41: Was Dallas A Target, Too?

Following his arrest at Watergate, Hunt released Give Us This Day, an autobiography detailing his role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Hunt candidly states that his first recommendation to the agency after measuring Cuba’s social climate was to kill Castro. His superiors tried their best, but success eluded the CIA hit men run by William Harvey. Hunt characterizes General Charles Cabell as the man most responsible for the failure of the invasion, because Cabell waited for JFK’s order for a second air strike instead of initiating the order himself. Among those waiting for the order was Frank Sturgis.

The Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein in All The President’s Men described Watergate burglar Hunt as a “psychological warfare expert.” In a second autobiography, Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent, E. Howard Hunt quotes Tacitus, a Roman emperor killed by his own soldiers whose brother is also slain by the soldiers. In a classic vendetta, revenge must combine both death and disgrace.

If a classicist, sought a vendetta against Charles Cabell and President Kennedy, the perfect place for the assassination would be Miami where the President had promised to the invasion brigade members that their flag would fly one day in Cuba.

If a Miami shooting was not possible, revenge would be sweet in Dallas, where General Charles Cabell’s brother, Earle, was Mayor as part of a long family tradition. For 90 years the Cabell family had been intertwined with running the city and criminal justice in and around Dallas:1

• 1874-1876 Mayor William L. Cabell

• 1877-1879 Mayor William L. Cabell

• 1883-1885 Mayor William L. Cabell (became a U.S. Marshall)

• 1900-1904 Mayor Ben E. Cabell (previously Sheriff)

• 1961-1964 Mayor Earle Cabell2 (previously President of Dallas Crime Commission)

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