Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Howard Hunt, Dead

I would say that Howard Hunt should rest in peace, except that I hope he burns in the fires of hell. The world is cleansed of yet another figure from the Nixon Administration. If we could only be rid of Chuck Colson too.

UPDATE: D leads us to this great Slate interview detailing the evil Hunt perpetrated in Latin America. Among the great quotes:

About his role in the Arbenz coup in Guatemala in 1954:

Slate: Some 200,000 civilians were killed in the civil war following the coup, which lasted for the next 40 years. Were all those deaths unforeseen?

Hunt: Deaths? What deaths?

About Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista:

Slate: What was your feeling about Batista?

Hunt: Well, I thought he ran a good government there. There was a lot of corruption, but there's always been corruption in Latin America. We can't be too purist about these things.

About the death of Che Guevara:

Hunt:What I thought was great foresight was that the Bolivian colonel had Che's hands cut off.

Slate: Why did he do that?

Hunt: So he couldn't be identified by fingerprints. That was a pretty good idea—if you don't want somebody identified. People still shiver a little when they think about hands being cut off.

About him leaving the CIA:

Slate: What led you to leave the CIA?

Hunt: I found out the CIA was just infested with Democrats. I retired in '70. I got out as soon as I could. I wrote several books immediately thereafter.

Wow.