"MUSKIE'S DECEIT": HALF TRUTHS

To the editors of the Crimson:

I was amazed at the Crimson's willingness to print a signed piece on its editorial page (March 14) so full of falsehoods, twisted half truths, and cheap shot innuendos as was Michael Feldberg's "Muskie's Politics of Deceit."

Mr. Feldberg's overall contention is that the Muskie campaign can only be characterized by its insidious deceitfulness. The basis for this argument revolves around a series of incidents in the New Hampshire primary which supposedly changed the heretofore clean campaign "into a cesspool of low-blows and innuendos."

These are pretty forceful words and would seem to indicate a sense of moral outrage over the magnitude of Senator Muskie's alleged deceitfulness. Yet a close look at a couple of these incidents will reveal that only by twisting the facts and by giving credence to rumor can one work oneself into a state of moral outrage against the Muskie New Hampshire campaign.

Mr. Feldberg's first charge of deceit centers on his implication that Senator Muskie's campaign disclosures in 1970 are "mostly irrelevant" because they only applied to the Maine Senate race. However, the truth of the matter is that in October 1970 Senator Muskie revealed funds that were slated for his presidential bid as well as the Senate race--a move none of his rivals followed.

The piece also tries to imply that Senator Muskie has claimed that because both he and Senator McGovern voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution their positions on the War have always been the same. In fact, Senator Muskie has never claimed that he and McGovern have the same records on the War and has repeatedly in this campaign publicly admitted that his own position was wrong on the War prior to 1969. All Senator Muskie has contended is that since that time he and George McGovern have not significantly differed in their approach to ending our involvement in Indochina.

Mr. Feldberg closes his piece by resorting to cliches to suggest that Ed Muskie is the candidate of the "tough cigar-chomping con men" and bosses. This type of smear is unsubstantiated, deceitful and even smacks of desperation.

The purpose of this letter is not to attack Senator McGovern. It is meant, however, as a protest against the type of venomous half truths being used against Senator Muskie and which are coming out of certain parts of the McGovern camp. Mr. Feldberg's signed piece is typical of the self-righteous attitude of these attacks in its pretensions that the McGovern campaign is one which has a monopoly on virtue and political purity. This is simply not so.

The Muskie candidacy, just as much as George McGovern's, is based on an effort to oust the Nixon administration and unite America in pursuing the goals of progressive change in the 1970's. This new course if it is to suceed cannot be based on Feldberg's divisive type of self-righteousness.

Really we practitioners of the new politics ought to be able to do better than that. Ira Forman '74   Co-chairman of H-R Students for Muskie