Great. If you could also give the source I would appreciate it.
Nonsense. Who else would have been the nominee? Humphrey was the 1968 loser and had nothing to offer against his former opponent who hadn’t exactly been cooling his heels in the meantime (China, detente, Vietnamization, etc.) McCarthy wasn’t any more attractive than he was in '68 when he failed to get his party’s nomination, Wallace was a segregationist and withdrew besides thanks to Artie Bremer… McGovern was the only viable candidate, he was the only one without the taint of a loss or the stink of racism on him. Did anyone else even show up in the primary results?
Whoever was selected by the Democrats that year was a sacrificial lamb, Nixon was a lead-pipe lock. How exactly was McGovern the easiest to beat? Nixon would have tuned Humphrey up just as easily.
You forgot Muskie.
I have to agree with you though. In '72 none of the Democrats had a serious chance of unseating Nixon. And yet his paranoia was so gigantic he couldn’t see it. McGovern was probably the easiest to beat because he was perceived as the biggest peacenik but I doubt it would have made a difference with a different nominee. The country wasn’t ready at that point to admit the war was a lost cause.
I found 2 indirect cites of the McGovern quote. The first is a 1972 piece by Max Frankel on the Republican convention: [Reagan] stressed Mr. McGovern’s desire to “beg” for the release of prisoners in Vietnam and for passing severe judgment on the Saigon regime without ever criticizing Hanoi.
“If someone is setting fire to the house, you don’t waste time trying to decide whether he is a deliberate arsonist or just a fellow being foolish with matches,” Mr. Reagan’s speech said. “You stop him before he burns the place down.” That’s begging for the release of prisoners. Now from the archives of Lindsey Williams, a columnist I had never heard of: August 23, 1972
A few weeks ago McGovern told a group of wives and mothers of U.S. war prisoners that if elected he would go to Hanoi and “beg” for release of the men.
Such words fall strangely on the ears of Americans proud of the brave refusals of their forefathers to surrender, “Millions for defense but not one penny for tribute”, “Nuts”, and “I’ve not yet begun to fight.”
Again. War prisoners. Not peace. I concede it still sounds odd, but I’ll note I quoted highly partisan commentators.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/720822convention-gop-ra.html
http://www.lindseywilliams.org/index.htm?Editorial_Archives/1972_08-_McGovern_Shriver_Talking_Themselves_To_Death.htm~mainFrame
According to a guy I knew, after Agnew resigned “THEY” wanted Nelson Rockefeller to become VP since the Rockefellers control the government. Nixon instead appoints Ford and so “THEY” force Nixon out via Watergate. So what’s the first thing that Ford does as President? Appoint Rockefeller as VP.
In 1972, Americans hadn’t accepted that the war was lost, but they did demand the end of the US troop presence. What took the steam out of McGovern’s candidacy was simply that by the fall of 1972 there were very few troops left, and around October the Nixon administration was close to a peace deal.
What exactly anti-war folks had to bellyache about in late 1972 I still haven’t figured out, unless I assume the worst: that they didn’t actually want a peace agreement.
Your theory doesn’t make a lot of sense. The anti-war people were pretty clear on their goal - they were against the war. And in 1972 the war was still being fought so they still had reason to protest against it. A peace settlement is exactly what they wanted.
And you can say that the Nixon administration was close to a peace deal in 1972. But this was Nixon were talking about. Anyone who trusted him was a fool. He had promised he’d end the war back in 1968 and hadn’t done it four years later. It wasn’t unreasonable to be suspicious he might decide to rev the war back up after the 1972 election was over and keep it going for a few more years.
Almost all the troops were out.
The quote’s contemporary, at least, and McGovern’s opponents were using it against him in '72.
"In his race for US Senate, incumbent Republican John Tower told a luncheon in Bryan that Sen. McGovern “admits he would crawl to Hanoi and beg for peace.”
Meanwhile, Agnew, in a speech in October in Columbus, Georgia, said of the Nixon presidency:
Then, in a speech by Florida Senator Edward Gurney made November 1:
Here’s another contemporary source:
Hubert H Humphrey sharply criticized Sen George S McGovern Sunday for saying he would be willing to go to Hanoi and beg for the release of U S prisoners of war I wouldnt beg here in Hanoi or anywhere said Humphrey I do not believe the word beg represents sound morality Humphrey said I think its unfortunate that Sen McGovern used that term There is a difference between tough negotiations and beg ging Im not a beggar.
Interestingly, there is no firsthand account that I can find. Although McGovern never denied the remarks and Snopes has nothing to say about it. the version I found in Facts on File was also response to the remarks, not an original quote. It also seems that some people responded as if he was talking about the POWs, while others responded as if he was talking about an end to the war.
Given that he was supposedly speaking to family members of POWs, I wonder if what he meant was that if it would bring them back, that he’d be willing to humiliate himself to make it happen? It wasn’t something he held a news conference to say, obviously. And it obviously wasn’t his official vietnam peace plan.
So this comment earlier in the thread:
wasn’t accurate, just like I said at the time.
You said you looked and the quote was there. Then in your last post, suddenly it isn’t. How on earth did you make that mistake?
What I was able to find is from David Frum’s book, How We Got Here, where he relates the following:
Dale Van Atta tells a similar story in his book about Melvin Laird and adds this to what McGovern said:
“I would go to Hanoi and beg if I thought that would release the boys one day earlier.”
Clearly the idea of a national leader begging for something from someone considered our enemy was, and still is, unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans. Whether this is what cost him the election or not is debatable. I would still take the position the majority of voters in ’72 still had not accepted that the Vietnam War was lost. Given that I don’t think any Democrat had a chance of winning the White House that year.
However, I do think it is an important distinction to note that McGovern was willing to win the release of POWs rather than beg for peace. To beg for peace allows people to paint him as a coward or appeaser. The reality shows that his concern was actually about getting all the members of the military safely home and ending the war. That paints a more honorable picture of the man and is something all the haters won’t tolerate.
Most people forget Senator McGovern was a decorated WWII veteran. Whatever we may think of his failed run for the Presidency, I still think he is an American hero.
[QUOTE=George McGovern]
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.
[/QUOTE]
The reference I found was Humphery’s response. I googled parts of his quote to see if there was something I could link to on the internet and I found that 1972 newspaper story.
Lil’ Abner’s Al Capp, based in part on that incident, but more because his “groveling at the feet of the miniscule minority of the untoilet-trained on our campuses has won him the reputation as spokesman for all youth”, made a character based on him named Senator George McGrovel in his “The Hardhat’s Bedtime Storybook”.
He was out there canvassing for Ted Nugent’s vote?
FTR, US troops suffered 584 fatalities from the Vietnam war from 1973-1976. They are tallied on the basis of the year of death though and I’m not sure how many combat and noncombat incidents occurred during that period. Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics | National Archives
Nixon campaigned on a promise to end the draft in 1968. The draft ended in 1973. I see from wikipedia that there was a draft lottery in February 1972, the ground war ended in December 1972 and that the last draftees reported for duty in June 1973. Conscription in the United States - Wikipedia
He went beyond just promising to end the draft. His campaign statement in March 1968 was “If in November this war is not over, I say that the American people will be justified in electing new leadership and I pledge to you that the new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific.” When Nixon was asked specifically how new leadership would end the war, he said he couldn’t reveal the details because this would tip off the North Vietnamese before the negotiations. This led to people saying Nixon had a “secret plan” although he himself never used that phrase.
But the point is that he challenged the Johnson administration to end the war within eight months. He reaffirmed a deadline when he gave an interview in October 1968 and said “I will deal with it within six months” in reference to the war. So there was reason to question Nixon about why the war was still going on in 1972.
Back to the OP: Why on earth would you think Ford, or anybody, would do this?