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Even before the burglary of the psychiatrist's office, the White House had begun to shift its clandestine activities toward the effort to re-elect Nixon. In 1971, Nixon's prospects for re-election were not promising. A Harris poll in May showed Muskie with an eight-point lead over the President, assuming Alabama Governor George Wallace would run. Nixon, who had declared that "when I'm the candidate, I run the campaign," did not trust the Republican Party professionals to handle his re-election drive. He wanted a separate organization. A group of admen and pollsters were consulted; they found Nixon's personal popularity was so low that they advised that he stress the office rather than his name. Thus his organization became the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. It was largely composed of Administration officials, who were relatively inexperienced in politics but who had demonstrated their total loyalty to Nixon.
The first Nixon aim was to knock down the chances of Muskie's or Senator Edward Kennedy's becoming his opponent and to build up McGovern, who was rightly considered the easier man to beat. This tactic of interfering in the Democratic campaign was approved by Haldeman. Hunt began probing the intimate backgrounds of the potential Democratic candidates. He investigated Kennedy's accident at Chappaquiddick Island. Hoping to further discredit him, Hunt fabricated a State Department cable falsely stating that President John Kennedy had ordered the assassination in 1963 of South Viet Nam's President Diem. Liddy also joined the sabotage operations.
At the same time in 1971, Dwight L. Chapin, the President's appointments secretary, arranged for Donald Segretti to set up a team of infiltration and sabotage agents. Segretti was paid by the President's personal lawyer, Herbert W. Kalmbach. The agents reported to Gordon Strachan, an assistant to Haldeman, while Haldeman apparently was the top supervisor. By March 1972, the loose network had at least 30 agents.
Muskie's campaign was plagued by mysterious problems, though there is no proof that the Nixon operators caused all of them. As early as August 1971, someone reprinted on his stationery a Harris poll dealing with Chappaquiddick. This mailing went to Democrats in Congress, raising complaints that Muskie was campaigning unethically. Schedules and poll data vanished from desks. As Muskie recalls: "We were convinced that there was a spy in our campaign headquarters."
Before the first primary in New Hampshire on March 7, many white residents of that state complained of telephone calls late at night from people claiming to represent the "Harlem for Muskie Committee." The callers urged them to vote for Muskie because