A VICTIM of Nixon's dirty tricks and of his own hot temper, Mr Edmund Muskie is remembered as the president who might have been who blew his chance of getting to the White House by weeping in the snow.
The former US senator and secretary of state died in Washington early yesterday after suffering from a heart condition. He was 81. Last year he admitted that the incident (which became a case study in how one unguarded moment can destroy a political career) was a "whopper".
In 1972, when he was the front runner for the Democratic nomination in the presidential race, the then Senator Muskie came under ferocious attack in New Hampshire from William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, who hated liberals.
Mr Muskie did not react until Loeb criticised his wife, Jane, as "unladylike". The six foot Maine senator then impetuously strode to the newspaper offices in the New Hampshire capital with a group of journalists to denounce his tormentor in driving snow.
Some reporters claimed be cried during the tirade. Others said the wind had brought tears to his eyes, or that snow on his face looked like tears.
At the time the candidate vehemently denied that he cried, claiming it was melted snow. He noted recently however that displays of emotion by politicians are now more common. What they [the press] highlighted was not the fact that I lost my temper, but that I cried," he told the Washington Post in 1995. "There's all kinds of crying now." Going to the Union Leader building was a mistake. "It was a whopper," he confessed to the Press Herald in Maine in 1994. "I've got a temper and I can lose it and I can use it."
Whatever happened that day, it was the end of a candidacy which bad already begun to fall apart because of allegations that he had written an insulting letter about Americans of French Canadian descent. The letter was in fact a forgery circulated by President Nixon's campaign committee.
Mr Muskie won the New Hampshire Democratic primary by nearly 10 points, but he had been expected to do better. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota took the lead in later primaries and became the Democratic nominee.
One of the officials working for Senator Muskie at the time of his bid for president was Mr Anthony Lake, now National Security Adviser to President Clinton. Mr Clinton said yesterday that Mr Muskie was a dedicated legislator and caring public servant who "spoke from his heart".
Known for a wooden style, Mr Muskie was said by a former White House counsel, Mr Clarke Clifford, to make public statements sound like official documents.
He was also noted for his temper. At a roast" for his 80th birthday last year, a former aide, Mr Mark Shields, recalled Mr Muskie dismissing him with the words "You give me a [expletive] headache Get outta here"
Mr Muskie became secretary of state in the dying months of the Carter presidency in 1980, after his predecessor, Mr Cyrus Vance, resigned in protest over the aborted attempt to rescue 52 US hostages in Iran. This crisis dominated Mr Muskie's spell at the State department, where he became known as the "hostage secretary".