American Spy Post #2

Later in his career, E. Howard Hunt found himself facing two extremely important events in American and World History- The Bay of Pigs operation, and the Kennedy Assassination. Both of these situations posed ethical dilemmas to Hunt and the people he came in contact with. In the Bay of Pigs operation, there came to be a conflict between what Kennedy was telling the public and what was actually occurring. In fact, Hunt tells us, "Worse, on April 12, he [Kennedy] actually promised reporters at a news conference that the US would not invade Cuba. Somehow he expected the invasion to happen in a vacuum where the world wouldn't notice that fifteen hundred men had landed on a Cuban beach" (120). Because Kennedy promised this, the Bay of Pigs operation instantly went from undercover to extremely secret. This lead to Kennedy's decisions to attempt to quiet down the operation and to make it less noticeable. These changes ultimately lead to the failure of the operation. In this instance, we can see that it would have been a better choice to continue with the lie than to try and cover things up. This attempt at cover up lead to the captures and deaths of over a thousand men. Would it have been better to lie to the people of America and the world and same the lives of these men? or would it have been more "right" to save their lives and honor one's word. This is a huge dilemma that one must face in their lives; one's character and the person one becomes is based on what one decides in response to this question.
Later, Hunt describes several theories for the Kennedy assassination. One of these theories is that a CIA operative, Cord Meyer, had arranged the killings. The reasoning behind this is the fact that Meyer's wife, Mary Pinchot was having an affair with Kennedy. It has been suggested that, seeking revenge, he arranged Kennedy's murder. Hunt writes, " The theorists suggest Cord would have had a motive to kill Kennedy because his wife was having an affair with the president" (133). This situation also brings up several questions. First of all, is the question of revenge. Is revenge ever worth it? Also, would Meyer have been so hurt by his wife's affair that he would arrange for the murder of her lover, President Kennedy? In this instance, we may never know the real cause of the Kennedy assassination so we will never know if this is truly what happened. In our lives, we must be able to make decisions that we can reconcile with our conscience and that will cause the least harm to others.