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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))
Staring with Malice at Edmund Muskie
Nixon & his henchmen by the spring of 1971
looked caustically at Edmund Muskie
Democratic Senator from Maine
thinking Mr. Muskie the strongest
likely candidate
especially after Chappaquiddick
May 5, 1971
There was an antiwar demonstration in the Capitol Steps,
where protestors had been invited by Representatives Don Dellums & Bella Abzug.
That morning Haldeman
laughed, telling Nixon that Charles Colson
had “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 ’71
a poll of NJ voters was removed from Muskie headquarters
in the middle of the night
on the way to the Nixonites
August, 1971
a newspaper article damning the political chances of Senator
Edward Kennedy was mailed to the media and
all members of Congress in counterfeit Muskie envelopes
again by the Nixonites
Beginning in November, 1971
there was what could be called “Nixon Phone Torture”
that is, tricks with the Muskie phone system
such as when, on the afternoon of November 9 Ann Garrabrant
who worked on the staff of a Muskie sub-committee said the
phones went weirdo— always ringing but when “we picked
them up there was nothing there but the sound of a phone ringing
on the other end, just as if you had dialed a call.”
December, 1971
Muskie polling expert Anna Navaro gathered the raw data from a
poll of New Hampshire voters, preparing for the first
of the Nation’s primaries
She left her desk just a few moments
When she returned, someone had stolen the polling data
Late 1971
Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign
would pay a taxi driver
working as a courier
for the Muskie campaign in D.C.
to photograph the documents with a 35 mm camera
and turn the photos over to the Nixonites
January 17, 1972
A Harris Poll showed that
“Senator Muskie of Maine has pulled even
in a January trial heat against President Nixon
42-42 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 Primary
blue collar workers in Manchester, NH
found their phones ringing after midnight
with 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 for
Black people”
2. when the caller identified himself as a Muskie pollster, and asked
the midnight call recipient for whom he or she was voting
Then quickly the fake Nixon pollster would call back 2, 3, 4 times
with the same question
Florida Primary
A Miss Griffin, former worker in Republican state headquarters
in Columbia, South Carolina
was told to infiltrate Senator Muskie’s campaign
in the Florida presidential primary
and sabotage it.
This was in the winter of 71-’72
Griffin, for instance, helped prepare a bogus news-release on the
campaign stationary of Senator Henry Jackson
(running for the Democratic nomination also)
accusing Muskie of preparing campaign materials
on a gov’t-owned typewriter & other equipment
in the office of Rep. Sam Gibbons of Tampa,
a Democratic supporter of Muskie
Early 1972, Florida
On Florida’s east coast a fabricated letter appeared inviting
the public to a gala, free luncheon at Muskie headquarters
at the Biscayne Terrace Hotel
and then lots of people came wanting the lunch
February 2, 1972
The Nixonites sent out a letter from “Citizens for Muskie”:
“We on the Senator Edmund Muskie staff sincerely
hope you have decided upon Senator Muskie as your choice.
However, if you have not made your decision
you should be aware of several facts”
The letter went on to accuse Senators Jackson & Humphrey
of a variety of sexual activities
going back to 1929.
The letter was prepared with the help of
25 year old Robert Benz, a Young Republicans leader from Tampa
A Tampa accountant named George A. Hearing later
pleaded guilty to publishing and distributing the
Muskie sex letter
after negotiation
with fed. pros. Bill Haines
Nixonites Have Muskie Urging “More Busing”
There were a few billboards appearing in Florida
on behalf of Muskie which called for “more busing”
and sponsored by “Mothers for Muskie”
In addition Nixonites were polling for Muskie in the North Miami
suburbs between 3-5 am
causing anger in those awakened
February 20, 1972
other phony Muskie letters were handed out at a Wallace rally
in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area,
an area considered key to victory by Muskie’s staff
The Wallace rally letter read, “If you like Hitler, you’d love Wallace”
During all this in Florida
someone sent the fake Canuck letter.
The Canuck Letter
First, French Canadians were a “vital voting bloc” in New Hampshire
The 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 ancestry
White House aide Ken W. clawson once admitted
he wrote the later. Later he denied it, but admitted
he’d been in touch with Wm Loeb of the Union Leader.
The letter alleged that once Muskie was asked
if there were any “problems” with blacks in Muskie’s
home state of Maine, he replied,
“No, not blacks, but we have Cannocks”
On February 24, 1972
two weeks before the NH primary
the Manchester Union Leader printed the letter
which exploded in the media
interrupting Muskie in Florida
The Senator flew to New Hampshire
(there was also an editorial in the Union Leader
attacking Muskie’s wife that day)
and standing on the back of a flatbed truck
outside the offices of the newspaper
in the snow,
television cameras whirring
Muskie wept & “broke down”
in fatigue
& possible dope-zap
Dope-Zap?
The question has been brought forward
over the years
on whether the Nix-slime slipped Muskie
some mind-altering dope
before his break-down in the snow
outside the Union Leader office
CIA 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, 1972
New Hampshire primary
Muskie won 48% but had been expected to do better
Then, in the Wisconsin Primary
which occurred after Florida,
there were more and more stir-ups and dirty tricks
such as an anonymous order of 200 pizzas
which was billed to Milwaukee Muskie headquarters
April 17, 1972
The 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 Democrats
were invited to the Washington Hilton.
In the afternoon the Nixonites sent
a big delivery liquor COD
The Watergate pastry shop called and
said huge oodles of pastries were ready
(not ordered of course)
At 10 am the Embassy of Nigeria called to say
that campaign codirector Jack English had invited
the charge d’affaires to he banquet, and wanted to know
when Muskie people would send the limousine
16 ambassadors showed up from African and Middle Eastern
countries in rented limousines &
Muskie was presented with the bill
And once again there was the Pizza Scam—
200 arriving in the middle of the already dining Hilton
banqueteers
Two magicians also showed up
who had been invited to fly from the Virgin Islands
to perform for Democratic children.
Even under relentless dirty trick assault, Muskie won in Illinois
getting 59 delegates
but the relentless pressure had
burst his magnitude
April 25, 1972
Muskie lost in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
Humphrey won in Pa and McGovern in Mass
April 27, 1972
Muskie had 136 1/2 Democratic delegates pledged to him
but he dropped from the race today.
Humphrey and McGovern went after them
and McGovern picked up key support from
leaders such as Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma
Thus Tricky Dick
and his life-long love of smear
helped bring down a candidate
who might have been the 38th President
(& seven weeks ahead was
the Watergate Break-in which would
bring 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. |
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