Donald Segretti

Donald Henry Segretti (born September 17, 1941, in San Marino, California) is a former political operative for then-U.S. President Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) during the early 1970s.

He holds a B.S. in finance from the University of Southern California (1963) and a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law (1966). While at USC he was initiated into Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and became associated with Dwight L. Chapin, Tim Elbourne, Ron Ziegler, Herbert Porter and Gordon C. Strachan, all of whom joined the "Trojans for Representative Government" group.

Segretti was hired by friend Dwight L. Chapin to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which he dubbed "ratfucking") against the Democrats, with his work being paid for by Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's lawyer, from presidential campaign re-election funds gathered before an April 7, 1972, law required that contributors be identified. His actions were part of the larger Watergate scandal, and were important indicators for the few members of the press investigating the Watergate scandal in the earliest stages that what became known as the Watergate scandal involved far more than just a simple break in.

Segretti's involvement in the "Canuck letter" typifies the tactics Segretti and others working with him used, forging a letter ascribed to Senator Edmund Muskie which maligned the people, language and culture of French Canada and French Canadians, causing the soon-to-be Democratic presidential candidate Muskie considerable headaches in denying the letter and having to continue dealing with the issue. Many historians have indicated over the years that Muskie's withdrawal from the Presidential primaries was at least partly the result of Segretti and some of the other "Ratfuckers" creating so much confusion and false accusations that Muskie simply could not respond in any meaningful way.

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