Джеймс МакКорд: от ЦРУ к Уотергейтскому скандалу.

American CIA officer (1924–2017)

James Walter McCord Jr. (January 26, 1924 – June 15, 2017) was an American CIA officer, later head of security for President Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign. He was involved as an electronics expert in the burglaries which precipitated the Watergate scandal.

McCord was born in Waurika, Oklahoma. He served as a bombardier with the rank of second lieutenant in the Army Air Forces during World War II. In 1965, he received an M. S. in international affairs from George Washington University. After beginning his career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), McCord worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), ultimately ascending to the GS 15 directorship of the Agency's Office of Security. For a period of time, he was in charge of physical security at the Agency's Langley headquarters. L. Fletcher Prouty, a former colonel in the United States Air Force, claimed then Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles introduced McCord to him as "my top man.". In 1961, under his direction, a counter intelligence program was launched against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He also held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve. John M. Newman says in his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov's Mole, that Bruce Solie and McCord were probably KGB "moles" in the CIA's Office of Security, and that McCord very likely protected Solie and another "mole," Pyotr Semyonovich Popov's honey trapped and recruited by KGB dead drop arranger, Edward Ellis Smith, from being uncovered by U. S. Intelligence.

Shortly after resigning from the CIA, McCord was interviewed and then hired by Jack Caulfield in January 1972 "for strict, solely defensive security work at the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Committee to Re Elect the President (CRP)." Some of the money from this contract came from the RNC, which was led by Bob Dole who was called "Nixon's Doberman pinscher" and a Republican Party fixer, and was used during the Watergate scandal. McCord and four other accomplices were arrested during the second break in to the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The arrests led to the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation. McCord asserted that the White House knew of and approved the break ins, and proceeded to cover up the incident. Because of McCord's statements, the Watergate investigators pursued many more leads. On March 23, the day of the sentencing, Sirica sentenced the other defendants provisionally, citing a statute that allowed for maximum sentences of several decades as a means to "research" more information needed for the final sentencing. This was a means to pressure the defendants into revealing more information about the burglary. McCord's sentencing was postponed until June and then postponed again. Finally, in November 1973, McCord was sentenced to one to five years and began serving his sentence in March 1975, but was released after only four months because of his cooperation in the Watergate investigation.

After serving four months in prison, McCord continued with McCord Associates, which was his own security firm located in Rockville, retiring later to Pennsylvania. McCord died at the age of 93 from pancreatic cancer on June 15, 2017, at his home in Douglassville, Pennsylvania. His death was not reported in local and national news outlets until 2019.

McCord was portrayed in All the President's Men, the 1976 film retelling the events of the Watergate scandal, by Richard Herd. McCord was portrayed in Gaslit, the 2022 television adaptation of the podcast Slow Burn by Chris Bauer, and in the TV series White House Plumbers he was portrayed by Toby Huss.