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 of the 1972 United States presidential election. 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.
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.
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 the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). 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.
The discovery of the authorship of the letter is covered at length in the book and the film, All the President's Men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canuck_Lettersee also Donald Segretti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_SegrettiNow, here is a fact I did not know
In 2000, Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign in Orange County, California