The man who planned the Watergate break-in that eventually brought down President Richard Nixon sought a presidential pardon by saying he thought the infamous burglary had “executive authorization,” according to FBI documents released two years after his death. He died without getting a pardon.
The FBI released 167 pages of E. Howard Hunt’s files following a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. Wednesday marks 37 years since police caught the burglars in the Washington break-in. The case ultimately made Hunt a household name and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Despite working as a CIA agent for more than two decades and his role in Watergate, Hunt’s file is remarkably thin. As a CIA agent Hunt was involved in a U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 and the botched Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. He worked in China, Mexico, Japan and Spain, among other places.
But he became best known after he retired from the CIA. He became a consultant for the White House and one of the so-called White House “plumbers,” a group that was set up to help stop government information leaks.
Working for the White House he helped plan the break-in to bug the office of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building in Washington. It was Hunt who orchestrated the burglary: scouting the building with conspirator and former CIA agent James McCord, recruiting the burglars and strategizing how the men would enter the complex.
The burglars were caught, and the ensuing scandal helped lead to Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
Hunt pleaded guilty to his involvement in the break-in — the burglars had Hunt’s telephone number in address books — and served 33 months in prison. He later moved to Miami, where he lived and wrote spy novels until his death in 2007 at the age of 88.
The FBI said it could not release approximately 100 pages of Hunt’s file because they are property of the National Archives. What was released, however, details three points in Hunt’s life. The earliest files are approximately 30 pages of FBI background checks from 1948 and 1949, before Hunt joined the CIA. Also included are another approximately 30 pages of background checks from 1971 when the White House hired him as a consultant — the position that led to his involvement in Watergate.
Many of the interviews the FBI conducted in 1971 end similarly: that the person recommends Hunt “for a position of trust and confidence” in the government. The FBI file notes his only police record at the time was a $15 traffic violation in 1969. In his White House role, however, Hunt would help plan not just Watergate but a burglary at the office of the psychiatrist treating Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon study of the Vietnam War.
The vast majority of the FBI file, however, relates to Hunt’s request for a presidential pardon from President Ronald Reagan in 1981. That request came seven years after President Gerald Ford’s controversial 1974 pardon of Nixon just a month after Nixon resigned. The 100 pages of documents include a set of fingerprints, character references, FBI interviews with acquaintances and Hunt’s 5-page, 11-question pardon application.
Responding to the form’s question No. 5, which asks for a description of the crime he had committed, Hunt wrote, “My involvement in the June 17, 1972 episode was this: Acting on what I believed to be executive authorization delegated to the then Attorney General, I helped organize an entry team of four men to enter the office of the Democratic National Committee and photograph its financial ledgers. Purpose: search for illegal foreign contributions.”
Responding to question No. 8, asking if he had ever been arrested or charged with any other crime, he wrote “Nothing other than Watergate.” As for why he should be pardoned, Hunt cited his age, 63, service to the country and testimony against former Attorney General John Mitchell and Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman.
He told an FBI interviewer that he wanted the pardon in part “to clear his name for his children.” That sentiment was repeated by many of the approximately 20 people who knew Hunt and were interviewed by the FBI. They ranged from his neighbors to CIA colleagues like National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. and even his high school music teacher, who called him a musically talented trumpet player and singer.
Hunt’s pardon request was one of approximately 2,000 Reagan got during his eight years in office. He pardoned 393 people and denied 969.
