November 15, 1973
Page 37265
TESTIMONY OF BERL I. BERNHARD ON POLITICAL SABOTAGE AGAINST THE 1972 MUSKIE CAMPAIGN
Mr. HUGHES. Mr. President, as one who was closely involved with Senator MUSKIE's campaign for the Presidency in 1972, I read with great interest the testimony of Mr. Berl I. Bernhard, Senator MUSKIE's campaign manager in 1972, before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. Mr. Bernhard describes the incidents of dirty tricks against the Muskie campaign and their effect on campaign planning and staff morale.
This is the most thorough statement yet made on political sabotage against Senator MUSKIE's 1972 campaign, and it is also a careful and judicious evaluation of the effect of such sabotage on Senator MUSKIE's overall campaign effort. Because so many people have been asking questions in this area, I thought it might be useful to print Mr. Bernhard's testimony in the RECORD, and I ask unanimous consent to do so at this point.
There being no objection, the testimony was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
TESTIMONY OF BERL BERNHARD, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
OCTOBER 31, 1973.
During this past year, I have had many occasions to reflect on the course of Senator Muskie's campaign for the Democratic nomination in 1972. I would like to share some of my conclusions with the Committee today. Although I was deeply involved in the Muskie effort, first as an advisor and later as Campaign Manager, I will try to speak with some objectivity about it.
Living with the memory of having been a key operative in the conduct of a losing Presidential primary effort on behalf of a front-runner is not heart-warming. So at the start, I must confess that I bear a few scars. I ask you to please understand that nothing that I say is intended to rationalize our defeat in any way whatsoever. We made mistakes and those mistakes were costly.
I am going to talk principally about two aspects of the campaign; the problems of financing it, and the problems that came from being the Number One target of dirty tricks. They are to some extent interrelated, since the damage that was done to us by dirty tricks had an impact on our ability to raise funds. That impact cannot be precisely measured, but I think there is no question of its existence.
BACKGROUND OF THE CAMPAIGN
Let me try to put into perspective the nature of the Muskie campaign. Interest in Senator Muskie as a national leader began during the mid-1960's and reached an early peak during his campaign for the Vice Presidency in 1968, where he emerged as an articulate, candid and attractive public figure – one capable of reconciling some of the bitter animosity that had divided the Democratic Party in the wake of Chicago and that infected the country as a result of Vietnam, disorders on the campuses and riots in the cities.
During 1969 and 1970, a number of people drawn to him by the character of his 1968 campaign, urged him to make a try for the 1972 nomination. He was interested, but he was also aware that as a Senator from Maine with no built-in organizational or institutional base of support and with little access to financial resources, the road to the Convention would be very long and very difficult – and it was.
Subsequently, Senator Muskie spoke on nationwide television in response to a speech by President Nixon immediately prior to the 1970 Congressional elections. The quality and forcefulness of that address gave new impetus to a possible Muskie candidacy. So did an early Harris poll of January, 1971 which showed Senator Muskie beating President Nixon 43 percent to 40 percent.
1971 EFFORTS
During early 1971, he began to travel throughout the country to test whether there was genuine interest in him as a candidate. The results of those travels were sufficiently encouraging to cause Senator Muskie to begin organizing a small campaign staff which had three principal responsibilities: policy guidance, political organization and fundraising. During the following months, a number of capable people joined the staff or otherwise committed themselves to work in one or another of these areas. By the summer of 1971, he had became the clear front-runner for the 1972 nomination. During the fall of 1971, many of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate publicly pledged their support to him, as did several Governors and Mayors.
What happened between the spring of 1971 when this effort began in earnest and the late spring of 1972 when Senator Muskie withdrew as an active primary candidate is well known, so far as the vote count in the primaries is concerned. The reason why the Muskie effort failed to succeed are much more complicated.
To understand what was done and why, let me turn to September, 1971. We had decided during the summer of 1971 that we should come out of the corner fast. The strategy was to maintain that impetus because Senator Muskie was ahead, and we saw our job as that of keeping him there. We planned a four months' schedule, commencing in September and leading into the primaries as a single unit of the campaign.
Our heavy schedule was designed to reflect what we once referred to as an Ohio State "four yards and a cloud of dust" campaign. But the fact was that our appetite exceeded our digestive abilities.
A lack of financial resources all the way through the primaries undercut our strategy. Media and advertising budgets were slashed, staff reduced in number and pay, no funds were made available to a few key primary states.
FUND RAISING PROBLEMS AND PRACTICES
Senator Muskie, as you know, represents a state whose small population and limited resources had neither produced nor required great financial commitments in his political campaigns. It was, therefore, necessary to seek funds from people throughout the country. It may be difficult for anyone who has not campaigned for national office or who has not been intimately associated with such a campaign to understand the staggering financial requirements involved. Money is needed for a central staff; for communicating with potential supporters and advisors; for organizations in each state; for polling; for television, radio and newspaper promotion; and for travel not only by the candidate but by his staff and his supporters. Unless a candidate is personally wealthy, and Senator Muskie is not, or unless he has an already developed corps of wealthy supporters willing to back his campaign – and Senator Muskie did not – he must devote an outrageous part of his time to appealing to people for money.
The concern about fundraising, having to do with the susceptibility of a candidate to the special interests of donors, is legitimate. There is always the danger of a quid-pro-quo relationship, involving favoritism for money. In the Muskie campaign no promises or commitments were ever made in return for contributions.
Senator Muskie's integrity was proof against such pressures. Yet all his integrity could not protect him from the demands on his time, interest and concentration which fundraising represented. Let me be specific. When he might have been working out policy positions on the issues before the country or developing contacts with political leaders or addressing opinion- making audiences, his advisors often found it necessary to schedule him at functions whose primary purpose was to persuade well-to-do people that they should contribute to his campaign.
Other people – staff members like me or outside supporters – raised some of the money required. But much of it – and I emphasize that – was simply unavailable until there was eyeball-to-eyeball contact with the candidate – until there was what President Johnson used to call a "pressing of the flesh."
CAMPAIGN FINANCING
On an overall basis, we raised approximately $2.2 million in 1971 and expended virtually all of it. We raised just under $3 million from January 1, 1972 to the effective date of the new law on April 7, 1972 and again expended virtually all of that. Except for the initial few months of the campaign, we were always in the hole. We never had enough money to pay our obligations an a current basis.
I have attached as Exhibit 3 a month-by-month breakdown which shows receipts and expenditures supplemented by an analysis of accounts receivable and payable. This shows our deficit position month-by-month. We were always in the hole and faced with the problem of reducing payroll, media and/or other campaign expenses.
During the campaign, much publicity was given to the fact that we were required by lack of funds to slash our staff and to impose pay cuts on the staff. In mid-1971, for example, we experienced an economic crunch. I was forced to lay off 10 of our staff people and impose salary cuts on between 10-15 others. Later in the Fall of 1971, our operation geared up again and reached a peak around February, 1972, when we had approximately 125 salaried employees, paid consultants or weekly wage employees.
At the end of February, 1972, we cut 14 people from the staff and made pay cuts to 5 people. On March 15, we cut 29 people from the staff and made other pay cuts. On March 31, 1972, we simply did not pay most of the people except for 33 of the lower paid staff. As to the 33 who were paid at all, 23 received pay cuts. More detailed information describing these actions is attached as Exhibit 4. After the first few primaries, our finances were in such poor shape that we had virtually no money to expend in a number of critical primaries. We put no money from the national campaign into the Illinois primary – and in the critical Massachusetts and Pennsylvania primaries, which were the last before the Senator withdrew from active campaigning in the primaries, we put about $18,000 into Massachusetts and less than $20,000 into Pennsylvania from the national headquarters.
Let me address myself to certain questions which have been raised in staff interviews or prior testimony.
FINANCE ORGANIZATION
First, our fund raising campaign had no rigid structure. There was no Finance Committee to Elect Muskie President. We operated on an informal, ad hoc basis, welcoming the fund raising assistance of anyone who indicated a desire to perform that chore. If I had to single out the one individual who did more to help us both with contributions and with enlisting the support of others, that person would be Arnold Picker, for which effort he earned the number one spot an the White House "Enemies" list. However, he was not a finance chairman in any formal sense.
Our fund raising effort involved many techniques – from a direct mail campaign which proved relatively successful to direct appeals at dinners, receptions and so on.
We maintained records of all contributions coming into the campaign headquarters from January 1, 1971 through a daily ledger and those ledgers have been available to the Committee since June of 1973.
PRACTICES
In an effort to assure that our fund raising efforts complied with the existing law, we disseminated a number of memos setting guidelines for fund raisers. These memos are attached as Exhibit 6.
Because I wanted my own view of the law to be reviewed by an outside source, I sent to Mr. Mortimer Caplin, former Commissioner of the IRS, a memo setting forth guidelines and asked for his opinion, which I received, approving the fund raising guidelines. See Exhibit 7.
COMMITTEES
We had many committees. I don't know the exact number, but there were well over 200. Some of these committees were created exclusively for gift tax purposes. Many others were operating committees, raising funds and providing funds in primaries or convention states. We have made available to the staff of the Committee a list of our committees.
CONFIDENTIALITY
The question of the acceptance of anonymous or confidential contributions has come up in the course of these hearings. Prior to April 7, 1972, when the new campaign financing disclosure act became effective, it was entirely lawful to maintain the anonymity of those who did not wish to have their names identified with our campaign. A number of people who contributed funds to us requested and were given a pledge of anonymity and confidentiality for understandable, largely personal, reasons.
I would point out that these contributions were all logged in the books as "anonymous." We count $343,000 of such gifts from January, 1971 to April 6, 1972.
One other fact which you should know: because of the constant leaking of information and the disappearance of materials from our campaign, I became concerned that we could not, in good faith, promise confidentiality if we could not keep that promise. I therefore set up a system whereby checks or cash received under promises of confidentiality would only be received in sealed envelopes, put in my office, and then given, still unopened, to an individual who would deposit them in the bank. This assured that the depositor would not know the names of the cash contributors, and that I would not know exactly how much specific individuals who asked for confidentiality had given. I am reasonably satisfied that this method worked. There was no illegality involved and the motives explained to us for the request for anonymity suggested no impropriety. We tried to be careful not to accept contributions from people who might have a special interest or axe to grind. We had no power to coerce contributions and we did not try to invent such a power.
CASH
Let me comment on the question of cash contributions. We received cash contributions. I do not know the total amount of those contributions, since cash and checks were all listed as part of contributions received under the same account column. My best estimate is that during the year and a half of our campaign, we may have received in the neighborhood of $150,000 in cash. I cannot prove that figure.
Quite frankly, cash contributions were discouraged. But when people gave us cash, routine practice was to immediately deposit cash in our checking accounts the day received, or if after banking hours, the following day. As a result, your investigators can follow the trail of expenditures of cash receipts, as well as of others, by examining our books, and I understand that this has been done.
We maintained two safes at our campaign headquarters and kept a small amount of cash in at least one of them. One safe, which was in an office next to mine, was secured primarily because of the continuing leaks of campaign materials and the appearance of such information in the press as well as the apparent theft and photocopying of documents which, although never surfacing in the press, we had to assume were in the hands of people who wished us ill. Small amounts of cash, probably no more than $2,000 at a time, were kept in that safe. The purpose was to handle emergency and petty cash needs. All other expenditures were made by check.
Let me make some very short observations in addition. I assure you there were no funds expended for dirty tricks or espionage or any like activity. The campaign was reflective of the candidate and we knew that he would not tolerate such activity.
STOCK
We did receive some stock contributions. These contributions were all recorded at the appreciated value of the stock. Stock contributions were promptly sold and converted to income, and the entry on our books, in each case is the net proceeds to our committee – that is to say, the selling price of the stock less commissions and transfer taxes. One of our supporters obtained an opinion for himself on the proper treatment of stock contributions. We followed it. See Exhibit 8.
SOURCES
To the best of my information and belief, subject always to surprise, we did not accept money from corporations, national banks or labor unions. Our instructions to our fund raisers made it clear that no such contributions were to be received. We did return certain monies, which when they arrived, appeared to be drawn on the treasury of a corporation, and some of those letters of return are attached as Exhibit 9.
REFORM
I hope that many recommendations for reform of campaign financing will emerge from these hearings. If I had to choose the one reform which is most urgently needed, it would be the public financing of campaigns, not because Ed Muskie ran out of money, but because he, and Senator Humphrey, and Senator Jackson and Senator McGovern, and all the rest had to devote so much of their time and energy to passing the hat. America deserves candidates who have enough time to consider the issues, enough funds to present their views to the voters and to compete equally on the merits – not men who make the best fund raisers, because they appear to particular interest groups, or because they are in a position to put pressure on people with money.
BASIC INFLUENCES ON CAMPAIGN
Lest I be misunderstood, I know there were factors other than money which had to do with the decline of the Muskie campaign. Let me very briefly address some of these factors.
First, there was the proliferation of Democratic primaries. Senator Muskie was ahead in the polls in 1971, but he was still regarded as essentially a New Englander. We had to establish him as the choice of Democrats in every region. We had hoped he would not have to share the broad middle of the Party with any other candidate. We hoped his victories in the early primaries would discourage such competition from entering the race. We also saw the possibility of taking a commanding lead in the first few primaries. Perhaps it would have been better to have taken another strategy more attuned to our financial ability. But that is hindsight, and I'm not sure another tack would have really served us better.
Second, was the polarization within the Democratic Party. The so-called New Politics wing of the Party was embittered by the bloody struggles of 1968 in the Chicago streets, was frustrated by Senator Humphrey's nomination in 1968, and by what they regarded as the continuing control of the party by the old guard. Traditional Democrats, on the other hand, thought they had been betrayed or abandoned by the New Politics people in the fall of 1968, and that President Nixon's election had resulted therefrom.
So the prevailing temper, as primary time arrived, was not accommodation but vindication, and these primaries became message laden. Many Democrats were prepared to give no quarter.
George Wallace's slogan, "Send ... a message" accurately reflected the mood. Many Democrats saw the primaries as their moment to vent individual grievances which they could best do by finding a single champion for their greatest concern – to end the war, for strong defense, for civil rights, busing (pro and con), jobs, inflation, personal security, the unresponsiveness of government, etc. A centrist candidate was caught in the cross-fire of these passions. Our coalition strategy with the essential message "Send them a President" was engulfed. What we learned in state after state was that the vast majority of Democrats who had other champions for specific grievances nonetheless would name Senator Muskie as their second choice, but we needed first place, not second place. votes. This phenomena was shown no more vividly than in the poll taken by Daniel Yankelovich Associates as voters were leaving the election booths in Florida. It showed Florida voters believed Senator Muskie was the only candidate for President who could beat Richard Nixon.
As I will point out later, some of the dirty tricks increased the polarization and exacerbated our efforts at accommodation. The same can be said of a third problem of the Muskie campaign, and that was the squeeze in which we found ourselves, and the lack of base which could help Senator Muskie survive that squeeze. When Senator Humphrey entered the race beginning in Florida, it meant that Senator Muskie would contest for the Democratic center with a man who had developed intense loyalties within that center over 24 years in national politics. Blacks, Jews, labor, farmers, the elderly, and many elected official had long felt Senator Humphrey to be their spokesman. They had seen him almost close the gap in the final weeks of the 1968 campaign and when he called on them once more in 1972, they responded.
While it is my belief that Senator Muskie was making inroads into the Humphrey strength, some of the dirty tricks which were practiced, particularly in Florida, went to undermine that support for Senator Muskie.
UNION LEADER INCIDENT
Let me not by-pass the event that occurred in New Hampshire. William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, whose stock and trade is to personally attack people he dislikes, had printed the famous Canuck letter, and he published some loathsome distortions about Senator Muskie's wife. Senator Muskie made an emotional speech outside the Union Leader offices in Manchester. After discussing the Canuck letter, the Senator turned to what some members of this Committee have quite accurately described as the hatchet job on Mrs. Muskie. Now perhaps there are some men who would not become outraged when their wives are maligned, but our candidate was not one of them. He is a compassionate and feeling human being, not a cold-blooded, insensate political animal. That's exactly what attracted many of us to him and convinced us that he would be a great President.
IMPACT
I doubt that I will be accused of hyperbole to observe that it would have been politically better had he not shown his feeling so openly. But he did, and the incident was seized upon and magnified by the press. From that point on, it took on a life of its own.
That was so because Senator Muskie was the front-runner, which is a risky status because the natural instinct in the press and among politicians and other people generally is to examine a front-runner under a microscope. Faults and virtues are sometimes magnified. Because he is a favorite, he is supposed to win big. So a mere victory, as Muskie won in New Hampshire, was insufficient; he had to swamp the opposition to be seen as winning at all. And if he comes in fourth as he did in Florida, it is not simply a redeemable setback, as it should have been by his subsequent significant showing in Illinois; it is a collapse, and a win in Illinois only postponed the funeral. Consistent victory is demanded and where financial resources are thin, and when you have to spread them over many primaries, and when a half a dozen serious candidates are competing for that vote, consistent victories are hard to come by.
DIRTY TRICKS – THEIR PURPOSE
And so we get to the role of dirty tricks. There is one point, and it may be the only point where I am in full agreement with the Committee to Re-elect the President, with the White House and probably with the Republican National Committee. That point is that Senator Muskie posed by far the most serious threat to the President's re-election of any of the Democratic candidates. I believed that then, and I believe it now. So did Jeb Magruder. In a memo to Attorney General Mitchell on July 28, 1971, he said:
"The clear and present political danger is that Senator Muskie, the favorite in the early primaries, will promenade through the primaries, come into the convention with a clear majority and enormous momentum for November. That would be bad news for us."
So it would appear to have been natural that he attracted the majority of the Republican "dirty tricks." I say "natural" with some hesitation because I'm in full agreement with Frank Mankiewicz that there was nothing natural, customary or even precedented about CREP's 1972 sabotage and espionage efforts. I remember Senator Muskie saying to me at a fairly early stage – and I think this is a pretty accurate quote – "I don't want you or anybody connected with our campaign to do anything in the primaries which is inconsistent with winning in the general election and with reconciling the Democratic Party." We interpreted that as a clear mandate that there would be nothing of an underhanded, duplicitous or scurrilous nature directed against any of our competitors. I think it a fundamental political truth that the campaign reflects the candidate and those of us working for the Senator knew he would never tolerate such activities. Senator Baker has stated on more than one occasion during these hearings that if he had heard reports of unethical conduct in his campaign, he would be on the phone immediately, demanding to know what the devil was going on. Senator Muskie would have done the same – and the prospect of having to respond to an outraged candidate is a powerful deterrent.
I don't know an iota of evidence, one speck of evidence, that Senator Muskie or his campaign operation engaged in anything that comes in the category of dirty tricks, in any sense, in any manner. I might also observe that we've been accused of not engaging even in clean tricks.
I don't mean to suggest that Senator Muskie didn't campaign hard. He did. He attacked his opponents' positions on the issues, and he tried to win over their supporters to his side. Ed Muskie is a successful and experienced political man and knows that politics is a body-contact sport. What he did not expect was that it would be a sport where he and his Democratic competitors would play by certain elementary rules, while outsiders to the primaries would behave like cunning barbarians. Their lack of political ethics was matched only by their fear of a fair contest, and by the money at their disposal.
The term "dirty tricks" doesn't do justice to the slimy deceptions that characterized the CREP campaign. "Dirty tricks" suggests that sort of cleverness we associate with Halloween pranks; in fact, there was nothing very clever about it. Anybody could come up with a Canuck letter, or the vilification of Senators Jackson and Humphrey and Governor Wallace which was made to appear the work of the Muskie campaign. It didn't take political genius to accomplish those things. It took, as I have suggested, a certain low cunning and a lot of money.
BASIC GROUND RULES
Let me turn now to specific dirty tricks and try to describe the effect on our campaign. A few of these have been extensively documented before this Committee. Several Republican operatives have acknowledged their complicity in them. A few have been repentant; others have not. I am not so much concerned about their repentance as I am about what they did to pervert and distort the 1972 campaign, and about the long-term consequences for America if their attitude toward politics prevails – that winning justifies anything. When it leads our children to cheat to win in the soap-box derby, that is bad enough. But when it leads ostensibly mature citizens to cheat an entire citizenry in choosing its chief executive, that is frightening.
It is not always a simple matter, as the Committee has discovered, to make precise philosophic distinctions between rough but fair politics and rough unfair politics. Sometimes the differences are matters of degree. Heckling a speaker is a traditional part of British politics, and it is occasionally practiced here in a way I would not condemn. But systematic heckling – intended either to drown out the speaker altogether or to make it impossible for him to convey his thoughts and opinions to an audience – is profoundly undemocratic. I would always have liked to know what the opposition was doing (and I would be less than honest if I didn't say that I would have listened to a defector from another campaign if he appeared before me to tell me what he knew of that campaign's strategy), but I wouldn't have planted an agent in that campaign whose job it was to steal documents and make them available to me and to the press.
It is fair to tell voters that your opponent's record is proof that he would not do much for them if elected.
It is fair to circulate bona fide documentation of your opponent's record in an effort to turn the voters against him.
It is not fair to deceive those voters with signs and bumper stickers that appear to be but are not sponsored by your opponent, and which carry messages that are certain to turn the voters against him.
It is not fair to harass the voters with after-midnight canvassing calls which are alleged to be made in your opponent's behalf.
It is not fair to plant a lying letter in the local papers, reporting that your opponent has uttered racist epithets.
It is not fair to publish a scurrilous "fact sheet" that shockingly misrepresents a candidate's career, family, and beliefs.
It is not fair to put a telephone tap on your opponent's advisors.
It is fair to try to place your opponent in a position that makes him most vulnerable to defeat, but not through techniques I have just described.
It is fair to play up your own virtues, and ventilate your opponent's defects. But it is not fair to try to win an election by the kind of fraud and deception that was the hallmark of the 1972 campaign.
I've used the word "opponent" in these remarks in a special sense. The object of the frauds and deceptions which occurred in the 1972 primaries was usually Senator Muskie. The common perpetrators of the frauds and deceptions were not his opponents in the primaries, but people in the Republican Party who so feared his nomination by the Democrats that they intervened to prevent that event by foul means as well as fair. It was their purpose to hold him up to ridicule; to estrange him, not only from his supporters, but from other Democratic candidates and their supporters; to create suspicion and turmoil in his staff; to establish that his ability to manage a national operation was suspect; to divert his energies, and those of his staff, from the task of pursuing the nomination to the desperate work of limiting the damage they had caused. They feared his name on the ballot in November, 1972 and so they went after him a year before. As far back as March 24, 1971, Pat Buchanan wrote to President Nixon as follows:
"And if Mr. Muskie is not cut and bleeding before he goes into New Hampshire, he will very likely do massively well there, building up irresistible momentum for the nomination. This scenario is not in our interest – as Muskie today is a figure ideally situated to unite the warring factions of his party, and if they are united that is bad news for us."
I would point out that this was a period in time when Senator Muskie was leading President Nixon in the national Harris Poll 47% to 39% with Gov. George Wallace included in the poll.
With Gov. Wallace excluded, Senator Muskie was leading President Nixon head-on-head, 48 percent to 42 percent in February and 50 percent to 44 percent in April, 1971.
WHITTIER COLLEGE INCIDENT
I will describe some of the attempts to leave Senator Muskie "cut and bleeding." Let's begin with an early Segretti effort on November 8, 1971, at Whittier College, California – the President's alma mater.
When I arrived at Whittier College, everything was tranquil. Just short of an hour before the Senator arrived to speak, great numbers of individuals, mostly black and Mexican-American, arrived armed with placards. The pickets took their positions along the entire walk leading from the street to the auditorium. There were such signs as "would you take a Chicano as a running mate?" Also, "Muskie is a racist pig."
There were some inconsistent signs, one reading "Muskie supports draft dodgers" and another, "Muskie is against amnesty." Then there were many signs stealing with gay liberation. The Senator's speech was well received. Then the questions came. Individuals kept interrupting the Senator when he tried to answer questions and all the questions seemed to deal with gay liberation, a Chicano or black running mate, or abortion. Senator Muskie handled all of this with equanimity, which apparently was an irritant to Mr. Dwight Chapin, who subsequently sent Mr. Segretti a news report stating that "Big Ed proved he could keep his cool", to which Mr. Chapin penned "let's prove he can't."
That same weekend, I believe on November 7, Senator Muskie went to speak at a Mexican- American restaurant in Los Angeles. When he went in, there were neither pickets nor other disruption. When he came out, there were organized pickets, and in addition, television cameras which were not a part of the traveling media. The pickets were boisterous, shouting at the Senator and then, in an orchestrated move, they started throwing eggs at Senator Muskie and at the cars which were being used to take him to his next stop.
The question might be asked, what effect did this variety of planned chaos have on the campaign and its strategy? The effect on his immediate audience was to prevent them from exchanging views. Beyond that it disrupted our strategy. We had determined previously that the Senator was best at confrontation situations and at questions and answers. But if we were going to get into a situation where questions on abortion, amnesty, legalization of marijuana and gay liberation were clearly planted, and the questioners were organized to drown out all other questions, that strategy would have to be abandoned. Egg-throwing and the like would also create the image of a tumultuous, disorganized campaign, possibly leading to violence.
THE PURLOINED PAPERS
Testimony has already been given to this Committee regarding the stealing of documents going between me and Senator Muskie on the Hill during the period August, 1971 through April, 1972. Those involved were "Fat Jack" Buckley, Elmer Wyatt and Thomas Gregory. They had been planted in our campaign by the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
There are specific instances where inside jobs, whether performed by Buckley, Wyatt Gregory or some other Republican plant, disrupted staff planning and hurt the Senator's position among groups whose support he needed.
SUGGESTED PROPERTY TAX HEARING
Stolen letters went into a report of Evans and Novak dealing with a staff-suggested property tax hearing in California. Some of the staff had recommended to me that the Senator participate in hearings on the problem, on the theory that it would be helpful in the campaign. Since he would be in California on December 20 and 21, 1971, the suggestion was that it could be worked out simultaneously. Robert Novak printed a critical article on using property tax hearings as part of the campaign. This article came as a surprise to Senator Muskie, who called me and asked me what it was all about. He had never seen the memos, and I had not made a personal recommendation. I called Mr. Novak. He said a memo on the subject was sent to him in a plain brown envelope. Again, this undermined the character of the campaign. It made Senator Muskie appear unscrupulously opportunistic. I received many calls criticizing this purported misuse of government funds as part of a political campaign. I heard about it not only immediately after the article came out, but sequently in New Hampshire and in Florida.
PRE-PRIMARY SABOTAGE
These may seem rather isolated acts of disruption. In fact, they were part of a long train of sabotage commencing in December, 1970 when the first break-in occurred.
I was still in private practice, but I was doing a good deal of work with the Muskie Election Committee. I had a number of files in my office relating to the effort being undertaken to assist the Senator in deciding whether to seek the nomination. My law office was broken into, and my files ransacked. A number of Muskie-related files were found in the xerox room and there were a substantial number of unrecorded xerox charges on our machine. This matter was reported to the Metropolitan Police. It was reported to your Committee's staff several months ago – and you may have uncovered information to which I am not privy.
In addition to what you know about the work of "Fat Jack" Buckley, Thomas Gregory and Elmer Wyatt, there were other specific instances of surveillance or infiltration. One involved a young woman named Diane Moore, a 24-year-old researcher for the Republican National Committee who contributed $25 to our campaign and indicated she would contribute more after Christmas.
She appended a note to her contribution offering advice on tactics to turn President Nixon out of office. Fortunately, the press learned of this attempt at infiltration before we did. Had they not done so and revealed it, we might very well have taken up her offer as a volunteer. Her superior at the Republican National Committee, Robert Chase, when confronted by a phone call from us, replied, "I just don't want to talk about it."
Another employee of the Republican National Committee, John Lofton, Editor of Monday, was caught snooping around at a private weekend meeting of Muskie supporters in Kennebunkport, Maine. This caused turmoil at the weekend meeting. It raised questions as to why the Republicans had involved themselves directly in a Muskie meeting. Although John Lofton worked for the Republican National Committee rather than CREP, a very few days after the meeting, Mr. Strachan sent Mr. Dean a list of the "fat cats" in attendance for use in "the political enemies project."
Of far greater significance and deep consternation was the lifting and photocopying of the major campaign advance and scheduling proposals for the fall and winter of 1971 and 1972. This material had been completed in August, 1971 and because it was the most vital document we had put together, only two copies were made. Within a few days after its production, a copy disappeared from the desk of Eliot Cutler, the Senator's chief scheduler. It was later found on our campaign's xerox machine, the staples having been removed, apparently for copying. We advised your staff of this a few months ago, and they may have more information about it. It takes little expertise to realize the importance of this document. It reflected our entire political strategy. It stated where the Senator was going, for what purposes; what states or conventions we might choose to consider lightly. It made possible the focus of disruptive attention on the planned activities.
It created suspicion as to whether we had a spy among our own staff and a number of days were dissipated in trying to ascertain what happened. Beyond all that, it left me with the following questions:
Who had it?
Which of our Democratic opponents had it or might have use of it.
How could it be used?
How could we change some of our strategy to avoid being undercut by our competitors?
Would they use it to go to convention states where we weren't going or to enter the primary states we were not entering?
They were tough questions and we tried to make some adjustment as a result of these questions, but could not deviate too far from a basic strategy.
That wasn't the only major theft. On at least two occasions, raw polling data disappeared from the desk of Anna Navarro, our polling expert. In the summer of 1971, the entire New Jersey poll was taken during the night. In the winter of 1971, the entire New Hampshire poll was stolen during a period of five minutes when Anna had come up to my office to tell me it was ready.
When she went to get it, it was gone. That was not simply a poll of where we stood, but reflected specific strengths and weaknesses in New Hampshire, which issues should be emphasized and which not. It was a document of real value to any opponent, and it would certainly have been of value to the CREP if they were pursuing a program, as they appeared to have been, of embarrassing Senator Muskie.
One immediate result of the New Hampshire polling disappearance was that we no longer held general staff meetings of a coordinated nature to discuss polling results. If one wanted to see a poll, they had to come to my office or Anna Navarro's office to see it. Again, I asked the same questions:
Who had it?
Who on my staff was the thief?
How deep was staff disloyalty?
What use could be made of the information?
Could we do anything to counter it?
So much for stolen documents.
On to fraud, forgery and political conniving.
You have in your files a memo to President Nixon from Patrick Buchanan, dated June 9, 1971 which reads as follows:
"Buchanan's View: Kennedy is keeping his options open – against the possibility that RN may be so strong by summer '72 that the nomination will not be worth anything. In which event, he can stay out. However, at this point, he and his people have obviously concluded RN can be beaten – and they are not about to sit this one out – risking spending eight years outside the inner circle of power of a President Humphrey or a President Muskie. If Kennedy believes the Democrats can win – as he quite apparently does now – he will go after the nomination."
We had no desire to alienate Senator Ted Kennedy and the many Democrats who supported him.
We believed many would support us. Some seven weeks after Patrick Buchanan's memo, the following occurred on July 28, 1971. A Harris poll entitled "51 % Say Ted Is Unfit for White House" was distributed widely in an envelope which was an offset facsimile of Senator Muskie's stationery, bearing his name in the upper left hand corner. See Exhibit :7. This fraud was distributed to Democratic members of the House and Senate, Democratic Governors and leading Democrats around the country. See partial list of recipients, Exhibit 18. The response was immediate. Phone calls went to the Senator's office and my office criticizing us for a "low blow" – an attempt to elevate ourselves at Senator Kennedy's expense.
Great effort went into contacting Senators, Representatives, and leading citizens alerting them that this was a fraud. But this matter was covered in the press. How were we to know that suspicion did not linger, to surface when other reprehensible matters were distributed under our name? Senator Kennedy was gracious and understanding. Senator Muskie wrote to the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General wrote back. The matter was investigated, but the culprit was never found. See Exhibit 20.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Let me point out two additional factors affecting New Hampshire. First, during the week before the New Hampshire primary, Dick Stewart, our press secretary, came in to see me about a call he had received from the AP in Boston to confirm the following: AP had received a phoned-in statement from someone who asserted he was Mr. Stewart's assistant, who gave the Muskie Washington headquarters telephone number as a contact number, and who then read AP the following statement: "Ted Kennedy has become an obstacle and an issue in the New Hampshire primary. I challenge him to come to New Hampshire and once and for all tell the people whether or not he is a candidate for President." Dick was upset because he thought that perhaps someone in our campaign had determined to do that without clearing the matter with him. I told him that it was preposterous and everything should be done to kill that story. He made a number of calls and with herculean effort was able to squelch the story. I cite as the kind of disruption of staff activity which is harmful. It diverted our senior staffs' attention from the primary at a crucial time.
Second, of far greater significance were the literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of phone calls which were made in the Manchester area of New Hampshire during the week-to-week-and-a-half prior to the primary. Callers identifying themselves as canvassers from the "Harlem for Muskie Committee" urged the citizens to vote for Muskie because he would be "so good for the black man." These calls were being made between 12:00 at night and 3:00 a.m. in the morning. This did not strike me as advantageous. The black vote in New Hampshire may amount to one or two percent. But if it had amounted to 50%, it would still have hurt us. No one is favorably disposed toward any candidate who has people calling or appears to have people calling between 12:00 midnight and 3:00 a.m. in the morning. These calls resulted in many calls to me from individuals complaining about our campaign tactics, and they also resulted in calls from our campaign coordinator in New Hampshire, to see if there was any action I could take to stop them. The only thing I could think of doing was to call McGovern headquarters to tell them to cut it out. My recollection is that I spoke to Frank Mankiewicz, the McGovern political director since I assumed that the calls were McGovern inspired. They denied that they had anything to do with this and the calls continued.
The second part of the disruptive telephone strategy involved post-midnight calls from people alleging that they were canvassers for Muskie and asking how the people intended to vote. These calls apparently went beyond Manchester. I was informed that the recipients of these calls would sometimes receive three or four calls in rapid succession on the same evening. The source of all of these phone calls has never been uncovered, but I think it soured many people toward our campaign.
IMPACT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
I have been asked by the Committee to evaluate whether or not any of this activity can be quantified in terms of harm. It is not easy, but let me try. One measure is the comparison of the results of the primary vote in the city of Nashua with those in the city of Manchester. Nashua is in the southern part of New Hampshire, and has a relatively liberal city newspaper and a liberal voting background. McCarthy, for example, had run neck and neck with Johnson in 1968 in Nashua and McGovern had expected to do well there. Nashua was also the home of his campaign manager, Joe Grandmaison. What happened? Muskie won in Nashua with a total vote percentage of 58 percent. Thirty miles to the north of Nashua is the city of Manchester, slightly more working class, a little more conservative. We expected a larger margin for Muskie in Manchester than in Nashua. In 1968, Johnson had beat McCarthy soundly in Manchester and surrounding towns. Yet, Muskie received only 38 percent of the vote in Manchester, a full 20 points lower than his showing in Nashua.
Another tool of evaluation is the impact in comparable working class French-Canadian neighborhoods in the state of New Hampshire. Let me be precise. McGovern won Ward 14 in Manchester with 35 percent of the vote with Muskie running 13 points lower than his statewide total. That result startled the press, for Ward 14 is a French-Canadian blue-collar ward which had gone heavily for Johnson in 1968.
Compare that with Ward 7 in Nashua, composed of similar French-Canadian working class Democrats as in Manchester's Ward 14. In the Nashua Ward, Muskie swamped McGovern by a margin of well over two-to-one, winning 66 percent of the vote to McGovern's 28 percent, a staggering 32 points higher than he had received in the same kind of neighborhood in Manchester.
Had Manchester returned the vote we had reasonably expected and which we received throughout the rest of the state, it is certain that Senator Muskie would have received more than 50 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. And since the press has set a public standard of 50 percent, New Hampshire would have represented a major win rather than what was written-off as at best a marginal victory and at worst, a setback since it was his neighbor state.
FLORIDA
The Florida primary was held on March 14, just a week after the New Hampshire primary. Despite the fact that we had won in New Hampshire and had won in the Arizona convention, our financial situation was bleak. I had already cut the Florida budget by 50% from its first projection and with the issue of busing on the ballot, we knew we were in for a hard time. George Wallace was campaigning hard against busing, the space industries were in trouble and there was the proliferation of candidates.
You have heard about many of the disruptive activities in Florida. You have heard about the February 8, 1972 ad reading, "Muskie, Why Won't You Consider a Jew as a Vice President?" This was run in a Miami Beach Jewish newspaper and flyers with a similar message were distributed. One you may not have heard about is a scurvy little flyer which was shown to me in Miami Beach by a Rabbi after we had been discussing an individual member of his congregation who said he would never vote for a Polish-Catholic. The flyer read, "Remember the Warsaw Ghetto." At the bottom in small letters was written, "Vote Right on March 14."
The busing issue was critical in Florida. Posters were distributed starting late in February intended to establish Muskie as a proponent of massive busing. The posters read, "Help Muskie Support Busing More Children Now," put out by the "Mothers Backing Muskie Committee." We received immediate reports of concern, mostly from our Tampa office. After we received the calls and I talked with our people in Florida, it was agreed that wherever we could, we would try to remove such posters, and I understand that some of the people in the office did so. I also contacted other district managers seeking to ascertain the extent of distribution. I was informed that pictures of these ads appeared in newspapers, particularly in northern and central Florida.
My information is that these pro-busing statements appeared in Jacksonville, Daytona, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, and the Clearwater area. The extent to which the Senator's position was incorrectly stated made it difficult to try to clarify and to explain his true position, which would have allowed local school boards to retain options to achieve desegregation – rather than being denied that right through federal legislation then proposed. I talked with our media people about cutting new TV spots, but the time was as short as the money.
You have also heard a good deal of testimony about the March 1 Segretti letter sent out on Citizens for Muskie stationery accusing Senator Jackson and Senator Humphrey of sexual and drinking misconduct. The calculated effect of that letter was to antagonize admirers of Senator Humphrey and Jackson and fairminded Floridians in general. We did seek to inform the press immediately that it was a fraud. Mr. Segretti has conceded he was responsible for it, and that it was a damnable malicious lie. Its circulation received wide coverage in the press, and, once again, our indignant denials never caught up with the lie – and were perhaps even doubted by some who heard them.
I gather you also are aware of the early March advertisement placed by Mr. Segretti in a Florida newspaper implying that Senator Muskie supported Communist Cuba. There were also fraudulent radio and newspaper ads put out in Miami on Spanish-language stations and in the Spanish language press – again allegedly by the Muskie campaign – purporting to have the Senator come out four-square for the Castro government. Others inferred that native-born Americans are more loyal than immigrants which was certainly not calculated to endear him to the Cuban-American community.
Some of the incidents that happened, such as the pickets in front of the Manger Hotel in Tampa in January of 1972, did have impact, both in undermining Muskie support among blacks and creating further division among the candidates. The signs were of a racial nature depicting Muskie as antiblack. The inference we gathered from these signs was that they came from Humphrey headquarters. This made sense to me at the time because Senator Humphrey was strong with the blacks and we were making inroads among this constituency. Many of our people thought that this incident was an inspiration of Jackson headquarters. But it appeared in the paper and was galling to me because it came shortly after we had had a good meeting with black leaders, even receiving pledges of support.
Let me focus your attention on one activity which was of an unusual destructiveness. Upon two occasions before the March 14 primary, when rallies were being held for Governor Wallace in Tampa and St. Petersburg, cards were placed on automobiles in a parking lot and distributed widely to hundreds of people stating on one side. "If you like Hitler, you'll just love Wallace." On the other side, it read, "A vote for Wallace is a wasted vote, on March 14 cast your ballot for Senator Edmund Muskie." These particular cards caused a flurry of phone calls to me protesting my stupidity in authorizing their issuance. We explicitly disavowed these cards and I told the office to talk to the local papers in St. Petersburg and Tampa to assure them that we were not responsible for them. These disavowals received little, if any, attention. I recommended that we get in touch with the local headquarters of both Humphrey and Jackson to state our concern as
to their possible culpability. Knowing the depth of support George Wallace enjoyed in Florida, we continued to be concerned with the impact of this activity.
Lest you assume that my comments are totally partisan, I should bring up a matter which hounded us in at least New Hampshire and Florida and that is the scurrilous and totally unjustified attacks upon Senator Muskie by one Stewart Mott.
Mr. Mott financed a project early in 1972 consisting of various printed documents, with hand scrawled headlines written in red or black ink. To say they constituted bad taste would enable me to exaggerate for the rest of my life and come out even. It accused Muskie's father of being a draft dodger. It included blatant falsehoods about Muskie's record and it was sent throughout the primary states beginning in New Hampshire. Segments of the larger pamphlets were run as full page newspaper ads which Mott financed. He even had the poor taste to send his diatribe to Mrs. Stephen Muskie, the Senator's daughter-in-law. There was similar outrageous material dealing with disclosure of campaign finances which he mailed to Senator Muskie's contributors – contributors whose addresses he was able to secure only because of the Senator's voluntary disclosure.
I think it useless to refute each and every allegation because I would be here an even longer time. This material angered me toward the staff of Senator McGovern, because it was our belief that Mr. Mott was a heavy contributor to McGovern. Therefore, we assumed that this was either being done at the behest of Senator McGovern or with his or their knowledge. As the campaign progressed, I called Frank Mankiewicz who swore he had nothing to do with this material.
I should also note that the CREP dirty tricks department picked up on Mr. Mott's game. A Mott newspaper ad berating Senator Muskie on the financial disclosure issue was reprinted and distributed to those entering a Los Angeles Muskie fund raising affair. At the bottom of the reprint were typed the words:
"The Committee will look for your names as part of Muskie's Fat Cats. They better be there!"
We drew the natural conclusion that Mr. Mott was responsible for this harassment, although we have since learned that this was a Segretti ploy.
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
During the course of the primaries, an overriding issue was that of Vietnam. As you know, Senator Muskie had become convinced that the war had to be brought to a swift conclusion, but he was attacked for having altered his position on the war. I am not concerned with the responsible attacks on his change in position. What did become of concern were the consistent leaks that were coming out regarding positions which were being discussed within the staff and among advisors on the war issue. We were never able to understand how it was that there was so much conjecture in the press which seemed to relate to staff discussions on the issue of Vietnam.
It is only now that some of it makes sense. I have learned that our chief foreign policy staff man in the campaign, Anthony Lake, who had once worked for Mr. Kissinger at the White House, had had his phone tapped. It was doubly disconcerting to learn that Morton Halperin, who was a former national security aide and was on our foreign policy task force, had had his phone tapped as well. Both men were under such electronic surveillance after they left the White House and were active in varying degrees with our campaign.
The extent to which information thus obtained was used to muddy Senator Muskie's position on Vietnam is uncertain. But I can remember discussing with the Senator the question of how it was that people seemed to know what he was going to say before he said it. We now know as a consequence of Mr. Halperin's civil suit that the FBI made available summaries of the taps of H. R. Haldeman. Only an examination of the fruits of these taps might disclose the extent to which information involving Senator Muskie was available, and/or used for political purposes by the White House.
I would be remiss not to mention an incident which has long been known in our campaign as "funny phones." It occurred on November 9 and 10, 1971 about the time the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, of which Senator Muskie is Chairman, was completing action on its bill. The key question was how the House would handle the bill. Would the House bill be as strong as the Senate bill which the White House vigorously opposed? Would the House act in time enough for the bill to be finished in 1971 so that a conference committee could meet prior to the time Senator Muskie might have to be campaigning in the primaries?
This is what happened.
The phone in the Subcommittee office would ring; it would be picked up, but no one was there – only the sound of another phone ringing. Then someone would come on the phone, identify the office and say that he or she didn't call us. In a two-hour period, some of the offices which answered and identified themselves were: The White House; the Vice President's office; Senator Cooper, who was ranking Republican member of the Public Works Committee; Senator Buckley, who was a member of the Senate Public Works Committee (several times) ; Congressman Blatnik, Chairman of the House Public Works Committee; the Zambian Embassy, the Latvian Embassy and the Embassy of Kuwait – plus others.
Exhibit 29 contains two memos which were done contemporaneously with the events. Leon Billings, Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, after being alerted to the peculiar performance of the telephones in his office, had the telephone company into the office attempting to ascertain what might have occurred. The telephone company answered that they were certain there had been no tampering with the phones and equally adamant that there was no way in which the incidents could have occurred. Mr. Billings has informed me that at the time the speculation, in jest, was that the White House would go to any lengths to find out what Senator Muskie was doing. But there is one certain fact. Immediately after the phone company came in and claimed not to have found anything, no further incident occurred.
I hesitate to bore you with more incidents, but I feel impelled to mention one only because it reflected such gross insensitivity to the national interest and to the individual victims. We had been working for many months on the largest fund raising of the campaign in Washington on April 17, 1972, at the Washington Hilton Hotel. We were in dire financial need. I know you have already heard testimony from Mr. Segretti and his cohorts about the hundreds of pizzas and flowers which they arranged to arrive collect at the dinner, and the anti-Muskie signs outside. But more important was one nationally destructive act. Mr. Segretti invited a number, perhaps a half dozen or more, Ambassadors from the African states with their wives, in formal attire, to the dinner. It had been my intention to introduce the Senator to a number of the significant contributors who had come from various parts of the country to that dinner. Instead, during the reception, I spent my time personally apologizing to each of the Ambassadors who had been invited and to their wives, seeking to make them comfortable and seeking to indicate that, while it had been a mistake, they were certainly welcome. It was an unsettling experience and I think showed no concern for the individuals embarrassed, to say nothing of United States foreign policy.
SUMMARY
At the beginning of this long statement, I said that I did not want to have anything I say interpreted as a rationalization for our defeat. The primaries were hard fought and there were tough competitors. Nonetheless, I find Mr. Buchanan's quoting Theodore White's appraisal that the sabotage of forged letters and dirty tricks had the "weight of a feather" no more than a glib and self-serving conclusion, particularly since Theodore White’s book was written before these hearings got underway and prior to the testimony of Mr. Segretti, Mr. Benz, Mr. Hunt and others.
You will have to appraise the impact. I have tried to give my view of that impact on our campaign. In my judgment, the unceasing events to unhorse Senator Muskie took a toll. They took a toll in the form of diverting our resources, changing our schedules, altering our political approaches, and being thrown on the defensive.
They generated suspicion and animosity between the staffs of Democratic contenders. Internally, they resulted in demoralizing distrust, in erroneous accusations by me of my own staff members for what I believed were their indiscretions and even their treachery. This impeded a coordinated effort because, not knowing whom one could trust, fewer and fewer people were taken into the councils when it came to making decisions. These events certainly helped to undermine the image of Senator Muskie by making him appear unable to adequately manage a staff which had been made to appear as sieve-like amateurs who couldn't keep a confidence. It also made him appear as a man who at times would not hesitate to take unfair advantage of his opponents.
Lastly, these events did not advance our ability to survive financially. Contributors raised questions about the loyalty of the staff and its apparent indiscretions and fumbling. No contributor wanted to see his money frittered away. So time and energy were consumed not only in securing funds to campaign, but also in explaining defensively our efforts to maintain security and efficiency.
There is a momentum in politics, and when it is with you, nothing is wrong. When it begins to ebb, everything goes wrong. If things were going wrong for perfectly legitimate political reasons, our problems were magnified by the efforts not of other Democrats but of members of the Republican Party who had no place in the Democratic primaries at all.
I would point out that there is nothing in the resolution establishing your Committee that says this conduct is reprehensible only if it has decisive significance. It speaks rather of whether the object was "to disrupt, hinder, impede or sabotage" the campaign. Does anyone here doubt that this was the objective of the dirty tricks? If they were not successful, that's a comment on the ineptitude of the perpetrators, not their moral fibre. I am troubled by the moral viewpoint implicit in offering that line of reasoning as a defense. The doctrine that the end justifies the means is pernicious enough. The doctrine that the failure to attain the end justifies – or at least excuses – the means is terrifying. The means was best expressed in a memo of March 24, 1971 from Patrick Buchanan to the President wherein he stated–
"It is in our interest – and in the interest of the liberal Democratic challengers for the nomination – to prevent Mr. Muskie's uninterrupted march to the nomination."
You may recall Mr. Buchanan also said:
"There is a danger in going after Muskie, making him the martyr and spokesman of the Democratic Party, and thus ensuring his nomination, and even enhancing his chances of election. But the risk should be taken. If we don't do it now, we shall have to play hurry up football in the two months before election – and people tend to disbelieve political charges made in that kind of partisan environment.
"Who should we get to poke the sharp stick into his cage to bring Muskie howling forth? More important, what kind of stick to more effective?"
Those were the words of Mr. Buchanan to the President on April 19, 1971.
The fact of the matter is that these disruptive activities continued to be directed against our campaign for months on end. If the instigators did not believe they were accomplishing their objective, it is difficult to understand why they persevered. They stopped only when they concluded that Senator Muskie was beaten.
In a memorandum to John Mitchell and to H.R. Haldeman dated April 12, 1972, from Patrick Buchanan and Ken Khachigian, there is the following self-congratulatory note, which, if so much had not been done to sustain it, I would have written off as no more than an act of self-satisfied puffing. He said:
"Our primary objective, to prevent Senator Muskie from sweeping the early primaries, locking up the convention in April and uniting the Democratic party behind him for the fall, has been achieved. The likelihood – great three months ago – that the Democratic Convention could become a dignified coronation ceremony for a centrist candidate who could lead a united party into the election – is now remote.”