G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord Convicted in Watergate Burglary Trial, Five Others Plead Guilty

On January 30, 1973, after a trial before Judge John Sirica, G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. were convicted on charges of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping in connection with the June 17, 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters. Five other defendants—E. Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis—pleaded guilty rather than face trial. Liddy, a former FBI agent who had been working as counsel for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP), was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping and would eventually be sentenced to 6 years and 8 months in prison, serving 4.5 years. McCord, a former CIA officer who served as CREEP’s security chief, was convicted on eight counts of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping.

The trial appeared on the surface to be a successful prosecution, but Judge Sirica harbored deep suspicions that the defendants were covering up for higher-level officials. The prosecution had presented the break-in as an isolated operation by zealous campaign workers acting on their own initiative, a narrative that didn’t align with the defendants’ extensive intelligence backgrounds or the resources at their disposal. Six of the seven defendants had been employed by the CIA, and one was a former FBI agent—hardly a profile for low-level political operatives. The existence of such high-level intelligence professionals working for a presidential campaign suggested institutional connections that the trial had not explored.

Judge Sirica’s skepticism led him to employ provisional sentencing, threatening maximum penalties while delaying final sentencing to encourage cooperation. This judicial pressure would prove decisive: facing the prospect of decades in prison, McCord would write his explosive letter to Sirica on March 19, 1973, claiming the defendants had been pressured to plead guilty and remain silent, that perjury had occurred, and that higher-ups were involved. Hunt would eventually receive 2.5 to 8 years, serving 33 months. The convictions of the Watergate burglars marked the beginning of accountability, but the light sentences ultimately imposed—and the successful use of these low-level operatives to shield higher officials, at least temporarily—demonstrated how institutional cover-ups could limit justice even when prosecutions succeeded. The pattern would repeat throughout Watergate: foot soldiers went to prison while architects of the crimes initially escaped, and even when senior officials were eventually convicted, the president who directed them was pardoned.