Jeb Magruder, 79, Nixon Aide Jailed for Watergate

Jeb Magruder, a former high-level aide to President Richard M. Nixon who went to jail in the Watergate affair and who years later made the startling assertion that Nixon himself had ordered the break-in that set the scandal in motion, died on Sunday in Danbury, Conn. He was 79.

His death, announced on Friday, was caused by complications after a stroke, his family said.

Released from prison in 1975 after seven months, Mr. Magruder, a former successful businessman, went on to earn a master’s degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and serve as a Presbyterian pastor. For years he preferred not to speak about the scandal that led to Nixon’s downfall.

But he eventually yielded to continued questions, acknowledging in interviews that Nixon had not just covered up the burglary — at the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington — but had been involved from the start.

Jeb Stuart Magruder was born on Nov. 5, 1934, on Staten Island. His father, who owned a print shop and was a Civil War buff, named him after J. E. B. Stuart, the Confederate general.