Senator George McGovern, our courageous 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee, was an heroic World War II bomber pilot over Nazi Germany, winner of the Air Medal. McGovern stood up to corrupt, vindictive, criminal Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon, denouncing his Vietnam War and Watergate scandals (attempts to subvert and destroy our democracy). History proved McGovern right.
McGovern has entered a South Dakota hospice.
McGovern has entered a South Dakota hospice.
World peace and ending hunger are the twin global causes of McGovern's life, for which he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the International Food Prize. A bipartisan consensus-builder, McGovern headed JFK's Food for Peace Program and worked with Senate Republicans, including Robert Dole and Howard Baker, on vital issues, including solving the problems of hunger in our Nation and World.
McGovern was the first presidential candidate I ever campaigned for, when I was fifteen, my mother driving me to the county seat on successive Saturdays to campaign. After McGovern lost 49 states in 1972, I resolved to my parents that I would go to college and vacation only in the places McGovern carried (D.C. and Massachusetts) until Nixon left: our family kept my promise (college at Georgetown in D.C., vacations on Cape Cod).
In 1989, I greeted George & Eleanor McGovern at a “Nader's Raiders” dinner in D.C. – twice within a few weeks, he remembered me, when Brian and I dined at City Lights of China, greeting us.
Two decades later, McGovern picked our historic community as his winter home.
George & Eleanor McGovern helped South Dakotans become Democratic, through hard work and organizing. He inspires us.
I boldly brought the St. Johns County Democratic Party banner to McGovern's first speech at conservative Flagler College, (undeterred by a brief nose-wrinkling-interrogation). Annette Capella, Jamin Rubenstein and I proudly held up our Democratic banner: passing by, McGovern twinkled, smiled, shook our hands and thanked us. McGovern spoke at fundraisers and nurtured party-building. He encourages independent thought and a political system free of the taint of big money. He is humble yet critical, smart and courteous. In his eloquent, 1972 Presidential nominating speech, McGovern said: "And this is the time to stand for those things that are close to the American spirit. We are not content with things as they are. We reject the view of those who say, 'America -- love it or leave it. ' We reply, 'Let us change it so we may love it the more.'”
We are privileged to break bread with him and hear him speak at our libraries, churches, schools, civil rights events and dinners, and to greet him in restaurants and farmer's markets.
McGovern is a kind, gentle, witty soul who forgives his enemies (even Nixon), once saying publicly that he couldn't “hold grudges for very long” (three months, tops and he was done). This trait no doubt contributes to his longevity.
McGovern is a scintillating, intelligent statesman who enlivened parties/dinners. I remember George McGovern at Robin Nadeau's Twelfth Night Party. Robin, resplendent in a red dress she herself made decades ago, was seated by the door, talking with McGovern – engaged in spirited discussion about how to protect our people from corporate greed. I remember McGovern at Bob & Andrea Samuels' Passover seder, talking about the world; exiting, he kissed my friend Amy, stating “you're beautiful,” as her future husband beamed.
A History Ph.D./author, McGovern worked for new South Dakota National Parks; he told me he likes our St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore proposal, www.staugustgreen.com
McGovern is a beautiful man, working for real Americans, not greedy one-percenters.
Your St. Augustine neighbors and friends are all praying for you today, George.
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Ed Slavin (B.S., Foreign Service, Georgetown University, J.D., Memphis State University), is a community activist in St. Augustine, Florida.
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