Edmund Muskie
Edmund Muskie (
March 28,
1914 –
March 26,
1996) was an
American Democratic politician from
Maine. He served as
Governor of Maine, a
U.S. Senator, as
U.S. Secretary of State, and ran as a candidate for
Vice President of the United States.
Muskie was born
Edmund Sixtus Marciszewski in
Rumford, Maine, the son of Roman Catholic Polish immigrants. He graduated from
Bates College in 1936 and
Cornell University Law School in 1939 before serving in the
United States Navy during
World War II rising to
Lieutenant.
After the war he was instrumental in building up the
United States Democratic Party in Maine. Maine had traditionally been a
Republican state, notable for being one of the only two states that
Alf Landon carried against
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in
1936 (the other was
Vermont).
He served in the
Maine House of Representatives before being elected
Governor in 1954.
In
1958 Governor Muskie defeated incumbent
Republican Senator
Frederick G. Payne by 60 percent of the vote to 39 percent. Senator Muskie was reelected in
1964,
1970 and
1976 by solid margins over 60%.
Muskie became one of the first environmentalists to enter the U.S. Senate and was a leading campaigner for new and stronger measures to curb pollution and provide a cleaner environment.
In 1968, Muskie was nominated for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with sitting Vice President
Hubert Humphrey. The Humphrey-Muskie campaign lost the election to
Richard Nixon winning 42.72% of the vote, 13 states and 191 electoral votes to Nixon-Agnew's 43.42%, 32 states and 301 electoral votes. Third party candidate
George Wallace had taken 13.53%, won 5 states in the
Deep South and carried their 46 votes in the
electoral college.
Continuing his career in the Senate, Muskie served as Chairman of the
U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget through the
Ninety-third to the
Ninety-sixth Congresses in 1973-1980.
In 1970, the Maine senator was chosen to articulate the Democratic party's message to congressional voters before the midterm elections. Muskie's broadcast was seen as thoughtful and definitive in comparison to the message of President Nixon, who appearing in black and white, seemed harsh and paranoid over unrest in the nation over Vietnam and the economy. Considering the obvious parallels drawn between the two men, Muskie's national stature was raised as a major candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1972.
Before the
1972 election, Muskie was viewed as the frontrunner, a moderate establishment candidate, for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The nation was at war in
Vietnam and the Democratic Party set battle against President Nixon's conduct of the war.
But the grassroots
Iowa caucuses made the early runnings more liberal and anti-war than Muskie's perceived positions. Though the senator had built up the Democratic party in his home state of Maine, Muskie had never participated in a primary election campaign. Some observers faulted Muskie's political inexperience as one of the factors that led to the foundering of his campaign. A letter was published written by
ABC news anchor
Howard K. Smith to the candidate indicating the anchor's full support for his campaign. This was during a contentious period when the Nixon Administration claimed that the press was biased in its news coverage. Muskie lost momentum, and after winning the New Hampshire primary by only a small margin, saw his lead fall to
South Dakota Senator
George McGovern.
The collapse of Muskie's momentum early in the 1972 campaign is also attributed to his response to personal attacks. First, just prior to the
New Hampshire primary, the so-called
Canuck Letter was published in conservative New Hampshire newspaper, the
Manchester Union-Leader. The letter to the editor claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks about French-Canadians â€" a remark likely to injure Muskie's support among the French-Canadian 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 reports that Muskie broke down and cried were to shatter the candidate's image as calm and reasoned.
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. 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. Among other tricks, literature purportedly from the Hubert Humphrey campaign attacked Muskie. During the pivotal Wisconsin primary, an arson occurred at a suburban Milwaukee Democratic campaign headquarters. A young
Karl Rove was a member of this dirty tricks unit. Author Theodore White, in his book "The Making of the President 1972", cited such conduct.
Historians believe that, prior to the "crying speech", Muskie had a strong chance to win the Democratic nomination and, as a candidate acceptable to both moderate and liberal Democrats, could have gained enough support to defeat President Nixon in the general election. The more liberal McGovern would go on to win the nomination at the
1972 Democratic National Convention, but lost the November election in a landslide to the incumbent Nixon.
Muskie was tapped by President
Jimmy Carter to serve as Secretary of State, following the resignation of
Cyrus Vance from that post in 1980. Vance had opposed
a secret rescue mission as a means of bringing the
Iran Hostage Crisis to an end, and after that mission failed with the loss of eight US servicemen, Vance resigned.
Muskie attempted to bring the hostages home by diplomatic means, appealing to the
United Nations and Iran. Muskie left public office following Carter's loss of the
1980 presidential election to
Ronald Reagan and was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by Carter on
January 16 1981.
Muskie retired to his home in Washington in 1981. He continued work as a lawyer for some years. In 1987, as an elder statesman, Muskie was appointed a member of the President's Special Review Board known as the '
Tower Commission' to investigate whether President
Ronald Reagan's administration's funnelling of money in the
Iran-Contra Scandal.
Muskie died in
Washington, D.C. of
congestive heart failure in 1996, two days before his 82nd birthday. He is buried in
Arlington National Cemetery. Muskie's papers are kept at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at
Bates College in
Lewiston, Maine.
*
U.S. presidential election, 1968*
U.S. presidential election, 1972
