Samuel Martin - Leader of Watergate Break-In Dead at 93

James W. McCord Jr., Who Led the Watergate Break-In, Is Dead at 93

Summary

James W. McCord Jr died on June 15, 2017 in Douglass, Pennsylvania and his death was unreported by police as well as any news sources in the area. He died at the age of 93 and it was allegedly caused by pancreatic cancer. McCord was a security expert for the federal government during the time of President Nixon’s Administration and lead the break-in at the Democratic National Convention under Nixon’s orders. He also was the first to expose the crimes that took place in office during Nixon’s downfall in 1974. The death was first reported in a London filmmaker’s book about the Watergate Scandal that was published last year. McCord’s testimony broke the conspiracy’s silence held together by Nixon’s hush money, bribes, and fear of executive privilege. He was caught with four Cubans on June 17th, 1972, breaking into the DNC’s headquarters to fix bugs and wiretaps they had placed earlier. When in court, they all pleaded guilty to the crimes and were convicted but McCord’s testimony and aid to the prosecutors cut his sentence from five years to four months in prison. Not much is known about James McCord because he was a CIA agent under top national security clearance, so his background is mostly hidden and anything that the public knows is all word-of-mouth information.

Analysis

The article was written in New York, NY on April 18th, 2019. The date and location the article was written on are irrelevant because McCord died almost two years ago now and we just found out about it. This relates to the Watergate Scandal that happened in 1972 under Nixon’s administration because the man that broke in and then snitched on the operation died (semi)recently. This article was written for the general public, not really for any specific purpose other than to let people who might be interested in this man’s life know that he is dead. It was written by Robert D. McFadden who covers obituaries for the NYTimes and has been writing for the past 30 years. He won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for his writing. The article was written to inform us about James McCord Jr’s life and how even though he did a bad thing, he was the first to come out and plead guilty to try to help reform the government he came from.

Source

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/obituaries/james-mccord-watergate-dead.html