50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Did CIA's Hunt Correct `Projecting Ears'?

A number of U.S. writers have historically asserted that CIA Official Tracy Barnes' chief of Covert Activities in the early 1960s--E. Howard Hunt--was one of the press-photographed derelicts or "tramps" who was temporarily taken into custody in the area behind the grassy knoll, shortly after JFK was eliminated on November 22, 1963. As the volume VI appendix of the House Select Committee On Assassinations Report noted in 1979:

"It was claimed that two of the derelicts or `tramps' as they had come to be called, bore striking resemblance to Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis respectively. Allegations have been made that Hunt, who had been a CIA employee in 1963, and Sturgis, who--had been invoved in CIA-related activities, had been together in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and had participated in the assassination as part of a CIA conspiracy..."

The House Select Committee On Assassinations also revealed that Hunt may have altered his appearance by surgery after the assassination, so that he now bears less of a resemblance to the press-photographed "tramp":

"From his photographs, it is apparent that Hunt underwent surgery to correct his rather projecting ears. The date of this operation was not determined but from the photographs, it would appear to have been within a few years before or after the assassination. In degree of projection, the Tramp's ears appear to more closely match Hunt's pre-surgical condition."

(Downtown 9/29/93)