Word: segretti
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...committee questioned Donald Segretti, 32, a baby-faced Los Angeles lawyer who said he had been recruited by two former White House aides, Dwight Chapin and Gordon Strachan, to carry out secret operations aimed at hindering the presidential primary campaign of Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie and sowing dissension among the leading Democratic candidates. The committee also called two of the 28 agents Segretti had enlisted to help him pursue those aims in a dozen states. The testimony of this third-rate trio of political schemers indicated that they were far from a formidable, sophisticated force. With considerable justification, Republican Senator...
...Gurney, repeatedly emphasizing the limited distribution of various deceitful or defamatory letters, handbills and ads circulated by Segretti and his crew, seemed to miss the main point. While the testimony failed to show that these tactics had actually contributed much to Muskie's downfall or turned the candidates bitterly and personally against each other, this was due more to ineptness than to a lack of intent. Moreover, Segretti testified that he reported his acts, some of which were crimes, to Chapin, his "control" at the White House. He said that Chapin, who was then Nixon's appointments secretary...
...denunciation from the Senators as they were read into the committee's record. They included the fabrication of a letter on Muskie stationery accusing Senators Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson of profligate sexual activity. This had received local newspaper attention during the Florida primary, leading Chapin to laud Segretti for getting $10,000 worth of publicity for $20. Segretti also admitted distributing a phony Humphrey press release falsely claiming that Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, another Democratic candidate, had been in a mental institution...
Other dismal acts of the Segretti team included...
...Distributing posters in Florida signed by a fictitious "Mothers Backing Muskie Committee" and reading: HELP MUSKIE IN BUSING MORE CHILDREN NOW (Committee Chief Counsel Sam Dash asked Segretti: "You were one of the mothers backing Muskie...