FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats

Segretti's first approach, said Shipley, came on June 27, 1971. "He called me before then and told me he would be in Washington and he came to a dinner party at my apartment at South Four Towers (4600 S. Four Mile Run Drive, Arlington) the night before," said Shipley. "Nothing was said about it then. The next morning I met him for breakfast and drove him to the airport -- Dulles."

According to Shipley, he picked Segretti up that morning, a Sunday, at the Georgetown Inn, where -- hotel records show -- a Donald H. Segretti stayed in room 402 on June 25, and June 26,1971 (total bill $54.75, including $2.25 in telephone calls). In addition, travel records obtained by The Washington Post show that Segretti bought a Washington-San Francisco-Monterey (Calif.) airline ticket on June 27 (departure Dulles).

On the way to Dulles, said Shipley, Segretti "first mentioned the deal. He asked would I be interested because I was getting out of the Army. We were both setting out shortly...and didn't have anything lined up. He mentioned on the way to Dulles that we would do a little political espionage."

Shipley continued: "I said, 'What are you talking about?' He (Segretti) said: 'For instance, we'll go to a Kennedy rally and find an ardent Kennedy worker. Then you say that you're a Kennedy man too but you're working behind the scenes; you get them to help you. You send them to work for Muskie, stuffing envelopes or whatever, and you get them to pass you the information. They'll think that they are helping Kennedy against Muskie. But actually you're using the information for something else.

"It was very strange," Shipley recalled. "Three quarters of the way to the airport I said, 'Well, who will we be working for?' He said, 'Nixon' and I was really taken aback, because all the actions he had talked about would have taken place in the Democratic primaries. He (Segretti) said the main purpose was that the Democrats have an ability to get back together after a knockdown, drag-out campaign. What we want to do is wreak enough havoc so they can't."

Shipley said he told Segretti, "Well, it sounds interesting; let me think about it."

In addition to Shipley, Roger Lee Nixt of Dennison, Iowa, and Kenneth Griffiths of Atlanta, Ga., said they turned down similar offers from Segretti, with whom they served in Vietnam. Both declined to discuss the offers in detail, but they acknowledged that Segretti had told them they would be engaged in sub rosa activities -- similar to those described by Shipley -- to aid President Nixon's re-election.

Still another lawyer who served with Segretti in Vietnam, Peter Dixon of San Francisco, also said Segretti made him an offer. However, Dixon said he told Segretti, "No thanks," before any details of the job were revealed. I said, "Gee, I'm not interested in political matters, and I'm not a Republican anyway," said Dixon.

The most detailed account of Segretti's activities was given by Shipley, who said he wrote a memorandum to himself about the episode, "because it all seemed so strange."

At one point during the four-month period when Segretti was trying to recruit him, said Shipley, he approached a friend who worked for Sen. Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) and was advised to try and "string him (Segretti) out to see what he's up to." Although "I don't like these type of shenanigans," Shipley said, he never subsequently contacted anyone else about the matter and said he has not been questioned by the FBI about Segretti.

During a meeting on July 25, said Shipley, Segretti "didn't go into much detail because it was mostly 'Are you with me or not?'" When he asked Segretti exactly what would be expected of him, in participating in clandestine activities, Shipley said he was told:

"'Enlist people, be imaginative' One thing he stressed was asking lawyers because he didn't want to do anything illegal. It wasn't represented as a strictly strong-arm operation. He stressed what fun we could have. As an example, he gave this situation: