RIP EHH

...there's no need to be thinner/ let's all have the lobster dinner/it's down to you and it's up to me/ we gotta get back into the DNC....

My hobby uh, fascination uh, obsession uh, research project specialization reaps occasional unexpected bounties.

For instance, in her drawer of junk jewelry, the White Diamond found a promotional charm bracelet that she brought to me on Opening Night. I treasure and wear it on special occasions.

And Wednesday, the day that E. Howard Hunt, former Plumber, died, my neighbor brought to me a DVD: Oliver Stone's Nixon, starring Anthony Hopkins.

Naturally, my life is so over-scheduled that I haven't watched it yet. But I am hopeful.

For those of you who don't remember who E. Howard Hunt was, and can't be bothered to click on a link, a brief recap:

The Hunt recruits (Villo, Franko, Gino and Macho, no lie -ed.)and James W. McCord Jr., security director for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, were arrested at the Watergate, and one of the burglars was found to have Hunt's White House phone number.

Hunt and fellow operative G. Gordon Liddy, along with the five arrested at the 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 on a conspiracy charge, and said he was bitter that he was sent to jail while Nixon was allowed to resign.

"I felt that in true politician's fashion, he'd assumed a degree of responsibility but not the blame," he told The Associated Press in 1992. "It wasn't my idea to go into the Watergate."

Hunt also was involved in organizing an event that foreshadowed Watergate: the burglary of the office of the Beverly Hills psychiatrist treating Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, published in 1971.

Hunt and Liddy — the so-called White House "plumbers" — broke into the psychiatrist's office to gain information about Ellsberg. The break-in was revealed during the 1973 espionage trial against Ellsberg and co-defendant Anthony Russo, and was one of several incidents that led to the dismissal of the case because of government misconduct.

(And on the flight back to DC bragged to a stewardess- shut up, they were still called stewardesses then- about their big-deal spy-boy antics. -ed.)

Hunt spent his final years in a modest home with his second wife, Laura Martin Hunt, and declined many interview requests from The Associated Press.

He has a memoir coming out next month titled "American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond."

(I'll wait until I see it in the used bookstore to buy it. I have tried- and failed- to read several of EHH's novels. Either not to my taste, or... well. -ed)

Hunt's first wife, the former Dorothy Wetzel Day Goutiere, died in a plane crash in 1972. Besides his wife, Hunt was survived by six children.

So rest in peace, E. Howard Hunt. Beside Nixon, beside Ziegler. Beside Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Mitchell, Ulacewicz, RoseMary, Martha, Pat, and Dorothy. Soon all of you will be dead, and I can write whatever I want. Note this, Woodward. Bernstein. Dean. Mo. LIDDY. You will all someday die, and gods willing, I WON'T.

Not until I've written litigation-worthy lies, half-truths and flat-out facts about all of you.

Mwahahahahaha.





(I Spy, You Spy; Watergate! the Musical, Pomeroy/Brown)