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Testifying under oath before a select Senate committee, McCord implicated an impressive list of people in the Watergate affair. The list included former Attorney General John Mitchell, who headed the Nixon committee at the time of the Watergate arrests; H.R. Haldeman, the President's White House chief of staff; John Dean III, Nixon's chief legal counsel; Charles Colson, a former Nixon counsel; and Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former White House aide and deputy director of the re-election committee who is now an assistant to the Secretary of Commerce. McCord, who faces up to 45 years in prison for his part in the wiretapping, talked in hopes of getting a more lenient sentence from Federal Judge John J. Sirica. The judge agreed to postpone sentencing until after McCord finishes talking to the Senate committee and to a federal grand jury in Washington that is considering further indictments.
In a closed session, McCord told the Senators that most of his information implicating higher officials came from G. Gordon Liddy, a former White House aide and re-election committee official who had also been convicted in the Watergate bugging. Other such information, he said, came from a former White House consultant, E. Howard Hunt Jr., who had pleaded guilty in the Watergate operation. Thus McCord's charges were based on "hearsay" that is not admissible evidence in a courtroom but was nevertheless invaluable to the committee, which is interested in the ethics of the political spying as much as in illegality.
McCord testified that Liddy had claimed to be present at a meeting with Mitchell in February of last year. According to McCord, Liddy prepared for the meeting a series of charts illustrating the planned political-espionage operation against the Democrats and the costs involved. The meeting was also attended, McCord claimed, by Hunt and by Presidential Counsel John Dean (TIME, April 2). McCord contended that Dean had later told Liddy that Mitchell had approved the plans. According to McCord, Hunt had shown copies of the Watergate plans to Colson, Magruder knew about the plans, and Haldeman "knew what was going on."
McCord stressed that he had also been in frequent contact with Robert C. Mardian, a former Assistant Attorney General and later a Nixon re-election committee troubleshooter, but he would not explain what they had discussed without assurances that he would be protected against further prosecution. He was scheduled to testify again this week, and promised to present some documentary substantiation of his charges.
Spokesmen for the White House and the Nixon committee issued short, sharp denials. Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler said that Nixon still had "absolute and total confidence" in Dean and that Dean had no prior knowledge of Watergate. (But Gerald Ford, Republican House leader, declared: "If Dean is clean, I see no reason why he shouldn't testify.") John Mitchell* said that "I deeply resent the slanderous and false statements about me," and reaffirmed earlier denials of any advance knowledge of the Watergate affair. Colson termed McCord's mention of him "a goddamned lie." Magruder stood by his earlier denials, and Haldeman was covered by the Nixon announcement last August that "no one presently employed by the White House" was involved.