George McGovern Recordings

George McGovern
(1922 – 2012)

When Americans think about greatness in our government, the Baby Boomers remember living in an era of Great Bargaining from 1949 through 1981 when Congress was filled with such giants as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George HW Bush, Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Bob Dole, Barry Goldwater, Walter Mondale, later in the era; Joe Biden and Al Gore, and of course, George McGovern.  Many in this era of golden government were part of that Greatest Generation who grew up during the Depression and came of age during World War II only to take those experiences to Congress and govern based on the country's best interest and not the Party's best interest.  Members of the Silent Generation and the older Baby Boomers who came to Congress in the 1960s and 1970s for the most part with a few exceptions learned from their older colleagues on what it meant to govern; if only for a short period of time.

George McGovern was born in Avon, South Dakota, a farming town with of 600 people on July 19, 1922.  His father, a preacher in the local Methodist Church grew up virtually parentless and from the age of nine had worked in the coal mines.  He was a professional baseball player in the minor leagues but because of his teammates' heavy drinking, their gambling, and their womanizing; Joseph McGovern left baseball to enter the seminary.  As a minister, Joe McGovern never earned more than $100 a month compensation so he accepted potatoes, cabbage, and other food items as another form of payment.  Frances (née McLean) McGovern was born in Ontario, Canada having moved to South Dakota to find work as a secretary.  Both Joe and Frances were firm members of the Republican Party but they were never really politically active or doctrinaire about it.

While living in Calgary from the age of three to the age of six to have his family be close to his ailing grandmother, George formed some of his earliest memories like Calgary Stampede which is known as the greatest outdoor show on Earth.  At age six, the McGoverns moved back to the United Stares settling in Mitchell, South Dakota.  A painfully shy child in the first grade, McGovern was really an average student in school.  It seemed like the only thing that he really enjoyed at this time was going to the movies and that was out of rebellion as movies were forbidden worldly amusements to good Methodists.  Otherwise, his childhood in Mitchell was pretty normal.  It was during these years that McGovern would say that he learned a sense of belonging in the community and knowing your part in it.  Because of living so close to poverty in the 1920s and 1930s, and remembering things like the Dust Bowl storms and the grasshopper plagues in the prairie states during the Depression of the 1930s.  It was these events that made George McGovern sympathetic towards underpaid workers and the struggling farmers.  It was also at this time where he would be influenced by the teachings of John Wesley; an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who led a revival of the Church of England known as Methodism.  McGovern used these teachings to fight poverty, injustice, and ignorance.

As a student at Mitchell High School, McGovern was a solid but unspectacular track team member.  By his sophomore year in high school his English teacher had recommended that he join the debate team.  Because the debate coach was the History teacher and because McGovern excelled in that subject, the coach decided to capitalize on McGovern's love of the subject.  This decision proved influential to McGovern and because of many hours invested in debate, he and his partner would win events, and being from a state like South Dakota at the time; debating followed very passionately by the general public.  Because of debate, it gave George a chance to explore ideas to a logical end by broadening his perspective and giving him a sense of personal and social confidence.  It was during this time when George met Eleanor Stegeberg; a debate opponent from another school whom McGovern and his debate partner had lost to.  George McGovern, that shy, rather fair to midlin student in the first grade graduated from high school in 1940 in the top ten percent of his class.

After graduating from high school and with a forensic scholarship, George McGovern enrolled at Dakota Wesleyan University where he became a star student.  To supplement his scholarship George would work odd jobs.  By this time, World War II was about to happen for the United States and questioning his own courage, McGovern through the Civilian Pilot Training Program took flying lessons in an Aeronca aircraft earning his pilot's license.  Of the experience McGovern remember, "Frankly, I was scared to death on that first solo flight.  But when I walked away from it, I had an enormous feeling of satisfaction that I had taken the thing off the ground and landing it without tearing the wings off."  Also at this time, McGovern had engaged in pre-marital relations with an acquaintance resulting in her giving birth to a daughter whom they had conceived together.  This information was never made public until after McGovern's death in 2012.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, while listening to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for a music appreciation class news had interrupted the radio broadcast to report that Pearl Harbor was under attack.  The United States was now in the war.  A month later in January 1942, McGovern and nine other students drove down together to Omaha, Nebraska to join the United States Army Air Force.  While he was accepted, at the time the Army did not have enough airfields, aircrafts, or instructors to start training.  McGovern would stay at Dakota Wesleyan.  It was at this time that McGovern and Eleanor Stegeberg became engaged but had decided to wait to be married after the war was over.

Armed with a speech entitled My Brother's Keeper, George McGovern had won a statewide intercollegiate South Dakota Peace Oratory Contest.  This speech was selected by the National Council of Churches as one of the best 12 orations of 1942.  After competing in a debate at North Dakota State University which he and his partner had one, McGovern, upon his return back to Dakota Wesley had discovered that the Army had called him up. 

McGovern would be sworn in as a private at Fort Snelling, Minnesota and would then spend a month at Jefferson Barracks Military Post in Missouri, and then for the next five months he was stationed at Southern Illinois Normal University where he went through ground training.  He then went for flying school training learning in a single engine PT-19.  Being lonely and in love, George and Eleanor married on October 31, 1943 with his father presiding over the ceremony.  The couple could not wait another 23 months.  After nearly a year of training for flying, McGovern went to Italy in September 1944 becoming part of the 741st Squadron of the 455th Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force.  It was while at Cerignola, McGovern and his crew witnessed something far worse than the Depression in the United States in the 1930s; a starving disease-ridden local population wracked by the torturous ills of war.  This experience would begin his motivation to want to end world hunger.  This would start after the war in Europe ended in 1945; McGovern would fly surplus food and supplies in Northern Italy.  Some of the beneficiaries of this act were German POWs.

After the war, McGovern came home making use of the new 1944 program signed by Franklin Roosevelt; the GI Bill to return to Dakota Wesleyan University.  McGovern did continue debating and even won the Peace Oratory Contest again with the speech titled From Cave to Cave.  This speech presented a Christian influenced Wilsonian (a kind of foreign policy outlook in the spirit of President Woodrow Wilson and his Fourteen Points Speech of 1918 to end the then Great War and bring world peace) outlook.  He would graduate in June of 1946 earning a bachelor's degree and as magna cum laude.  It was also during this time that McGovern suffered from nightmares about flying through flak barrages as well as his plane being on fire.

Because of the influence of Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel movement McGovern left the more fundamental Methodism and practiced a more reform Methodism.  He would take divinity training at the Garrett Theological Seminary outside of Chicago learning about a more liberal approach towards theological pacifism.

Growing tired of the ministry, mainly because of his duties, McGovern enrolled in Northwestern in 1947 enrolling in the history department and also serving as a teaching assistant.  At the time, Northwestern's History Department was one of the best in the country.  While a student at Northwestern, McGovern studied under such great professors at the time: Ray Allen Billington, Richard W. Leopold, and L.S. Stavrianos.  In 1949, McGovern would receive his master's degree in history. 

After earning his master's degree, McGovern returned to Dakota Wesleyan and taught history and political science.  Because of his popularity as a history teacher at Dakota Wesleyan; the 1952 yearbook was dedicated to him. During summers and in his free time he would take more graduate courses writing a 450 page dissertation titled the Colorado Coal Strike, 1913 to 1914.  This writing tended to be sympathetic to the coal miners' revolt towards the Rockefeller interests and the Coalfield War.  McGovern's thesis advisor, noted historian Arthur S. Link said of George McGovern that he had not seen a better student than him in his 26 years of teaching.  McGovern would praise Link and the previous generation of progressive historians for his way of thinking.  George McGovern would earn his PhD in history in 1953.  In later years, McGovern admitted that most of his analyses on world events would be informed by his training as a historian as well as his own experiences during the Depression and World War II.

Politically, George McGovern was a Republican, although he did support FDR during World War II, he still cast his first vote for President in 1944 for Thomas E. Dewey.  His political learnings would start to change while attending Northwestern being exposed to the works of John King Fairbank and Owen Lattimore.  They had convinced McGovern that the situation in Southeast Asia was homegrown and that the United States' foreign policy towards Asia was in fact, counterproductive.  At the onset of the Cold War, McGovern never really thought highly of President Harry S Truman so in 1948, McGovern campaigned for Truman's predecessor to the vice presidency and Roosevelt's former secretary of agriculture; Henry Wallace.  McGovern would write articles about Former Vice President Wallace for the Mitchell Daily Republic and he would serve as a delegate at the Progressive Party's first national convention.  Disillusioned by the what we we would call optics today of the convention, McGovern felt that there was a sense of rigidity and fanaticism on the part of some strategists.  Henry Wallace did not appear on the ballot in Illinois, where George McGovern was registered to vote so he did not vote in the 1948 Presidential Election.

By 1952 and being captivated by Adlai Stevenson's Acceptance Speech at the 1952 Democratic National Convention; George McGovern was seeing himself more as a Democrat.  He published seven articles in favor of Governor Stevenson for the Mitchell Daily Republic by outlining the historical issues between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.  So dedicated to going all the way with Adlai, the McGoverns named their only son who was born shortly after the Democratic National Convention, Steven.  And even though Stevenson lost the presidency to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, that did not discourage McGovern.  He remained active in politics believing that the "engine of progress in our time in America is the Democratic Party."  He would leave a tenure track position in 1953 to become the executive secretary of the South Dakota Democratic Party after the state chairman recruited him after reading some of the Mitchell articles McGovern had written.  At the time, it seemed like a bad move to make and family and friends tried talking him out of taking the position.  In 1953 there were no Democrats serving in statewide offices in South Dakota and of the 110 seats in the state legislature only two were occupied by Democrats.  McGovern failed to take the advice citing the idea of an ambitious challenge, but also because he had political ambitions of his own.  So for the next few years, McGovern worked at rebuilding the South Dakota Democratic Party.  In 1954, the Democrats won 25 seats in South Dakota's state legislature, a very big improvement.  McGovern would also gain an advisory position with the Democratic National Committee.

In 1956, the United States was in a general mood of keeping the status quo.  The American people were enjoying economic prosperity in the 1950s and to reward the elected officials, Dwight Eisenhower was re-elected President and the Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives gaining two more seats, one of whom was George McGovern.

McGovern sought elective office for himself in 1956 running for South Dakota's 1st Congressional District.  He would be challenging four term Republican Congressman Harold O. Lavre.  McGovern made great use of voter registration lists he had assembled while working in the State Democratic Party, so with a budget of $12,000.00 ($130,725.44 in 2022) and borrowing $5,000.00 ($54,462.50 in 2022), and his quiet personality appealed to the voters.  Politically, the voters were not happy with Lovre's support of President Eisenhower's farm policies.  Once McGovern's numbers in the polls started to rise, the incumbent's campaign accused McGovern of being a communist appeaser or sympathizer because of his support of admitting the People's Republic of China to the United Nations as well as his support of Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace in 1948.  McGovern reacted by stating that he, "has always despised communism and every other ruthless tyranny over the mind and spirit of man."  McGovern ended up winning that race gaining 116,516 votes to Lovee's 105,835 votes.  George McGovern would become the first Democrat from South Dakota to be elected to Congress since 1934.

As a freshman member of the 85th Congress, McGovern became a member of the House Committee on Education and Labor.  He would listen to the concerns of his constituency by becoming a staunch supporter of higher commodity prices, farm price supports, grain storage programs, and beef import controls.  McGovern also supported aid to higher education and a medical insurance program for the elderly through Social Security. In 1957, McGovern as a member of the American Christian Palestine Committee traveled to the Middle East, and he would ally with the Kennedy political machine when supported a House version of Senator John F. Kennedy's unsuccessful labor reform bill.

In 1958, the country was suffering from a recession known as the Eisenhower Recession and was suffering a sharp worldwide economic downturn.  This recession was spreading beyond the borders of the United States by also effecting Canada and Europe causing the closure of many businesses and was the most painful recession between 1945 and 1970, lasting for only eight months.  What had started in May was starting to see economic gains by the end of 1958 and historically speaking was regarded as a moderate recession.  The other big event heading into 1958 happened on October 4, 1957.  While many Americans were watching the Beaver scared to give his parents a note sent home with him by his second grade teacher , Miss Canfield, many more were worried about the launch of a Russian satellite called Sputnik into outer space, giving them a lead over the United States in rocketry.  This was the beginning of the height of the Cold War coming to a climax five years later during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  1958 was also a Midterm Election year in Eisenhower's second term, and historically when a President of one Party is in the White House, the opposition Party will make gains in Congress.  In contemporary history the only two exceptions were 1962 after the Cuban Missile Crisis and how President Kennedy handled the situation, and 2002, one year after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack when Americans were feeling patriotic by standing behind President George W. Bush heading into the Iraq War in 2003.

George McGovern saw 1958 as his chance to run again for elective office in South Dakota's 1st Congressional District based on the recession and Sputnik.  He did however, face a tougher challenge than he did in 1956 when Joe Foss, a World War II Medal of Honor winner and a two term governor was his Republican challenger.  Foss was considered the favorite to win but by running on a record of legislating and standing by his convictions George McGovern was re-elected to the House of Representatives with a slightly higher margin than in 1956.

As McGovern started his second term in the 86th Congress he was seated on the House Committee on Agriculture.  Harold D. Cooley, the Chairman of that committee said of McGovern, "I cannot recall a single member of Congress who has fought more vigorously or intelligently for American farmers than Congressman McGovern."  McGovern helped pass a new Food Stamp Law and with the help of Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota advocated a reconstruction of an agricultural surplus act known as Public Law 480 emphasizing on feeding the hungry around the world.  McGovern's career in the House of Representatives would be defined by improvements for rural America and the war on hunger.

The Election of 1960 was going to be an election of change. For one thing, President Eisenhower was ineligible as the first president under the rules in the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution to run for another term as President.  1960 would also be the first time that all 50 states (Alaska and Hawaii were added in 1959) were able to vote making the number of Electoral Votes needed to win the presidency at 269.  George McGovern had decided that he wanted to run for the United Stares Senate in South Dakota against the two term Republican incumbent, Karl E. Mundt.  McGovern had hitched his wagon to Senator Kennedy, the Democratic Party Nominee for President and this would prove problematic for him.  South Dakota, a heavily Protestant state voted in a landslide for Vice President Richard Nixon as Kennedy, to many was not necessarily the Democratic Party candidate for President but the Catholic candidate for President.  But despite that association, McGovern narrowly lost his election to Mundt by 4.88%.

Because he had given up his House seat to run for the United States Senate in 1960, McGovern was without a job, if only for what we would say today; for a minute.  President Kennedy named McGovern Director of the Food for Peace Program.  He assumed his new office on January 21, 1961.  The new director took residency in the Executive Office Building so not to be subservient to Secretary Dean Rusk at the State Department or Secretary Orville Freeman at the Department of Agriculture.  He would work closely with James W. Symington, son of Kennedy rival in the 1960 Democratic Presidential Primaries, Stuart Symington and advisor to the President, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.  McGovern would use his office to urge the greater use of food to help enable foreign economic development.  Of this he said, "We should thank God that we have a food abundance and use the oversupply among the underprivileged at home and abroad."  McGovern would visit South America with Symington and Schlesinger to discuss surplus grain distribution.  As a result this trip and because he needed to be inoculated for the trip McGovern became ill due to hepatitis.  What caused this was an infected needle used in the White House dispensary.  This caused serious illness resulting in hospitalization and unable to go to work for two months.

After 18 months of progress as director of Food for Peace, and it was successful with 10 million more people being fed worldwide by the end of 1961 than in 1960, and in 1962 overseeing a food lunch program in India where one in five of India's children were utilizing this program; George McGovern wanted to run for the United States Senate in 1962 with the blessing of President Kennedy.  At his resignation on July 18, 1962, President Kennedy said of George McGovern, "Under McGovern, the program became a vital force in the world, improving living conditions and economies of allies and creating a powerful barrier to the spread of communism."  George McGovern's Food for Peace Program would receive praise from others as well.  Drew Pearson said that if was the most spectacular achievement of the young Kennedy administration, and Schlesinger himself said that it had been the greatest unseen weapon of Kennedy's third-world policy.

When McGovern decided to run for the Senate in April 1962 he had intended to run against the incumbent Francis H. Case.  But Case unexpectedly died in June so Former Lt. Governor Joseph H. Bottum was appointed to the vacated seat.  Throughout the campaign, Bottum led slightly and accusing the Kennedy family of trying to buy the Senate seat.  McGovern did have the support of the farmers and also spoke of the outflux or brain drain today, of young people leaving the state.  During the campaign McGovern's hepatitis came back and while in the hospital he read Theodore H. White's book, the Making of the President 1960 thinking that one day, he too would like to run for President.  Like Joan Kennedy did in 1964 while Ted Kennedy was hospitalized, Eleanor McGovern campaigned for her husband while he was hospitalized.  In the end, the vote was so close that it required a recount resulting in George McGovern winning the Senate seat by 597 votes.  He would become the first Democrat from South Dakota elected to the United States Senate since 1936 and only the third to be elected since statehood in 1889.

When he entered the 88th Congress in 1963, McGovern was seated on the Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee and the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee.  As a member of the former committee, McGovern supported high farm prices, full parity, controls on beef importation, and the Kennedy administration's Feed Grains Acreage Diversion Program.  Ted Kennedy, who was part of the same freshman class as McGovern often sought McGovern's advice on agriculture issues.  McGovern would speak glowingly of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and be critical of the Cuban Missile Crisis citing a "Castro fixation" with regards to  Cuba.  He would also talk of reducing the military budget of $53 billion by $5 billion.  In every year of the 1960s, he would try to reduce military expenditures.  McGovern would first speak out against American involvement in Vietnam in September 1963, "The current dilemma in Vietnam is a clear demonstration of the limitations of military power.  Current U.S. involvement is a policy of moral debacle.  The trap we have fallen into there will haunt us in every corner of this revolutionary world if we do not properly appraise its lessons."  McGovern would really say little to nothing more about Vietnam for nearly a year, in part because of the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963.  McGovern would vote in August 1964 for the Gulf on Tonkin Resolution and we know what kind of power that gave President Lyndon Johnson.  What McGovern initially wanted to do was vote no for the resolution, but thanks to the urging of Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas citing to stand behind President Johnson politically, McGovern changed his vote to yes.

As the war dragged on, McGovern would deliver more bitter speeches about Vietnam and he become critical of President Johnson's policies in Vietnam.  McGovern would support appropriations for the military up to 1968 so not to deprive the troops of what they needed.

The year 1967 saw what was called a Dump Johnson movement.  What they wanted was for an anti-war Democrat to primary President Johnson in the upcoming campaign in 1968.  Robert Kennedy was first approached and declined, he would decide to run after the New Hampshire Primary in March 1968.  McGovern was approached but didn't want to risk his Senate seat which was up in 1968.  They finally got Senator Eugene McCarthy on Minnesota to do it and he announced his candidacy in November 1967.  After McCarthy's strong second place showing in the New Hampshire Primary, Kennedy threw his hate in the ring four days later.  He would be assassinated after winning the California Democratic Primary in June 1968.  By the time of the Democratic National Convention nearly three months later McGovern, who was approached by Kennedy staffers after the assassination to take his place announced his candidacy on August 10, 1968.  At the Convention, McGovern came in third behind Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy.  Humphrey won the nomination and lost in a three man race against Richard Nixon by coming in second.  The Independence candidate, George Wallace of Alabama came in third.  Nixon won the Election for what Lyndon Johnson declared to Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen of Illinois and you can hear this nearly 50 years after LBJ's death when eavesdropping on the phone call that Nixon committed treason.  Dirksen responded with a simple, "I know."

After Nixon's win to the presidency with a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam, things got pretty heated for the next 15 months after taking office.  The Draft Lottery had begun on December 1, 1969 nearly a month after the President's Silent Majority speech.  To understand this Draft Lottery, let's look at the four presidents who were of draft age during 1969 and 1970.  Joe Biden was born on November 20, 1942 so you look at the birthday of 1120.  In 1969 his draft number was 185 and in 1970 it was 98.  Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946 so you look at the birthday of 0614.  In 1969 his draft number was 356 and in 1970 it was 363.  George W. Bush was born on July 6, 1946 so you look at the birthday of 0706.  In 1969 his draft number was 327 and in 1970 it was 164.  Bill Clinton was born on August 19, 1946 so you look at the birthday of 0819.  In 1969 his draft number was 311 and in 1970 it was 83.  On April 20, 1970, Nixon had announced an end in sight after five long years in Vietnam only to ten days later on April 30, 1970 go before the country again to announce his expansion of the war in Cambodia.

The latter decision sparked radical protests on college campuses and college towns all over the country, most notably; Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.  On the morning of May 4, 1970, Barclay D. McMillen was teaching a Political Science 110 course at Kent State University, just 90 minutes before the Ohio National Guard shot at an unarmed gathering of students killing four and wounding nine, a student asked about President Nixon's power and why he went into Cambodia.  McMillen explained Nixon's strength as the President and stated how he noticed how much more gingerly members of Congress like George McGovern and other dove Senators were criticizing Nixon, unlike their quick criticism towards Johnson a few years earlier.  That same month, McGovern did take out a second mortgage on his Washington, DC home to buy time on NBC for a half hour panel discussion on the McGovern Hatfield Amendment.  The broadcast brought in donations up to $600,000.00 to be used to help further the Amendment's passage.  It was also receiving high praise in public opinion polls.

George McGovern entered the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1971 with his two serious rivals being Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey who had returned to the United States Senate in 1971, and Alabama governor George Wallace.  Senator Ed Muskie of Maine who was Humphrey's 1968 running mate could have been a serious challenge but after crying in New Hampshire, it was over for him.  Wallace was doing well in the south and then on May 15, 1972, he was shot in a crowd at a shopping center in Maryland causing him permanent paralysis for the rest of his life.

George McGovern did win the nomination at the 1972 Democratic National Convention but there was still the matter of choosing a running mate.  He chose Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri.  Eagleton would be dropped from the ticket 18 days later due to facts about him receiving electroshock therapy to treat depression back in 1962.  McGovern would replace Eagleton with Kennedy administration alumni and brother-in-law to President John Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and Senator Ted Kennedy; Sargent Shriver.  In the end, the McGovern/Shriver ticket lost to the Nixon/Agnew ticket winning only 17 Electoral Votes to Nixon's 520 Electoral Votes.  Ironically, Nixon and Agnew would not finish out their second term and be forced to resign their offices; Agnew for income tax evasion and Nixon for lying about a coverup involving the break in of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Complex during the 1972 Election.

George McGovern would be re-elected to the United Senate for a third time in 1974.  He, along with his Republican colleague, Senator Bob Dole would work across the political aisle to help fight world hunger.  Presidents Ford and Carter would give him special assignments to represent the United Nations in the area of world hunger.  But by 1980, the political winds were turning.  A new era of conservatism led by Ronald Reagan was beginning to take shape.  George McGovern was defeated for a fourth term to the Senate.

After his defeat, McGovern would go on to teach.  And in 1983 made another run for the Presidency in the 1984 Election.  He dropped out of the race in April 1984.  By the middle of the Clinton administration's second term, George McGovern was named United States Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.  Like his World War II counterpart, Bob Dole in 1997 before him, George McGovern was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000.

George McGovern lived out the last twelve years retired but active.  He spoke about the dangers of losing his daughter, Teresa to alcohol and drug addiction and mourned the loss of his wife.  George McGovern passed away on October 21, 2012 at the age of 90.

This collection is dedicated to the lifetime of service that George McGovern did to improve the lives of Americans and people all around the world.