James McCord shows how to rig the transmitter of a bugging device in a telephone at a hearing in Washington on May 23, 1973. Photo / Washington Post
James McCord shows how to rig the transmitter of a bugging device in a telephone at a hearing in Washington on May 23, 1973. Photo / Washington Post
James McCord, a retired CIA employee who was convicted as a conspirator in the Watergate burglary and later linked the 1972 break-in to the White House in revelations that helped end the presidency of Richard Nixon, died June 15, 2017, at his home in Douglassville, Pennsylvania. He was 93.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, according to his death certificate obtained at the Berks County Register of Wills office in Reading, Pennsylvania.
McCord's death was first reported in "Dirty Tricks," a 2018 history of the Watergate investigation by filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan. But the news did not appear in local or national media outlets and surfaced online in March, when the website Kennedys and King published an obituary referencing his gravesite in Pennsylvania.
McCord served in the CIA for 19 years, including as security chief at the Langley, Virginia, headquarters, before his supporting, at times sensational role in the events that precipitated the first resignation of a US president.
McCord had retired from the spy agency and was privately employed as head of security for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President - commonly called CREEP - when he became entangled in a scheme to burglarise and bug the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington.
McCord had once taught a college course on how to protect buildings from intrusions, and he helped lead the operation. Preparing for the break-in, the conspirators rigged door latches at the Watergate complex with adhesive tape to prevent the doors from locking.
The tape caught the attention of a security guard, Frank Wills, who alerted the police to suspicious activity in the building. In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, plainclothes officers entered the Democratic headquarters and found five burglars clad in suits and surgical gloves.
Frank Wills was 24 and earning $80 a week when he reported the burglary at the Watergate. Photo / File
Those men - McCord, Bernard Barker, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez and Virgilio Gonzalez - were carrying bugging devices, cameras, film and a walkie-talkie. McCord initially used the alias Edward Martin but was quickly connected to the reelection committee.
His arraignment, covered by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward for one of the newspaper's first articles about the events now collectively known as the Watergate scandal, was memorably dramatised in the 1976 film "All the President's Men".
Journalists Carl Bernstein (left) and Bob Woodward making phone calls before a radio show taping on June 17, 1974 in New York City. Photo / Getty
Portrayed by actor Richard Herd, McCord is asked by a court official about his previous line of government work. "C-I-A," he whispers, in an early hint that the break-in was more than a "third-rate burglary attempt," as White House spokesman Ronald Ziegler dismissively described it.
In September 1972, a federal grand jury indicted McCord, the other burglars, and Nixon aides Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy on charges stemming from the bugging attempt. Hunt and four burglars pleaded guilty. McCord and Liddy were tried in January 1973 and were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and bugging.
John Sirica, the federal judge who presided over the Watergate cases, controversially threatened defendants with stiff sentences if they did not assist investigators. Facing a possible 45 years in prison, McCord submitted to Sirica a letter that The Post described years later as a "bombshell".
"There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilty and remain silent," McCord wrote in the March 1973 document, delivered to the court after his conviction and before his sentencing.
"Perjury occurred during the trial in matters highly material to the very structure, orientation, and impact of the government's case, and to the motivation and intent of the defendants."
He further wrote that "others involved in the Watergate operation were not identified during the trial, when they could have been by those testifying".
Days later, McCord appeared before the Senate Watergate committee and testified that Liddy had told him John Mitchell, the reelection committee chairman and former US attorney general, had approved the bugging scheme.
McCord further said he had been informed that White House counsel John Dean and Nixon aide Jeb Stuart Magruder knew in advance of the plan.
McCord continued to deliver allegations of misconduct at high levels.
In a May 1973 memorandum to Senate and other investigators, he wrote that he and the other burglars were pressured to falsely testify that the Watergate scheme was executed at the behest of the CIA - an account that would have exculpated the reelection committee and one that he refused to give.
"Even if it meant my freedom, I would not turn on the organization that had employed me for 19 years," he wrote.
"I was completely convinced that the White House was behind the idea and ploy which had been presented, and that the White House was turning ruthless."
McCord also testified that John Caulfield, a Nixon administration official, relayed an offer for clemency and a future job if McCord would agree to not testify against Nixon officials and to accept a prison sentence.
McCord's statements, some of them made in closed-door Senate sessions and reported by the media, were credited with helping to break open the Watergate investigation by connecting the burglary to high-ranking Nixon officials.
Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. McCord served four months in prison.
"I have no regrets in telling the truth," he said when he reported to the penitentiary in March 1975.
"I think in the long run it's been extremely beneficial to the country to have become aware of what occurred. I was probably the first to tell the truth on Watergate."
James Walter McCord Jr. was born in Waurika, Oklahoma, on January 26, 1924.
He was a second lieutenant in the Army Air Forces, serving as a bombardier during World War II, and graduated in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas.
He was an FBI special agent before joining the CIA in 1951, and in 1965, he received a master's degree in international affairs from George Washington University.
After retiring from the agency, which bestowed on him an award for distinguished service, he ran a security consulting firm in Rockville, Maryland. In subsequent years, he worked in Colorado for a company that promoted alternative energy.
His wife, Sarah Berry McCord, died in 2014. He had three children, but a complete list of survivors was not available. Calls seeking comment from his family were not immediately returned.
In 1974, McCord self-published a book, "A Piece of Tape - The Watergate Story: Fact and Fiction," that discussed at least one scenario of events that might have been.
Shortly before the Watergate break-in, McCord wrote, the burglars considered calling off the plan when they discovered that someone had noticed and removed the adhesive tape they placed on the door latches. Rather than aborting the operation, they rigged the locks again.
It was Wills, the security guard, who spotted the tape the first time. He did not overlook it the second.
Chronology of the Watergate scandal
1972 May 28, 1972 - Electronic surveillance equipment is installed at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building.
June 17, 1972 - Five men are arrested while attempting to repair the surveillance equipment at Democratic National Committee headquarters.
August 30, 1972 - President Nixon announces that John Dean has completed an investigation into the Watergate buggings and that no one from the White House is involved.
September 15, 1972 - Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, Eugenio Martinez, James W. McCord, Jr., and Frank Sturgis are indicted for their roles in the June break-in.
1973 January 8, 1973 - Watergate break-in trial opens. Hunt pleads guilty (January 11); Barker, Sturgis, Martinez, and Gonzalez plead guilty (January 15); Liddy and McCord are convicted on all counts of break-in indictment (January 30).
February 7, 1973 - US Senate creates Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.
April 17, 1973 - President Nixon announces that members of the White House staff will appear before the Senate Committee and promises major new developments in investigation and real progress toward finding truth.
April 23, 1973 - White House issues statement denying President had prior knowledge of Watergate affair.
April 30, 1973 - White House staff members H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman, and John Dean resign.
May 17, 1973 - Senate Committee begins public hearings.
May 25, 1973 - Archibald Cox sworn in as Special Prosecutor.
July 7, 1973 - President Nixon informs Senate Committee that he will not appear to testify nor grant access to presidential files.
July 16, 1973 - Alexander Butterfield informs Senate Committee of the presence of a White House taping system.
July 23, 1973 - Senate Committee and Special Prosecutor Cox subpoena White House tapes and documents to investigate cover-up.
July 25, 1973 - President Nixon refuses to comply with Cox subpoena.
August 9, 1973 - Senate Committee files suit against President Nixon for failure to comply with subpoena.
October 19, 1973 - President Nixon offers Stennis a compromise on the tapes - Senator John Stennis (Democrat, Mississippi) would review tapes and present the Special Prosecutor with summaries.
October 20, 1973 - Archibald Cox refuses to accept the Stennis compromise. President Nixon orders Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox, but Richardson refuses and resigns in protest. Acting Attorney General Robert Bork fires Cox. These events come to be known as the "Saturday Night Massacre".
October 23, 1973 - President Nixon agrees to hand over tapes to comply with subpoena.
November 1, 1973 - Leon Jaworski named Special Prosecutor.
November 21, 1973 - Senate Committee announces discovery of 18 1/2 minute gap on tape of Nixon-Haldeman conversation of June 20,1972.
1974 February 6, 1974 - House of Representatives authorises House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether grounds exist for impeachment of President Nixon.
April 16, 1974 - Special Prosecutor issues subpoena for 64 White House tapes.
April 30, 1974 - President Nixon submits tape transcripts to House Judiciary Committee.
July 24, 1974 - Supreme Court unanimously upholds Special Prosecutor's subpoena for tapes for Watergate trial.
July 27, 1974 - House Judiciary Committee adopts article I of impeachment resolution charging President with obstruction of investigation of Watergate break-in.
July 29, 1974 - House Judiciary Committee adopts article II of impeachment resolution charging President with misuse of powers and violation of his oath of office.
July 30, 1974 - House Judiciary Committee adopts article III of impeachment resolution, charging the President with failure to comply with House subpoenas.
August 9, 1974 - President Richard Nixon resigns.
September 8, 1974 - President Gerald Ford pardons former President Nixon.
- US NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION (NARA)
