E. Howard Hunt Dies Weeks Before Release of Memoir

According to a press release today from Wiley, Legendary CIA operative and prolific author E. Howard Hunt died yesterday in Florida at the age of 88, just weeks before the publication of his tell-all memoir American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate & Beyond (Wiley, March 2, 2007, $25.95/Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-471-78982-6).

Here’s more from the Wiley press release:

Co-author Greg Aunapu said, “Howard was funny, acerbic, big hearted, compassionate, and deeply loyal to his friends and family. Working with this fascinating icon of the Cold War gave me a much greater respect and understanding for the fears our elders lived by, which still resonate in today’s national and global politics. His passing will be a great loss to all of his friends and family.”

Kitt Allan, Vice President and Publisher of Hunt’s book, said, “E. Howard Hunt played a pivotal and controversial role in our nation’s history. His account of his life and work in American Spy is an important part of the historical record, and is crucial to ongoing discussions about and analysis of seminal events of the 20th century — such as the assassination of JFK, and Watergate.”

His Editor, Stephen S. Power, said, “For decades Hunt served our country well, and that is how he should be remembered: as an honorable man whose patriotism was misused and whose sense of duty to his president was abused. It was a privilege to work with him.”

In American Spy, Hunt reveals details on many dramatic and historical events including how he orchestrated a successful 1954 coup in Guatemala as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, worked with the White House Special Investigations, masterminded the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in 1971, and, with G. Gordon Liddy, organized the break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters in 1972, for which he was ultimately convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping and served 33 months in prison. American Spy addresses the conspiracy theories that pin Hunt to JFK’s assassination and speaks openly about the rumors surrounding his first wife’s death, as well as his unique perspective on the CIA, its influence on modern politics, and how the agency must now reshape itself to regain its edge and help win the war on terrorism.

There are few people whose pasts are as central and relevant to the past 50 years of our country’s history as Hunt’s — and he leaves his story in American Spy.

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