George McGovern, One Year After the Landslide

Sen. George S. McGovern [D-S.D.] slipped quietly into Cambridge on November 4, one year to the week after losing every state but Massachusetts to President Nixon in the 1972 election. McGovern came to address an Institute of Politics seminar on November 5. While in Cambridge, he made no speeches, held no press conferences, attended no rallies.

It was the same week that Republican senators and conservative newspapers joined in the public outcry over corruption in Nixon's administration--the issue that McGovern tried unsuccessfully to mine throughout the campaign and that might have made him president if Watergate had broken open a year earlier.

Before McGovern's talk to the Institute seminar, reporters Dale S. Russakoff and Kevin A. Stafford interviewed him at the Crimson. The following are excerpts:

Q: How does it feel to have the country see Nixon your way--one year too late?

A: Well, as I've said, we peaked too late. But I don't think anybody can draw any joy out of what has happened to the country. It does vindicate the judgment that I offered free of charge a year ago--that this is the most corrupt administration in American history. I think few people would question that now. But that's the kind of judgment that you don't want vindicated. It's sad that at a time when the country has so many difficult problems confronting it that we have that kind of leadership.

Impeachment

Q: Given that you did charge during the campaign that the Nixon administration was the most corrupt in American history, and given everything that's been revealed during the Watergate investigations, can we assume that you support Nixon's resignation or his removal from office by impeachment?

A: I support it very vigorously. I not only support it, I predict it. We'll see in the next few months either a resignation or an impeachment.

Q: If he doesn't resign, do you think that the Congress will support impeachment?

A: Yes, I do.

Q: We hear a lot about senators' public positions on resignation or impeachment, but we have very little understanding of the mood of the Senate. Is there anything you can tell us about the power blocs, and the infighting, the outside influences?

A: The Senate is understandably deferring to the House on impeachment because it's a House prerogative. My understanding is that the sentiment for impeachment is building all the time. Whether it has reached a majority point now, I can't say. No one will know until the roll is called or until the House Judiciary Committee completes its investigation. But I'm rather strongly of the view that we'll either see a resignation in the near future or else impeachment will go forward.

Q: Many people say that there's a sentiment for impeachment but the votes just won't be there. Do you disagree with that?

A: I disagree with that.

Q: What about your Republican colleagues? How would you assess their mood? Are they anguished, embittered?

A: Yes, I think they're perhaps more embarrassed--and more anguished--about this than the Democrats are. Especially Democrats who did what they could to bring about a change in the administration in the election last year. They saw the need for change then, but Republicans and those who supported the administration in the last campaign, I'm sure, feel more of a sense of regret and anguish about it because they've been let down by their leader, by their candidate.

Q: Will you vote to confirm Gerald Ford?

A: I would be inclined to. I don't want to make any hard commitment on that until the investigation is completed and we've gotten the verdict of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. I would be somewhat inclined to go along on somewhat pragmatic grounds in that I think it may be the precondition for either a presidential resignation or for impeachment.

Q: Do you see yourself as a possible leader in the impeachment move or in the move for Ford's confirmation?

A: No, I think it would be better if I were not the leader on either count. As the one who was defeated by the president. I don't want to do anything that might open the charge that this is a vendetta on the part of the defeated team. So I think that it might be in better taste for someone else to carry that responsibility on both impeachment and also on the Ford confirmation.

Q: Are you satisfied that Ford could handle the presidency?

A: He would not have been my choice. I always had reservations about the other vice president, Mr. Agnew. As to where Ford could fit with comparison to Agnew, I suppose there's not a great deal of difference--in terms of qualifications.

Nixon's Mental Health

Q: There are a lot of rumors now about Nixon's mental health. Some people say that, faced with a serious threat of impeachment, he might just lock himself in the White House, declare martial law, and continue to govern, or do what passes for governing.

A: Well, I don't want to speculate on that.

Q: But you're not worried about that at all?

A: Well, I just would rather not get into it. We're not really competent to pass judgment long distance on the president's emotional and mental state.

Q: Is there a lot of talk about his mental state now, though?

A: Well, I've seen the speculation in the press about it.

Q: What about among senators? Are they worried about that?

A: Well, I think that any of them that are would not express any public concern about it. It's a difficult thing to speculate about publicly. We don't know. Those are things that are the domain of the doctors rather than politicians.

Q: How's your mail running on impeachment? Are people sort of lamenting that they didn't listen to you?

A: We get a certain amount of that. We get a rather significant amount of mail expressing that sentiment, and also lots of people who stop members of the staff and stop me or others who worked in the campaign and express regrets for how they voted.

Q: Do you think the Watergate issue alone would have been enough to make you president if all this had come out a year ago?

A: Well, of course a lot of it did come out. I think people were reluctant to accept it. I think if what is now known had been brought out prior to the election that there's no question it would have influenced the voters' decision. They really didn't believe that the president was involved personally in this kind of shabby behavior.

Q: A lot of people say that Watergate has vindicated you. Do you agree with that? Is Watergate enough?

A: Well, it verifies the judgment that I advanced a year ago that this was a corrupt administration, but there is other supporting evidence for that: the ITT fix, the milk sell-out, the wheat deal, the misuse of campaign funds, the violation of campaign contribution laws, the secret and unauthorized bombing and the denial of it--public denial of it. Those things all add to the corruption charge that go beyond what is sometimes called the Watergate sequence.

Q: What about the more basic economic reforms that you were calling for? Do you think that Watergate is sort of taking attention away from issues such as that?

A: I do, and of course one of the regrettable prices we have to pay for misconduct on the part of the administration is that it dissipates both their energies and also the energies of the Congress. That is, it diverts those energies from the serious economic problems that face it. I think the president is getting very bad advice on economic policy. They've relied too heavily on high interest rates instead of on tax reform and fiscal policy to control inflation. They've continued a very high level of military expenditures which is above where it was a year ago, and which also continues to feed the inflationary fires. They do that in the face of improvement in our relations with China and the Soviet Union and in the face of the so-called peace settlement in Indochina. So I think there has been a diversion from sound economic policy and close attention to our economic problems that has been very painful to the country.

Q: So in a strange way you agree with Nixon that people are wallowing in Watergate?

A: No, I don't agree with him at all. He's the one who created the wallow and who keeps us in it. He leaves the impression that somehow Congress created this wallow. We didn't create it--we're trying to get the nation out of it. One way to do that is to get Mr. Nixon out of office.

Q: Well, a year ago, when you were saying that Nixon's administration was the most corrupt in American history, you were called irresponsible. Now everyone is saying it, and your voice is not as loud as it once was in that regard. In fact, it's getting a little bit boring hearing everybody say it.

A: That's why I don't say it. It's not necessary any more.

Q: Is there anything else you have to say that's irresponsible that a year from now we can come back and look at?

A: [laughter] Well, I would say this: that I'm more certain than ever that we must reduce military outlays if we plan to release resources that we need for other important things. We're faced, for example, with a crisis in the financing of education in this country that extends all the way from kindergarten through the Ph.D. The whole question of adequate student aid to permit qualified students to go on to college is a very serious matter in this country. And the problems of the environment which stay with us--the fuel shortage, the shortages in other things that are necessary for the economy--those things are brought about in part because for the last 30 years we've plowed so much of our resources into military expenditures. And we can't go on that way, simply because we're going to exhaust both our resources and our economy if we continue to make investments at the level we're now doing on the military front.

Q: There are strong indications that you're in trouble in your upcoming bid for re-election. Does this have anything to do with your failure to carry South Dakota in '72?

A: Well, I think that's probably an interpretation that no longer fits the present situation. I would have agreed with you a year ago, right after the election, that we were in trouble. But I've worked very hard in serving the state and tried to give my close attention to my own constituents. And tried to rebuild any damage that was done by the concentration on the presidential campaign for the last couple of years. And I think we're in reasonably good shape in South Dakota now.

Q: Has there been significant rebuilding, regrouping of the Democratic party since the '72 election?

A: What there's been is a curious, painful re-examination of the [McGovern Commission] reforms. [which drafted new guidelines for selection of convention delegates, thereby increasing the number of women, minority and youth delegates.] I would say that most of the energy of the Democratic Party since the '72 election has centered on a struggle to re-examine and possibly rewrite the reforms. But if I read the recommendations that they finally agreed on correctly, what they said was that the '72 reforms were essentially right. I don't have any quarrels with what I assume--what I believe--to be the so-called compromise settlement. It seems to me to be basically a ratification of what we agreed on four years ago.

Democratic Politics

Q: So you don't see any drastic shift of the party back, say, to organized labor or some of the old party bosses?

A: No, I don't. I think that the reforms that were operating in '72 have been ratified now.

Q: How would you assess the strength of Southern Democrats--particularly Wallace--and how seriously should we take Senator Kennedy's visit to him on July 4 this year?

A: Well, there's no question Wallace is a significant factor, and he has a strong following all over the country. I found him to be the toughest competitor in several of the primaries. I don't see him ever winning the Democratic presidential nomination, but I think he is a force to be reckoned with.

Q: Well, do you think that the party will have to make some conservative stands in order to attract him and his followers back?

A: I'm not sure the word "conservative" is the way to describe Wallace. I've never thought, for example, that his consistent support for the war was a conservative position, I always thought the real radicals were the ones who plunged us into that war. I think this: that Wallace speaks for a lot of people who are unhappy with the so-called "establishment" and that some way is going to have to be found to convince those people that their interests lie with the Democratic Party and with its candidate without the necessity of a Wallace candidacy. It's very difficult to do. I don't think that the Democratic candidate can win by simply capitulating to Wallace. But neither is he going to win without finding some way to bring a good many of those Wallace supporters back into the party. Perhaps the way that's done is by demonstrating that their economic and social interests are best served by the Democratic Party. But it simply can't be done by a sellout to Wallace's view on all the issues that face the country. That would bring the Democratic party down to a deserved defeat.

Q: Do you see a leader emerging who can unite the party? Issues that can unite the party for 76?

A: Well, I'm not sure that at this point it's useful to even speculate on whom the candidate might be in '76. I think we'll have a better picture after the '74 elections are out of the way. I'm probably the last one that ought to be saying this in view of my own early efforts in '72, but I think it would be a good thing if we got back to concentrating on the congressional and gubernatorial elections in '74 and reserved judgment on '76 for a while.

McGovern in '76?

Q: Assuming you win re-election in '74, will we have you to kick around in '76?

A: [laughter] Well, you'll have me to kick around as a senator.

Q: Not as a presidential candidate?

A: No, I wouldn't foresee that.

Q: Isn't it obligatory to say that?

A: Yes. [laughter]

Q: Then we shouldn't take it seriously?

A: Well, I didn't say that.

On leading the impeachment drive: "As the one who was defeated by the President, I don't want to do anything that might open the charge that this is a vendetta on the part of the defeated team."

On wallowing in Watergate: "He (Nixon) leaves the impression that somehow Congress created this wallow. We didn't create it--we're trying to get the nation out of it. One way to do that is to get Mr. Nixon out of office."