George McGovern

McGovern was born in the 600‑person farming community of Avon, South Dakota. Joseph, the son of an alcoholic who had immigrated from Ireland, George's mother was the former Frances McLean, born and initially raised in Ontario, Canada; her family had later moved to Calgary, Alberta, and then she came to South Dakota looking for work as a secretary. George was the second oldest of four children. Joseph and Frances McGovern were both firm Republicans, but were not politically active or doctrinaire. When George was six, the family returned to the United States and moved to Mitchell, South Dakota, a community of 12,000. The McGovern family lived on the edge of the poverty line for much of the 1920s and 1930s. Growing up so close to privation gave young George a lifelong sympathy for underpaid workers and struggling farmers. He was influenced by the currents of populism and agrarian unrest, as well as the "practical divinity" teachings of cleric John Wesley that sought to fight poverty, injustice, and ignorance. McGovern attended Mitchell High School, McGovern and his debating partner won events in his area and gained renown in a state where debating was passionately followed by the general public. Debate changed McGovern's life, giving him a chance to explore ideas to their logical end, broadening his perspective, and instilling a sense of personal and social confidence. He supplemented a forensic scholarship by working a variety of odd jobs. With World War II under way overseas and feeling insecure about his own courage, McGovern took flying lessons in an Aeronca aircraft and received a pilot's license through the government's Civilian Pilot Training Program. In late 1940 or early 1941, McGovern had pre-marital sex with an acquaintance that resulted in her giving birth to a daughter during 1941, although this did not become public knowledge during his lifetime. In April 1941 McGovern began dating fellow student Eleanor Stegeberg, who had grown up in Woonsocket, South Dakota. They had first encountered each other during a high school debate in which Eleanor and her twin sister Ila defeated McGovern and his partner. In January 1942 he drove with nine other students to Omaha, Nebraska, and volunteered to join the United States Army Air Forces. The military accepted him, but they did not yet have enough airfields, aircraft, or instructors to start training all the volunteers, so McGovern stayed at Dakota Wesleyan. Smart, handsome, and well liked, McGovern was elected president of his sophomore class and voted "Glamour Boy" during his junior year. ==Military service==

Groundschool and trainers Soon thereafter McGovern was sworn in as a private at Fort Snelling in Minnesota. He spent a month at Jefferson Barracks Military Post in Missouri and then five months at Southern Illinois Normal University in Carbondale, Illinois, for ground school training. McGovern later maintained that both the academic work and physical training were the toughest he ever experienced. He spent two months at a base in San Antonio, Texas, and then went to Hatbox Field in Muskogee, Oklahoma, for basic flying school, training in a single-engined PT‑19. His father presided over the ceremony at the Methodist church in Woonsocket. After three months in Muskogee, McGovern went to Coffeyville Army Airfield in Kansas for a further three months of training on the BT‑13. Around April 1944, McGovern went on to advanced flying school at Pampa Army Airfield in Texas for twin-engine training on the AT‑17 and AT‑9. Accidents while training claimed a huge toll of airmen over the course of the war. This schooling was followed by a stint at Lincoln Army Airfield in Nebraska, where McGovern met his B-24 crew. Traveling around the country and mixing with people from different backgrounds proved to be a broadening experience for McGovern and others of his generation. Despite, and partly because of, the risk that McGovern might not come back from combat, the McGoverns decided to have a child, and Eleanor became pregnant. In June 1944, McGovern's crew received final training at Mountain Home Army Air Field in Idaho. Italy In September 1944 McGovern joined the 741st Squadron of the 455th Bombardment Group of the Fifteenth Air Force, stationed at San Giovanni Airfield near Cerignola in the Apulia region of Italy. There he and his crew found a starving, disease-ridden local population wracked by the ill fortunes of war and far worse off than anything they had seen back home during the Depression. His targets were in Austria; Czechoslovakia; Nazi Germany; Hungary; Poland; and northern, German-controlled Italy, and were often either oil refinery complexes or rail marshaling yards, all as part of the U.S. strategic bombing campaign in Europe. The eight- or nine-hour missions were grueling tests of endurance for pilots and crew, and while German fighter aircraft were a diminished threat by this time as compared with earlier in the war, his missions often faced heavy anti-aircraft artillery fire that filled the sky with flak bursts. On McGovern's December 15 mission over Linz, his second as pilot, a piece of shrapnel from flak came through the windshield and missed fatally wounding him by only a few inches. The following day on a mission to Brüx, he nearly collided with another bomber during close-formation flying in complete cloud cover. The following day, he was recommended for a medal after surviving a blown wheel on the always-dangerous B-24 take-off, completing a mission over Germany, and then landing without further damage to the plane. On a December 20 mission against the Škoda Works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, McGovern's plane had one engine out and another in flames after being hit by flak. Unable to return to Italy, McGovern flew to a British airfield on Vis, a small island in the Adriatic Sea off the Yugoslav coast that was controlled by Josip Broz Tito's Partisans. The short field, normally used by small fighter planes, was so unforgiving to four-engined aircraft that many of the bomber crews who tried to make emergency landings there perished. But McGovern successfully landed, saving his crew, a feat for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. In January 1945 McGovern used R&R time to see every sight that he could in Rome, and to participate in an audience with the pope. Bad weather prevented many missions from being carried out during the winter, and during such downtime McGovern spent much time reading and discussing how the war had come about. He resolved that if he survived it, he would become a history professor. In February, McGovern was promoted to first lieutenant. On March 14 McGovern had an incident over Austria in which he accidentally bombed a family farmhouse when a jammed bomb inadvertently released above the structure and destroyed it, an event that haunted McGovern. Four decades later, after McGovern related the incident during an Austrian television program and indicated he was still haunted by it, the owner of the farm called the television station to say that his farm was hit by that bomb but that no one had been hurt and the farmer felt that it had been worth the price if that event helped achieve the defeat of Nazi Germany in some small way. McGovern said finding this out was "an enormous release". On returning to base from the flight, McGovern was told his first child Ann had been born four days earlier. According to a McGovern associate speaking after McGovern's passing, sometime during his wartime experiences in Europe, McGovern had an extramarital affair and fathered a child with an unknown woman. McGovern was discharged from the Army Air Forces in July 1945, with the rank of first lieutenant. ==Later education and early career==

Upon coming home, McGovern returned to Dakota Wesleyan University, aided by the G.I. Bill, and graduated from there in June 1946 with a B.A. degree magna cum laude. For a while he suffered from nightmares about flying through flak barrages or his plane being on fire. He continued with debate, again winning the state Peace Oratory Contest with a speech entitled "From Cave to Cave" that presented a Christian-influenced Wilsonian outlook. Among Methodist seminaries, Garrett tended towards social involvement paired with a theologically liberal approach, and many of the students there leaned towards pacifism. McGovern was influenced by the weekly sermons of a well-known local minister, Ernest Fremont Tittle, and the ideas of Boston Personalism. McGovern preached as a Methodist student supply minister at Diamond Lake Church in Mundelein, Illinois, during 1946 and 1947, but became dissatisfied by the minutiae of his pastoral duties. The relatively small history program there was among the best in the country, and McGovern took courses given by noted academics Ray Allen Billington, Richard W. Leopold, and L. S. Stavrianos. He received an Master of Arts in history in 1949. Eleanor McGovern began to suffer from bouts of major depressive disorder but continued to assume the large share of household and child-rearing duties. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University in 1953. McGovern was influenced not only by Link and the "Consensus history" of American historians but also by the previous generation of progressive historians. Meanwhile, McGovern had become a popular if politically outspoken teacher at Dakota Wesleyan, with students dedicating the college yearbook to him in 1952. Nominally a Republican growing up, McGovern began to admire Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, even though he supported Roosevelt's opponent Thomas Dewey in the 1944 U.S. presidential election. At Northwestern, his exposure to the work of China scholars John King Fairbank and Owen Lattimore had convinced him that unrest in Southeast Asia was homegrown and that U.S. foreign policy toward Asia was counterproductive. He wrote columns supporting Wallace in the Mitchell Daily Republic and attended the Wallace Progressive Party's first national convention as a delegate. There he became disturbed by aspects of the convention atmosphere, decades later referring to "a certain rigidity and fanaticism on the part of a few of the strategists." He remained a public supporter of Wallace and the Progressive Party afterward. By 1952, McGovern was coming to think of himself as a Democrat. He was captivated by a radio broadcast of Governor Adlai Stevenson II's speech accepting the presidential nomination at the 1952 Democratic National Convention. He immediately dedicated himself to Stevenson's campaign, publishing seven articles in the Mitchell Daily Republic newspaper outlining the historical issues that separated the Democratic Party from the Republicans. McGovern left a tenure-track position at the university the state chair having recruited him after reading his articles. McGovern spent the following years rebuilding and revitalizing the party, building up a large list of voter contacts via frequent travel around the state. From 1954 to 1956 he also was on a political organization advisory group for the Democratic National Committee. ==U.S. House of Representatives==

In 1956, McGovern sought elective office himself, and ran for the House of Representatives from South Dakota's 1st congressional district, which consisted of the counties east of the Missouri River. His quiet personality appealed to voters he met, while Lovre suffered from a general unhappiness over the Eisenhower administration farm policy. In his closing speech, McGovern responded: "I have always despised communism and every other ruthless tyranny over the mind and spirit of man." McGovern ran an effective campaign that showcased his political strengths of having firm beliefs and the ability to articulate them in debates and on the stump. He prevailed with a slightly larger margin than two years before. During his time in the House, McGovern was regarded as a liberal overall, McGovern did not vote on the initial House bill for the Civil Rights Act of 1957, but voted in favor of the Senate amendment to the bill in August 1957. McGovern voted in favor initial House bill for the Civil Rights Act of 1960, but did not vote on the Senate amendment to the bill in April 1960. In 1960, McGovern decided to run for the U.S. Senate and challenge the Republican incumbent Karl Mundt, a formidable figure in South Dakota politics whom McGovern loathed as an old-style McCarthyite. The race centered mostly on rural issues, but John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was a drawback at the top of the ticket in the mostly Protestant state. McGovern made careless charges during the campaign, and the press turned against him; he would say eleven years later, "It was my worst campaign. I hated [Mundt] so much I lost my sense of balance." McGovern was defeated in the November 1960 election, gaining 145,217 votes to Mundt's 160,579, but the margin was one third of Kennedy's loss to Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the state's presidential contest. ==Food for Peace director==

Having relinquished his House seat to run for the Senate, McGovern was available for a position in the new Kennedy administration. McGovern was picked to become a special assistant to the president and first director of Kennedy's high-priority Food for Peace program, which realized what McGovern had been advocating in the House. McGovern worked with deputy director James W. Symington from Missouri and Kennedy advisor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in visiting South America to discuss surplus grain distribution, and attended meetings of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. his campaign disguised the condition by saying it was a mild kidney infection. By the close of 1961, the Food for Peace program was operating in a dozen countries, During an audience in Rome, Pope John XXIII warmly praised McGovern's work, and the distribution program was also popular among South Dakota's wheat farmers. Administration was never McGovern's strength, and he was restless for another try at the Senate. With the approval of President Kennedy, McGovern resigned his post on July 18, 1962. Columnist Drew Pearson wrote that it was one of the "most spectacular achievements of the young Kennedy administration", while Schlesinger would later write that Food for Peace had been "the greatest unseen weapon of Kennedy's third-world policy". ==U.S. Senator==

1962 election and early years as a senator In April 1962, McGovern announced he would run for election to South Dakota's other Senate seat, intending to face incumbent Republican Francis Case. Bottum accused the Kennedy family of trying to buy the Senate seat. McGovern appealed to those worried about the outflux of young people from the state, and had the strong support of the National Farmers Union. The November 1962 election result was very close and required a recount, but McGovern's 127,458 votes prevailed by a margin of 597, making him the first Democratic senator from the state in 26 years McGovern had a fractious relationship with Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, who was less sympathetic to farmers; McGovern's 1966 resolution to informally scold Freeman made the senator popular back in his home state. McGovern was largely inactive on the Interior Committee until 1967, when he was given the chairmanship of the subcommittee on Indian affairs; however, Interior Committee chairman Henry M. Jackson, who did not get along with McGovern personally or politically, refused to allow McGovern his own staff, limiting his effectiveness. McGovern would try to reduce defense appropriations or limit military expenditures in almost every year during the 1960s. He also voted against many weapons programs, especially missile and antimissile systems, and also opposed military assistance to foreign nations. Preferring to concentrate on broad policy matters and speeches, McGovern was not a master of Senate legislative tactics, and he developed a reputation among some other senators for "not doing his homework". Described as "a very private, unchummy guy", he was not a member of the Senate "club" nor did he want to be, turning down in 1969 a chance to join the powerful United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. Opposition to Vietnam War , November 1965 In a speech on the Senate floor in September 1963, McGovern became the first member to challenge the growing national military for United States in the Vietnam War. Bothered by the Buddhist crisis and other recent developments, and with concerns influenced by Vietnam historian Bernard B. Fall, McGovern said: As the speech was little noticed, McGovern backed away from saying anything publicly for over a year afterward, partly because of the November 1963 Assassination of John F. Kennedy and partly to not appear strident. Though more skeptical about it than most senators, McGovern voted in favor of the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which turned out to be an essentially unbounded authorization for President Lyndon B. Johnson to escalate U.S. involvement in the war. McGovern instead proposed a five-point plan advocating a negotiated settlement involving a federated Vietnam with local autonomy and a UN presence to guarantee security and fair treatment. however, McGovern made moderate-to-hawkish statements at times too, flatly rejecting unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces and criticizing the Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War draft-card burnings as "immature, impractical, and illegal". The human carnage he saw in hospital wards deeply upset him, and he became increasingly outspoken about the war upon his return, more convinced than ever that Vietnam was a political, not military, problem. Now he was ready, as he later said, "not merely to dissent, but to crusade" against the war. Over the years, Johnson had invited McGovern and other Senate doves to the White House for attempts to explain the rationale for his actions in Vietnam; McGovern came away from the final such visit, in August 1967, shaken by the sight of a president "tortured and confused ... by the mess he has gotten into in Vietnam." The group's first choice was Senator Robert Kennedy, who declined, as did another, and by late September 1967 they approached McGovern. In the 1968 Democratic primary campaign, McCarthy staged a strong showing. Robert Kennedy entered the race, President Johnson withdrew and Vice President Hubert Humphrey joined the field. While McGovern privately favored Kennedy, McCarthy and Humphrey were both from the neighboring state of Minnesota and publicly McGovern remained neutral. McGovern hosted all three as they campaigned for the June 4 South Dakota Democratic primary, which resulted in a strong win by Kennedy to go along with his win in the crucial California primary that night. McGovern's voting had changed during 1968, with his ADA rating falling to 43 as he sought more middle-of-the-road stances. She had led a troubled life since her teenage years, developing problems with alcohol and depression and suffering the consequences of a relationship with an unstable neighborhood boy. On the basis of a recently enacted strict state drugs law, Terry now faced a minimum five-year prison sentence if found guilty. McGovern was also convinced that the socially conservative voters of South Dakota would reject him owing to his daughter's arrest. McGovern formally announced his candidacy on August 10, 1968, in Washington, two weeks in advance of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, committing himself to "the goals for which Robert Kennedy gave his life." Asked why he was a better choice than McCarthy, he said, "Well – Gene really doesn't want to be president, and I do." The chaotic circumstances of the convention found McGovern denouncing the Chicago police tactics against demonstrators as "police brutality." Given the internal politics of the party, it was difficult for McGovern to gain in delegate strength, and black protest candidate Channing E. Phillips drew off some of his support. McGovern endorsed Humphrey at the convention, to the dismay of some antiwar figures who considered it a betrayal. he initially suffered a substantial drop in popularity over the events in Chicago; however, McGovern conducted an energetic campaign that focused on his service to the state, while Gubbrud ran a lackluster effort. In 1969 McGovern was named chairman of the Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, also known as the McGovern–Fraser Commission; owing to the influence of former McCarthy and Kennedy supporters on the staff, the commission significantly reduced the role of party officials and insiders in the nomination process. Over the next few presidential election cycles, this trend towards holding primaries increased in both parties, with eventually over 80 percent of delegates being chosen via primaries; whereas before McGovern–Fraser, two-thirds of all delegates were chosen by state conventions controlled by party elites. In the wake of several high-profile reports about hunger and malnutrition in the United States, the United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs had been created in July 1968, with McGovern as its chairman. Seeking to dramatize the problem, in March 1969 McGovern took the committee to Immokalee, Florida, the base for 20,000 migrant farm workers. They saw graphic examples of hunger and malnutrition firsthand, but also encountered resistance and complaints about bad publicity from local and state officials. McGovern battled the Nixon administration and Southerners in Congress during much of the next year over an expanded Supplemental Nutrititon Assistance Program; he had to compromise on a number of points, but legislation signed in 1970 established the principles of free food stamps and a nationwide standard for eligibility. McGovern generally lacked both interest and expertise in economics, but was outspoken in reaction to Nixon's imposition of incomes policy in 1971. McGovern declared: "This administration, which pledged to slow inflation and reduce unemployment, has instead given us the highest rate of inflation and the highest rate of unemployment in a decade." Regarding another heated domestic issue, 60 Minutes included McGovern in a 1971 report about liberal politicians and journalists who advocated integrated schooling while avoiding it for their children. But most of all, McGovern was known for his continued opposition to the Vietnam War. In March 1969, he became the first senator to explicitly criticize the new president's policy there, an action that was seen as a breach of customary protocol by other Senate doves. The ongoing diversion to South Vietnam of much of Food for Peace's aid, where it was used to subsidize that country's budget, when there were countries around the world affected by drought and food shortages, upset him. By the end of 1969, McGovern was calling for an immediate cease-fire and a total withdrawal of all American troops within a year. Afterward, he decided that radicalized peace demonstrations were counterproductive and criticized antiwar figures such as Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Huey P. Newton, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin as "reckless" and "irresponsible". It underwent months of public discussion and alterations to make it acceptable to more senators, including pushing the deadline out to the end of 1971. During the floor debate, McGovern criticized his colleagues opposing the measure: The Senate reacted in startled, stunned silence, and some faces showed anger and fury; McGovern believed Vietnam an immoral war that was destroying much of what was pure, hopeful, and different about America's character as a nation. He accused the vice president of South Vietnam, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, of running a heroin trafficking operation that was addicting American soldiers. He denounced Nixon's policy of Vietnamization as "subsidiz[ing] the continued killing of the people of Indochina by technology and mercenaries." In a Playboy interview, he said that Ho Chi Minh was the North Vietnamese George Washington. In polls, a large majority of the public now favored its intent, and McGovern took his name off a final form of it, as some senators were just objecting to him. McGovern was now certain that the only way the war would come to a quick end was if there was a new president. At the time of his announcement, McGovern ranked fifth among Democrats in a presidential preference poll for Gallup, Inc.. The earliest such entry since Andrew Jackson, it was designed to give him time to overcome the large lead of the frontrunner, Maine senator Edmund Muskie. By January 1972, McGovern had only 3 percent national support among Democrats in the Gallup Poll and had not attracted significant press coverage. McGovern's campaign manager Gary Hart decided on a guerrilla-like insurgency strategy of battling Muskie in only selected primaries, not everywhere, so as to focus the campaign's organizational strength and resources. Muskie fell victim to inferior organizing, an over-reliance on party endorsements, and Nixon's "dirty tricks" operatives, and in the March 7, 1972, New Hampshire primary, did worse than expected with McGovern coming in a close second. As Muskie's campaign funding and support dried up, Hubert Humphrey, who had rejoined the Senate, became McGovern's primary rival for the nomination, He followed that by dominating the April 25 primary in Massachusetts. At that point, McGovern had become the frontrunner. The other two leading candidates for the nomination also won primaries, but Wallace's campaign in effect ended when he was seriously wounded in a May assassination attempt, The climactic contest took place in California, with Humphrey attacking McGovern in several televised debates; in the June 6 vote, McGovern defeated him by five percentage points and claimed all the delegates due to the state's winner-take-all rules. He then appeared to clinch the nomination with delegates won in the New York primary on June 20. Humphrey's attacks on McGovern as being too radical began a downward slide in the latter's poll standing against Nixon. McGovern became tagged with the label "amnesty, abortion, and acid", supposedly reflecting his positions. During his primary victories, McGovern used an approach that stressed grassroots-level organization while bypassing conventional campaign techniques and traditional party power centers. He capitalized on support from antiwar activists and reform liberals; He benefited by the eight primaries he won being those the press focused on the most; he showed electoral weakness in the South and industrial Midwest, and actually received fewer primary votes overall than Humphrey and had only a modest edge over Wallace. McGovern ran on a political platform that advocated withdrawal from the Vietnam War in exchange for the return of American prisoners of war and amnesty for draft evaders who had left the country. McGovern's platform also included an across-the-board 37-percent reduction in defense spending over three years. He proposed a "demogrant" program that would give a $1,000 payment to every citizen in the United States. Based around existing ideas such as the negative income tax and intended to replace the welfare bureaucracy and complicated maze of existing public-assistance programs, it nonetheless garnered considerable derision as a poorly thought-out "liberal giveaway" and was dropped from the platform in August. An "Anybody But McGovern" coalition, led by southern Democrats and organized labor, formed in the weeks following the final primaries. McGovern's nomination did not become ensured until the first night of the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, where, following intricate parliamentary maneuverings led by campaign staffer Richard G. Stearns, a Humphrey credentials challenge regarding the California winner-take-all rules was defeated. Divisive arguments over the party platform then followed; what resulted was arguably the most liberal one of any major U.S. party. Turned down by his first choice, Ted Kennedy, as well as by several others, McGovern selected – with virtually no vetting – U.S. Senate member Thomas Eagleton from Missouri. On the final night of the convention, procedural arguments over matters such as a new party charter, and a prolonged vice presidential nomination process that descended into farce, delayed the nominee's acceptance speech. As a result, McGovern delivered his speech, "Come home America!", at three o'clock in the morning, reducing his television audience from about 70 million people to about 15 million. Just over two weeks after the convention, it was revealed that Eagleton had been hospitalized and received electroconvulsive therapy for "nervous exhaustion" and "depression" several times during the early to mid-1960s. Years later, Eagleton's diagnosis was refined to bipolar II disorder. McGovern initially supported Eagleton, in part because he saw parallels with his daughter Terry's battles with mental illness. On the following day, July 26, McGovern stated publicly, "I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and have no intention of dropping him from the ticket." Though many people still supported Eagleton's candidacy, an increasing number of influential politicians and newspapers questioned his ability to handle the office of vice president and, potentially, president The resulting negative attention – combined with McGovern's consultation with preeminent psychiatrists, including Karl Menninger, as well as doctors who had treated Eagleton – prompted McGovern to accept, and announce on August 1, Eagleton's offer to withdraw from the ticket. It remains the only time a major party vice presidential nominee has been forced off the ticket. Five prominent Democrats then publicly turned down McGovern's offer of the vice presidential slot: in sequence, Kennedy again, Abraham Ribicoff, Humphrey, Reubin Askew, and Muskie. (Larry O'Brien was also approached but no offer made). McGovern's 1,000 percent statement and subsequent reneging made him look both indecisive and an opportunist, and has since been considered one of the worst gaffes in presidential campaign history. McGovern himself would long view the Eagleton affair as having been "catastrophic" for his campaign. he was buoyed by the success of his visit to China and arms-control-signing summit meeting in the Soviet Union earlier that year, and shortly before the election Henry Kissinger's somewhat premature statement that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam. Top Republican figures attacked McGovern for being weak on defense issues and "encouraging the enemy"; Nixon asserted that McGovern was for "peace at any price" in Vietnam rather than the "peace with honor" that Nixon said he would bring about. McGovern chose to not emphasize his own war record during the campaign. The McGovern Commission changes to the convention rules marginalized the influence of establishment Democratic Party figures, and McGovern struggled to get endorsements from figures such as former President Johnson and Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley. The AFL–CIO remained neutral, after having always endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in the past. Some southern Democrats, led by former Governor of Texas John Connally, switched their support to the Republican incumbent through a campaign effort called Democrats for Nixon. Nixon outspent McGovern by more than two-to-one. Nixon directly requested that his aides use government records to try to dig up dirt on McGovern and his top contributors. McGovern was publicly attacked by Nixon surrogates and was the target of various operations of the Nixon "dirty tricks" campaign. The infamous Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June 1972 was an alternate target after bugging McGovern's headquarters was explored. In the end, Nixon's covert operations had little effect in either direction on the election outcome. By the final week of the campaign, McGovern knew he was going to lose. While he was appearing in Battle Creek, Michigan, on November 2, a Nixon admirer heckled him. McGovern told the heckler, "I've got a secret for you", then said softly into his ear, "Kiss my ass." The incident was overheard and reported in the press, and became part of the tale of the campaign. In the general election on November 7, 1972, the McGovern–Shriver ticket suffered a 61 percent to 37 percent defeat to Nixon – at the time, the second biggest landslide in American history, with a United States Electoral College total of 520 to 17. McGovern's two electoral vote victories came in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and he failed to win his home state of South Dakota, which had gone Democratic in only three of the previous eighteen presidential elections and would continue to go Republican in presidential elections to come. Over the nation as a whole he carried a mere 135 counties. At just over four percent of the nation's counties, McGovern's county wins remain the fewest by almost a factor of three for any major-party nominee. Remaining Senate years in the Soviet Union in 1977 After this loss, McGovern remained in the Senate. He was scarred by the enormous defeat, and his wife, Eleanor, took it even worse; during the winter of 1972–1973, the couple seriously considered moving to England. Emotions surrounding the loss would remain with McGovern for decades, as it did with some other defeated presidential nominees. McGovern displayed the political resiliency he had shown in the past. An Air Force pilot and Medal of Honor recipient, Leo K. Thorsness, had just been repatriated after six years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam; he publicly accused McGovern of having given aid and comfort to the enemy and of having prolonged his time as a POW. Instead, the campaign was dominated by farm policy differences and economic concerns over the 1973–1975 recession. Thorsness charged McGovern with being a "part-time senator" more concerned with national office and with spending over $2 million on his re‑election bid, while McGovern labeled Thorsness a carpetbagger owing to his having grown up in Minnesota. Following the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975, McGovern attributed the outcome not to Congressional refusal to fund more military aid to South Vietnam, as President Ford had wanted. Instead, McGovern said, the regime of Nguyễn Văn Thiệu "fell because the leadership was corrupt and decadent and did not have the support of its own people." Regarding the Indochina refugee crisis that soon developed, McGovern introduced legislation in early May 1975 to enable Vietnamese refugees who had left the country in panic fearing a post-war bloodbath to return to the country. He said, "Ninety percent of the refugees would be better off going back to their own land. And I say that in a humanitarian spirit. ... The [new] Saigon government has already given orders that the people are not to be molested ... that is more respect than Thieu's army frequently demonstrated. ... our program for dealing with these refugees should include as the highest priority steps to facilitate their early return to Vietnam." McGovern's stance brought immediate criticism from some quarters; syndicated columnist John Lofton said it proved that McGovern was "the most immoral hypocrite on the American political scene today." McGovern objected to what he termed distorted interpretations of his proposal, but newspaper publisher Creed Black considered the criticism fair. Following his Senate re-election victory, McGovern harbored thoughts of running in the 1976 United States presidential election. Given the magnitude of his defeat in 1972, very few in the Democratic Party wanted him as a presidential candidate again. Unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter, McGovern secretly voted for Ford instead. McGovern's view on intervention in Southeast Asia took a turn in 1978 in reaction to the ongoing Cambodian genocide. Noting that it affected a percentage of the population that made "Hitler's operation look tame", he advocated an international military intervention in Cambodia to put the Khmer Rouge regime out of power. McGovern's Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs expanded its scope to include national nutrition policy. In 1977, it issued a new set of nutritional guidelines for Americans that sought to combat leading killer health conditions. Titled Dietary Goals for the United States, but also known as the "McGovern Report", it suggested that Americans eat less fat, less cholesterol, less refined and processed sugars, and more complex carbohydrates and fiber. The McGovern committee guidelines led to reorganization of some federal executive functions It and other anti-abortion groups especially focused on McGovern's support for abortion rights laws. McGovern faced a Democratic primary challenge for the first time, from a pro-life candidate. McGovern's Republican opponent was James Abdnor, a four-term incumbent congressman who held identical positions to McGovern's on farm issues, was solidly conservative on national issues, and was well liked within the state. Abdnor's campaign focused on both McGovern's liberal voting record and what it said was McGovern's lack of involvement in South Dakota affairs. Showing the comeback pattern of some of his past races in the state, McGovern closed the gap for a while. ==Post-Senate life and 1984 presidential campaign==

-style building on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. McGovern did not mourn leaving the Senate. Nevertheless, he refused to believe that Liberalism in the United States was dead in the time of Reagan; remaining active in politics, in January 1981 he founded the political organization Americans for Common Sense. The group sought to rally liberals, encourage liberal thinking, and combat the Moral Majority and other new Christian right forces. In 1982 he turned the group into a political action committee, which raised $1.2 million for liberal candidates in the 1982 U.S. congressional elections. McGovern shut the committee down when he decided to run again for president. From 1981 to 1982, McGovern replaced historian Stephen E. Ambrose as a professor at the University of New Orleans. McGovern also began making frequent speeches, earning several hundred thousand dollars a year. Freed from the practical concerns of trying to win, McGovern outlined a ten-point program of sweeping domestic and foreign policy changes; because he was not seen as a threat, fellow competitors did not attack his positions, and media commentators praised him as the "conscience" of the Democratic Party. He won a surprise third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses amidst a crowded field of candidates but finished fifth in the New Hampshire primary. He hosted the 17th episode of Saturday Night Live Season 9 on April 14, 1984. McGovern addressed the party's platform committee, and his name was placed in nomination at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, where he delivered a speech that strongly criticized President Reagan and praised Democratic unity. He actively supported the Mondale–Geraldine Ferraro ticket, whose eventual landslide defeat bore some similarities to his own in 1972. During the 1980s McGovern was a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C. In January 1988, McGovern said that he was considering entering the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primaries in the event that a front-runner did not emerge in the race. Ultimately, he did not enter. McGovern had made several real estate investments in the D.C. area and became interested in hotel operations. It went into bankruptcy in 1990 and closed the following year. In 1992 McGovern published his reflections on the experience in The Wall Street Journal and the ''Nation's Restaurant News''. He attributed part of the failure to the early 1990s recession, but also part to the cost of dealing with federal, state, and local regulations that were passed with good intentions but made life difficult for small businesses, and to the cost of dealing with frivolous lawsuits. Although he briefly explored another presidential run in the 1992 contest, McGovern instead became president of the Middle East Policy Council (a nonprofit organization that seeks to educate American citizens and policymakers about the political, economic and security issues impacting U.S. national interests in the Middle East) in July 1991; he had previously served on its board since 1986. He held this position until 1997, when he was replaced by Chas W. Freeman Jr. On the night of December 12–13, 1994, McGovern's daughter Teresa fell into a snowbank in Madison, Wisconsin, while heavily intoxicated and died of hypothermia. He would later say that Terry's death was by far the most painful event in his life: "You never get over it, I'm sure of that. You get so you can live with it, that's all." ==Ambassador to food agencies and other later activities==

, 18 (here seen as the building on the far left). In April 1998 McGovern returned to public service when he began a three-year stint as United States ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, serving in Rome, after having been named to the post by President Bill Clinton. The announcement that Clinton was choosing McGovern for the role had come on February 19, McGovern's appointment had been confirmed by voice vote of the Senate on March 6, had become official on March 10, In an effort to meet the UN's goal of reducing the number of hungry people in the world by half by 2015, Ambassador McGovern formulated detailed plans, urging delivery of more surplus food to foreign school-lunch programs and the establishment of specific targets such as had been done in old American programs. He began working again with fellow former U.S. Senate member Bob Dole from Kansas to persuade the Senate to support this effort, as well as expanded school lunch, food stamps, and nutritional help for pregnant women and poor children in the United States. The McGovern–Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program that was created in 2000, and funded largely through the Congress, would go on to provide more than 22 million meals to children in 41 countries over the next eight years. It was also credited with improving school attendance, especially among girls, who were more likely to be allowed to go to school if a meal was being provided. McGovern's book The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time was published in January 2001; with its title making reference to Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech, it proposed a plan whereby chronic world hunger could be eliminated within thirty years. In January 2001, McGovern was asked to stay on at the UN post for a while by the incoming George W. Bush administration. In October 2001, McGovern was appointed as the first UN global ambassador on world hunger by the World Food Programme, the agency he had helped found forty years earlier. and remained in it until his death. McGovern was an honorary life member of the board of Friends of the World Food Program. McGovern's wartime story was at the center of Ambrose's 2001 best-selling profile of the men who flew B‑24s over Germany in World War II, The Wild Blue. It was the first time much of the public became familiar with that part of his life; throughout his political career, McGovern had rarely mentioned his war service or the medals he had won. McGovern and Dole contributed essays to the 2005 volume Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith. From around 2003 to 2005, McGovern owned a bookstore in his summer home of Stevensville in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, until deciding to sell it because of lack of sufficient market. In October 2006, the $8.5 million George and Eleanor McGovern Library and Center for Leadership and Public Service was dedicated at Dakota Wesleyan University. The couple had helped raise the funds for it. The dignitaries in attendance were led by former president Clinton. McGovern's wife Eleanor was too ill to attend the ceremony, Later in 2007, several events were held at Dakota Wesleyan and in Washington, D.C., to celebrate McGovern's 85th birthday and the 35th anniversary of his nomination for president. Hundreds of former staff, volunteers, supporters and friends attended, along with public officials. McGovern still sought to have his voice heard in the American political scene. In January 2004, McGovern campaigned for Wesley Clark in his presidential bid, citing him as the candidate best suited to win in the general election. In January 2008, McGovern wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, saying they had violated the U.S. Constitution, transgressed national and international law, and repeatedly lied to the American people. The subtitle of the article read "Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse." In the tumultuous 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination campaign, he first endorsed U.S. Senate member Hillary Clinton from New York and then later switched to U.S. Senate member Barack Obama from Illinois after concluding Clinton could no longer win. On October 16, 2008, McGovern and Dole were made World Food Prize laureates for their efforts to curb hunger in the world and in particular for their joint program for school feeding and enhanced school attendance. ==Final years and death==

, 2009 By 2009, McGovern had moved to St. Augustine Beach, Florida. McGovern's seventh book (as author, co-author, or contributing editor) issued in the first decade of the 2000s, Abraham Lincoln, was published by Times Books and released at the close of 2008. Throughout 2009, McGovern embarked on a book tour, including a prominent visit to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. He was treated for exhaustion during 2011 By January 2012 he was promoting his latest book, What It Means to Be a Democrat. He was hospitalized again in April 2012 owing to fainting spells. McGovern's 90th birthday was celebrated on July 19, 2012, with a Washington event hosted by World Food Programme and attended by many liberal Democratic politicians, along with (as The Washington Post termed it) "one respectful conservative", Republican Party U.S. Senate member John Thune. On July 27, 2012, McGovern's son Steven died at age 60. McGovern's daughter Ann said, "Steve had a long struggle with alcoholism. We will all miss him deeply, but are grateful that he is now at peace." In August 2012, McGovern moved back to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to be nearer to his family. On the morning of October 21, 2012, McGovern died at the age of 90 at the Sioux Falls hospice, surrounded by family and lifelong friends. The family released this statement: "We are blessed to know that our father lived a long, successful and productive life advocating for the hungry, being a progressive voice for millions and fighting for peace. He continued giving speeches, writing and advising all the way up to and past his 90th birthday, which he celebrated this summer." In addition to his three remaining children, he was survived by ten grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. His funeral was held in the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls, with his ashes to be buried alongside his wife and daughter Terry at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington. On July 26, 2015, the Argus Leader, the daily newspaper in Sioux Falls, published an article detailing the extensive files on McGovern compiled through the years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including letters and notations from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, revealing that Hoover had a direct interest in the FBI monitoring of McGovern. The newspaper also published the complete FBI file on McGovern that was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed shortly after McGovern's death. ==Awards and decorations==

McGovern's decorations include: ==Legacy==

, 2009 Owing to his resounding loss to Nixon in the 1972 election and the causes behind it, "McGovernism" became a label that a generation of Democratic politicians tried to avoid. In 1992, nationally syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene wrote, "Once again politicians – mostly Republicans, but some Democrats, too – are using his name as a synonym for presidential campaigns that are laughable and out of touch with the American people." Conservatives used McGovern's name as a ready synonym for what they saw as liberal failures. The association with dovishness and weakness on defense has been especially prevalent, although McGovern publicly stated in 1972 that he was not a pacifist and that use of force was sometimes necessary, such as in World War II. McGovern later said in 2001 that his political image had been exaggerated: "I am a liberal and always have been – just not the wild-eyed character the Republicans made me out to be." Throughout his career, McGovern's positions reflected his own experiences as well as a personal synthesis of the traditions of American liberalism and progressivism. Southern Methodist University historian Thomas J. Knock wrote in 2003 that "[McGovern's] career was extraordinary and historic ... primarily because of his impress as searching and prophetic critic" and that "few political careers offer an alternative understanding of the American Century as compelling and instructive as McGovern's." His 1972 campaign fundamentally altered how presidential primary campaigns were waged. Within the Democratic Party, power shifted from the New Deal coalition to younger, more affluent, issue-oriented activists; the women's movement and gay rights movement found a place; skepticism about military buildups and foreign interventions took hold; and the 1960s "New Politics" found its culmination in McGovern's nomination. SUNY Albany political scientist Bruce Miroff wrote in 2007 that the McGovern campaign was the last time in presidential politics that liberals had "their chance to speak of their goals with enthusiasm and their dreams with fire ... Yet almost at the instant that the insurgents successfully stormed the heights of American politics, they found themselves on the brink of one of the worst free falls on record." seen in 2007 commemorating McGovern's service as a B-24 pilot Staffers who worked on McGovern's 1972 campaign later became influential within the Democratic Party. Campaign manager Gary Hart staged his own presidential runs in 1984 and 1988. Future president Bill Clinton, with assistance from his future wife and politician, Hillary Rodham, had managed the McGovern campaign's operations in Texas. while Clinton, and the Democratic Leadership Council movement of which he was a part, explicitly rejected McGovern's ideology. There was still a legacy in terms of staffing, as the Clinton White House would be full of former "McGovernites". McGovern's post-political career generally enhanced his reputation; Tom Brokaw, who referred to McGovern as part of the "Greatest Generation", wrote in 1998 that "he remains one of the country's most decent and thoughtful public servants." McGovern's legacy also includes his commitment to combating hunger both in the United States and around the globe. He said, "After I'm gone, I want people to say about me: He did the best he could to end hunger in this country and the world." In the view of Knock, McGovern in all his activities arguably accomplished more for people in need than most presidents or secretaries of state in U.S. history. Responding to the Serenity Prayer's desire to "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change", McGovern said simply that he rejected that notion: "I keep trying to change them." ==Writings==

• McGovern, George S. ''War Against Want: America's Food for Peace Program'', Walker & Co., 1964. • McGovern, George (ed.) Agricultural Thought in the Twentieth Century, Bobbs-Merrill, 1966. • McGovern, George. A Time of War! A Time of Peace, Vintage Books, 1968. . • McGovern, George S. and Leonard F. Guttridge. The Great Coalfield War, Houghton Mifflin, 1972. • McGovern, George. Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern, Random House, 1977. . • McGovern, George. ''Terry: My Daughter's Life-And-Death Struggle With Alcoholism'', New York: Villard, 1996. , . • McGovern, George. The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time, Simon & Schuster, 2001. . • McGovern, George. The Essential America: Our Founders and the Liberal Tradition, Simon & Schuster, 2004. . • McGovern, George. Social Security and the Golden Age: An Essay on the New American Demographic, Speaker's Corner Books, 2005. . • McGovern, George, Bob Dole and Donald E. Messer. Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith, Augsburg Fortress, 2005. . • McGovern, George and William R. Polk. Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now, Simon & Schuster, 2006. . • McGovern, George S., Donald C. Simmons, Jr. and Daniel Gaken (eds.) Leadership and Service: An Introduction, Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2008. . • McGovern, George S. Abraham Lincoln, Times Books, 2008. , . • McGovern, George with Linda Kulman. What It Means to Be a Democrat, Blue Rider Press, 2011. . ==See also==