George McGovern: The Combat Hero Who Became America’s Antiwar Candidate

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 817 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, before George McGovern became the Democratic presidential candidate in the 1972 election, he was a young pilot flying dangerous missions over Europe. Long before he spoke out against the Vietnam War, he risked his life in the skies of World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for his courage. Years later, the same man who had faced German gunfire would stand on a national stage, calling for an end to another war. His message of peace divided voters, and his campaign against President Richard Nixon ended in defeat. The late, great historian Stephen Ambrose shares the remarkable life of George McGovern — a man whose journey from bomber pilot to Democratic nominee challenged America to see war and leadership in a different light.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:17.0	And we continue here with our American stories.
0:20.2	And up next, Greg Hangler has an unlikely World War II story about George McGovern,
0:26.5	the liberal anti-war Democratic presidential candidate from South Dakota,
0:30.9	who was soundly defeated by President Nixon in the 1972 election.
0:37.3	Stephen Ambrose is one of America's leading biographers in his story. Nixon in the 1972 election.
0:41.9	Stephen Ambrose is one of America's leading biographers and historians.
0:48.9	Ambrose's works have inspired Americans to regard its war veterans with newfound reverence.
0:53.3	His bestsellers chronicle our nation's critical battles and achievements,
0:55.5	from his seminal war works D-Day and Band of Brothers, to undaunted courage, and nothing like it in the world, the men who built
1:03.4	the Transcontinental Railroad. Stephen Ambrose passed in 2002, but his epic storytelling accounts can now be heard here at Our American
1:13.1	Stories, thanks to the permission from those who run his estate. Here's Stephen Ambrose to tell us
1:20.2	a short story from his book, The Wild Blue, the men and boys who flew the B-24s over Germany.
1:29.9	My next book is a story of the B-24 in the Second World War.
1:39.4	And it's not exclusively about, it's about a squadron and then about about the bomb group but one of the members of the squadron was George McGovern who was a pilot of a B-24, 35 missions, got the distinguished flying cross. He flew bombers in the Second World War and he did and
2:00.0	How do you open a story? I open with George he had come back from a
2:05.2	raid over the Vienna he was all shot up with shrapnel everything and the plane just barely
2:08.9	limping along and it's a good story in itself and the crew called up to him lieutenant
2:14.4	we got a bomb stuck in the bomb bay, half in and half out.
2:21.2	And so they're either going to have to bail out or they're going to have to get rid of that
2:24.9	bomb. And George told him, go to work on that bomb so you can get it loose. And they finally called
2:29.2	up, and they were now over a part of Western Austria, rural. And they called up, Lieutenant, we got it. We're ready. Drop it, says George. And they were by this time, because they were so badly shot up, down to about 10,000 feet, it was a clear day. And he could see that bomb going down. He watched and watch and watch. Boom. He hit a farmhouse. And George looked at his watch and he said,
	...

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