Truthout October 22, 2012. Also see Zunes’ article in Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and interview with McGovern in The Progressive
Getting to know George McGovern – who died Sunday morning at age 90 – as a friend, collaborator, co-author and co-teacher has been among my proudest and most fulfilling experiences. As a 15 year-old high school sophomore, I volunteered for his 1972 presidential campaign. McGovern won my county (one of the few in the South that went Democratic that year), but lost the state and the nation in a near-record landslide, thanks in large part to attacks by the right wing of the Democratic Party during the primaries and the dirty tricks by the campaign of incumbent President Richard Nixon during the fall campaign. These illegal acts, along with the resulting cover-ups, eventually led to impeachment procedures that forced Nixon’s resignation…