The Confession of E. Howard Hunt

Hunt: "I heard from Frank that LBJ had designated Cord Meyer, Jr. to undertake a larger organization while keeping it totally secret. Cord Meyer himself was a rather favorite member of the Eastern aristocracy. He was a graduate of Yale University and had joined the Marine Corps during the war and lost an eye in the Pacific fighting.

I think that LBJ settled on Meyer as an opportunist (unintelligible) like himself (unintelligible) in a man who had very little left to him in life ever since JFK had taken Cord's wife as one of his mistresses. I would suggest that Cord Meyer welcomed the approach from LBJ who was after all only the Vice President at that time and of course could not number Cord Meyer among JFK's admirers; quite the contrary.

As for Dave Philips, I knew him pretty well at one time. He worked for me during the Guatemala project. He made himself useful to the agency in Santiago, Chile where he was an American businessman. In any case, his actions, whatever they were, came to the attention of the Santiago station chief and when his resume became known to people in the Western Hemisphere division he was brought in to work on Guatemalan operations.

Sturgis and Morales and people of that ilk, stayed in apartment houses during preparations for the big event. Their addresses were very subject to change so that where a fellow like Morales had been one day, you'd not necessarily associated with that address the following day. In short it was a very mobile experience.

Let me point out at this point, that if I wanted to fictionalize of when I'm in Miami and elsewhere during the run up for the big event, I would have done so. But I don't want any unreality to tinge this particular story or the information I should say. I was a benchwarmer on it and I had a reputation for honesty. I think it's essential to refocus on what this information, that I've been providing you and you alone by the way, consists of.

What is important in the story is that we backtrack the chain of command up through Cord Meyer and laying the doings at the doorstep of LBJ. He in my opinion, had an almost maniacal urge to become President. He regarded JFK, as he was in fact, an obstacle to achieving that. He could have waited for JFK to finish out his term and then undoubtedly a second term. So that would have put LBJ at the head of a long list of people who were waiting for some change in the executive branch."