In August 2003, inside a modest home in Miami, Florida, an 85-year-old man lay propped up in bed, weakened by pneumonia and kidney failure, aware that his time was running out. His breathing was labored, his hands unsteady, but his mind was sharp enough to understand that death has a way of stripping fear from secrets. Sitting beside him was his son, watching closely, waiting for an answer he had been denied for most of his life.

The question was simple, but explosive.
“Dad, do you know anything about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?”

For decades, the answer had always been the same. No. He had denied it publicly and privately, under oath and without hesitation. He had testified before the Church Committee and later before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, repeating the same line again and again. He had insisted that he had nothing to do with Kennedy’s death, that he knew nothing about it, and that he had already paid enough for his crimes during Watergate. But now, with death approaching and nothing left to protect, the old man did something no one expected.

He asked for paper and a pen.

Slowly, deliberately, he began to write. Names appeared on the page—men connected to intelligence, covert action, and political violence. At the very top of the list, written clearly in his own hand, were two letters that would haunt American history: LBJ.

The man was E. Howard Hunt—CIA operative, Cold War veteran, Watergate burglar, and one of the most experienced covert action specialists the United States ever produced. And in his final months, he confessed to knowledge of a conspiracy that, if true, redefines the assassination of President Kennedy.

To understand the weight of that confession, one must understand who Hunt was.

Born in 1918, Hunt joined the CIA in 1949 and spent the next 21 years immersed in the darkest corners of American foreign policy. He specialized in regime change, propaganda, psychological warfare, and assassination planning. In 1954, he played a role in the CIA-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s elected president. In 1961, he helped plan the Bay of Pigs invasion. He worked with Cuban exiles, mafia intermediaries, and intelligence officers who treated violence as a policy tool rather than a last resort.

Hunt was not a fringe figure. He was deeply connected. He knew CIA directors, anti-Castro militants, and covert operators who later surfaced repeatedly in investigations into Kennedy’s murder. When he left the CIA in 1970, he didn’t leave the shadows. He joined the Nixon White House and became part of the “Plumbers,” a secret unit designed to silence leaks and destroy political enemies. He forged documents, planned break-ins, and explored methods of sabotage so extreme they bordered on assassination.

Watergate was the operation that finally exposed him. Arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 33 months in prison, Hunt accepted his punishment and afterward insisted that Watergate was his greatest failure. According to his son, that was a lie. Watergate was simply the secret that went wrong. The larger one stayed buried.

For years, researchers had suspected Hunt’s involvement in the JFK assassination. In the 1970s, photos surfaced of three so-called “tramps” arrested near Dealey Plaza shortly after the shooting. Independent investigators claimed two resembled Hunt and his associate Frank Sturgis, another CIA-linked operative and future Watergate burglar. In 1978, allegations reached the courts. Hunt sued a publication for libel and initially won—but on appeal, the verdict was overturned. Witnesses testified that Hunt had been in Dallas on November 22, 1963. A jury ultimately ruled that evidence suggested Hunt’s involvement.

Still, Hunt denied everything—until his deathbed.

As he wrote, Hunt named Lyndon Baines Johnson as the instigator, the man who allegedly ordered the assassination. He listed Cord Meyer, a senior CIA official tied to media manipulation. He named David Atlee Phillips, who handled intelligence operations involving Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. He included Frank Sturgis, David Morales, and William Harvey—men with experience in assassinations, covert warfare, and collaboration with organized crime. He even referenced a foreign gunman positioned on the grassy knoll.

Afterward, a tape arrived in the mail. On it, Hunt’s voice—weak, fading, but consistent—described meetings in Miami, discussions of something called “the big event,” and his own role as a peripheral participant who knew what was coming. He claimed he declined active involvement but admitted awareness of the plan.

The confession split Hunt’s family. His widow and several children argued that Hunt was senile, manipulated by his sons, and exploited for profit. They insisted he had sworn for years that he knew nothing about JFK’s assassination. Major media outlets treated the confession cautiously or ignored it altogether. Skeptics pointed to Hunt’s history as a professional liar.

Yet the confession aligned disturbingly well with decades of circumstantial evidence. Hunt had motive, access, and associations. Witnesses had placed him in Dallas. A federal jury had already found credible evidence of his involvement. Rolling Stone investigated the confession in depth, concluding it could not be dismissed outright.

Then there was Lyndon Johnson’s motive. In late 1963, Johnson faced political ruin—corruption scandals, looming investigations, and removal from the 1964 ticket. Kennedy’s death saved his career overnight. Power passed instantly into his hands.

The story does not end with Hunt. It echoes through Watergate, where Nixon famously warned the CIA that if they did not cooperate, he would expose “the Bay of Pigs.” According to Nixon’s own aides, this phrase was code—not for Cuba, but for Dallas. The assassination. A secret too dangerous to surface.

E. Howard Hunt died in January 2007. His memoir was carefully edited, ambiguous, stripped of its most explosive claims. But the tape exists. The handwritten notes exist. And his son insists the confession was real.

Whether history will ever officially acknowledge it is another matter. Some secrets are too big. Some truths arrive too late. And some confessions, whispered by dying men, are destined to remain buried—not because they lack evidence, but because they threaten everything built on silence.