Register Don't have an account? Donald Segretti. View source. History Talk 0. Do you like this video? Play Sound. They wrote that Segretti was the kingpin of a "massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of President Nixon's re-election".
In fact, there was no "massive campaign". Segretti visited only a few primary states and never rounded up more than a few volunteers in any state. Most of the tricks they did were sophomoric- sending pizzas to a small Democratic dinner; dropping white mice at a Muskie press conference with ribbons on their tails reading 'Muskie is a rat fink'.
But the exceptions made me angry when I heard about them. Preeminently the so-called "sex-letters". Three days before the Florida primary, letters on "Citizens for Muskie" stationery accused Senator Henry Jackson of fathering an illegitimate child in And, conversely, of having been arrested on homosexual charges in and The two accusations seemed to cancel each other out, but no matter. In the same letter, Senator Hubert Humphrey was alleged to have been arrested for drunken driving in Washington on December 3, None of these char was true.
I publicly apologised for them at the Ervin hearings. But it is also true that none of the charges had an bearing on the Florida primary. Governor George Wallace easily swamped all of the contenders. On October 10 the Post had a new front-page allegation. Under the headline FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats, the story began: "FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's reelection and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Reelection of the President.
The story charged that a young man named Donald Segretti had recruited fifty operatives for an undercover campaign that involved "following members of Democratic candidates' families; forging letters and distributing them under candidates' letterheads; leaking false and manufactured items to the press; throwing campaign schedules into disarray; seizing confidential campaign files and investigating the lives of dozens of Democratic campaign workers.
Segretti, like Tuck, was supposed to use his imagination and his sense of humor to cause minor disarray among the opposition. Chapin read the Post's story with incredulity. He had not kept tabs on Segretti's activity, but the sinister implications of the Post's account were nothing like what he had authorized. Segretti expressed outrage. As I saw it then, by printing this story less than a month before the election, the Post was accusing Segretti of spying and sabotage for the same kind of thing that had been dubbed creative mischief when Tuck had done it.
Furthermore, it was grossly untrue and unfair to link Segretti to the Watergate break-in. A few days later reporters from the Post phoned the White House to warn that they were about to run a new story that would charge that Chapin and Hunt were Segretti's contacts and directed his activities.
This would tie Chapin by implication into the Watergate break-in stories. The reporters also said that they were going to charge that Chapin and Hunt had briefed Segretti on what the grand jury would ask about his activities. Both these charges were untrue, and Chapin issued a statement denying them.
The story that was actually published on the front page of the Post on October 15 had been subtly changed from the one the reporters had described to us over the phone. They did not, however, inform Chapin that any changes were going to be made or give him an opportunity to modify the wording of his denial accordingly.
The story as run did not accuse Chapin of briefing Segretti on the grand jury, and weakened the alleged connection with Hunt.
The story now began: "President Nixon's Appointments Secretary and an ex-White House aide indicted in the Watergate bugging case both served as contacts in a spying and sabotage operation against the Democrats. Of course the problem was that there was no way of separating facts from fiction in this kind of story three weeks before a presidential election.
The most damaging parts were completely false; but it was true that Chapin had hired Segretti to cause disarray in the Democrats' campaigns. And there were other political hazards involved in trying to set the story straight. Haldeman had given Chapin approval to have Segretti paid by my lawyer and campaign aide, Herb Kalmbach. Thus there was the danger of focusing the story more strongly on the White House. Bernstein reached Segretti by phone late that afternoon. He agreed to let Bernstein and Meyers come over.
Segretti was dressed in corduroy jeans and Scandinavian sweater and had a grin on his face when they arrived. He shook hands with Bernstein warmly. Bernstein was struck by the fact that he was only about five foot four This was the master spy?
Secret agent with a White House badge? Segretti had a baby face, a slightly toothy smile and traces of a cowlick. Segretti invited Bernstein and Meyers to sit down on the living-room couch and chatted about his hi-fi equipment. Segretti was, by his own account, confused, scared, angry, and with friends.
Bernstein found him likable, and his situation pathetic. I didn't know what it was all about. They never told me anything except my own role. I had to read the papers to find out. Segretti was agitated about the inquiries made to his family, friends and acquaintances by the press, and by the investigators from Senator Edward Kennedy's subcommittee.
Some people even asked my friends if I knew Arthur Bremer. It's terrible. It's horrible. I didn't do anything to deserve that. What do people think I am? I've been dragged through the mud, maligned you'd think I was making bombs or something. I haven't done anything illegal, or even that bad. My friends have been harassed, my parents, my girlfriends; my privacy has been invaded; my phone is tapped, it clicks all the time; people have been following me; everybody I ever telephoned has been bothered.
He traced most of his difficulties to the press. He was particularly angry with the New York Times and Newsweek for getting his phone records and badgering his family. So Meyers and Bernstein calculatedly dumped on the opposition. The process was excruciatingly slow. Segretti wouldn't volunteer any information without prodding and refused to discuss his activities except in general terms. Finally, Segretti admitted he had been hired by Chapin.
Strachan also had discussed the job with him. Kalmbach had paid him. The first approach had been from Dwight Chapin to Segretti, not vice versa. If the really sinister things actually happened, I don't think Dwight knew about them," Segretti said.
Segretti confirmed meeting Howard Hunt and a man he thought was Gordon Liddy in Miami; Hunt had asked him to organize an anti-Nixon demonstration to embarrass McGovern. He would not say what the plan was, "but it sounded illegal to me, and I didn't want anything to do with being violent or breaking the law. After each visit from the FBI, Segretti acknowledged, he had called Chapin for advice, but he would not say who had counseled him just before his grand-jury appearance.
He denied that his testimony had been prompted or rehearsed, or that he had been shown FBI reports. Bernstein got the impression that the discussion had been with John Dean.
Segretti said he had been interviewed for what he presumed was the "Dean investigation. Segretti said he was through being a pawn of the White House. All I want is to get my life back in order. I think the lowest point was when the mother of an old girlfriend told me she didn't want her daughter to see me any more. People can really be cruel. Again Segretti's eyes glazed over and filled with tears. They were angry at having been set up by the FBI, and when reporters for the San Diego Door local newspaper began approaching their old adversaries for information earlier in , they found that many were willing to cooperate; some were even friendly.
They were probably things I should not have done. Segretti told the class that he participated in disrupting Democratic fundraisers that were taking place in Washington.
It got way off track and people thought I might have orchestrated the Watergate break-in. He did say that many years later he learned that it was probably innocuous information that was erased. He also surmised that Nixon probably had no involvement in the Watergate break-in, but helped cover it up to protect those who were. It was a Shakespearian tragedy.
Another student asked Segretti if he felt morally challenged at the time of his involvement. We believed it was the way politics was done. I have thought about this point a lot.
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