“We want to emphasize that this man [McCord] and the other people involved were not operating either on our behalf or with our consent,” said John N Mitchell, the former Attorney General who is now head on the Nixon committee.

Ronald I. Ziegler, the White House press secretary, said that “a third-rate burglary attempt” was unworthy of comment by him and asserted that “certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it is.”

The White House pointed out that there was no evidence that either Mr. Colson or Mr. Hunt had been involved in any way in the raid on the Democrats, and several high ranking police officials privately advanced the same view.

The Democratic National Committee, however, filed a $1 million civil suit against the five accused raiders and against the Committee to Re-Elect the President, charging that the Democrats’ civil rights and privacy had been violated.

Mr. Hunt, operating under the code name “Eduardo,” was described as the man in direct charge of the abortive invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. He is known to have worked for the CIA from 1949 to 1970.

Mr. Barker also worked for the CIA. He was reported to have been Mr. Hunt’s “paymaster” for the Cuban landing and, under the code name “Macho” to have established the secret invasion bases in Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Mr. McCord,too, was a CIA agent. After three years with the FBI, he joined the intelligence unit in 1951, and resigned in 1970. His role in the Bay of Pigs was understood to be relatively minor.

The spy angles led directly to the Cuban refugee angle. It was disclosed that on the weekend of May 26-29, eight men who described themselves as representatives of an organization called “Ameritas” registered at the Watergate Hotel.

The eight included those arrested in Democratic headquarters except Mr. McCord. It was also disclosed that during that May weekend there was a burglary of the Democratic offices.

“Ameritas” turned out to be an obscure real estate concern in Miami. One of the principalswas a close friend of Mr. Barker but none of the arrested men ever owned an interest in the company.

A man who does, Miguel A Suarez, a prominent lawyer in the Cuban community, said that Mr. Barker had made “unauthorized” use of the Ameritas letterheads in making reservations at the Watergate for the eight men.

The FBI began a nationwide search for the four others who stayed there, and the theory grew that if “Ameritas” was not, as the police had speculated, a right-wing, anti-Castro paramilitary unit, there must be one somewhere.

The Chilean chancery, representing a left-wing Government, was mysteriously searched during the night of May 13-14, and the door of a law firm with several prominent Democrats as members was tampered with on the night of May 15-16.

Some of the $100 bills found by the police appear to have been withdrawn from Mr. Barker’s Miami bank. The money had been deposited there in the form of checks drawn on the Banco Internacional, SA, Mexico City.

There are countless anti-Castro organizations in the Miami area, ranging in size from one member to hundreds, and many of them are devoted to plotting. AMong those cited in connection with the break-ins was one involving veterans of the Bay of Pigs.