Here’s an interesting read for a Saturday, pre-election morning.
Beyond being a long-time legislator and candidate for the U.S. presidency, George McGovern, who died last week at age 90, was a U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador to the World Food Program. For El Tiempo, Colombia Ambassador Julio César Gomes Dos Santos, who served with the former senator in Rome, tells readers that McGovern was a beloved figure who wasn’t afraid to say so when he thought his own government failed to live up to its ideals.
In an article that includes quotes about Cuba and the “war on terror” that are not unlikely to have been published in English before, Ambassador Julio César Gomes Dos Santos starts out in praise of his friend George this way:
George McGovern was a U.S. leader in some of his country’s most confounding and sensitive years in the last century, from the Kennedy assassination in 1963, to the shameful defeat in Vietnam in 1975, through the Watergate scandal and the subsequent resignation of Richard Nixon.
When conservative hawks based almost all of U.S. policy on the hegemony of the country, starting with the military, McGovern was a lone voice. He spoke up against the war and in favor of a more egalitarian society, and his battle against hunger, which led to the creation of the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP), drove him to become the Democratic candidate opposing Nixon in 1972.
He lost outright because his sincerity and good intentions failed to reach voters, who reelected a president who was irresponsible, deceptive, a liar.
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