Remembering George McGovern

I met George McGovern when he gave a talk at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. I cannot recall now whether it was during his 1972 run for the Presidency or, more likely, after it. I went up to him after his talk and we spoke briefly. He was one of the heroes of my idealistic youth, a thoroughly decent man with a populist, compassionate approach to his politics. With his passing this Sunday October 21 at the age of 90, the country lost one of its strongest advocates for peace and social justice. The world lost one of its finest citizens.

The former Senator from South Dakota is most remembered for his opposition to the Vietnam War - the defining issue for those coming of age in the mid to late 1960's, such as myself. He had an understanding of the evils of war rooted in his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. McGovern was one of the earliest opponents of our misguided Vietnam policy – his opposition dates to the Kennedy years. If only the rest of the country had the same vision, we would have been spared this great American tragedy. When the war escalated again and again and ground on interminably during the Johnson and Nixon years, he continued to oppose the war, culminating in his capture of the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1972.

The son of a Methodist minister, George McGovern was a man of great moral clarity with the courage to speak out even when what he had to say was unpopular with his listeners. In a speech at Wheaton College in October 1972 as the Democratic candidate for President, he was greeted with catcalls and jeers from the conservative audience as students with Nixon banners paraded on the periphery of the chapel where he was speaking. He nonetheless delivered a remarkable speech. Bruce Miroff in a NYTimes OpeEd piece relates it this way: “Mr. McGovern called upon his audience to grieve not only for American casualties in Vietnam but also for the Vietnamese lives lost from American military actions. Indifference to Vietnamese deaths troubled him, so he insisted that Americans confront their own responsibility for the consequences of war and 'change those things in our character which turned us astray, away from the truth that the people of Vietnam are, like us, children of God.'...”

Even after his landslide defeat to Richard Nixon in 1972 and the loss of his Sneate seat in 1980, McGovern remained active in public life – continually advocating for a less aggressive American foreign policy and devoting his time and energy to the fight against world hunger.

He was a midwestern liberal in the mold of the prairie populists and New Deal Democrats that came from that region. That he was two-term Democratic Representative and a three-term Democratic Senator in the very red state of South Dakota speaks volumes to his ability to appeal to the best in voters of all inclinations – he was as Robert Kennedy said “the most decent man in the U.S. Senate.”

 

 

Times have changed. The odds of a return to a progressive tradition in the country's midsection are non-existent. Our political conversation drifts ever to the right and even centrists such as President Obama are painted as socialists.

In some ways, though, times have not changed at all. America has not lost its touch for engaging in senseless and unjustifiable wars. The defenders and benefactors of the miltary-industrial complex remain in control of the national defense discussion and we are treated to the spectacle of a Republican Presidential candidate offering a budget that will add two trillion dollars in unneeded and unrequested military expenditures over the next decade. Forty years ago, we at least had morally courageous leaders such as George McGovern to give us hope that someday things might be different. He will be missed.

 

Links

 

Bruce Miroff''s New York Times Op Ed "The Moral Clarity of Geroge McGovern"

 

Randall Balmer's Des Moines Register Article on George McGovern.  Randall Balmer was at Wheaton College to hear Senator McGovern's speech.  

 

Sample NYTimes OpEds by George McGovern

Katrina vanden Heuvel's article in The Nation (includes links to Nation articles by George McGovern)

Tom Daschle's article in The American Prospect