Walter Howard Bowart (May 14, 1939 – December 18, 2007)[1] was an American leader in the counterculture movement of the 1960s,[2] founder and editor of the first underground newspaper in New York City, the East Village Other, and author of the book Operation Mind Control.

In 1965, Bowart, along with Ishmael Reed, who named the paper, Sherry Needham, Allen Katzman, and Dan Rattiner founded the East Village Other (EVO).

EVO offered a newsprint medium for the rants, artwork, poetry and comics of such 1960s icons as Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Crumb, Marshall McLuhan, Spain Rodriguez, and The Fugs.

In 1973, Bowart located and reconnected with his biological parents, Thomas J. Kirby and Patricia J. Dooley, and discovered he had three younger sisters, Janet, Nancy and Kathy.

At the time of his death, Bowart was working on several screenplays and novels, including The Other Crusades, which was about New York City in the early 1960s.