Watergate Hearings - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) May 22, 1973
Watergate Hearings - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) May 22, 1973
Watergate Hearings - Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, May 22, 1973 - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord). Continuing testimony of Jim McCORD vis a vis political pressure on him to participate in a COVERUP or be the FALL GUY for the scandal. Caucus Room, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington DC
Watergate Hearings - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) May 22, 1973
Mr. James McCORD. Now, the above letter to Caulfield brings to mind another set of communications of mine on Dec 6, 1972. On Dec 4, 1972, Judge Sirica had stated in open court, that the jury in January 1973, would want to know who had hired the men for the Watergate operation & why. On December 6, 1972, the Washington Star carried an article which appeared to me to be an administration planted story answering Judge Sirica's query stating that "Reliable sources state that McCord recruited the four cubans and that they believed that they were working for the President on an extremely sensitive mission." This was untrue. This appeared to me to be laying the groundwork for a false claim at the trial that I was the "ringleader" of the Watergate plot. This would draw attention away from Hunt & Liddy, and I believe possibly away from the White House since both of them had formerly worked at the White House and I had not. That same evening, Dec 6, 1972, I sent telegrams to William 0. Bittman, attorney for Hunt, and Bernard Barker's residence in Miami, Fla., stating that the Star story was untrue as they both knew, and I asked for comments by return mail from Barker. I also wrote Hunt a letter on the matter stating that as he also knew, the story was untrue & he could either correct it, or I would do so. Copies of the telegrams can probably be obtained from the Western Union Co. With the letter to Caulfield in late Dec 1972, I was trying a to head off an effort to falsely lay the Watergate operation off on CIA. In the telegrams and letter to Hunt and the others in Dec 1972 that I have just referred to, I was trying to head off an effort to falsely lay the recruitment of the Cubans off on the writer which would in turn shift the focus of the trial off of those formerly connected with the White House, namely, Liddy and Hunt than from those who in effect had actually recruited them, namely Mr. Hunt. I have some other memorandum in the statements that I have here to read, and I can answer your questions at this point or proceed to the reading of the statement, as you would prefer. Senator Howard BAKER. If it's agreeable to the Chairman Mr. McCord, I'd prefer you go ahead and read the material that you have.
Watergate Hearings - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) May 22, 1973
Mr. James McCORD. (continues) The newspapers over the week-end have also referred to some calls to some local embassy's. And I'll try to explain those in the statement that I'll read at this time. In July, 1972 Mrs. Hunt had told me that Paul O'Brien, attorney for the Committee to Re-elect the President had told her husband that when the Watergate case had broke in June, the Committee for the Re-election of the President had told attorney O'Brien the operation was a CIA operation. I believe I referred to this earlier, in the earlier statement . She said that Howard Hunt had exploded at this and told O'Brien that this was not true, that it was not a CIA operation. A few days later, Mrs. Hunt told me that the CRP lawyers were now reporting that the administration was going to allege at the trial, that Liddy had stolen sixteen thousand dollars, and had bribed Hunt and McCord to perform the operation. I told her that it looked like they were now changing their cover stories referring to the administration and that I would not sit still for either false story and I shortly wrote my attorney Gerald Alch repeating this information in setting forth these same views of mine. In September 1972, the indictments came out and no one was being indicted among the higher ups, so there looked like a further cover-up to me. Also, in September and October 1972, there began to be a series of telephone anomalies on my phone, that indicated to me that the phone had been tapped. Further I had read that in August 1972 in Newsweek Magazine, I believe that Mr. Elsberg had tried for five months to get the government to admit wire-tapping on his telephone calls and on those of his attorney and the government had denied such calls, until a court order forced a search of twelve separate law enforcement agencies and turned up telephone interception of Leonard Budeen's (sp ?) calls to the Columbian Embassy. In addition, I knew that the government had not been truthful in denying wire-tapping in the (Koplan) case (video drops out) some years earlier and in the Hoffa case in subsequent years. For several weeks until disclosure was forced from the government. In an effort to test the truthfulness of the government on a forthcoming motion for disclosure of wire-tapping of the defendants phones in the Watergate case, including my own, I made two calls in September and October 1972 to two local embassies.
Watergate Hearings - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) May 22, 1973
James McCord continues statement: On Oct 10, 1972, 1 asked for the filing of a motion for Government disclosure of any interceptions and 2 weeks later the Government came back with a denial of any, saying a search of Government records had been made. I knew that 2 weeks was too short a time to search 12 different Government agencies for such records, and believed the government was not telling the truth. In Jan 1973, after Caulfield had initiated contact with me, I advised him of the perjury of Jeb Magruder and of the two telephone calls I have just referred to, plus the other indications to me of illegal interception of my phone calls, & asked Jack to check into both. He came back a few days later and said that the Government had found nothing on the phone calls. He did not say what he had done about the information of perjury by Magruder. In January I also asked nay attorney to renew the motion for discovery of interception of my calls so there could be such a motion on the record and I believe he did so on Jan 16, 1973. I knew that the two embassy calls would be insufficient to overturn the case, because all that would happen if such were on the record would be for the Government to take the information to the bench and for the judge to declare the information not relevant, furthermore the Government would state that the information would not be used against me in evidence anyway. I did believe that such disclosure would be a way of testing the truthfulness of the Government regarding such illegal interceptions and I was greatly concerned that there had been other illegal interceptions of my telephone conversations and those of the other defendants beginning June 17, 1972. Further, I did believe that if sufficient illegal interceptions of my phone calls had occurred such would have a bearing on my case. I still believe there was such an interception just as Dr. Ellsberg believed that his own phone calls had been intercepted. Mr. James McCORD. There is an attachment to this, the New York Times of today's date. The title of the article "Warning Against Blaming of CIA Laid to McCord."
Watergate Hearings - testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) May 22, 1973
Mr. James McCORD. Continuing on a separate subject in a statement, if that is your desire. Senator BAKER. Yes, sir. Mr. James McCORD. The topic of this Memorandum is "Sanction of the Watergate a Operation." John Mitchell, by virtue of his position as Attorney General of the United States, and John Dean, by virtue of his position as counsel to the President, by their consideration and approval of the Watergate operation, in my opinion, gave sanction to the Watergate operation by both the White House and the Attorney General's offices. I had been accustomed to working in an atmosphere where such sanction by the White House and the Attorney General was more than enough. As with White House staffers, it was not my habit to question when two such high offices sanctioned an activity-- it carried the full force and effect of Presidential sanction. For the preceding 30 years I had been working in an environment where if there were ever tiny question of the legality of a matter or an activity it would always be sent to high legal I officials for a legal decision on the matter, where if they sanctioned it, that was sufficient. I can elaborate, on this another way Left alone, I would not have undertaken the operation. I had plenty of other things to do in connection with my security work at the Committee To Re-Elect the President. Liddy wanted help, he came to me seeking that help with the word that it had the approval of the Attorney General and the counsel to the President. He said that it was part of the CRP mission, in order to obtain information regarding not only political intelligence, but also regarding violence-oriented groups who would be planning violence against the committee in Washington, and later at the August convention site, thereby endangering the lives and property of the committee and its personnel. My mission was protection of such lives and such property.