Canuck letter
It implied that Senator Edmund Muskie, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, held prejudice against "Canucks", Americans of French-Canadian descent.
In October 1972, FBI investigators asserted that the Canuck letter was part of the dirty tricks campaign against Democrats orchestrated by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President.
[8] In a childish scrawl with poor spelling, the author of the letter claimed to have been present during a visit by Muskie and his staff to a drug rehabilitation center known as Seed House in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
[13][14] The content came from a Newsweek editorial of December 27, 1971, which itself drew from an article written by a reporter with Women's Wear Daily who traveled on the campaign trail with Jane Muskie.
[15][16] The source article in Women's Wear Daily, which ran on December 17, 1971, began with:[14] BEDFORD, N.H.—"Put your notebooks way, girls, Momma's going to sing tonight."
With that, Jane Gray Muskie lit another filter-tip cigarette and invited the members of her traveling press corps to cheese and drinks in her room and dinner at the Steak House in her motel.
The author of the Women's Wear Daily article, Andrea "Kandy" Stroud, felt that Newsweek had "picked up the sensational parts of the story".
[14] On the morning of Saturday, February 26, ten days before the 1972 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary of Tuesday, March 7, Muskie delivered a speech in front of the offices of the Union Leader.
[25] In early March, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak wrote in their syndicated political column that Muskie had, in their view, committed three errors: first, allowing state-level staff to convince him of a questionable tactical decision (verbally attacking Loeb); second, digressing into topics (the editorial about his wife) not discussed with advisors; and third, losing control of his emotions.
"[24] On October 10, 1972, FBI investigators revealed that the Canuck letter was part of a dirty tricks campaign against Democrats orchestrated by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP, later derisively nicknamed CREEP).
[31] Washington Post staff writer Marilyn Berger had reported that, on September 25, White House staffer Ken W. Clawson had bragged to her about authoring the letter.
[4] The founder of the drug rehabilitation center in Fort Lauderdale, site of the supposed event described in the letter, said he was present throughout Muskie's visit and, "What Mr. Loeb printed in his newspaper never happened.
