NH Senator Convicted of Blackmailing Lester Hunt

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A jury convicted Styles Bridges, a U.S. senator from New Hampshire, of attempting to blackmail Wyoming Sen. Lester Hunt. Under the deal, Bridges offered to squelch criminal charges against Lester Hunt’s son if he resigned.

The conviction occurred in 2016, the crime in 1954. And the jury consisted of an audience at a play built around a mock trial of Styles Bridges, who orchestrated the blackmail attempt of Lester Hunt.

The persecution of Lester Hunt ended in tragedy.

Styles Bridges

It would be nice to be able to forget about historical characters like Styles Bridges. Unfortunately it’s difficult. The official New Hampshire governor’s mansion bears his name, as does a highway and various other taxpayer-purchased facilities.

An export from his home state of Maine, Bridges came to power in 1934 when he won election as governor of New Hampshire.  He moved on to the U.S. Senate in 1937, and rose to the rank of chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

A favorite of William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, he made his mark as an ally of Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy, who orchestrated his famous red scare and lavender scare. Bridges avidly collected rumors and innuendo about his political enemies — and even his allies.

Bridges is probably best known for the quip that he started out one of the poorest men in the Senate and died a millionaire. Even then, politics was a useful business for a man on the make.

Lester Hunt

Still, his sleazy persecution of Lester Hunt ranks right up there as one of his most notable achievements. The events took place in 1953 and 1954. The Senate was controlled by Democrats by a one-vote margin. McCarthy had ripped through Washington like a tornado, and his antics still played well with the public, though he was losing some steam.

Today we understand McCarthy’s moral bankruptcy, but in 1954 he enjoyed the support of a wide spectrum of politicians, among them President Dwight Eisenhower and future presidents John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

McCarthy could make political stars, so no wonder Bridges wanted to curry favor with him. In 1953, Lester Hunt’s son was arrested in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, on a morals charge. Hard to believe such a thing exists in Washington, but it did.

As a first offense, police charged him with a misdemeanor and asked his father to get his son straightened out. And there the matter stood, until Bridges and Idaho Sen. Herman Welker cooked up a scheme to use the information to get control of the Senate for the Republicans.

Lester Hunt

Lester Hunt, a dentist, won two consecutive terms as governor of Wyoming. He then won election to the U.S. Senate with an overwhelming margin.

A Democrat, he supported low-cost health insurance, the expansion of Social Security and an end to racial segregation in the District of Columbia. He also criticized Joe McCarthy, even sponsoring a bill to let people sue members of Congress for slander.

No wonder the two McCarthy Republicans wanted to undo Lester Hunt.

Bridges and Welker approached Hunt and told him  they would have his son prosecuted and publicize the arrest if he didn’t resign. When he refused, they made good on their threat. They bullied the prosecutor, telling him he’d lose his job if  he didn’t take the case to trial. And they got friendly newspapers to write about Hunt’s homosexual son and his arrest.

The trial shattered Hunt, and in 1954 he announced he would not seek reelection. He then shot himself in in the head in his Senate office.

Columnist Drew Pearson wrote of the episode:

The incident was one of the lowest types of political pressure this writer has seen in many years.

Author Rodger McDaniel has revived the story in his book, Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins, The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt. The story has also been turned into a play.

This story about Lester Hunt was updated in 2022.