The Committee to Re-elect the President
The Committee for the Re-Election of the President (dt. Committee for the Re-election of the President ) presented itself the goal of the re-election of US President Richard Nixon in the presidential election in 1972 to ensure. It was run by then Attorney General John N. Mitchell . Maurice Stans (former Minister of Commerce) was chairman of the associated finance committee. The official abbreviation used by the committee was CRP, but during the revelation of the Watergate affair and in later literature, the derogatory acronym CREEP (with an allusion to English "to creep" = sneak, subvert or "creep" = repulsive person) was mostly used . used.
Other members of the CRP committee included Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt , who planned the details of the Watergate break-in. The CRP's secret fund of over US $ 500,000 had been planned for the five Watergate intruders and for their silence in 1972. Kenneth Dahlberg was the director of CRP's Minnesota office . He later accepted a $ 25,000 donation from executive director of a soybean company, Dwayne Andreas . The donation turned into a cash check that later turned up at one of the Watergate burglars, Barker.
One of the Watergate burglars arrested was CRP security chief James W. McCord, Jr. But it wasn't until 1973 that it became public that the CRP - and thus the White House - was behind the Watergate break-ins. CRP stands for a whole system of break-ins, tapping of telephone lines, intimidation, slander and other illegal activities in order to influence the outcome of the elections in their favor. The chairman was the publisher Francis L. Dale , who, however, never actually appeared. In reality, the CRP was controlled by the White House, with Justice Secretary John N. Mitchell holding the most important posts of White House staff: Hugh Sloan , Herry Flemming, and especially Jeb Magruder . Magruder had to coordinate all decisions and activities of CRP with Attorney General John N. Mitchell.
Nixon's personal attorney and campaign fundraiser, Kalmbach, also exercised significant strategic influence over CRP. Kalmbach provided part of the campaign money in order to harm the political opponent George C. Wallace . Even Charles Colson , special adviser to the president, pressured from CRP.
When the investigation slowly turned to CRP, everything was done to keep the president out. But the four functionaries Charles Colson, Herbert Kalmbach , Harry Robbins Haldeman and John N. Mitchell were close to Nixon, which weighed heavily on him in the public eye and ultimately led to his resignation.