In confession to historian, George McGovern revealed he had a secret child

Source: Washington Post

Morning Mix

By Justin Wm. Moyer July 30 at 4:00 AM

An academic with a forthcoming biography of 1972 Democratic presidential candidate and former senator George McGovern has confirmed that the South Dakotan fathered a child before he was married. ... Before McGovern died in 2012, he told Thomas J. Knock, a history professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, about the affair and the daughter he had in 1941. ... “He told me about it voluntarily about 15 years ago because he wanted me to write about it,” Knock told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. “He felt confident in my credentials as a historian and biographer to deal with it responsibly.”
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“{The mother of McGovern’s daughter} was remarkably calm and strong, decided within a week or so go to Indiana and stay with her older sister and brother-in-law,” Knock said. “She gave birth there.” Hence the name of the McGovern rumor among historians and politicos: “the Fort Wayne story.”
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Why care about the secret offspring of a man who got absolutely shellacked by President Richard Nixon in 1972? Because, in the Watergate-era Nixon White House, it nearly became a campaign issue.
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{When} McGovern set his sights on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and ran against Nixon in 1972, the Fort Wayne story became potential ammunition — and remained ammunition as McGovern continued to serve in the Senate as Watergate unfolded. Or, at least, Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman thought so, as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reported in The Post on Aug. 2, 1973.



An article that appeared on the front page of The Washington Post on Aug. 2, 1973.

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