We bid farewell to another good friend and political leader of the 20th century — Sen. George McGovern. I had the privilege of working with him on several occasions. As administrator of his Citizens Committees for the McGovern-Shriver presidential campaign in 1972, I worked in our offices in Washington, D.C., at the Watergate Hotel.
Watergate, of course, became a byword for political corruption and many were the dirty tricks we faced daily from the opposition Richard Nixon campaign, from phone blocking and drug planting to break-ins and bomb threats. The bomb threats became so frequent that the campaign workers voted to stay at their desks rather than take all the stairs down to exit that now infamous building.
McGovern was an old school, hard-working politician who burned the midnight oil to serve his constituents. In some of the late meetings I used to tease him that out of all the people in the room, I was probably the only one who was actually born in South Dakota, the state he represented.
George McGovern, like so many leaders of that era, was a dedicated worker for peace and the advancement of all people. Given the opportunity, he would have made a great president.
