Muskie, E

==

Here’s why Republicans are pushing the lie that Trump is a tough guy. Because it works. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of a series of books on the rise of Republican conservatism, was interviewed in The New Yorker last week and said something I think the Democratic Party has forgotten over the last decade or so. “Toughness is a core primary value,” Perlstein said, referring to red states that Democrats have failed to carry in recent elections. “All of us remember 2004, when George W. Bush won reelection explicitly on this rationale of saying we know people disagree with his issue positions, but we are going to position him as the guy who sticks with his gut no matter what.”

==

 Nestle also won over an ally from the inside of another institutional opponent: churches.

“To counter the churches involved in the boycott, they needed to find a strong church that would take their side,” Stauber and Rampton further explained. “The United Methodists were supporting the boycott, but through negotiations and piecemeal concessions, Nestle gradually succeeded in winning them over.”

To make amends, Nestle worked with the Infant Formula Audit Commission to ensure its global marketing practices were in line with World Health Organization rules. It was chaired by Edmund Muskie, a former U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter.

The problem: Nestle created the commission, funded it and called all the shots. Few equipped with this knowledge were surprised when the commission concluded “the company has not been improperly ‘dumping’ baby formula on Third World hospitals,” as explained in The Los Angeles Times.

Muskie’s audit commission — or, better put, Nestle’s — is now seen as a “model” for corporations seeking to defuse sticky communication crises, as documented in a 1986 article in the Journal for Business Strategy.

For his successful efforts running what he would later describe as “a responsive, accurate corporate issue and trends warning system [with] analysis capability,” Pagan received the Public Relations Society of America’s prestigious **Silver Anvil**Award. Other industries have followed similar strategies, such as the shale gas industry’s “Energy in Depth” and corporate education reform’s “Stand for Children.”

==

Senate Majority Whip Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of late President John F. Kennedy and late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was the favorite to win the 1972 nomination, but he announced he would not be a candidate.^[3] The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Ed Muskie,^[4] the 1968 vice-presidential nominee.^[5] Muskie's momentum collapsed just prior to the New Hampshire primary, when the so-called "Canuck letter" was published in the Manchester Union-Leader. The letter, actually a forgery from Nixon's "dirty tricks" unit, claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks about French-Canadians – a remark likely to injure Muskie's support among the French-American population in northern New England. Subsequently, the paper published an attack on the character of Muskie's wife Jane, reporting that she drank and used off-color language during the campaign. Muskie made an emotional defense of his wife in a speech outside the newspaper's offices during a snowstorm. Though Muskie later stated that what had appeared to the press as tears were actually melted snowflakes, the press reported that Muskie broke down and cried, shattering the candidate's image as calm and reasoned.^[6]

February 24-25, 1972: ’Canuck Letter’ Destroys Muskie’s Presidential Hopes; Letter a Nixon Campaign Trick

Less than two weeks before the New Hampshire presidential primary, the Manchester Union-Leader publishes a letter to the editor alleging that leading Democratic candidate and Maine senator Edmund Muskie approved a racial slur of Americans of French-Canadian descent (an important voting bloc in New Hampshire), and notes: “We have always known that Senator Muskie was a hypocrite. But we never expected to have it so clearly revealed as in this letter sent to us from Florida.” The crudely written letter becomes widely known as the “Canuck letter.” The next day, the paper’s publisher, William Loeb, publishes an attack on Muskie’s wife. An angry Muskie denounces the letter and the editorial, calling Loeb a “gutless coward,” and in the process apparently bursts into tears. The media focuses on Muskie’s tears, and the “weakness” it implies. As a result, Muskie’s standing in the polls begins to slip, and when votes are cast in New Hampshire, Muskie receives only 48% of the vote, far less than predicted. The letter is later found to have been a “dirty trick” of the Nixon campaign committee (see October 10, 1972), with White House communications officialKen Clawson admitting to actually writing the letter (see October 10, 1972). [WASHINGTON POST, 10/10/1972; SPARTACUS SCHOOLNET, 8/2007]

==

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Muskie

green

The collapse of Muskie's momentum early in the 1972 campaign is also attributed to his response to campaign attacks. Prior to the New Hampshire primary, the so-called "Canuck letter" was published in the *Manchester Union-Leader*. The letter claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks about French-Canadians — a remark likely to injure Muskie's support among the French-American population in northern New England. Subsequently,the paper published an attack on the character of Muskie's wife Jane, reporting that she drank and used off-color language during the campaign. Muskie made an emotional defense of his wife in a speech outside the newspaper's offices during a snowstorm. Though Muskie later stated that what had appeared to the press as tears were actually melted snowflakes, the press reported that Muskie broke down and cried, shattering the candidate's image as calm and reasoned.^{[^^5]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Muskie#cite_note-4)

Evidence later came to light during the Watergate scandal investigation that, during the 1972 presidential campaign, the Nixon campaign committee maintained a "dirty tricks" unit focused on discrediting Nixon's strongest challengers (see dirty tricks). Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigators revealed that the Canuck Letter was a forged document as part of the dirty-tricks campaign against Democrats orchestrated by the Nixon campaign.^{[^^6]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Muskie#cite_note-5)

In 1972, Hunter S. Thompson, in a classic example of Gonzo journalism, suggested in an article for *Rolling Stone* magazine that Muskie was hooked on Ibogaine, an obscure drug. Dr. Thompson admitted in a TV interview shown in Alex Gibney's 2008 documentary *Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson* that the entire story was fabricated by himself, and that he was surprised when other news agencies took the bait and reported it as fact.

Broder recents 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_v19/ai_4696993/

Had those facts been known, I might have described Muskie in different terms: not as a victim of his over-ambitious campaign strategy and his too-human temperament, but as the victim of a fraud, managed by operatives of a frightenened and unscrupulous president. That story surely would have had a different impact.

Given Loeb's history, there was ample reason for skepticism about the origins of the "Canuck letter.' Indeed, in my story about the Manchester incident, I devoted seven paragraphs to that subject, noting that "the Deerfield Beach telephone company does not list a Paul Morrison among the 15 Morrisons in its directory,' and noting that Loeb, while promising "a very interesting followup' on the letter, had not yet produced the author.

The story also quoted at length the denials ofthe senator and others who were with him in Florida that any such thing happened. But regrettably, none of us reporting the story pursued the mystery of authorship. We were in New Hampshire, tracking the candidates through the final week of the primary campaign. Paul Morrison, if he existed, was one thousand miles to the south. And the story, in our eyes, was not the provocation but the reaction.

It was not until seven months later, when Nixonwas sailing toward a landslide victory over McGovern and Muskie was back tending to his Senate business, that the mystery began to unravel. Marilyn Berger, then a colleague at the Post, told me that Ken W. Clawson, a former Post reporter who had gone to work at the White House as deputy director of information, had told her that he was the author of "the Canuck letter.'

I urged Berger to tell her story to Carl Bernsteinand Bob Woodward, and on October 10 they described "the Canuck letter' as part of a "massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf' of the reelection effort by White House and Nixon campaign officials. As Woodward and Bernstein spelled it out in their stories and book, All the President's Men, there was atrail of incidents going back to mid-1971 suggesting, in Muskie's words, that "somebody was out to ambush us.'Letters attacking other Democrats were sent out on facsimiles of Muskie's Senate stationery. Sensitive polling data disappeared from his headquarters. Phony campaign flyers were distributed in his name. Harassing phone calls were made to voters by people purporting to be Muskie campaign workers. On and on the list went, making it clear that Muskie was the victim of systematic sabotage.

Had Muskie made such charges the previouswinter without proof, he would likely have been judged paranoid or a cry-baby by most reporters. Had he been able at the time to provide the proof, the political history of the year would undoubtedly have been very different.

The coverage of the incident shows that when a reporter's information is incomplete, there is a great risk of misleading the reader. I put the Manchester speech into the context--accurately, I believe--of a campaign and a personality that were accessible to jurnalistic view. I did not put it into the context of campaign sabotage.Unwittingly, I did my part in the work of the Nixon operatives in helping destroy the credibility of the Muskie candidacy.

1987 Washington Monthly Company

stone hell

All three were used in the first major race that Stone was involved in, the 1972 presidential election. When he was ten years old, Stone remembered he had a tarot card reading where he was told he would meet a leader who would change his life, and Stone would later say this leader could be only one man, a man he would become enraptured by, make into his idol, and whose face he would ink into the skin on his back¹⁴(http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-one/#ftnote14). In 1972, he would help to get this life changing leader, Richard Nixon, re-elected. Every method, except voter suppression, were put to use by Nixon and the Nixon group Stone worked for, CREEP, the Committee to Re-elect the President.

The repellent ugliness of most of these tactics has been forgotten, and so I’m grateful to Rick Perlstein’s *Nixonland* for recording them. Black protesters suddenly showed up in front of the hotel room of democratic candidate Edmund Muskie, calling him racist for having said that a Democratic ticket with a black running mate couldn’t get elected. An ad suddenly appeared in a Miami Beach Jewish newspaper: “Muskie, Why Won’t You Consider a Jew as a Vice President?” Muskie hadn’t excluded the possibility. Flyers appeared in Jewish neighborhoods: “Remember the Warsaw Ghetto…Vote Right on March 14.” Muskie was of Polish descent¹⁵(http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-one/#ftnote15). A letter was sent to a New Hampshire paper, filled with outrage at what happened when Muskie had been asked how he could understand the problems of minorities given the lack of minorities in Maine, Muskie’s home state. A Muskie aide had supposedly replied that they did have minorities in Maine, the very same minority that was there in New Hampshire: “Not blacks, but we have Canucks.” Muskie had supposedly laughed¹⁶(http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-one/#ftnote16). The next day, Muskie’s wife was indicted in an editorial in the same paper of telling dirty jokes to reporters, and having two cocktails before dinner. Something in all this broke Muskie, and when the candidate defended his wife in front of television cameras, he began to weep¹⁷(http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-one/#ftnote17). Muskie’s tears destroyed his candidacy. Muskie was a target, but all the Democratic candidates were targets. Two hundred dollars was donated to Pete McCloskey by the Young Socialist Alliance, the receipt for the donation helpfully sent to a right-wing news editor. A mole, code named Sedan Chair II, was hired to go inside the Herbert Humphrey campaign and relay strategic information¹⁸(http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-one/#ftnote18).

It would eventually be established with certainty that the man who’d written the “Canucks” letter, the man who’d hired the black protesters in front of Muskie’s hotel room, was Donald Segretti, who handled a secret, separate black ops campaign team for CREEP. The man who’d actually sent the letter to McCloskey, who’d hired the Sedan Chair II mole, was a nineteen year old operative namedRoger Stone. It was because of this that he makes a brief appearance in the Watergate testimony.

From “Hearings before the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities of the United States Senate June 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14, 1973″ (page 499 on pdf and the actual document). Reisner is Robert Reisner, former administrative assistant to Jeb Magruder, the head of CREEP; Thompson is Fred Dalton Thompson, occasional senator, occasional actor, and one-time candidate for the president, in 2008:

MR. THOMPSON

Did the receipts – do you recall any names of, or any amounts to individuals who were receiving money from Mr. Porter’s safe?

MR. REISNER

Well, I can remember that there were, in addition to Mr. Liddy – now, Mr. Liddy was – it was Mr. Porter that indicated to me that Mr. Liddy was receiving money. There was an individual who was referred to by a code name and that ode name was “Sedan Chair” and that that individual was-

MR. THOMPSON

Sedan Chair? Two words?

MR. REISNER

Yes. I believe it was actually “Sedan Chair 2.”

MR. THOMPSON

Was there a Sedan Chair 1?

MR. REISNER

I do not know. I do not know. Perhaps there was. There was also an individual who worked for Mr. Porter named Roger Stone, who I believe received money. And there may have been other individuals.

But to my recollection, which is a little bit vague on this, there was not a regular disbursement, with those exceptions.

MR. THOMPSON

Who was Sedan Chair?

MR. REISNER

I do not know. I know that – well, I mean, I have sort of a general circumstantial understanding of who I think Sedan Chair was.

MR. THOMPSON

Tell us about it.

MR. REISNER

I will come as close as I can.

MR. THOMPSON

Tell us about it.

MR. REISNER

Subsequent to that, after I learned that there was such an individual, I think I was more alert to the name and I did see a memo in April, I believe, or perhaps May, that purported to be a report from another campaign committee. I believe it was the Humphrey committee. I do not know for a fact who Sedan Chair was. It could have been someone who just simply had his disagreement with the Humphrey committee and wished to report on some of their activities.

MR. THOMPSON

It was someone in the Humphrey committee, from what you can tell?

MR. REISNER

From what I can tell, I mean it purported to be.

Stone would elaborate in his own memoir:

Sedan Chair II was Michael W. McMinoway, and he would testify before the Watergate Committee that he worked as a campaign spy between February until July 1972 within three Democratic campaigns, Muskie in Wisconsin, Humphrey in Pennsylvania and California, and McGovern at the Democratic National Convention. He would be contacted by a man named Jason Rainier, who said he represented a group of concerned citizens, and he would pay him $1,500 a month for undercover work. Jason Rainier would turn out to be Roger Stone – incidentally, there is a twitter handle Jason Rainier (jrainier88), most of whose tweets are re-tweets of Stone’s. Another incidentally is that McMinoway would say in his testimony that two women who met with a McGovern delegate were prostitutes, though despite Stone’s claims, he made no mention of such activity in connection to Humphrey. He offered no proof as to why he believed the women with the McGovern delegate were prostitutes¹⁹(http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-one/#ftnote19).

There were methods of misdirection, and there was also use of the most powerful method, vote fragmentation. Edmund Muskie was the candidate considered to be the most formidable opponent against Nixon, and so focus was given to weaken and destroy the candidate in order that Nixon might face someone he might easily beat, George McGovern, in the general election. In his memoir, Stone gives an account of his attempt to split Muskie’s catholic vote by bringing a conservative catholic democrat into the race, Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty:

Were George Wallace, the segregationist governor, to run on a third party ticket in 1972, he would end up splitting votes with Nixon, possibly throwing the election to the democrats.

==

hist commons

Profile: Ken Clawson

Ken Clawson was a participant or observer in the following events:

February 24-25, 1972: ’Canuck Letter’ Destroys Muskie’s Presidential Hopes; Letter a Nixon Campaign Trick

Less than two weeks before the New Hampshire presidential primary, the Manchester Union-Leader publishes a letter to the editor alleging that leading Democratic candidate and Maine senator Edmund Muskie approved a racial slur of Americans of French-Canadian descent (an important voting bloc in New Hampshire), and notes: “We have always known that Senator Muskie was a hypocrite. But we never expected to have it so clearly revealed as in this letter sent to us from Florida.” The crudely written letter becomes widely known as the “Canuck letter.” The next day, the paper’s publisher, William Loeb, publishes an attack on Muskie’s wife. An angry Muskie denounces the letter and the editorial, calling Loeb a “gutless coward,” and in the process apparently bursts into tears. The media focuses on Muskie’s tears, and the “weakness” it implies. As a result, Muskie’s standing in the polls begins to slip, and when votes are cast in New Hampshire, Muskie receives only 48% of the vote, far less than predicted. The letter is later found to have been a “dirty trick” of the Nixon campaign committee (see October 10, 1972), with White House communications official Ken Clawson admitting to actually writing the letter (see October 10, 1972).[WASHINGTON POST, 10/10/1972; SPARTACUS SCHOOLNET, 8/2007]

View from 1987 - In 1987, David Broder, the author of the Washington Post story on the incident, recalls: “In retrospect, though, there were a few problems with the Muskie story. First, it is unclear whether Muskie did cry.… Melting snow from his hatless head filled his eyes, he said, and made him wipe his face… the senator believes that he was damaged more by the press and television coverage of the event than by his own actions… it is now clear that the incident should have been placed in a different context: Muskie was victimized by the classic dirty trick that had been engineered by agents of the distant and detached President Nixon. The Loeb editorial that had brought Muskie out in the snowstorm had been based on a letter forged by a White House staff member intent on destroying Muskie’s credibility. But we didn’t know that and we didn’t work hard enough to find out.… Had those facts been known, I might have described Muskie in different terms: not as a victim of his over-ambitious campaign strategy and his too-human temperament, but as the victim of a fraud, managed by operatives of a frightened and unscrupulous president. That story surely would have had a different impact…. Unwittingly, I did my part in the work of the Nixon operatives in helping destroy the credibility of the Muskie candidacy.” 

Media Expectations - Broder will admit that the story falls neatly into a storyline many in the media want to report: “the unraveling of a presidential front-runner’s campaign.” Muskie has shown frequent bouts of anger; according to Broder, many reporters are just waiting for something to trigger Muskie into an outburst that will damage his candidacy. For himself, Muskie will describe his emotional reaction: “I was just g_ddamned mad and choked up over my anger.… [I]t was a bad scene, whatever it was.” [WASHINGTON MONTHLY, 2/1987]

Entity Tags: William Loeb, Edmund Muskie, David S. Broder, Committee to Re-elect the President, Ken Clawson, Manchester Union-Leader

Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate, Elections Before 2000

May 15, 1972: Third Party Candidate Shot; White House Orders Gunman’s Apartment Broken Into

]Around 4 p.m, gunman Arthur Bremer shoots Alabama Governor George Wallace in a Maryland shopping center. Wallace, mounting a third-party bid for the presidency, survives the shooting, but is crippled for life. He is also essentially out of the race. The political ramifications are powerful: Wallace, a segregationist Democrat, is doing well in many Southern states. With Wallace out of the picture, his voters will almost uniformly go to Richard Nixon, and whatever threadbare chance of victory Democratic candidate George McGovern has of defeating Nixon is over. 

Lone Gunman - There is no evidence to connect Nixon or the GOP with Bremer—all evidence will show that Bremer is a classic “lone gunman” who stalked several presidential candidates before gunning down Wallace—but Nixon and his campaign officials know that even a hint of a connection between the Nixon campaign and Bremer would be politically devastating. 

Break-in - On the night of the shooting, Nixon aide Charles Colson orders campaign operative E. Howard Hunt (see 2:30 a.m.June 17, 1972) to break into Bremer’s Milwaukee apartment to discover if Bremer had any political connections (hopefully Democratic or liberal connections, though none are ascertained). [WOODWARD, 2005, PP. 47-50] Interestingly, by 6:30 p.m., White House communications official Ken Clawson calls the Washington Post to announce that “left-wing” literature had been found in Bremer’s apartment, and that Bremer may have been associated with the presidential campaign of George McGovern. No such evidence is found. Colson tells reporters that Bremer is a dues-paying member of the Young Democrats of Milwaukee, a lie that makes it into several newspapers. Post editor Howard Simons will consider the idea that Wallace was assassinated on the orders of the White House—“the ultimate dirty trick”—but no evidence of that connection ever surfaces. [BERNSTEIN AND WOODWARD, 1974, PP. 326;REEVES, 2001, PP. 480] 

FBI Leaves Apartment - Hunt will claim in his autobiography, Undercover, that he refused the order to burglarize Bremer’s apartment. The FBI finds both left-wing and right-wing literature in Bremer’s apartment, as well as a diary whose opening line is, “Now I start my diary of my personal plot to kill by pistol either Richard Nixon or George Wallace.” Local reporters will later claim that the FBI leaves Bremer’s apartment for about 90 minutes, during which time reporters and other unidentified figures are able to spirit away papers and other materials. It is not clear whether Hunt is one of those “unidentified figures.” [SPARTACUS SCHOOLNET, 8/2007] 

Deep Throat - Top FBI official W. Mark Felt provides useful information for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s profile of Bremer, operating as a “deep background” source. It is the first time Felt, who will become Woodward’s “Deep Throat” Watergate source (see May 31, 2005), gives important information to Woodward. [WOODWARD, 2005, PP. 47-50]

Entity Tags: Richard M. Nixon, Howard Simons, W. Mark Felt, George S. McGovern, Ken Clawson, E. Howard Hunt, Arthur Bremer, Bob Woodward, Charles Colson, George C. Wallace

Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate, Elections Before 2000

June 18, 1972: Reporter Finds Connection between Watergate Burglary, White House

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward learns that two of the Watergate burglars (see 2:30 a.m.June 17, 1972) have the name “E. Howard Hunt” in their address books, both with notations that indicate Hunt has a post at the White House. Woodward contacts his FBI source, W. Mark Felt—later known as “Deep Throat” (see May 31, 2005)—and asks Felt the first of many Watergate-related questions. Felt is reticent, merely telling Woodward that the burglary will “heat up” before hanging up on Woodward. Unsure what to do next, Woodward calls the White House and asks for Hunt. When no one answers Hunt’s office phone, the White House operator suggests that Hunt may be in the office of Charles Colson, the special counsel to President Nixon. Colson’s office gives Woodward the number of the Mullen Company, a public relations firm for which Hunt writes (Mullen is a possible CIA front company—see June 17, 1972). Woodward calls Hunt there, and when Hunt answers, asks him why his name is in the address book of two of the Watergate burglars. “Good God!” Hunt shouts, then says he has no comment, and slams down the phone. Within hours, Hunt will go into hiding. White House communications official Ken Clawson tells Woodward that Hunt worked with the White House in declassifying the Pentagon Papers (see March 1971), and, more recently, on a narcotics enforcement project. Clawson then puzzles Woodward by making the following unsolicited statement: “I’ve looked into the matter very thoroughly, and I am convinced that neither Mr. Colson nor anyone else at the White House had any knowledge of, or participation in, this deplorable incident at the Democratic National Committee.” Woodward soon learns that Hunt was a CIA agent between 1949 and 1970. Woodward again calls Felt, who guardedly tells him that Hunt is connected to the burglaries by far more than mere address books. Felt does not tell Woodward that he has already reviewed Hunt’s White House personnel file, and found that Hunt worked over 600 hours for Colson in less than a year. [BERNSTEIN AND WOODWARD, 1974, PP. 24-25;WOODWARD, 2005, PP. 56-58]

Entity Tags: W. Mark Felt, Bob Woodward, Charles Colson, Mullen Company, Democratic National Committee, Ken Clawson, E. Howard Hunt

Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate

October 10, 1972: White House Official Wrote ‘Canuck Letter’

Washington Post staff writer Marilyn Berger reports that the deputy director of White House communications, Ken W. Clawson, told her in regards to the infamous “Canuck letter” (see February 24-25, 1972) that sabotaged Democrat Edmund Muskie’s presidential campaign, “I wrote the letter.” Berger says the conversation took place on September 25, over drinks at her apartment. 

Woodward Skeptical - Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward is initially dubious; Clawson, a former Post reporter, had joined the White House a mere three weeks before the letter was given to the Union-Leader. But Woodward remembers something a friend had told him about new White House aides being ordered to prove themselves by “screwing an enemy of the White House.” Perhaps the letter was Clawson’s rite of initiation, Woodward reasons. Berger says that Clawson saw nothing morally or ethically wrong with writing such a letter. “That’s politics, that’s the way things are,” he told her. Berger confirms the story during a hastily arranged lunch date with Clawson, but Clawson says he will deny it “on a stack of Bibles over his mother’s grave” if asked. In a phone call to Woodward, Clawson denies writing the letter, and claims that Berger is mistaken. [BERNSTEIN AND WOODWARD, 1974, PP. 136-141] 

Alleged Author Never Located - The conservative newspaper publisher who printed the letter, William Loeb of the Manchester Union-Leader, says that the letter’s purported author, “Paul Davenport,” has never been located, and though he believes the letter to be authentic, he is now investigating the particulars of the letter because of a letter he has received that alleged someone else was paid $1,000 to assist with the “Canuck hoax.” The editor of the Union-Leader, B. J. McQuaid, says cryptically that Clawson had been “useful” to the paper in connection with the letter. [WASHINGTON POST, 10/10/1972]

Entity Tags: Manchester Union-Leader, Bob Woodward, B. J. McQuaid, Edmund Muskie,Marilyn Berger, Ken Clawson, William Loeb

Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate

October 10, 1972: FBI: Watergate Burglaries Part of Massive Political Conspiracy

FBI agents are now convinced that the Watergate break-in (see 2:30 a.m.June 17, 1972) is one example of actions conducted by a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon re-election effort, the Washington Post reports. [GERALD R. FORD LIBRARY AND MUSEUM, 7/3/2007] The efforts, ongoing since at least 1971, were directed at all of the major Democratic presidential contenders, and represent a fundamental strategy of the Nixon re-election effort. The entire conspiracy is, according to FBI and Justice Department information, directed by officials in the Nixon administration and in the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been set aside to pay for what reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward call “an extensive undercover campaign aimed at discrediting individual Democratic presidential candidates and disrupting their campaigns.” Some of the operations include: 

 Following members of Democratic candidates’ families and assembling files on their personal lives (former Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie tells reporter Carl Bernstein that his children were followed and that inquiries about them had been made at their school, but cannot be sure that it was Nixon campaign agents doing the surveillance; Bernstein will report this and other Muskie campaign allegations on October 12). 

 Forging letters and distributing them under the candidates’ letterheads. 

 Leaking false and fabricated items to the press (Bernstein’s October 12 story includes an item about false allegations of sexual misconduct against Democrats Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson). 

 Sabotaging Democrats’ campaign schedules with planned disruptions (see June 27, 1971, and Beyond). 

 Stealing confidential campaign files. 

 Investigating the lives of dozens of Democratic campaign workers. 

 Planting “provocateurs” in organizations expected to demonstrate at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. 

 Investigating potential donors to the Nixon campaign before approaching them for money. 

A CREEP spokesman calls the allegations “not only fiction but a collection of absurdities,” and notes that “the entire matter is in the hands of the authorities.” Perhaps the best-known example of CREEP political sabotage is the so-called “Canuck letter” (see (February 24-25, 1972). The letter was apparently written by White House official Ken Clawson, who denies writing the letter (seeOctober 10, 1972). [WASHINGTON POST, 10/10/1972] Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, who co-writes the story, uses information from his “Deep Throat” FBI source (see October 9, 1972) to pen what he later recalls as a much more “aggressive, interpretive” story than he and colleague Carl Bernstein have ever written before. White House press secretary Ron Ziegler refuses to answer questions about the story 29 separate times in a press conference held just after the story is published. Woodward later writes that he is astonished the FBI never responded to the story, even though information sourced from the bureau is heavily cited throughout the story. Woodward later learns that the FBI had repeatedly declined to investigate Segretti. [BERNSTEIN AND WOODWARD, 1974, PP. 149-150;WOODWARD, 2005, PP. 75-81]

Entity Tags: Carl Bernstein, Committee to Re-elect the President, Edmund Muskie, Henry (“Scoop”) Jackson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Federal Bureau of Investigation, W. Mark Felt,Bob Woodward, Ken Clawson, Ron Ziegler, Richard M. Nixon

Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate

The Sabotage 

of the Presidential Campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie

1971-1972

Not to be Forgotten in this Era of Stolen ElectionsWinning at Any Cost

In May of 2001 the preliminary findings of the United States Commission on Civil Rights regarding the stolen election of 2,000 were published, concluding that Florida Gov. Bush, and the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, turned a blind eye on election day which caused “a pattern of injustice, ineptitude and inefficiency.”

It was more than that of course. It was the undermining of democracy by subtle means, and through intimidation, which has lead us to call for Freedom Fall 2004 (see the editorial in this issue of the Journal)

The scam of the fall of 2000 got me to thinking about what Richard Nixon’s crude but somewhat secret re-election forces did to Senator Edmund Muskie in 1971 and ’72 to knock him out of the race for President.

Richard Nixon was determined to win re-election, whatever it took. In 2000, the forces of George Bush were determined to win, whatever it took, but of course there were differences, since the lessons of Nixon’s mistakes have been well-studied for almost thirty years.The effect was the same: the subversion of democracy.

Going after Senator Muskie.

After the Chappaquiddick incident of 1969, it was obvious to most that Edward Kennedy would never be president. Nixon, of course, monitored the strengths of potential rivals like a chicken on a june bug.

The june bug in this case was Senator Edmund Sixtus Muskie, a liberal Democrat from Maine. He had been governor of Maine in the late 1950s, and had become a Senator in 1959. He was Hubert Humphrey's vp candidate in 1968, and in 1972 was 58. Beginning in 1971, he emerged as a leading opponent of Richard Nixon, and was seen by many Americans as a qualified, quality presidential candidate.

Muskie seemed calm and careful with words, with a liberal vision of America, and the polls showed him moving up in a race against Nixon in 1972.

No one felt strong passion for Nixon, so he and his strategists decided to work to field the weakest possible Democratic candidate in the upcoming race. The result was a campaign of dirty tricks not ever seen before in the American democracy

It was the sort of subversion of democracy which that the CIA utilized during such of its coups, such as in Chile, Guatemala, Iran, et al.

In fact, by mid and late 1971, the forces of Nixon had hired such coups-meisters as E. Howard Hunt, who had been involved in a number CIA coups. He had been deeply involved in the Bay of Pigs, and had many ties with right wing Cubans.

On a more ominous point, Hunt has been accused a number of times of complicity in the assassination of John Kennedy, which he has denied. (See America, a History in Verse, Vol. 3 (1962-197O))

|{nl}Staring with Malice at Edmund Muskie{nl}{nl}{nl}Nixon & his henchmen by the spring of 1971looked caustically at Edmund MuskieDemocratic Senator from Mainethinking Mr. Muskie the strongestlikely candidateespecially after ChappaquiddickMay 5, 1971There was an antiwar demonstration in the Capitol Steps,where protestors had been invited by Representatives Don Dellums & Bella Abzug.That morning Haldemanlaughed, telling Nixon that Charles Colsonhad “sent oranges down yesterday from Muskie” “to the veterans in the group on Saturday”“an awful lot of casesw of oranges,” Haldeman told Nixon.Summer of ’71a poll of NJ voters was removed from Muskie headquartersin the middle of the nighton the way to the NixonitesAugust, 1971a newspaper article damning the political chances of SenatorEdward Kennedy was mailed to the media andall members of Congress in counterfeit Muskie envelopesagain by the NixonitesBeginning in November, 1971there was what could be called “Nixon Phone Torture”that is, tricks with the Muskie phone systemsuch as when, on the afternoon of November 9 Ann Garrabrantwho worked on the staff of a Muskie sub-committee said thephones went weirdo— always ringing but when “we picked them up there was nothing there but the sound of a phone ringingon the other end, just as if you had dialed a call.”December, 1971Muskie polling expert Anna Navaro gathered the raw data from a poll of New Hampshire voters, preparing for the firstof the Nation’s primariesShe left her desk just a few momentsWhen she returned, someone had stolen the polling dataLate 1971Richard Nixon’s re-election campaignwould pay a taxi driverworking as a courierfor the Muskie campaign in D.C.to photograph the documents with a 35 mm cameraand turn the photos over to the NixonitesJanuary 17, 1972A Harris Poll showed that “Senator Muskie of Maine has pulled even in a January trial heat against President Nixon42-42 per cent,with Gov. Wallace at 11 per cent.”(this was after Muskie trailed Nixon in Nov o’ ’71 at 43 to 39)In the days before the March 7 New Hampshire Primaryblue collar workers in Manchester, NHfound their phones ringing after midnightwith fake Muskie questions.There were two types of calls:1. when the caller identified himself as a member of the “Harlem for Muskie Committee:and promised that Senator Muskie would deliver “full justice forBlack people”2. when the caller identified himself as a Muskie pollster, and askedthe midnight call recipient for whom he or she was votingThen quickly the fake Nixon pollster would call back 2, 3, 4 timeswith the same questionFlorida PrimaryA Miss Griffin, former worker in Republican state headquartersin Columbia, South Carolinawas told to infiltrate Senator Muskie’s campaignin the Florida presidential primaryand sabotage it.This was in the winter of 71\-’72Griffin, for instance, helped prepare a bogus news-release on thecampaign stationary of Senator Henry Jackson(running for the Democratic nomination also)accusing Muskie of preparing campaign materialson a gov’t-owned typewriter & other equipmentin the office of Rep. Sam Gibbons of Tampa,a Democratic supporter of MuskieEarly 1972, FloridaOn Florida’s east coast a fabricated letter appeared invitingthe public to a gala, free luncheon at Muskie headquartersat the Biscayne Terrace Hoteland then lots of people came wanting the lunchFebruary 2, 1972 The Nixonites sent out a letter from “Citizens for Muskie”:“We on the Senator Edmund Muskie staff sincerelyhope you have decided upon Senator Muskie as your choice.However, if you have not made your decisionyou should be aware of several facts”The letter went on to accuse Senators Jackson & Humphreyof a variety of sexual activitiesgoing back to 1929.The letter was prepared with the help of 25 year old Robert Benz, a Young Republicans leader from TampaA Tampa accountant named George A. Hearing laterpleaded guilty to publishing and distributing theMuskie sex letterafter negotiationwith fed. pros. Bill Haines Nixonites Have Muskie Urging “More Busing”There were a few billboards appearing in Floridaon behalf of Muskie which called for “more busing”and sponsored by “Mothers for Muskie”In addition Nixonites were polling for Muskie in the North Miamisuburbs between 3-5 amcausing anger in those awakenedFebruary 20, 1972other phony Muskie letters were handed out at a Wallace rallyin the Tampa-St. Petersburg area,an area considered key to victory by Muskie’s staffThe Wallace rally letter read, “If you like Hitler, you’d love Wallace”During all this in Floridasomeone sent the fake Canuck letter. {nl}

{nl}{nl} The Canuck LetterFirst, French Canadians were a “vital voting bloc” in New HampshireThe Nixonites forged a letter,signed by a human named “Paul Morrison”saying that Muskie had used the word “Canuck”in describing people of French-Canadian ancestryWhite House aide Ken W. clawson once admittedhe wrote the later. Later he denied it, but admittedhe’d been in touch with Wm Loeb of the Union Leader.The letter alleged that once Muskie was askedif there were any “problems” with blacks in Muskie’shome state of Maine, he replied,“No, not blacks, but we have Cannocks”On February 24, 1972two weeks before the NH primarythe Manchester Union Leader printed the letterwhich exploded in the mediainterrupting Muskie in Florida The Senator flew to New Hampshire(there was also an editorial in the Union Leaderattacking Muskie’s wife that day)and standing on the back of a flatbed truckoutside the offices of the newspaperin the snow,television cameras whirringMuskie wept & “broke down”in fatigue& possible dope-zap Dope-Zap?The question has been brought forwardover the yearson whether the Nix-slime slipped Muskiesome mind-altering dopebefore his break-down in the snow outside the Union Leader officeCIA officer Miles Copeland, in his 1978 book, The Real Spy World p. 299, wrote:“ On one occasion, Jojo’s [a pseudonym for a high-level CIA officer] office was asked for an LSD-type drug that could be slipped into the lemonade of Democratic orators, thus causing them to say sillier things than they would say anyhow. To this day, some of my friends at the Agency are convinced that Howard Hunt or Gordon Liddy or somebody got hold of a variety of that drug and slipped it into Senator Muskie’s lemonade before he played that famous weeping scene.”The FBI found numerous phone calls from E. Howard Hunt to Donald Segretti, the Nixonite who was in general charge of the dirty tricks, implying that Hunt was perhaps directing Segretti’s efforts.March 7, 1972New Hampshire primaryMuskie won 48% but had been expected to do betterThen, in the Wisconsin Primarywhich occurred after Florida,there were more and more stir-ups and dirty trickssuch as an anonymous order of 200 pizzaswhich was billed to Milwaukee Muskie headquartersApril 17, 1972The national staff for Muskie held a big fund-raising dinner in Washington, D.C.to carry Muskie through the Pennsylvania and NY primaries.1,300 people well-heeled & powerful Democratswere invited to the Washington Hilton.In the afternoon the Nixonites senta big delivery liquor CODThe Watergate pastry shop called andsaid huge oodles of pastries were ready(not ordered of course)At 10 am the Embassy of Nigeria called to saythat campaign codirector Jack English had invited the charge d’affaires to he banquet, and wanted to knowwhen Muskie people would send the limousine16 ambassadors showed up from African and Middle Eastern countries in rented limousines &Muskie was presented with the billAnd once again there was the Pizza Scam—200 arriving in the middle of the already dining Hilton banqueteersTwo magicians also showed up who had been invited to fly from the Virgin Islandsto perform for Democratic children.Even under relentless dirty trick assault, Muskie won in Illinoisgetting 59 delegatesbut the relentless pressure hadburst his magnitudeApril 25, 1972Muskie lost in Pennsylvania and MassachusettsHumphrey won in Pa and McGovern in MassApril 27, 1972Muskie had 136 1/2 Democratic delegates pledged to himbut he dropped from the race today.Humphrey and McGovern went after themand McGovern picked up key support fromleaders such as Senator Fred Harris of OklahomaThus Tricky Dickand his life-long love of smearhelped bring down a candidatewho might have been the 38th President(& seven weeks ahead wasthe Watergate Break-in which wouldbring a long jail term for E. Howard Hunt&, ultimately, the fall of Tricky himself)The lesson for today? All Americans must monitor all voting districts in the USA in 2004, and prevent another stolen election. {nl}

{nl}={nl}{nl}wiki{nl}**Ken Wade Clawson** (August 16, 1936 - December 18, 1999) was an American journalist and public servant. He served as Deputy Director of Communications for U.S. President Richard Nixon at the time of the Watergate scandal. He then became Director of Communications for Nixon in early 1974, as the scandal continued to unfold, and continued in the same role for three months, for President Gerald Ford, following Nixon's resignation in August, 1974.{nl}{nl}Contents [hide] {nl} 1 Education and early career{nl} 2 Joins White House staff{nl} 3 The "Canuck letter"{nl} 4 Later years{nl} 5 References{nl} 6 See also{nl}{nl}{nl}Education and early career{nl}Clawson was born into a working-class family in Monroe, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan,^[1] and obtained his undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University. He became a labor reporter for the *Toledo Blade* newspaper, and was honored for his work there, winning aNieman Fellowship to attend Harvard University in 1967. He then joined *The Washington Post* as a reporter.^[2]{nl}Joins White House staff{nl} 1971—Jan. 1974: Deputy Director of Communications, under Herbert G. Klein; he succeeded Jeb Stuart Magruder, who moved to Committee to Re-Elect the President.{nl}{nl} January 30, 1974—November 4, 1974 - Director of White House Office Communications{nl}The "Canuck letter"{nl}Clawson is perhaps best known to most Americans for an incident which occurred as the Watergate scandal was breaking open in late 1972. According to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their 1974 best-selling book *All the President's Men*, Clawson bragged about having written the Canuck letterto a friend, Marilyn Berger, who happened to be a *Washington Post* reporter, whom he had known from his days with the newspaper. Berger passed the information along to Woodward and Bernstein, who were engaged in writing a series of articles in the *Post* exposing "ratfucking" dirty tricks by theCommittee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). The Canuck letter was a ploy used to try to disrupt the presidential campaign of Edmund Muskie, who was viewed by many senior Republicans as Nixon's most dangerous potential opponent for the 1972 presidential race. It was published by theManchester Union Leader, whose publisher, William Loeb III, was a Nixon supporter. The ploy was successful, and damaged frontrunner Muskie's momentum; he eventually lost the Democratic Party's nomination to George McGovern, who was trounced by Nixon in the November 1972 presidential election.{nl}Supposedly, when confronted with the information, Clawson tried unsuccessfully to deny it, despite having bragged to Berger about it in the first place. He replied that he did not want Berger revealed as the source, nor did he want made public the circumstances of their conversation, saying it would disrupt his marriage. Clawson had called Berger and was invited to visit her apartment for a drink. He pleaded, unsuccessfully: "I have a wife and a family and a dog and a cat."^[3] While the authenticity of this part of the story may be open to some speculation, and was not reported by the Post in its original October 1972 story, it is used to identify Clawson in American popular culture.{nl}Later years{nl}In the 1990s, Clawson was the subject of many articles pointing to him as the possible identity of Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's vital confidential source in the Executive Branch. Woodward's source was conclusively identified in 2005 as being Mark Felt, a high-ranking Federal Bureau of Investigation official.{nl}Clawson died in New Orleans at the age of 63 on December 18, 1999. He was survived by his wife Carol, three living children, his mother and sister, along with six grandchildren, a dog, and a cat. He had suffered from poor health following a stroke in 1975, the year after he left the White House.^[4]{nl}References{nl}1. Jump up http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/20/us/ken-w-clawson-63-director-of-communications-for-nixon.html{nl}2. Jump up http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/20/us/ken-w-clawson-63-director-of-communications-for-nixon.html{nl}3. Jump up All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1974{nl}4. Jump up http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/20/us/ken-w-clawson-63-director-of-communications-for-nixon.html{nl}{nl}See also{nl} Canuck letter{nl} Richard Nixon||Authority control|* VIAF: 121066943||---|---|||---|Categories: <ul style="line-height: 1.6; list-style: none none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-style: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1936_births" title="Category:1936 births" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">1936 births</a></font></font></font></font></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1999_deaths" title="Category:1999 deaths" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">1999 deaths</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_presidential_advisors" title="Category:United States presidential advisors" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">United States presidential advisors</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:University_of_Michigan_alumni" title="Category:University of Michigan alumni" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">University of Michigan alumni</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bowling_Green_State_University_alumni" title="Category:Bowling Green State University alumni" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Bowling Green State University alumni</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nieman_Fellows" title="Category:Nieman Fellows" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Nieman Fellows</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_the_Watergate_scandal" title="Category:People associated with the Watergate scandal" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">People associated with the Watergate scandal</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Washington_Post_journalists" title="Category:The Washington Post journalists" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">The Washington Post journalists</a></li></ul>{nl}|