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The Canuck Letter was a forged letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader, published 24 February 1972, two weeks before the New Hampshire primary. It implied that Sen. Edmund S. Muskie, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, held prejudice against Americans of French-Canadian descent. The letter's immediate effect was to compel the candidate to give a humiliating speech in front of the newspaper's offices, known simply as "the crying speech". The letter's indirect effect was the implosion of Muskie's candidacy. The New Hampshire Union Leader is the daily newspaper of Manchester, the largest city in the state of New Hampshire. ...
February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ...
The New Hampshire primary is the opening gun of the quadrennial U.S. presidential election. ...
Edmund Muskie (March 28, 1914 – March 26, 1996) was an American Democratic politician from Maine. ...
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States; the other being the Republican Party. ...
In childish scrawl, and with poor spelling, the author claimed to have met Muskie and his staff in Florida. The author alleges to have asked Muskie how he could understand the problems of African Americans, given Maine's small black population. According to the letter, a member of Muskie's staff then responded, "Not blacks, but we have Canucks" -- which the letter spells "Cannocks" -- and Muskie laughed at the remark.
The Crying Speech
The Saturday before the March 7 primary, Muskie delivered a speech in front of the offices of the Union Leader, calling its publisher, William Loeb, a liar and lambasting him for impugning the character of Muskie's wife, Jane. Newspapers reported that Muskie cried openly: David Broder of the Washington Post had it that Muskie "broke down three times in as many minutes,"; David Nyhan of the Boston Globe had Muskie "weeping silently." The CBS Evening News showed Muskie's face contorted with emotion. Muskie maintained that if his voice cracked, it cracked from anger; Muskie's antagonist was the same editor who referred to him in 1968 as "Moscow Muskie," and called him a flip-flopper. The tears, Muskie claimed, were actually snow melting on his face. Jim Naughton of the New York Times, standing immediately at Muskie's feet, could not confirm that Muskie cried. William Loeb (1905 - 1982) was a U.S. newspaper publisher. ...
Jane Gray Muskie (February 12, 1927- December 25, 2004) was the widow of U.S. senator and 1968 vice presidential candidate Edmund Muskie, whose 1972 presidential campaign collapsed after he emotionally defended Mrs. ...
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The Boston Globe is the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts and in the greater New England region. ...
Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News in the 1970s. ...
Presidential electoral votes by state. ...
A flip-flop (used mostly in the United States) or a U-turn (used in the United Kingdom) is a sudden real or apparent change of policy or opinion. ...
The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...
Denouement Whether true or false, fear of Muskie's unstable emotional condition led New Hampshire Democrats to defect to George McGovern. Muskie's winning margin, 46 to McGovern's 37 percent, was smaller than his campaign had predicted. The bounce and second-place finish led the McGovern campaign to boast of its momentum. In May 1971, Muskie was the presumptive nominee, running 8 points ahead of Nixon; by the time of the Florida primary, with McGovern clearing other left-leaning candidates from the field, Muskie's campaign was dead. George McGovern on May 8, 1972 cover of Time Magazine Dr. George Stanley McGovern (born July 19, 1922) was a United States Congressman, Senator, and Democratic presidential nominee, who lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to incumbent Richard Nixon. ...
Washington Post staff writer Marilyn Berger reported that Nixon White House staffer Ken Clawson had bragged to her about authoring the letter. Clawson denied Berger's account. In October 1972, FBI investigators revealed that the Canuck Letter was part of the dirty tricks campaign against Democrats orchestrated by CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Loeb, the publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, maintained that the letter was not a fabrication. Loeb later admitted of some doubt, however, after receiving another letter claiming that someone had been paid $1,000 to write the Canuck Letter. The purported author, Paul Morrison of Deerfield Beach, Florida, was never found. Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ...
Kenneth W. Clawson was Deputy Director of Communications for Richard Nixon at the time of the Watergate scandal. ...
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Look up creep in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Deerfield Beach is a city located in Broward County, Florida, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 64,583. ...
The discovery of the authorship of the letter is covered at length in the book and the film, All the President's Men. Cover of 2005 printing All the Presidents Men is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the Watergate first break-in and ensuing Watergate scandal for the Washington Post. ...
See also Segretti during the Watergate hearings. ...
Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. ...
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References - "FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats," Washington Post.October 10, 1972.
- David Broder, "The Story That Still Nags at Me -- Edmund S. Muskie," Washington Monthly. February 1987.
- "Nixon's Nightmare: Fighting to be Believed," Time. May 14, 1973.
- Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1972.
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