Start with the men. McCord was the CIA’s former security man until 1970. Hunt retired the same year and went to the Robert R. Mullen Company, a Washington public-relations firm that had provided cover for CIA officers abroad. TIME counted five of the seven burglars as having been involved with the Agency. [1]
Then the conduct. After the arrests, McCord’s wife burned papers with a CIA officer, Lee Pennington, on hand; Baker’s report charged that Pennington destroyed documents that might show a link between McCord and the CIA. The Agency did not tell the FBI or the Senate. In January 1973, just before Richard Helms left as director, the CIA destroyed tapes that included his phone calls with Nixon, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, days after the Senate had asked it to keep Watergate evidence. [1]
Add Hunt’s CIA help for the Ellsberg operation, criticized by the Rockefeller Commission, and the theory says the Agency knew more, and did more, than it ever admitted. [2]
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