Controversy
Virtually every great "prank" Dick Tuck claimed to have pulled or has been associated with him has been disputed in some way. Dick Tuck often confessed and later denied his actions. He admitted to making up some of his pranks to author Neil Steinberg, who covered Tuck in his 1992 book If At All Possible, Involve A Cow: The Book of College Pranks.
However, Tuck is mentioned in an October 1972 Oval Office tape when Nixon, speaking to H.R. Haldeman about the Segretti disclosures, said, "Dick Tuck did that to me. Let's get out what Dick Tuck did!" Nixon goes on to describe egged limousines and staged violence in San José, Costa Rica. According to a 1997 The Washington Post article by reporter Karl Vick, Nixon was not the first to confuse Tuck's record with Tuck's legend.
White House tapes also record Nixon speaking with John Connally on October 17, 1972, stating Tuck had all of Goldwater's speeches in hand before they were spoken because, Nixon presumed, Tuck had an informant in the Goldwater campaign.
Read more about this topic: Dick Tuck
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)