E. Howard Hunt claims in deathbed confession LBJ ordered hit on JFK
Listen to this articleE. Howard Hunt’s son, Saint John Hunt, released an audio of his father’s deathbed confession taken over a series of father-son meetings in 2007, but the mainstream press all but ignored it. Hunt said the hit was given the code name – “The Big Event.” The only major print media to cover the confession was Rolling Stone.
Near the end of Hunt’s life he made several allegations about the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In an audio recording, Hunt claimed several people were involved in a conspiracy to kill JFK. He said Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the assassination and assigned Cord Meyer to carry out the plan. Meyer recruited David Phillips, Frank Sturgis, David Morales, William Harvey, a French gunman, and Lucien Sarti, who worked for the Mafia.
Hunt’s deathbed confession has been discredited because the convicted Watergate felon has a history of stretching the truth, including forging documents in the National Archives blaming JFK for the Diem assassination. His son now has even suggested his father lied when he claimed he was in Washington, D.C., at home at the time of the assassination. His son insists his father was in Dallas, which makes it even more difficult to figure out when Hunt is telling the truth. Hunt and Sturgis were once suspects in the assassination, but ruled out by the Warren Commission. However, to this day some believe they were the two men on the Grassy Knoll.
The two men also were linked in the Watergate scandal.
- Police arrested Sturgis with four other men at the Democratic party headquarters on the sixth floor of Watergate in 1972. The men wore rubber surgical gloves, and carried extensive photographic equipment and electronic surveillance devices. He was also linked to the Miami Cuban exile community where he was involved in “adventures” relating to Cuba which he felt were organized and financed by the CIA.
- Police arrested Hunt, a former White House aide, as one of the “plumbers” during the Watergate scandal. He was directly linked to Sturgis and the other four men that broke into Watergate. He was charged with burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping. He served 33 months. Hunt, a former CIA operative, served from 1949-1970. He died on January 23, 2007, in Miami of pneumonia.
But Hunt’s LBJ allegation is what appears to throw this particular confession into one big lie.
For example, Watergate figure H.R. Haldeman’s said Nixon asked Johnson during Watergate to “call off your dogs, or I’ll tell about how you tapped my phone in ’68 during the election.”
Johnson replied, “If you tell that, I’ll tell …”
We don’t know what that was about because it was censored. But the best guess appears that it would be about the JFK assassination. Why, then would Johnson expose information on JFK, if he was involved? That makes no sense.
But nevertheless Hunt has provided some nibbles of truth by turning over some names as perhaps bait for readers to buy the whole story he was selling to his son. He claims in his confession that he was merely a “benchwarmer” not truly a participant. That comes hard to swallow because Hunt was hardly a benchwarmer throughout his career.
Nevertheless, the confession detailed the following key participants in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 –1973): LBJ, directed the CIA-led hit team, and helped guide the Warren Commission/lone gunman cover-up.
- Cord Meyer (1920 – 2001): a CIA agent, architect of the Operation Mockingbird disinformation apparatus. He was married to Mary Meyer who reportedly had a relationship with JFK.
- David Atlee Philips (1922 – 1988): a CIA and Bay of Pigs operative who recruited fellow CIA operative William Harvey and Cuban exile militant Antonio Veciana.
- William Harvey (1915-1976): a CIA and Bay of Pigs operative, who was linked to Mafia figures Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana.
- Antonio Veciana (Cuba born): a Cuban exile, and founder of CIA-backed Alpha 66, told Esquire magazine that he has some “hot stuff” on the JFK case but is holding it for “life insurance.”
- Frank Sturgis (1924-1993): a CIA operative, mercenary, Bay of Pigs operative, and later Watergate figure.
- David Morales (1925-1978): a CIA hit man, Bay of Pigs operative.
- Lucien Sarti (1931-1972):, Corsican assassin and drug trafficker, who may have been the “French gunman,” on the Grassy Knoll.
Timothy W. Maier is the founder of Baltimore Post-Examiner LLC, which runs the Baltimore and Los Angles Post-Examiner websites. He started out writing music, fiction and poetry and then turned to news writing where he spent the past three decades at news organizations in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. More recently he was the managing editor at the Baltimore Examiner. He now spends time with his family, dogs, and guitar.