McGovern moves to Beach

McGovern moves to Beach

Former presidential candidate impressed with warm welcome he's received

By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 01/11/09


ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH -- One of the newest home owners in St. Augustine Beach, former 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern of South Dakota, said Saturday that he came to this area to enjoy its history and to escape the long winters in his home state.

"This is just what I need," he said. "I visited a few years back and was impressed. So, three months ago, I looked it over and decided to settle here. I've had a wonderful welcome from people."

McGovern. 86, is a native South Dakotan, representing that state in the House of Representatives for four years, 1957-1961, and the Senate for 18 years, 1963 to 1981.

He was born in Avon, S.D., but still has a house in Mitchell, S.D.

You'd think he might slow down, and perhaps he has a little. But don't ever imagine him retiring.

His latest book, "Lincoln," was released last week and he said copies are already at Barnes & Noble.

"There are three more books I want to write," he said.

Like any other neighbor

During the '72 presidential campaign, McGovern looked and sounded like a Ph.D professor of history, which of course he was before he got into politics.

On Saturday, wearing a plaid flannel shirt at the dining room table, eating his strawberries and bananas breakfast and, he seems serene, patient and grandfatherly.

Age has settled upon his features gently.

Three months ago, he bought the perfect house: two stories, four bedrooms in a quiet, upscale, non-gated St. Augustine Beach neighborhood. He says his six grandchildren will fill up the upstairs bedrooms.

His Realtor, Susanne Murphy of Re/Max 100 Realty at the Beach, said he got a deal.

The home is comfortable, lined with impressionist paintings and posters recalling the election.

Not all his books are there yet, but the ones stacked there include analyses of the Iraq War, which he opposes, books on China, ancient history and art, among many other topics.

His friend, St. Augustine Beach Commissioner Andrea Samuels, said he doesn't even have a coffeemaker yet.

"It's coming," she said, adding that the senator's dog, a Newfoundland, will also be there soon.

While talking to visitors, he fields phone calls from Washington, including one from Linda Daschle, wife of another former South Dakota senator, Tom Daschle. Then he knelt to charm and comfort the Record photographer's daughter, who came along with her dad to meet McGovern. He got the shy little girl to eventually tell him the name of her doll.

Family photographs crowd an end table. The sun streams in through blinds.

This week he flies to New York to receive a human rights award from the Congress of Racial Equality.

Even though he still keeps a house in South Dakota, but he seems happy to be here in the sunshine and away from the gloom of politics.

The '72 election redux

McGovern was a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War in 1968, a position he still holds today.

He tried to capture the Democratic nomination for president that year, but lost to the Hubert "The Happy Warrior" Humphrey of Minnesota, who lost to Richard Nixon.

In 1972 McGovern tried again. He was overshadowed by Edward Muskie of Maine and George Wallace of Alabama, but Muskie's support drooped and Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer and left the picture.

McGovern's message of peace captured the youth vote and people tired of the war.

He campaigned in Florida. "But Wallace garnered more votes in Florida than all the other (primary) candidates put together." he said.

McGovern eventually won the nomination in July 1972 at the Miami convention, supporting ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, a 37 percent decrease in defense spending, amnesty for draft evaders and an offer to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam in exchange for American POWs.

But then came a shock, McGovern said later that his campaign never recovered from it.

Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, McGovern's vice presidential running mate, revealed that he had undergone electroshock therapy for depression. He volunteered to leave the ticket and did so.

McGovern now says that was a mistake.

"We had a good relationship," he said. "If we had it to do over again, I'd have stayed with him. There was more ink on the Eagleton affair than for the Watergate break-in."

The November election was a landslide win for the Republicans, 61 percent to 37 percent.

"The (Democratic) party had no money. Nixon outspend me 10-1," McGovern said.

The hunger problem

For many years, he's also very actively, but quietly, been working on ending child hunger.

That dedication began in World War II, where he flew 35 bombing missions in a B-24 Liberator, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross. Half the planes sent out on bombing missions never made it back.

But McGovern said he was most deeply moved when he noticed Italian mothers and children scrounging for food in military garbage pails. "I made up my mind then that, if I could, I'd fight hunger," he said.

In 1960, President Kennedy appointed him as the first Food For Peace director. In that program, the U.S. shipped its surpluses of wheat, corn, sugar and powdered eggs to other nations.

"We kept India alive during that period. Now India's a grain exporter," McGovern said.

In two years at that post, he traveled the world arranging for food shipments to needy countries.

Back in the Senate, he fought domestic hunger with his Republican partner and friend, then-Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas.

"We doubled the size of the Food Stamp program, tripled the school lunch program and began WIC, Women, Infants and Children, a nutrition program for mothers and children," McGovern said. "All of these programs are operating today. There isn't a community in the country who would give up any one of them."

Going international

President Clinton appointed McGovern to a four-year term with the World Food Program and the Food & Agricultural Organization, both based in Rome.

McGovern realized that, if 30 million children receive school lunches in the U.S. and it works so well, why couldn't the program be made international?

That effort was launched in 2000, Clinton's last year as president. Congress authorized $300 million to start, and about 10 other countries have joined in.

"We are now reaching millions of children overseas. But we have many more millions to go," he said. "I don't want one child in the world going to school hungry."

He was appointed United States Ambassador on World Hunger in 2001. In 2008, McGovern and Dole were awarded World Food Prize Laureates for their work on school lunch programs.

"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," McGovern said. "Ending hunger is a solvable problem. It's well within our means."

He estimates a complete program would cost $8 billion to $10 billion.

Congress has also just passed the "George McGovern/Robert Dole Food For Nutrition and Education Bill, authorizing funding and expanding the initial effort.

"We've got to reach 150 million more children," McGovern said.

The Obama factor

McGovern found himself in the public eye last year when he switched his endorsement from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama during the Democratic primary campaign.

He is friends with Hillary and Bill Clinton, who volunteered to work for him in Texas during the 1972 campaign.

"As the primary wore on, I stayed with Hillary, but I was impressed meeting Obama in person for the first time. It seemed to me that he was the voice for our time. Hillary was disappointed (that I switched endorsements) and so was Bill, but they weren't angry. She will be terrific as secretary of state."

McGovern said Obama has the capacity to reach across the aisle.

"Campaigning has gotten worse. Money has become, if not the deciding factor, a major factor in politics," he said. "That has weakened the quality of American politics. I'm a long-time friend to George H.W. Bush, but he never wanted his son in politics. (George W. Bush) is congenial but he's ignored all his advisers. He's wrong on his judgments, more than any in my life and probably more than any other president."


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