(
March 28 ,
1914 –
March 26 ,
1996 ) was a
Polish -
American Democrat 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 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 by a narrow margin, 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.
See Also: U.S. presidential election, 1972
Before the
1972 Election , he 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, and Muskie's perhaps surprising political inexperience - having built up the Democratic Party in his home state, he had never been in a primary battle before, and his performance was criticized - began to show. Some noted that Muskie was inexperienced in running a national 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 .
Many also blame Muskie's loss on his emotional defense of his wife,
Jane Muskie , after the ''
Manchester Union-Leader '', a conservative newspaper, criticized Mrs. Muskie. Muskie seemingly wept as he spoke outside the newspaper's offices, yet he would later claim that what seemed to be tears were actually melted snowflakes. Had this not been a controversy, many question whether Muskie would have won the nomination and gone on to defeat President Nixon. McGovern would go on to win the nomination before losing the election in a landslide to Nixon. It is now widely believed that
The Canuck Letter , a forged document, was responsible for Muskie's loss to McGovern.
Historians believe that Nixon's camp pulled a wide range of dirty tricks focused on discrediting the strongest candidates that could challenge President Nixon. During the post-Watergate hearings and prosecutions, a dirty tricks unit of the Nixon campaign was revealed. Among other dubious tricks, literature purportedly from the Hubert Humphrey campaign attacking Sen. Muskie was from neither campaign. 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.
Following the resignation of
Cyrus Vance in 1980, Muskie left the senate to succeed the latter as Secretary of State in the cabinet of Democratic President
Jimmy Carter . Muskie took over at a difficult time; Vance had left following Carter's contentious decision to secretly attempt to rescue American hostages being held in Iran. Muskie attempted to bring the hostages home by diplomatic appeals to the
United Nations and Iran. Ultimately, however, the
Iran Hostage Crisis cost Carter the general election of 1980 and thus Muskie was returned to private life alongside him. Before he left office, however, Carter did grant his Secretary of State the honour of the
Presidential Medal Of Freedom 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 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. Archives at
Bates College in
Lewiston, Maine .
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