Committee for the Re-Election of the President
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The Committee for the Re-election of the President (or the Committee to Re-elect the President, CRP, but often mocked by the acronym CREEP<ref name="Purcell2010">Template:Cite book</ref>) was, officially, a fundraising organization of United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign during the Watergate scandal. In addition to fundraising, the organization also engaged in political sabotage against Nixon's opponents, the various Democratic politicians running in the election.
History
Planning began in late 1970 and an office opened in the spring of 1971. Besides its re-election activities, CRP employed money laundering and slush funds, and was involved in the Watergate scandal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to CRP member Donald Segretti, members actively attempted to sabotage Democratic candidates.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Edmund Muskie sabotage
In an effort to sabotage Democratic candidate Edmund Muskie, then a presidential candidate, the CRP circulated a fabricated document, called the "Canuck letter", in an effort to ruin his reputation and destroy his chances in the 1972 New Hampshire primary by framing him as biased against Americans of French-Canadian descent.<ref name=":0" />
Failed attempt to sabotage George Wallace
In California, the CRP aimed to get George Wallace's American Independent Party (AIP) knocked off the ballot in the 1972 presidential election.<ref name="Chrouser1973">Template:Cite news</ref> They feared that he would split the vote in a 3-way race, and without him believed Wallace voters would go for Nixon.<ref name="Chrouser1973" /><ref name="Zak1972">Template:Cite news</ref> As part of this plan, in 1971 the CRP offered to pay Joseph Tommasi, a Californian neo-Nazi, Template:US dollar, Template:Inflation, to help.<ref name="Sunshine2024">Template:Cite book</ref> Tommasi was told to convince AIP voters to register instead as Republican; due to California's election rules, if there were too few registered voters for a party, they would be knocked off the ballot.<ref name="Sunshine2024" ;="" /><ref name="Morrison2025">Template:Cite news</ref> The goal was to get the AIP's numbers either below 11,000 or less than 1/15th of 1% of all registered voters in the state.<ref name="Chrouser1973" />
The AIP's voter registration actually rose during the period the plan was enacted. Tommasi's involvement was also a failure, as he only came up with 4 men for the plan instead of his promised 20.<ref name="Sunshine2024" ;="" /><ref name="Chrouser1973" /><ref name="Zak1972" /> Tommasi was paid less than he was promised (Template:US dollar vs Template:US dollar), and claimed the CRP had cheated the Nazis.Template:Sfn<ref name="Sunshine2024" ;="" /><ref name="Zak1972" /> In response, Tommasi leaked the story to the press.<ref name="Sunshine2024" ;="" /><ref name="Cordova1975a">Template:Cite news</ref> This initially resulted in only local news reports, but after the reveal of the Watergate scandal and CRP's implication in it, the story made national news, including in The New York Times.<ref name="Sunshine2024" ;="" /><ref name="Chrouser1973" /><ref name="Roberts1973">Template:Cite news</ref> Hugh W. Sloan Jr. testified about the plan to the Watergate Commission.<ref name="Chrouser1973" />
Robert Walters, the high-profile right-wing activist who created the plan, initially denied any tie to the CRP and said he had come up with the idea on his own.<ref name="Chrouser1973" /><ref name="Zak1972" /> He also said he did not remember the Nazis.<ref name="Roberts1973" /> Another participant in the plan disputed Walters's telling of events; reporters ultimately found checks from Walters to Tommasi, after which Walters conceded that the neo-Nazis "might have been involved".<ref name="Chrouser1973" /><ref name="Zak1972" /> The plan was described by the Watergate Committee as a "complete failure numerically, according to all participants",Template:Sfn though the Los Angeles Free Press noted it had perhaps worked out for Tommasi.<ref name="Chrouser1973" />
Watergate
The CRP used $500,000 in funds raised to re-elect President Nixon to pay legal expenses for the five Watergate burglars. This act helped turn the burglary into an explosive political scandal. The burglars, as well as G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, John N. Mitchell, and other Nixon administration figures (Watergate Seven), were indicted over the break-in and their efforts to cover it up.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The acronym CREEP became popular due to the Watergate scandal.<ref>"Watergate scandal", Encyclopædia Britannica, by Rick Perlstein, June 10, 2019. Retrieved June 15, 2019.</ref><ref>100 Mistakes that Changed History: Backfires and Blunders That Collapsed Empires, Crashed Economies, and Altered the Course of Our World, by Bill Fawcett, Penguin, October 5, 2010, page 289. Retrieved June 15, 2019.</ref>
Legacy
Writing for Time magazine, Jonathan van Harmelen wrote that "the tactics pioneered by members of Trojans for Representative Government and later CREEP set a precedent for the sort of organized political sabotage that has become commonplace today in a digital world".<ref name=":0" />
Prominent members
- Charles Colson, special counsel to the President
- Kenneth H. Dahlberg, Midwest finance chairman; developer of the Miracle-Ear hearing aid
- Francis L. Dale, chairman; publisher of The Cincinnati Enquirer; owner of the Cincinnati Reds
- E. Howard Hunt, consultant to the White House; retired CIA operative
- Herbert W. Kalmbach, deputy finance chairman; President Nixon's personal attorney
- Fred LaRue, deputy director; aide to John Mitchell
- G. Gordon Liddy, finance counsel; former aide to John Ehrlichman
- Clark MacGregor, chairman
- Jeb Stuart Magruder, deputy director
- Fred Malek, manager, former Deputy Undersecretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
- James W. McCord, Jr., security coordinator; former director of security at the Central Intelligence Agency
- Judy Hoback Miller, bookkeeper
- John N. Mitchell, director; former United States Attorney General
- Donald Segretti, political operative<ref name=":0" />
- DeVan L. Shumway, spokesman
- Hugh W. Sloan, Jr., treasurer; former aide to White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman
- Maurice Stans, finance chairman; former United States Secretary of Commerce
- Roger Stone, political operative