James W. McCord, Jr.

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James W. McCord, Jr. (b. 1924) was the electronics expert involved in the Watergate first break-in and one of the first men convicted in the Watergate scandal. McCord led the June 17, 1972 early-morning burglary of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C., and was found guilty of six charges. He later wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge John Sirica stating that his plea and testimony, some of which he claimed was perjured, were compelled by pressure from White House counsel John Dean and former Attorney General John N. Mitchell. His letter set off the Watergate scandal in earnest by implicating many higher-ups in the Richard Nixon Administration for covering up the conspiracy that led to the burglary.

Prior to his conviction, McCord served as security director for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP), and had worked for the FBI and CIA, where he was in charge of physical security at Langley headquarters, as well as serving as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. His security consulting firm, McCord Associates, provided security services to CRP.

McCord wrote a book about his connection with the Watergate burglary, A Piece of Tape: The Watergate Story: Fact and Fiction.

For further reading from the newspaper media's perspective, see "All the President's Men," by Bernstein and Woodward