Segretti often talked to his college friends of going to Miami—the home of most of the Watergate burglars—to meet with Hunt and Dwight Chapin, Nixon’s Appointments Secretary. Segretti, Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler, White House appointments secretary Dwight Chapin, and Ziegler’s aide Tim Elbourne had all attended college together at the University of Southern California. All were members of a campus political group called “Trojans for Representative Government.” The group carried out a number of dirty campus political operations, which they called “ratf_cking.” Some of their “tricks” included ballot box stuffing, planting of spies in opposition camps, and spreading of bogus campaign literature designed to drive students away from the targeted candidate.
Segretti told Young that when he was in Miami, someone Segretti didn’t identify asked him to organize a group of young Cubans to mount an assault on the Doral Beach Hotel, the location of the Republican National Convention, and make it look as if the Cubans were McGovern campaign workers. Segretti refused to carry out this particular idea, calling it blatantly illegal and violent. Woodward is aware that just such an assault had indeed taken place at the hotel, and that many suspected that there were Republican provocateurs in the crowd of protesters.
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