Monday, June 19, 1972, the same day Helms and his principal deputies and aides met to discuss Watergate for the first time. On that day a CIA contract officer named Lee R. Pennington, Jr., who worked for Howard Osborn on a $250-a-month retainer, went to McCord’s house and helped McCord’s wife to burn McCord’s files. According to Pennington, he then called Osborn to report what he had done, but the CIA and Pennington both insisted later that he had been acting on his own; McCord was a friend and Pennington was only trying to help. Whether this is true I do not know. There is no question, however, that the CIA attempted to hide its connection to Pennington. When the FBI asked Osborn for a report on “Pennington” in August 1972, the Bureau was given a description of one Cecil Pennington. The Agency’s relationship to the correct Pennington did not become known until January 1974, when an officer working for the CIA’s Inspector General went through the files of the Office of Security. Osborn wanted to lift Pennington’s file before the IG could get to it, but two men working for Osborn insisted it be left where it was. See Wise, op. cit., pp. 255-256. This is the only known post-break-in contact between the CIA and any of the Watergate burglary team, and the evidence is sufficient only to establish it as a contact once removed. But even if Osborn, or both Osborn and Helms, authorized the episode, it does not really alter our view of what happened thereafter. Helms, and the Agency at his direction, were trying to get out of the way.