Time magazine

Time magazine’s reporting on the Segretti–Chapin connection supplied consequential details about the Nixon campaign’s political sabotage operation just as The Washington Post was pursuing the same story. Its account said Dwight Chapin had hired Donald Segretti, implicated Gordon Strachan in that hiring, and reported that Herbert W. Kalmbach had paid Segretti more than $35,000. The report was not simply a parallel version of the Post’s work: it added claims the Post had not yet verified and became a source its reporters had to reckon with.

Reporting on the Segretti Operation

Time magazine’s report was based on anonymous government sources. It added that Chapin had hired Segretti, rather than merely serving as his contact, and that Strachan, a political aide to H. R. Haldeman and another University of Southern California alumnus, had also helped hire him. It further reported that Kalmbach, the President’s lawyer, had paid Segretti more than $35,000 for his secret activities.

Those details expanded the picture beyond the personal approaches Segretti had made to political operatives and job-seekers. In The Washington Post’s account, a personal narrative from Alex Shipley helped make the broader allegations concrete; Time magazine’s report, by contrast, supplied additional information about who had recruited Segretti and how he had been paid. The two accounts overlapped, but each gave the developing investigation something the other did not.

A Rival Report Reaches the Newsroom

When Bob Woodward woke on Sunday, radio news was carrying The Washington Post’s story alongside a Time magazine press release about the Segretti–Chapin connection. Woodward regarded Time’s account as better than the Post’s in some respects. He went to the newsroom and began calling sources to check what it had reported, including the claims about Kalmbach and Strachan.

A Justice Department attorney hurriedly confirmed that Kalmbach had indeed been Segretti’s paymaster, though Woodward did not have time to ask about Strachan. Woodward then called Hugh Sloan, who described Kalmbach’s extensive knowledge of the Nixon campaign’s finances even after leaving his campaign post. The new reporting redirected the Post’s emphasis: Woodward and Carl Bernstein decided that Kalmbach’s control of the fund mattered more to their next story than the payments to Segretti alone. They planned to include Time magazine’s information about Strachan as well, although Woodward had not been able to confirm it.

The Post Becomes the Target

The book places Time magazine’s report within an escalating contest among news organizations over the scope and verification of the sabotage allegations. A Washington Post story about the operation reached a broad newspaper audience through the Post–Los Angeles Times News Service wire; the New York Times then rapidly contacted sources named in the reporting and carried its own account. Time magazine’s contribution likewise circulated while reporters were still testing the connections behind the operation.

Although Time magazine had developed information as damaging as The Washington Post’s, the administration chose the Post as the target of its counterattack. The distinction mattered: the confrontation was not only over whether the allegations were true, but also over which outlet would bear the public attack for giving them prominence. The White House strategy, as described in a contemporaneous analysis, was to denounce newspapers publishing the charges without directly discussing their substance. An aide’s explanation was that the administration believed many people viewed the Eastern press as elitist, anti-Nixon, and ultimately pro-McGovern.

Significance in the Investigation

Time magazine’s report functioned as both an independent contribution and a pressure point in the Post’s reporting. Its anonymous-source account carried concrete claims about recruitment and payment; the Post’s response was to test those claims, establish what could be confirmed, and reconsider which aspect of the secret fund should lead its next story. The episode shows how competing reports could accelerate an investigation while also forcing journalists to distinguish between information already verified and information still awaiting confirmation.

The report also exposed an asymmetry in the political response. Time magazine had produced damaging material, yet The Washington Post was singled out for attack. In the book’s account, the paper’s report helped drive the story toward the White House, while the administration’s public posture sought to shift attention from the allegations to the credibility and perceived political leanings of the press.