E. Howard Hunt and the three tramps

The three men were arrested as vagrants and held four days as “investigative” prisoners. The night before they had showered and shaved at a rescue mission, which is why they looked cleaner than tramps were expected to. [1]

Their Dallas arrest records surfaced, and in 1992 the FBI found and questioned two of them: John Gedney and Harold Doyle. The third, Gus Abrams, was believed dead. [1][2]

Before that, the House committee had forensic anthropologists compare the photographs with Hunt, Frank Sturgis and several other suspects. Only one, Fred Lee Chrisman, had consistent features, and the committee found no positive identification and no evidence linking him to the assassination. [3]

In 1978 the Liberty Lobby’s paper, The Spotlight, ran an article saying Hunt had been in Dallas on 22 November. Hunt sued and won $650,000, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. At the 1985 retrial, with Mark Lane defending, the jury found for Liberty Lobby. One juror said the panel felt no evidence had been presented showing malice toward Hunt; the judge had told the jury malice was needed to find for him. [1]

Hunt, who served 33 months in prison for Watergate, denied under oath that he was in Dallas. The House committee found that a rumored CIA memo placing him there was “not founded on fact.” [1][2]

In 2007 Rolling Stone published an account by St. John Hunt of his father’s final notes and a tape. In it Hunt describes a meeting in Miami with the CIA officer David Morales and Frank Sturgis about “the Big Event”; he said he declined to take part, describing the CIA’s Bill Harvey as “an alcoholic psycho.” A handwritten chart links LBJ, Cord Meyer, Harvey, Morales and a “French Gunman Grassy Knoll.” [1]

Hunt died at 88, after writing a memoir, American Spy. He always denied involvement. Kevin Costner reportedly offered $5 million for the story. [1]