Watergate plotter Howard Hunt dies, aged 88

HOWARD HUNT, who helped organise the Watergate break-in that led to the greatest scandal in American political history and the downfall of Richard Nixon’s presidency, has died.

Thu, 25 Jan, 2007 - 00:00

Hunt, 88, died on Tuesday after a lengthy bout of pneumonia, according to his son Austin.

The elder Hunt was many things: Second World War soldier, CIA officer, organiser of both a Guatemalan coup and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, and author of more than 80 books, many from the spy-tale genre.

Yet the bulk of his notoriety came from the one thing he always insisted he was not — a Watergate burglar. He often said he preferred the term “Watergate conspirator”.

“I will always be called a Watergate burglar, even though I was never in the damn place,” Hunt told The Miami Herald in 1997. “But it happened. Now I have to make the best of it.”

While working for the CIA, Hunt recruited four of the five actual burglars, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Rolando Eugenio Martinez and Frank Sturgis, all of whom had worked for Hunt a decade earlier in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

All four also had ties to Miami, where part of the Watergate plan was hatched. He said the burglary’s aim was to see whether Fidel Castro’s Cuban regime had given money to the campaign of Nixon’s Democratic opponent, George McGovern.

The idea was wrong. The fallout escalated into a huge political scandal. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.

Twenty-five men were sent to prison for their involvement in the botched plan, and a new era of scepticism towards government began.

The Hunt recruits and James McCord, security director for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, were arrested June 17, 1972, at the Watergate office building. One of the burglars had Hunt’s phone number.

Hunt and fellow operative Gordon Liddy, along with the five arrested at Watergate, were indicted on federal charges three months later. Hunt and his recruits pleaded guilty in January 1973, and McCord and Liddy were found guilty.

Hunt eventually spent 33 months in prison.