The CIA officer who turned political sabotage into a career of failed espionage

Countries & Cities · Published 10 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: E. Howard Hunt was a central figure in U.S. regime change, from the 1954 Guatemalan coup to the Bay of Pigs. Yet, his legacy is defined by the Watergate scandal, where his penchant for clandestine operations and political dirty tricks ultimately dismantled the very administration he sought to protect.

Everette Howard Hunt Jr. began his career in intelligence with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. By 1949, he joined the CIA, where he specialized in political influence and covert action. His early work included helping to orchestrate the 1954 overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, a mission Hunt described as a deliberate terror campaign. Later, he played a key role in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, a failure that haunted his career and led him to believe he had been permanently stigmatized within the agency.

Following his CIA retirement in 1970, Hunt joined the Nixon administration as a member of the White House Special Investigations Unit, or 'Plumbers.' His mandate was to identify and stop government leaks, but his activities quickly devolved into political sabotage. He orchestrated the 1971 burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, forged State Department cables to implicate President Kennedy in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, and plotted to assassinate journalist Jack Anderson using methods as extreme as poisoning aspirin or staging a fatal car accident.

Hunt's downfall arrived with the 1972 Watergate burglary. His subsequent demands for hush money and presidential clemency entangled top Nixon officials, including Charles Colson and H. R. Haldeman, in a payoff scheme that ultimately exposed the White House cover-up. Convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping, Hunt served 33 months in prison. Despite his life as a prolific author of 73 books and spy thrillers, he remains a polarizing figure, forever linked to the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination and the collapse of the Nixon presidency.

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