Newsweek: McGovern Considered Cronkite For Veep

http://www.newsweek.com/id/112767/page/2

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Nixon was, McGovern notes, running nationally for the fifth time (only FDR had done that) and was at his pre-Watergate apogee, fresh from the opening to China and a strategic-arms agreement with Moscow. McGovern was bitterly opposed all the way to the Miami convention by the Democratic constituencies he was displacing. He says Barry Goldwater had warned him, "Don't get fatigued," but he reached Miami exhausted, lost control of the convention (he delivered his acceptance speech at 2:30 a.m.) and disastrously selected a running mate, Missouri Sen. Tom Eagleton, who did not disclose previous psychiatric problems and was forced off the ticket.

Still, McGovern thinks he could have won with a running mate then called "the most trusted man in America"—Walter Cronkite. Before choosing Eagleton, McGovern considered asking Cronkite, who recently indicated he would have accepted.