George McGovern was a WWII war hero

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McGOVERN, George Stanley, 1922-

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Senate Years of Service: 1963-1981
Party: Democrat


McGOVERN, George Stanley, a Representative and a Senator from South Dakota; born in Avon, Bon Homme County, S.Dak., July 19, 1922; attended the public schools of Mitchell, S.Dak., and Dakota Wesleyan University, 1940-1942; enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in June 1942, flew combat missions in the European Theater, and was discharged from the service in July 1945; returned to Dakota Wesleyan University and graduated in 1946; held teaching assistantship and fellowship at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 1948-1950, receiving his Ph.D. from that university in 1953; professor of history and government at Dakota Wesleyan University 1950-1953; executive secretary of South Dakota Democratic Party 1953-1956; member of Advisory Committee on Political Organization of Democratic National Committee 1954-1956; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth Congresses (January 3, 1957-January 3, 1961); was not a candidate for renomination in 1960, but was unsuccessful for election to the United States Senate; appointed special assistant to the President January 20, 1961, as director of the Food for Peace Program, and served until his resignation July 18, 1962, to become a candidate for the United States Senate; elected to the United States Senate in 1962; reelected in 1968 and 1974 and served from January 3, 1963, to January 3, 1981; chairman, Select Committee on Unmet Basic Needs (Ninetieth Congress), Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs (Ninety-first through Ninety-fifth Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1980; unsuccessful candidate for Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 and 1984; unsuccessful Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1972; lecturer and teacher; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Agencies in Rome, Italy, 1998-2001; awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 9, 2000; appointed United Nations Global Ambassador on World Hunger in 2001.




Bibliography

Hart, Gary. Right From the Start. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973; McGovern, George. Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern. New York: Random House, 1977; McGovern, George. The Essential America: Our Founders and the Liberal Tradition. New York: Simon & Schuseter, 2004.

Questions For Mr Bush
by George McGovern
The Nation magazine, April 22, 2002



The Bush Administration has vigorously and effectively responded to the terrorist attack of September 11. The country seems united behind that effort. Certainly there was no hint of a doubt in the repeated standing ovations Congress gave the President's State of the Union address, including his bold declaration that the war on terrorism has just begun. The President singled out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the most likely next targets of America's aroused ire against terrorists and governments that attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction that we, the Russians, the British, the French, the Chinese, the Indians, the Pakistanis and the Israelis already possess.
No longer in government, I do not have the benefit of national security briefings or Congressional committee deliberations. So perhaps instead of making assertions, it may be more appropriate for me to ask some questions that have been on my mind both before and since September 11.
Which course might produce better results in advancing American security? Is it by continuing to boycott, diplomatically and commercially, such countries as Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Cuba and threatening to bomb them? Or would we be better off opening up diplomatic, trade and travel relations with these countries, including a well-staffed embassy in each? If we are fearful of a country and doubtful of its intentions, wouldn't we be safer having an embassy with professional foreign service officers located in that country to tell us what is going on?
Our leaders frequently speak of "rogue nations." But what is a rogue nation? Isn't it simply one we have chosen to boycott because it doesn't always behave the way we think it should? Do such nations behave better when they are isolated and boycotted against any normal discourse? What do we have to lose in talking to "rogue nations" diplomatically, trading with them commercially and observing their economic, political and military conditions?
Instead of adding $48 billion to the Pentagon budget, as the President has proposed, wouldn't we make the world a more stable, secure place if we invested half of that sum in reducing poverty, ignorance, hunger and disease in the world? We are now twentieth among nations in the percentage of gross national product devoted to improving life in the poor nations. If we invested half of the proposed new military spending in lifting the quality of life for the world's poor we would be the first among nations in helping others.
Is it possible that such an achievement would reduce some of the gathering anger that the poor and miserable of the earth may be inclined to direct at the rich and indifferent? Why does a wealthy zealot like Osama bin Laden gain such a huge following among the poor and powerless of the world? Acting on the old adage "charity begins at home," why not invest the other half of the proposed new money for the Pentagon in raising the educational, nutritional, housing and health standards of our own people?
Our military services are the best in the world. But with a military budget at record levels, do we need to allocate another $48 billion-an amount greater than the total military budget of any other nation? Is not the surest foundation for our military forces a healthy, educated, usefully employed citizenry? And is not the best way to diminish some of the international trouble spots, which might embroil our young men and women, by reducing the festering poverty, misery and hopelessness of a suffering world?
Of course we need to take reasonable precautions in our airports and other strategic points to guard against terrorists or nut cases. As a World War II bomber pilot, I appreciate the role of both tactical and strategic bombing in all-out warfare. But is sending our bombers worldwide in the hope that they might hit terrorist hideouts or such hostile governments as Iraq an effective way to end terrorism? May it not more likely erode our current international coalition, while fanning the flames of terrorism and hatred against us as the world's only superpower, hellbent on eradicating evil around the world?
The Administration now has seventy-five officials hidden in bunkers outside Washington poised to take over the government in the event of a terrorist attack. Is it possible that paranoia has become policy? No such extreme measures were undertaken in World War II, nor in the half-century of cold war between the two nuclear giants, Russia and the United States.
All of us who love this land want our President to succeed. Nothing would give me greater happiness than to see him become a great President. But is it possible that our well-intentioned President and his Vice President have gone off the track of common sense in their seeming obsession with terrorism? Is there still validity to the proverb "whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad"?
For half a century, our priorities were dominated by the fear of Russian Communism-until it collapsed of its own internal weakness. As I listen to the grim rhetoric of Messrs. Bush and Cheney, I wonder if they are leading us into another half-century of cold war, with terrorism replacing Communism as the second great hobgoblin of our age.

George McGovern, senator from South Dakota from 1962 to 1980 and Democratic candidate for President in 1972, is the author of The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time (Simon & Schuster).

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Published in the April 21, 2003 issue of The Nation
The Reason Why
by George McGovern

Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson
" The Charge of the Light Brigade"
(in the Crimean War)

Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule.

He treads carelessly on the Bill of Rights, the United Nations and international law while creating a costly but largely useless new federal bureaucracy loosely called "Homeland Security." Meanwhile, such fundamental building blocks of national security as full employment and a strong labor movement are of no concern. The nearly $1.5 trillion tax giveaway, largely for the further enrichment of those already rich, will have to be made up by cutting government services and shifting a larger share of the tax burden to workers and the elderly. This President and his advisers know well how to get us involved in imperial crusades abroad while pillaging the ordinary American at home. The same families who are exploited by a rich man's government find their sons and daughters being called to war, as they were in Vietnam--but not the sons of the rich and well connected. (Let me note that the son of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson is now on duty in the Persian Gulf. He did not use his obvious political connections to avoid military service, nor did his father seek exemptions for his son. That goes well with me, with my fellow South Dakotans and with every fair-minded American.)

The invasion of Iraq and other costly wars now being planned in secret are fattening the ever-growing military-industrial complex of which President Eisenhower warned in his great farewell address. War profits are booming, as is the case in all wars. While young Americans die, profits go up. But our economy is not booming, and our stock market is not booming. Our wages and incomes are not booming. While waging a war against Iraq, the Bush Administration is waging another war against the well-being of America.

Following the 9/11 tragedy at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the entire world was united in sympathy and support for America. But thanks to the arrogant unilateralism, the bullying and the clumsy, unimaginative diplomacy of Washington, Bush converted a world of support into a world united against us, with the exception of Tony Blair and one or two others. My fellow South Dakotan, Tom Daschle, the US Senate Democratic leader, has well described the collapse of American diplomacy during the Bush Administration. For this he has been savaged by the Bush propaganda machine. For their part, the House of Representatives has censured the French by changing the name of french fries on the house dining room menu to freedom fries. Does this mean our almost sacred Statue of Liberty--a gift from France--will now have to be demolished? And will we have to give up the French kiss? What a cruel blow to romance.

During his presidential campaign Bush cried, "I'm a uniter, not a divider." As one critic put it, "He's got that right. He's united the entire world against him." In his brusque, go-it-alone approach to Congress, the UN and countless nations big and small, Bush seemed to be saying, "Go with us if you will, but we're going to war with a small desert kingdom that has done us no harm, whether you like it or not." This is a good line for the macho business. But it flies in the face of Jefferson's phrase, "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." As I have watched America's moral and political standing in the world fade as the globe's inhabitants view the senseless and immoral bombing of ancient, historic Baghdad, I think often of another Jefferson observation during an earlier bad time in the nation's history: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

The President frequently confides to individuals and friendly audiences that he is guided by God's hand. But if God guided him into an invasion of Iraq, He sent a different message to the Pope, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches and many distinguished rabbis--all of whom believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God's will. In all due respect, I suspect that Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice--and other sideline warriors--are the gods (or goddesses) reaching the ear of our President.

As a World War II bomber pilot, I was always troubled by the title of a then-popular book, God Is My Co-pilot. My co-pilot was Bill Rounds of Wichita, Kansas, who was anything but godly, but he was a skillful pilot, and he helped me bring our B-24 Liberator through thirty-five combat missions over the most heavily defended targets in Europe. I give thanks to God for our survival, but somehow I could never quite picture God sitting at the controls of a bomber or squinting through a bombsight deciding which of his creatures should survive and which should die. It did not simplify matters theologically when Sam Adams, my navigator--and easily the godliest man on my ten-member crew--was killed in action early in the war. He was planning to become a clergyman at war's end.

Of course, my dear mother went to her grave believing that her prayers brought her son safely home. Maybe they did. But how could I explain that to the mother of my close friend, Eddie Kendall, who prayed with equal fervor for her son's safe return? Eddie was torn in half by a blast of shrapnel during the Battle of the Bulge--dead at age 19, during the opening days of the battle--the best baseball player and pheasant hunter I knew.

I most certainly do not see God at work in the slaughter and destruction now unfolding in Iraq or in the war plans now being developed for additional American invasions of other lands. The hand of the Devil? Perhaps. But how can I suggest that a fellow Methodist with a good Methodist wife is getting guidance from the Devil? I don't want to get too self-righteous about all of this. After all, I have passed the 80 mark, so I don't want to set the bar of acceptable behavior too high lest I fail to meet the standard for a passing grade on Judgment Day. I've already got a long list of strikes against me. So President Bush, forgive me if I've been too tough on you. But I must tell you, Mr. President, you are the greatest threat to American troops. Only you can put our young people in harm's way in a needless war. Only you can weaken America's good name and influence in world affairs.

We hear much talk these days, as we did during the Vietnam War, of "supporting our troops." Like most Americans, I have always supported our troops, and I have always believed we had the best fighting forces in the world--with the possible exception of the Vietnamese, who were fortified by their hunger for national independence, whereas we placed our troops in the impossible position of opposing an independent Vietnam, albeit a Communist one. But I believed then as I do now that the best way to support our troops is to avoid sending them on mistaken military campaigns that needlessly endanger their lives and limbs. That is what went on in Vietnam for nearly thirty years--first as we financed the French in their failing effort to regain control of their colonial empire in Southeast Asia, 1946-54, and then for the next twenty years as we sought unsuccessfully to stop the Vietnamese independence struggle led by Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap--two great men whom we should have accepted as the legitimate leaders of Vietnam at the end of World War II. I should add that Ho and his men were our allies against the Japanese in World War II. Some of my fellow pilots who were shot down by Japanese gunners over Vietnam were brought safely back to American lines by Ho's guerrilla forces.

During the long years of my opposition to that war, including a presidential campaign dedicated to ending the American involvement, I said in a moment of disgust: "I'm sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying." That terrible American blunder, in which 58,000 of our bravest young men died, and many times that number were crippled physically or psychologically, also cost the lives of some 2 million Vietnamese as well as a similar number of Cambodians and Laotians, in addition to laying waste most of Indochina--its villages, fields, trees and waterways; its schools, churches, markets and hospitals.

I had thought after that horrible tragedy--sold to the American people by our policy-makers as a mission of freedom and mercy--that we never again would carry out a needless, ill-conceived invasion of another country that had done us no harm and posed no threat to our security. I was wrong in that assumption.

The President and his team, building on the trauma of 9/11, have falsely linked Saddam Hussein's Iraq to that tragedy and then falsely built him up as a deadly threat to America and to world peace. These falsehoods are rejected by the UN and nearly all of the world's people. We will, of course, win the war with Iraq. But what of the question raised in the Bible that both George Bush and I read: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul," or the soul of his nation?

It has been argued that the Iraqi leader is hiding a few weapons of mass destruction, which we and eight other countries have long held. But can it be assumed that he would insure his incineration by attacking the United States? Can it be assumed that if we are to save ourselves we must strike Iraq before Iraq strikes us? This same reasoning was frequently employed during the half-century of cold war by hotheads recommending that we atomize the Soviet Union and China before they atomize us. Courtesy of The New Yorker, we are reminded of Tolstoy's observation: "What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen." Or again, consider the words of Lord Stanmore, who concluded after the suicidal charge of the Light Brigade that it was "undertaken to resist an attack that was never threatened and probably never contemplated." The symphony of falsehood orchestrated by the Bush team has been de-vised to defeat an Iraqi onslaught that "was never threatened and probably never comtemplated."

I'm grateful to The Nation, as I was to Harper's, for giving me opportunities to write about these matters. Major newspapers, especially the Washington Post, haven't been nearly as receptive.

The destruction of Baghdad has a special poignancy for many of us. In my fourth-grade geography class under a superb teacher, Miss Wagner, I was first introduced to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the palm trees and dates, the kayaks plying the rivers, camel caravans and desert oases, the Arabian Nights, Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (my first movie), the ancient city of Baghdad, Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent. This was the first class in elementary school that fired my imagination. Those wondrous images have stayed with me for more than seventy years. And it now troubles me to hear of America's bombs, missiles and military machines ravishing the cradle of civilization.

But in God's good time, perhaps this most ancient of civilizations can be redeemed. My prayer is that most of our soldiers and most of the long-suffering people of Iraq will survive this war after it has joined the historical march of folly that is man's inhumanity to man.

Copyright © 2003 The Nation

Thanks for sharing these articles edgar.

I was surprised to learn McGovern was a war hero. I always thought of him as sort of a Dom DeLoiuse - soft, ineffectual (on camera, that is). I also didn't vote for him because I thought him too far to the left for even me. Iwas wrong about him, I think.

Wild Blue (Bargain - Hardcover)
The Men and Boys Who Flew The B24's Over Germany
by Stephen E. Ambrose
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Synopsis:


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A distinguished author whose recent works include Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldiers, which also focus on World War II, Ambrose prefers to tell history from the average soldier's point of view. This book follows that formula. Ironically, the main character in this war book is George McGovern, who flew 35 combat missions and won the Distinguished Flying Cross but would later become a dovish Democratic candidate for president in 1972.
From BookPage


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A journey into the wild blue yonder with WWII pilot George McGovern
For most Americans, the name George McGovern is inextricably linked to his 1972 presidential campaign, a race that ended in a crushing, landslide victory for Richard Nixon. But McGovern's life has other interesting chapters, and in his latest book, historian Stephen Ambrose describes one of them in vivid detail.

Thousands of young, eager volunteers lined up to be pilots during World War II, and The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45 tells their story by focusing on one bomber, the Dakota Queen, its pilot George McGovern and its crew. McGovern, a South Dakota preacher's son, was a 19-year-old college sophomore when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He immediately volunteered for service and less than three years later was piloting one of the big, unwieldy B-24 Liberator bombers. Completing 35 missions over Europe, McGovern went on to earn a Distinguished Flying Cross for his service.

Although McGovern's war experiences may come as a jarring surprise to those who recall his opposition to the Vietnam War, Ambrose sees the former senator as "a good representative of his generation," who was willing to put his own life on the line to secure an Allied victory.

Ambrose, who has chronicled the experiences of the infantry soldier in several previous World War II books (Band of Brothers, D-Day, Citizen Soldiers), captures the air campaign with his usual skill, bringing the characters and their harrowing missions to life. He recently answered questions about the book for BookPage.

When did you first meet George McGovern?

I met George after the '72 campaign, when he was still teaching at Duke. He was kind enough to invite me there to lecture to a couple of his classes, and during the ride back to the airport, he told me some great stories about the campaign (since I was working on Nixon at this time, this was meat and potatoes), and his time in the 15th Air Force. As a result of this and other conversations, UNO [University of New Orleans] where I taught, invited him to come to our summer school in Innsbruck, Austria. Our friendship has flourished ever since.

What did you think of his anti-war stance during the '72 campaign?

I agreed with what his campaign stood for, and in my own way, worked for McGovern in 1972.

McGovern was reluctant to trumpet his war record during the campaign. Why do you think he was willing to talk about it now?

None of the press people ever seemed to be interested in bringing it up - nobody ever asked him about it, to my recollection. There are millions of veterans out there that this same thing is true of. They're not so much reluctant to recall what they experienced, but they are not going to volunteer anything if no one asks. In George's case, I just think that he felt the time had come to share his story. He told me once that he never discussed the war with anyone at any length when he was still in politics. By the same token, I don't think he was trying to effect some sort of catharsis by conducting extensive interviews with us, or that he feels he owes his grandchildren a legacy of some sort. He certainly didn't do it because he's running for office. I obviously can't speak for the man, but I think he is justifiably proud of his record of service, and he wanted George McGovern to tell George McGovern's story.

In your research for Wild Blue, what did you learn about McGovern's war experiences that surprised you?

How difficult it is to fly that plane, above all. Plus the fact that someone at the ripe old age of 23 had such heavy responsibilities. He had the lives of every one of his crew literally in his hands, which is an experience that I'll never have. I've done a bit of pretend flying in a B-24, and the experience was humbling - the amount of eye-hand coordination needed, the patience and judgment involved, and so on. The Air Force did an absolutely marvelous job at finding suitable personnel, and at turning these kids into skilled pilots in a very short period of time by today's standards.

What qualities made McGovern a successful pilot?

Number one: professionalism. He knew how to handle that plane and was always alert when he had to be - damn near whenever he had the controls. His leadership and concern for his crew was exceptional as well. He tried his best to make sure that they had dry socks, and that there was heat on in the plane, that everyone's oxygen equipment was functioning properly, and so on.

As far as physical attributes, George has excellent coordination and eyesight - he has phenomenal depth perception, which in the pre-radar age was a vital asset. He wasn't a mechanical genius; most of those pilots weren't. But he had good judgment, a confidence in himself, and a sound understanding of weather and navigation - the same set of skills that make for a good pilot in this day and age.

In what ways was he typical of the young men who flew the Liberator?

George was the same age as these guys and there were many of them, including George, who hadn't even finished college. All thrown into a situation where you're bored 95 percent of the time and terrified for the remainder. But in a lot of ways, it's impossible to come up with one definitive type of the "typical" GI. Some pilots surely drank, cursed and gambled more than George, some were probably more well read than he was at the time, some more religious - it just varies on an individual basis. But George was certainly not a run of the mill pilot - he was a pilot among his peers.

Are you hopeful that this book will give the American public a new respect for McGovern?

Of course. I felt at the time of the election that he should have pressed the issue of his war record a bit more. For whatever reasons he chose not to. But yes, I would like the American people to know more about what he did during the war. I hope this will foster, not so much McGovern's appeal or a wider audience, but the understanding that you don't necessarily have to be a hawk to be patriotic. McGovern is one of the greatest patriots I know, and his anti-war stance doesn't make him any less of one.

April 07, 2003
McGovern's Eloquent Anti-Bush Stand
I'm grateful to The Nation, as I was to Harper's, for giving me opportunities to write about these matters. Major newspapers, especially the Washington Post, haven't been nearly as receptive, says George McGovern in his Nation-published scathing analysis of Bush's bad leadership.

He begins with
Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule.

And he goes on to explain in detail. Don't miss it.

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