Scorpions' Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate by Jefferson Morley

Author:Jefferson Morley [Morley, Jefferson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Corruption & Misconduct, Intelligence & Espionage, History, United States, 20th Century
ISBN: 9781250275844
Google: kpc9EAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B09CNF7DZL
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2022-06-06T19:00:00+00:00

“DEEP APPRECIATION”

He was a soft-spoken man, said the widow Miriam Furbershaw to the inquiring FBI agents. He wanted to rent the room in the basement of her home in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland. He had good credentials, said he was an air force colonel, recently retired, and he made a good impression. His name was James McCord.

McCord had retired from the Office of Security in August 1970. His final job evaluation praised his “imagination, ingenuity, and drive,” as well as his “innate stubbornness” as “a very principled individual who once convinced he has hit upon the proper course of action will usually yield only by direction.”3

Helms appreciated his service. When McCord went into business as a security consultant, he hung an autographed photo of the director bestowing an award on him. It was signed and personally underlined, “With deep appreciation, DICK HELMS.”4 On recommendation of a friend in the Secret Service, McCord was hired by the Committee to Re-elect the President as chief of security in October 1971.5

McCord told Mrs. Furbershaw that his family lived in Baltimore and he needed a place to receive mail and stay overnight for occasional work at the Pentagon. She told him she had two rules: no smoking in the bedroom, and no women overnight. McCord agreed. He paid the rent with a single one-hundred-dollar bill and moved in. During installation of a phone line in the basement, she said that a telephone company technician informed her there was considerable “bugging equipment inside her tenant’s apartment.”

One winter night, when McCord wasn’t there, she went down to the apartment. Much to her surprise, she found a young girl—she couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old—curled up in a chair. Mrs. Furbershaw quickly retreated upstairs. The following morning she saw McCord and the girl drive away early. She went downstairs. The state of the bedsheets was shameful. McCord was a “rotten womanizer,” she thought, and with helpless young girls, which made it worse.

Later in the day McCord came back, alone. Furious, Furbershaw insisted he leave immediately. Pack up and get out, she said. McCord offered her more money. She wouldn’t have him there for any amount of money, she said. Pack up your belongings and get out. Now! And take these sheets with you, the only thing they’re good for is burning. McCord left. After that Mrs. Furbershaw said she received postcards at the house from women who obviously had been in the apartment, filled with lewd references to their experiences there. That’s the last she knew of James McCord until she saw his picture in the Washington Post in late June 1972 alongside a story about a burglary.6

What McCord was doing at Mrs. Furbershaw’s apartment with young women and bugging equipment is anybody’s guess. McCord, by all appearances, was a family man, religious and conservative. He might have had a secret life. His secret might have been professional only, namely mounting operations to compromise others. As an officer in the Security Research Staff, McCord had

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