George McGovern

Soon thereafter McGovern was sworn in as a private at Fort Snelling in Minnesota.[30] 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.[31] 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.[31] McGovern married Eleanor Stegeberg on October 31, 1943, during a three-day leave (lonely and in love, the couple had decided to not wait any longer).[32] His father presided over the ceremony at the Methodist church in Woonsocket.[33]

After three months in Muskogee, McGovern went to Coffeyville Army Airfield in Kansas for a further three months of training on the BT‑13.[34] 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.[34] Throughout, Air Cadet McGovern showed skill as a pilot, with his exceptionally good depth perception aiding him.[31] Eleanor McGovern followed him to these duty stations, and was present when he received his wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant.[34]

Liberal Army Airfield in Kansas during World War II, where McGovern learned to fly the B-24

McGovern was assigned to Liberal Army Airfield in Kansas and its transition school to learn to fly the B‑24 Liberator, an assignment he was pleased with.[34] McGovern recalled later: "Learning how to fly the B‑24 was the toughest part of the training. It was a difficult airplane to fly, physically, because in the early part of the war they didn't have hydraulic controls. If you can imagine driving a Mack truck without any power steering or power brakes, that's about what it was like at the controls. It was the biggest bomber we had at the time."[13] Eleanor was constantly afraid.[35] Accidents while training claimed a huge toll of airmen over the course of the war.[36]

This schooling was followed by a stint at Lincoln Army Airfield in Nebraska, where McGovern met his B-24 crew.[37] Traveling around the country and mixing with people from different backgrounds proved to be a broadening experience for McGovern and others of his generation.[37] The USAAF sped up training times for McGovern and others, owing to the heavy losses that bombing missions were suffering over Europe.[38] 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.[39]

In June 1944, McGovern's crew received final training at Mountain Home Army Air Field in Idaho.[37] They then shipped out via Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia, where McGovern found history books with which to fill downtime, especially during the trip overseas on a slow troopship.[40]

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.[41] 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.[41][42] Those sights would form part of his later motivation to fight hunger.[43] Starting on November 11, 1944, McGovern flew 35 missions over enemy territory from San Giovanni, the first five as co-pilot for an experienced crew and the rest as pilot for his own plane, known as the Dakota Queen after his wife Eleanor.[44] 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.[45]

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.[46] The following day on a mission to Brüx, he nearly collided with another bomber during close-formation flying in complete cloud cover.[47] 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.[48] 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.[49][50]

A B‑24 Liberator of the Fifteenth Air Force's 451st Bombardment Group (not McGovern's group, but also stationed in Italy), on a March 1945 mission over Germany

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.[51] 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.[52] In February, McGovern was promoted to first lieutenant.[53] 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.[54] (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".[55][56]) On returning to base from the flight, McGovern was told his first child Ann had been born four days earlier.[54] April 25 saw McGovern's 35th mission, which marked fulfillment of the Fifteenth Air Force's requirement for a combat tour, against heavily defended Linz. The sky turned black and red with flak – McGovern later said, "Hell can't be any worse than that" – and the Dakota Queen was hit multiple times, resulting in 110 holes in its fuselage and wings and an inoperative hydraulic system. McGovern's waist gunner was injured, and his flight engineer was so unnerved by his experience that he would subsequently be hospitalized with battle fatigue, but McGovern managed to bring back the plane safely with the assistance of an improvised landing technique.[50][57]

In May and June 1945, following the end of the European war, McGovern continued with the 741st Bomb Squadron delivering surplus food and supplies near Trieste in Northeastern Italy; this was then trucked to the hungry in nearby locations, including to German prisoners of war.[58][59] McGovern liked making these relief flights, as it gave a way to address the kinds of deprivations he had witnessed when first arriving in Italy.[59] He then flew back to the United States with his crew.[59] McGovern was discharged from the Army Air Forces in July 1945, with the rank of first lieutenant.[1] He was also awarded the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters,[3] one instance of which was for the safe landing on his final mission.[60]

In April 1962 McGovern announced he would run for election to South Dakota's other Senate seat, intending to face incumbent Republican Francis H. Case.[87] Case died in June, however, and McGovern instead faced an appointed senator, former lieutenant governor Joseph H. Bottum.[87] Much of the campaign revolved around policies of the Kennedy administration and its New Frontier;[112] Bottum accused the Kennedy family of trying to buy the Senate seat.[101] McGovern appealed to those worried about the outflux of young people from the state, and had the strong support of the Farmers Union.[101] Polls showed Bottum slightly ahead throughout the race, and McGovern was hampered by a recurrence of his hepatitis problem in the final weeks of the campaign.[101] (During this hospitalization, McGovern read Theodore H. White's classic The Making of the President 1960, and for the first time began thinking about running for the office someday.[75]) Eleanor McGovern campaigned for her ailing husband and may have preserved his chance of winning.[113] 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[112] and only the third since statehood in 1889.[101]

When he joined the Senate in January 1963 for the 88th Congress, McGovern was seated on the Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee and Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee.[112] On the Agriculture Committee, McGovern supported high farm prices, full parity, and controls on beef importation, as well as the administration's Feed Grains Acreage Diversion Program.[114] 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.[114] Fellow new senator Edward M. Kennedy saw McGovern as a serious voice on farm policy and often sought McGovern's guidance on agriculture-related votes.[115] McGovern was largely inactive on the Interior Committee until 1967, when he was given the chairmanship of the subcommittee on Indian affairs.[116] 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.[116] McGovern regretted not accomplishing more for South Dakota's 30,000 Sioux Indians, although after a McGovern-introduced resolution on Indian self-determination passed in 1969, the Oglala Sioux named McGovern "Great White Eagle."[116]

In his first speech on the Senate floor in March 1963, McGovern praised Kennedy's Alliance for Progress initiative but spoke out against U.S. policy toward Cuba, saying that it suffered from "our Castro fixation".[112] In August 1963 McGovern advocated reducing the $53 billion defense budget by $5 billion; influenced by advisor Seymour Melman, he held a special antipathy toward the doctrine of nuclear "overkill".[117] McGovern would try to reduce defense appropriations or limit military expenditures in almost every year during the 1960s.[118] He also voted against many weapons programs, especially missile and antimissile systems, and also opposed military assistance to foreign nations.[118] In 1964 McGovern published his first book, War Against Want: America's Food for Peace Program.[112] In it he argued for expanding his old program, and a Senate measure he introduced was eventually passed, adding $700 million to the effort's funding.[119]

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".[8][120] 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 Senate Rules Committee.[8][120] Relatively few pieces of legislation bore his name, and his legislative accomplishments were generally viewed as modest, although he would try to influence the contents of others' bills.[94][120] In his political beliefs, McGovern fit squarely within modern American liberalism; through 1967 he had voted in accordance with the rated positions of the ADA 92 percent of the time, and when lacking specific knowledge on a particular matter, he would ask his staff, "What are the liberals doing?"[42][94][121]

Senator McGovern on his first trip to South Vietnam, November 1965

In a speech on the Senate floor in September 1963, McGovern became the first member to challenge the growing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.[122][123] Bothered by the Buddhist crisis and other recent developments, and with concerns influenced by Vietnam historian Bernard Fall, McGovern said:

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 and political defeat ... 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.[94][122]

However, the speech was little noticed, and McGovern backed away from saying anything publicly for over a year afterward, partly because of the November 1963 assassination of President Kennedy and partly to not appear strident.[124] Though more skeptical about it than most senators,[125] 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.[94] McGovern thought the commander in chief should be given limited authority to retaliate against an attack;[123] subsequently, he said his instinct had been to vote no, but that he had voted yes because of Senator J. William Fulbright's urging to stand behind Johnson politically.[124][125] Indeed, the day after the resolution vote, McGovern spoke concerning his fears that the vote would lead to greater involvement in the war;[94] Wayne Morse, one of only two senators to oppose the resolution, sardonically noted that this fell into the category of "very interesting, but very belated."[124] This would become the vote that McGovern most bitterly regretted.[123][125]

In January 1965 McGovern made his first major address on Vietnam, saying that "We are not winning in South Vietnam ... I am very much opposed to the policy, now gaining support in Washington, of extending the war to the north."[112][126] 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.[126] The speech gave McGovern national visibility as one of the "doves" in the debate over Vietnam.[126][127] However, McGovern made moderate-to-hawkish statements at times too, flatly rejecting unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces and criticizing antiwar draft-card burnings as "immature, impractical, and illegal."[128] He eschewed personal criticism of Johnson.[127] In November 1965 McGovern traveled to South Vietnam for three weeks.[129] 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.[94][112][128] Now he was ready, as he later said, "not merely to dissent, but to crusade" against the war.[129]

McGovern voted in favor of Vietnam military appropriations in 1966 through 1968, not wanting to deprive U.S. forces of necessary equipment.[128] Nevertheless, his antiwar rhetoric increased throughout 1967.[130] 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."[130]

In August 1967 activist Allard K. Lowenstein founded the Dump Johnson movement, and soon it was seeking a Democratic Party figure to make a primaries campaign challenge against Johnson in the 1968 presidential election.[131] The group's first choice was Senator Robert Kennedy, who declined, as did another, and by late September 1967 they approached McGovern.[42][131] After much deliberation McGovern declined, largely because he feared such a run would significantly damage his own chances for reelection to his Senate seat in 1968.[8][132] A month later the anti-Johnson forces were able to persuade Senator Eugene McCarthy to run;[131] he was one of the few "dove" senators not up for reelection that year.[132]

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.[133] 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.[133] McGovern spoke with Kennedy by phone minutes before Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.[133] The death of Bobby Kennedy left McGovern the most emotionally distraught he had ever been to that point in his life.[133]

Within days, some of Kennedy's aides were urging McGovern to run in his place; their antipathy toward McCarthy and ideological opposition to Humphrey made them unwilling to support either candidate.[134] McGovern delayed making a decision, making sure that Bobby's brother Ted Kennedy did not want to enter, and with his staff still concerned about the senator's own reelection prospects.[134] Indeed, McGovern's voting had changed during 1968, with his ADA rating falling to 43 as he sought more middle-of-the-road stances.[94] In late July, McGovern's decision became more complicated when his daughter Teresa was arrested in Rapid City on marijuana possession charges.[135] 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.[136] On the basis of a recently enacted strict state drugs law, Terry now faced a minimum five-year prison sentence if found guilty.[137] McGovern was also convinced that the socially conservative voters of South Dakota would reject him owing to his daughter's arrest.[137] Charges against her were subsequently dropped because of an invalid search warrant.[138]

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."[139] Asked why he was a better choice than McCarthy, he said, "Well – Gene really doesn't want to be president, and I do."[140] At the convention in Chicago, Humphrey was the near-certain choice, while McGovern became the initial rallying point for around 300 leaderless Kennedy delegates.[140] The chaotic circumstances of the convention found McGovern denouncing the Chicago police tactics against demonstrators as "police brutality."[141] 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.[141] In the actual roll call, McGovern came in third with 146½ delegates, far behind Humphrey's 1760¼ and McCarthy's 601.[142]

McGovern endorsed Humphrey at the convention, to the dismay of some antiwar figures who considered it a betrayal.[141] Humphrey went on to lose the general election to Richard Nixon. McGovern returned to his Senate reelection race, facing Republican former governor Archie M. Gubbrud. While South Dakota voters sympathized with McGovern over his daughter's arrest,[143] he initially suffered a substantial drop in popularity over the events in Chicago.[144] However, McGovern conducted an energetic campaign that focused on his service to the state, while Gubbrud ran a lackluster effort.[144] In November, McGovern won 57 percent of the vote in what he would consider the easiest and most decisive victory of his career.[143]

During the 1968 Democratic Convention, a motion had been passed to establish a commission to reform the Democratic Party nomination process.[145] 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.[146][147] The commission's 1970 report, Mandate for Reform,[148] was approved by the Democratic National Committee in 1971.[147] It required that delegates be selected either by a party primary where delegate preferences were indicated on the ballot or by a state convention process where the first stage was open caucuses.[147] It also mandated quotas for proportional black, female, and youth delegate representation.[146][147] The new rules had an immediate effect; in 1972, a third more primaries were held in the Democratic nomination process than in 1968 and those primaries produced half again as many delegates.[149] 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.[148] Thus the U.S. presidential nominating process has been different ever since the McGovern–Fraser reforms, with scholars and politicians debating whether all the changes are for the better.[147][148]

In the wake of several high-profile reports about hunger and malnutrition in the United States, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs had been created in July 1968, with McGovern as its chairman.[150] Seeking to dramatize the problem, in March 1969 McGovern took the committee to Immokalee, Florida, the base for 20,000 migrant farm workers.[151] They saw graphic examples of hunger and malnutrition firsthand, but also encountered resistance and complaints about bad publicity from local and state officials.[151][152] McGovern battled the Nixon administration and Southerners in Congress during much of the next year over an expanded Food Stamp 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.[153]

McGovern generally lacked both interest and expertise in economics, but was outspoken in reaction to Nixon's imposition of wage and price controls in 1971.[154] 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."[155] 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.[nb 10]

U.S. Congressional opposition to American involvement in wars and interventions
1812 North America
House Federalists’ Address
1847 Mexican–American War
Spot Resolutions
1917 World War I
Filibuster of the Armed Ship Bill
1935–1939
Neutrality Acts
1935–1940
Ludlow Amendment
1970 Vietnam
McGovern–Hatfield Amendment
1970 Southeast Asia
Cooper–Church Amendment
1971 Vietnam
Repeal of Tonkin Gulf Resolution
1973 Southeast Asia
Case–Church Amendment
1973
War Powers Resolution
1974
Hughes–Ryan Amendment
1976 Angola
Clark Amendment
1982 Nicaragua
Boland Amendment
2007 Iraq
House Concurrent Resolution 63
2018–2019 Yemen
Yemen War Powers Resolution

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.[157] 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.[158] By the end of 1969, McGovern was calling for an immediate cease-fire and a total withdrawal of all American troops within a year.[157] In October 1969 McGovern was a featured speaker before 100,000 demonstrators in Boston at the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, and in November he spoke before 350,000 at Moratorium/Mobilization's antiwar march to the Washington Monument.[159] Afterward, he decided that radicalized peace demonstrations were counterproductive and criticized antiwar figures such as Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Huey Newton, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin as "reckless" and "irresponsible."[159]

Instead, McGovern focused on legislative means to bring the war to an end.[160] The McGovern–Hatfield Amendment to the annual military procurement bill, co-sponsored by Republican Mark Hatfield of Oregon, required via funding cutoff a complete withdrawal of all American forces from Indochina by the end of 1970.[161] 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.[162] In May 1970 McGovern obtained a second mortgage on his Washington home in order to fund a half-hour televised panel discussion on the amendment on NBC.[162] The broadcast brought in over $500,000 in donations that furthered work on passage,[160] and eventually the amendment gained the support of the majority of the public in polls.[162] The effort was denounced by opposition groups organized by White House aide Charles Colson, which called McGovern and Hatfield "apostles of retreat and defeat" and "salesmen of surrender" and maintained that only the president could conduct foreign policy.[162] The amendment was defeated in September 1970 by a 55–39 vote, just short of what McGovern had hoped would constitute at least a moral victory.[160] During the floor debate McGovern criticized his colleagues opposing the measure:

Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land – young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes. There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us.[160][162]

The Senate reacted in startled, stunned silence, and some faces showed anger and fury;[123] when one member told McGovern he had been personally offended by the speech, McGovern said, "That's what I meant to do."[162] McGovern believed Vietnam an immoral war that was destroying much of what was pure, hopeful, and different about America's character as a nation.[123]

The defeat of the amendment left McGovern embittered and somewhat more radicalized.[163] He accused the vice president of South Vietnam, Nguyen Cao Ky, of running a heroin trafficking operation that was addicting American soldiers.[163] In a retort to the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis's suggestion that U.S. troops might have to return to Cambodia, McGovern declared, "I'm tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight. If he wants to use American ground troops in Cambodia, let him lead the charge himself."[164] He denounced Nixon's policy of Vietnamization as "subsidiz[ing] the continued killing of the people of Indochina by technology and mercenaries."[165] In a Playboy interview, he said that Ho Chi Minh was the North Vietnamese George Washington.[163]

McGovern–Hatfield was put up for a vote again in 1971, with somewhat weaker provisions designed to gain more support.[166] 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.[167] Nevertheless, in June 1971, it failed to pass again, gaining only a few more votes than the year before.[167] McGovern was now certain that the only way the war would come to a quick end was if there was a new president.[166]

McGovern announced his candidacy on January 18, 1971, during a televised speech from the studios of KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.[168] At the time of his announcement, McGovern ranked fifth among Democrats in a presidential preference Gallup Poll.[169] The earliest such entry since Andrew Jackson[170] was designed to give him time to overcome the large lead of the frontrunner, Maine senator Edmund Muskie.[171] Nevertheless, by January 1972, McGovern had only 3 percent national support among Democrats in the Gallup Poll and had not attracted significant press coverage.[172] 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.[173]

McGovern as seen in a 1972 campaign poster

Muskie fell victim to inferior organizing, an over-reliance on party endorsements, and Nixon's "dirty tricks" operatives,[174][175][176] and in the March 7, 1972, New Hampshire primary, did worse than expected with McGovern coming in a close second.[177] As Muskie's campaign funding and support dried up, Hubert Humphrey, who had rejoined the Senate, became McGovern's primary rival for the nomination,[178] with Alabama governor George Wallace also in the mix after dominating the March 14 primary in Florida. McGovern won a key breakthrough victory over Humphrey and Wallace on April 4 in Wisconsin,[174] where he added blue-collar economic populism to his appeal.[179] He followed that by dominating the April 25 primary in Massachusetts.[180] At that point, McGovern had become the frontrunner.[180] A late decision to enter the May 2 Ohio primary, considered a Humphrey stronghold, paid dividends when McGovern managed a very close second there amid charges of election fraud by pro-Humphrey forces.[8][181] 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,[182] and McGovern's operation was effective in garnering delegates in caucus states.[183] 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.[184] He then appeared to clinch the nomination with delegates won in the New York primary on June 20.[182] However, Humphrey's attacks on McGovern as being too radical began a downward slide in the latter's poll standing against Nixon.[185] McGovern became tagged with the label "amnesty, abortion, and acid," supposedly reflecting his positions.[nb 11]

During his primary victories, McGovern used an approach that stressed grassroots-level organization while bypassing conventional campaign techniques and traditional party power centers.[8][178] He capitalized on support from antiwar activists and reform liberals;[174] thousands of students engaged in door-to-door campaigning for him.[188] 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.[189]

McGovern ran on a platform that advocated withdrawal from the Vietnam War in exchange for the return of American prisoners of war[190] and amnesty for draft evaders who had left the country.[191] McGovern's platform also included an across-the-board 37-percent reduction in defense spending over three years.[192] He proposed a "demogrant" program that would give a $1,000 payment to every citizen in America.[193] 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.[174][193][194][nb 12]

An "Anybody But McGovern" coalition, led by southern Democrats and organized labor, formed in the weeks following the final primaries.[195] 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 Rick Stearns, a Humphrey credentials challenge regarding the California winner-take-all rules was defeated.[196][197] Divisive arguments over the party platform then followed; what resulted was arguably the most liberal one of any major U.S. party.[198] On July 12, 1972, McGovern officially won the Democratic nomination. In doing so and in taking over the party's processes and platform, McGovern produced what The New York Times termed "a stunning sweep."[178] The convention distractions led to a hurried process to pick a vice presidential running mate.[199] Turned down by his first choice, Ted Kennedy, as well as by several others, McGovern selected – with virtually no vetting – Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton.[200] 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.[201] 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.[202]

Just over two weeks after the convention, it was revealed that Eagleton had been hospitalized and received electroshock therapy for "nervous exhaustion" and "depression" several times during the early to mid-1960s[203] (years later, Eagleton's diagnosis was refined to bipolar II disorder).[204] McGovern initially supported Eagleton, in part because he saw parallels with his daughter Terry's battles with mental illness,[205][206] and on the following day, July 26, stated publicly, "I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and have no intention of dropping him from the ticket."[207] 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[208] or questioned the McGovern campaign's ability to survive the distraction.[209] 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.[209][210] It remains the only time a major party vice presidential nominee has been forced off the ticket.[211] 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).[212] Finally, he named United States ambassador to France Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy.[212] 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.[208] McGovern himself would long view the Eagleton affair as having been "catastrophic" for his campaign.[206]

McGovern speaking at an October 1972 rally in Houston during the final weeks of the campaign

The general election campaign did not go well for McGovern. Nixon did little campaigning;[213] 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.[214] Top Republican figures attacked McGovern for being weak on defense issues and "encouraging the enemy";[215] 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.[216] McGovern chose to not emphasize his own war record during the campaign.[nb 13] 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.[218] The AFL–CIO remained neutral, after having always endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in the past.[219] Some southern Democrats, led by former Texas governor John Connally, switched their support to the Republican incumbent through a campaign effort called Democrats for Nixon.[220] Nixon outspent McGovern by more than two-to-one.[221]

Nixon directly requested that his aides use government records to try to dig up dirt on McGovern and his top contributors.[222] McGovern was publicly attacked by Nixon surrogates[223] and was the target of various operations of the Nixon "dirty tricks" campaign.[224] 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.[224] The full dimensions of the subsequent Watergate scandal did not emerge during the election, however;[224] the vast majority of the press focused on McGovern's difficulties and other news, rather than the break-in or who was behind it, and a majority of voters were unaware of Watergate.[225] In the end, Nixon's covert operations had little effect in either direction on the election outcome.[224][226]

County-by-county results of the election, shaded by percentage won: Nixon in red, McGovern in blue

By the final week of the campaign, McGovern knew he was going to lose.[227] 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."[228] The incident was overheard and reported in the press, and became part of the tale of the campaign.[nb 14]

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 an 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, however, had gone Democratic in only three of the previous eighteen presidential elections, and which would continue to go Republican in presidential elections to come).[231] Over the nation as a whole he carried a mere 135 counties.[nb 15] 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.[232]

Senator McGovern visiting an American photography exhibition in Tbilisi in the Soviet Union in 1977

After this loss, McGovern remained in the Senate. He was scarred by the enormous defeat,[233] and his wife, Eleanor, took it even worse; during the winter of 1972–73, the couple seriously considered moving to England.[234] His allies were replaced in positions of power within the Democratic Party leadership, and the McGoverns did not get publicly introduced at party affairs they attended.[206] On January 20, 1973, a few hours after Richard Nixon was re-inaugurated, McGovern gave a speech at the Oxford Union that talked about the abuses of Nixon's presidency; it brought criticism, including from some Democrats, for being ill-mannered.[206]

To get past the "bitterness and self-pity" he felt, McGovern forced himself to deal with the defeat humorously before audiences; starting at the March 1973 Gridiron Dinner, he frequently related his campaign misadventures in a self-deprecating fashion, such as saying, "For many years, I wanted to run for the presidency in the worst possible way – and last year I sure did."[206][234][235] Emotions surrounding the loss would remain with McGovern for decades, as it did with some other defeated presidential nominees.[206] Nixon resigned in August 1974 because of the Watergate scandal. McGovern said President Gerald R. Ford's subsequent September 1974 pardon of Nixon was difficult to understand, given that Nixon's subordinates were going to prison.[236]

McGovern displayed the political resiliency he had shown in the past.[233] In 1974, McGovern faced possible political peril because of his having neglected the state during his long presidential campaign, and by May 1973, he had already begun campaigning for re-election.[234] 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.[234] McGovern replied that if there had been no war, there would have been no POWs, and that everything he had done had been toward the goal of ending the war sooner.[234] Thorsness became the Republican nominee against McGovern, but despite the two men's different roles in it, the war did not become a significant issue.[237] Instead, the campaign was dominated by farm policy differences and economic concerns over the 1973–75 recession.[237][238] 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.[237] In a year in which Democrats were advantaged by the aftereffects of the Watergate scandal,[237] McGovern won re-election in November 1974 with 53 percent of the vote.[239]

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."[240] 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."[241] McGovern's stance brought immediate criticism from some quarters; syndicated columnist John D. Lofton, Jr. said it proved that McGovern was "the most immoral hypocrite on the American political scene today."[242] McGovern objected to what he termed distorted interpretations of his proposal, but newspaper publisher Creed C. Black considered the criticism fair.[243]

Following his senate re-election victory, McGovern harbored thoughts of running in the 1976 presidential election, but given the magnitude of his presidential defeat, the Democratic Party wanted nothing to do with him then or later.[206][244] Unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter, McGovern secretly voted for Ford instead.[nb 16] 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.[246]

McGovern with Robert Dole and other senators

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.[247][248][249] Titled Dietary Goals for the United States, but also known as the "McGovern Report",[247] it suggested that Americans eat less fat, less cholesterol, less refined and processed sugars, and more complex carbohydrates and fiber.[249] While many public health officials had said all of this for some time, the committee's issuance of the guidelines gave it higher public profile.[249] The recommendations proved controversial with the cattle, dairy, egg, and sugar industries, including from McGovern's home state.[248] The McGovern committee guidelines led to reorganization of some federal executive functions[249] and became the predecessor to the more detailed Dietary Guidelines for Americans later issued twice a decade by the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.[247]

In 1980, McGovern was one of several liberal Democratic senators targeted for defeat by the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), which put out a year's worth of negative portrayals of McGovern.[250] It and other anti-abortion groups especially focused on McGovern's support for abortion rights laws.[251] McGovern faced a Democratic primary challenge for the first time, from a pro-life candidate.[252] 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.[251][253] 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.[251] McGovern made an issue of NCPAC's outside involvement, and that group eventually withdrew from the campaign after Abdnor denounced a letter it had sent out.[251] Far behind in the polls earlier, McGovern outspent Abdnor two-to-one and repeatedly criticized Abdnor's refusal to debate him, thereby drawing attention to a slight speech defect Abdnor had.[251][254] Showing the comeback pattern of some of his past races in the state, McGovern closed the gap for a while.[255] However, in November 1980 McGovern was solidly defeated for re-election, getting only 39 percent of the vote to Abdnor's 58 percent.[254] McGovern became one of many Democratic casualties of that year's Republican sweep,[255] which became known as the "Reagan Revolution".