Saturday, May 19, 2012

George McGovern's Illegitimate Child

Little piece of history that I found interesting - near the end of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 there was a brief mention of George McGovern having an illegitimate child. Though I have read the book a half-dozen times - this line never really stood out. This time I was curious.

Turns out there's an author out there who claims that McGovern did father a child while a teenager training for the Army Air Force. George and his wife were afraid during the last month of the 1972 campaign that his secret would come out. It never did. The cynic in me thinks that Richard Nixon's people knew they had won and thus declined to sling that particular bit of mud. If the race had been closer? Who knows.

As I said - just an interesting "what if" bit of history now.