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This file contains:
Statement of George Meany. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], 10/25/1972
Draft RE: Washington Post and McGovern. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], 10/26/1972
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26146522
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WHSF: Contested, 48-25
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26146522
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WHSF: Contested, 48-25
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This file contains:
Statement of George Meany. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], 10/25/1972
Draft RE: Washington Post and McGovern. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], 10/26/1972
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Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Contested Materials Files
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
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48
25
10/25/1972
Campaign
Other Document
Campaign Statement of George Meany. 2
pgs.
48
25
10/26/1972
Campaign
Other Document
Draft RE: Washington Post and McGovern.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Page 1 of 1
Statement of George Meany
October 25, 1972
This presidential campaign has confirmed and strengthened my deep
conviction that the best interests of working people, of the Democratic
Party, and of the United States call for the repudiation of George McGovern
at the polls, November 7.
For the politics and policies of George McGovern threaten all three.
George McGovern has always been a critic of thos Americans who
stood up to Communism, and an apologist for the Communist world. And
the war in Vietnam has been no exception. Today, he compares the
President of the United States to Adolf Hitler, and Ho Chi Minh to
George Washington. His latest "peace" proposal would surrender to the
Communist enemy concessionseven they themselves have not demanded.
It would disgrace our nation. And while he has a "plan" -- wholesale
amnesty -- to bring home the draft-dodgers from Canada and Sweden,
he has no plan, no guarantee that we will ever see our prisoners again.
His promise to go "begging" to Hanoi is both insufficient and intolerable.
His unilateral cuts in America's defense budgets -- condemned by
Senators Humphrey and Jackson -- would leave America exposed to
nuclear blackmail, endanger the security of free nations in Europe and
the Middle East, and tilt the global balance of power in favor of the
Soviet Union.
-2-
While he has dreamed up three gigantic welfare plans, he has nothing
comparable for the working men and women of this country, whose jobs
are jeopardized by his recommended cuts in space and defense.
Mr. McGovern and the elitists around him seem less interested in
the real needs of working people than they do in their own favorite, exotic
issues -- like quotas, amnesty, free abortion, thousand dollar giveaways,
and marijuana. The so-called intellectuals who have gathered about him
from the campus elite are the same individuals who in recent years have
shown such contempt for the basic values, principles and beliefs held dear
by working men and women all over America. They do not deserve to
occupy the White House. And Senator McGovern deserves that fate
American voters have always reserved for those politicians who tried to
build themselves up by tearing America down.
Just as George McGovern exercised his right to abandon Harry Truman
and the Democratic Party for the radicals in 1948, so millions of working
people in 1972 are going to vote their beliefs and against him.
I urge working people and Democrats in particular to go to the polls
on November 7 and repudiate George McGovern - and then join hands with
the American labor movement and take our party back from the extremists
beginning the morning of November Eighth.
#####
KK
DRAFT:PJB:10/26/72
Wednesday's edition of the Washington Post presents the most
conclusive evidence of political prostitution of the press in recent memory.
The Post's banner story of that day was and is a phony from beginning
to end. It had been floating around town for more than a week that it was
coming. Larry O'Brien, Senator McGovern's campaign manager had
been publicly promising and predicting its arrival almost to the hour.
And, lo and behold, it arrived the morning of the evening of George
McGovern's paid broadcast on the so-called "corruption" issue. Indeed,
it arrived precisely at the point where it would do the most to promote
the McGovern show -- by forcing networks, wires and afternoon papers to
follow up the story with questions and coverage.
As an example of collusion between the McGovernites and the Post,
as an example of good P.R. promotion of a McGovern show by the editors
of the Post -- it was first-rate. As an example of objective and honest
reporting and coverage -- it was a joke.
Mrs. Graham and her obsequious subordinates at the Post have allowed
their undisguised hatred of the President of the United States to get the
better of them. They should be, frankly, more discreet about their
cohabitation with Mr. McGovern.
Here is how the daisy chain operates. The Post puts a banner headline
on some unsubstantiated charges by unnamed sources. Within minutes
George McGovern is out on the stump accusing the President personally
-2-
of being responsible for whatever the Post has alleged and the next
morning the Post runs McGovern's repetition of the Post's charges as
the hard political news of the day. And on and on and on.
This Post operation is a desperate last-ditch effort to prevent the
political humiliation of their radical friend, Mr. McGovern, and to
inflict maximum political damage upon the administration and person
of the President of the United States.
Like George McGovern, the Post is an imposter and a pious fraud.
The former, who promised Senator Eagleton his 1000% support and then
stabbed him in the back in one of the most cynical and savage political
acts of our time, runs about the country posing as Mr. Morality. The
latter, the Washington Post, postures as an objective high-minded,
even-handed newspaper while working the gutter for George McGovern.
Mr. McGovern is going down to defeat because his radical defeatest
politices would disgrace this nation before the world, his domestic ideas
border on the idiotic, and his campaign tactics and rhetoric are among
the most vile and filthy in American political history. And the Post, just
as it has collaborated and conspired in his campaign, will share with
him the nation's repudiation.
#####