The man who wanted to be James Bond, failed in everything and became a legend

The James Bond of the early novels bore no resemblance to the James Bond of the films. According to his creator, Ian Fleming, he was "a boring man" with "a boring name." That is, a typical spy. The cinematic Bond has much in common with Everette Howard Hunt, a real but atypical spy: exhibitionist, romantically in love with his profession, and quite clumsy. Hunt is today a legend who receives veiled tributes in cinema and television.

Hunt provoked a civil war in Guatemala that lasted more than 30 years. Hunt was, ultimately, responsible for Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal. Furthermore, in 1964, the CIA commissioned him with an unusual mission: to write (in Madrid) a series of novels. His central character, Peter Ward, was to become "the American James Bond" and give "glamour" to the superpower's secret agents during the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Hunt, a former naval officer (like James Bond), worked for the CIA from 1949. Before that, he had been a member of the Office of Strategic Services, the United States espionage agency during World War II. And before that, he had already become a relatively successful author of espionage novels. He wrote them between battles. In total, he published more than 70 works.

He was an interesting character. Ethan Hunt (note the surname), the character played by Tom Cruise in the film series Mission: Impossible, is partially inspired by Everette Howard Hunt. Or at least by the things, generally magnified and embellished, that he told about his missions as a spy.

The real Hunt only succeeded once, with tragic results. It was he who organized, from Mexico, the coup d'état that overthrew Jacobo Arbenz, President of Guatemala, in 1954. Arbenz had been democratically elected and had undertaken an agrarian reform that harmed the all-powerful United Fruit Company. The fruit multinational (now called Chiquita) demanded that Washington put an end to Arbenz.

Hunt launched a campaign of psychological terror, with continuous threats of invasion, and armed a military force under the command of General Carlos Castillo Armas. The general was a complete fool, but the fear of an American invasion paralyzed the Guatemalan army and Castillo became president. His dictatorship lasted a short time: he was assassinated in 1957, and this marked the beginning of a succession of military coups and civil violence that lasted almost until the end of the 20th century. That first coup in 1954 gave rise to the designation "banana republic".

In 1960, Hunt recruited, by order of President Dwight Eisenhower, the mercenaries who were to invade Cuba and end Fidel Castro's revolution. The landing took place the following year in the Bay of Pigs and was a disaster. The director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, was forced to resign. Hunt, on the other hand, was appointed head of covert operations within the United States: news manipulation, political espionage, etcetera.

In 1964, he was sent to Madrid as an undercover agent, with the mission mentioned above: to write a series of novels that would debunk those of James Bond. Obviously (have you ever read them?), Hunt was unsuccessful.

He retired in 1970 and went to work for a supposed public relations agency, the Mullen Company, which did dirty work for the CIA. From there, in 1971, he moved to the White House's Special Investigations Unit, dedicated to sabotaging the Democratic adversaries of President Richard Nixon. On the door of his office, Hunt placed a sign with the word Plumbers(plumbers). You have heard of the "Moncloa plumbers", haven't you? Well, the term was invented by Hunt.

As "chief plumber", Hunt organized the placement of hidden microphones in the offices of the Democratic Party, located in the Watergate building in Washington. The outcome of the affair is well known: journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigated it, the White House denied everything, Congress (with a Democratic majority) approved putting the president on trial (the famous impeachment), and Nixon resigned in 1973, one year after winning reelection with an overwhelming majority.

What times, when presidents resigned. Since then, any political scandal in any corner of the world is designated with the suffix -gate.

Hunt did not disappear: he became a legend. In the series The X-Files, one of the main enemies of agents Scully and Mulder is a CIA agent who smokes non-stop, writes spy novels, and is called Hunt.

Everything in his life was almost unbelievable. Two children from his second marriage extracted from him on his deathbed (2007) a false confession about how he organized the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And many believed that, in effect, Hunt had been the mastermind of the most famous and mysterious assassination of the 20th century. There was even a parliamentary investigation. Who knows. With Hunt, anything was possible.