Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities - Testimony of James McCord.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities - Testimony of James McCord.
Master 10362 Part 1 Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee Hearings on Presidential Campaign Activities, May 18, 1973 - Testimony of James McCord (Jim McCord) Caucus Room, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington DC Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). The committee will come to order. Senator Baker. Senator Howard Baker (R Tennessee). Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Mr. McCord, you've covered your testimony at rather great length, and we have had the questions now of counsel and of the chairman. I will try to confine my questions to an elaboration or an extension of those subjects that you have already covered, for the sake of developing either further information or a clearer understanding of those things that have already been touched. Without trying to retrace your steps, I wish you would tell me again if this is a fair summation and narrative of your testimony. That you worked for the FBI, that you worked for the CIA for 19 years, that you worked for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, in a consultative capacity and then as their security officer, that you involved yourself in certain electronics surveillance operations under the direction of Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt and possibly others, that you were one of those found inside the Watergate complex, the Democratic National Committee in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972; that you were taken to jail; that you were subsequently released on bond, there were subsequent conversations by telephone from an unidentified person, and from a Mr. Caulfield with respect to how you should conduct yourself specifically suggesting that you should plead guilty; that you were led to believe, at least, that there would be a promise of Executive clemency, that your family would be taken care of while you were in jail, when you were released that, you would have a job, that you pled innocent at the trial instead of guilty, one of the two who pled innocent; that you were convicted on a multi-count indictment, that you are now awaiting sentence; that you have interviewed previously with this committee in executive session and with the staff of this committee on a previous occasion; that you now appear to testify before us without any grant of immunity from this committee, although you are convicted of crimes involving much of the material presumably about which you testified. I don't mean that to be an absolute recapitulation of your testimony, but is that generally a fair statement of your involvement? James McCord. I think basically, yes sir. Howard Baker (R Tennessee). Could we start at the beginning, Mr. Hunt, and tell us what your Job was with the CIA. I mean James McCord. I am sorry. [Laughter] I do not know who I am sorry to, but I am sorry. James McCord. My duties were generally in the security field as a security officer there with the agency and with which I served for some 19 years, in which I served in the United States and overseas that covered a wide variety of duties related to that function within that Federal agency. I am met, and I am at a loss how to proceed in detail on that activity because of the numerous secrecy agreements which I signed and which I understand I am in violation of the National Security Act if I disclose in public testimony.