with it again.

This story is not new. It surfaced last year shortly after Hunt’s death on January 23rd, 2007. Documents and audio tapes of Hunt’s disclosure were circulated by his son and a few articles were written. It is appropriate now to discuss it again seeing as we approach the 45th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination and most of the American public has chosen not to believe the most outlandish explanation of the series of events leading to the man’s death. That being said, the dialogue has disappeared. Most of the key players are long since dead. Hunt is buried with only a murmur resonating of his disclosure. The records exist and people know exactly what happened on that day and yet, it’s not being talked about. The most important question then becomes... why?