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THE SOCIAL EDGE INTERVIEW: U.S. SENATOR GEORGE MCGOVERN

by Gerry McCarthy

George McGovern is a former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate. In 1997, he was appointed by President Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies or Food And Agriculture. In 2001 he was appointed United Nations Global Ambassador on World Hunger. He's also a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and has been married to his wife Eleanor for 62 years.

     Senator McGovern is the author of several books, including: The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time and The Essential America: Our Founders and the Liberal Tradition.

     Along with Senator Bob Dole and Donald Messer, McGovern is the author of Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith. The book was recently published by Fortress Press. I reached Senator McGovern by telephone in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Gerry McCarthy: In Ending Hunger Now you write about when you were director of the Food for Peace program under President Kennedy. You recall the dean of the University of Georgia telling you that the American school lunch program had done more for the development of the Southern states than any other federal program. A school lunch program is something that you strongly believe in isn't it?

Senator George McGovern: Yes. The dean made that observation to me almost a half-century ago. I said to him: What about the Tennessee Valley Authority, rural electrification, Social Security, and all the other New Deal measures? Didn't they contribute more on the development side? He told me: I stand on what I've said.

     In terms of increasing the health, education, energy, and productivity levels the school lunch program did more to lay a foundation for the economic and social development of the South than any other program.

     I never forgot what the dean told me, because I didn't know this man. But he took the time, energy, and invested in a telephone call to tell me a story. I've used that quote many times over the years, because it's so significant. It also gets people thinking about child feeding as more than just a humanitarian process --although it certainly is that. But it's also a powerful contributor to economic and social development.

     Later I learned something about that program from another Georgian --Senator Richard Russell. I came to know him 10 years after the Food for Peace days when I was a Senator. He offered the initial proposal for school lunches as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He did that because they learned during World War II that about 30 percent of American males (especially in the South) were ineligible for military service on physical grounds. They began to look into those figures and discovered that malnutrition in the early years was an important ingredient in this physical eficiency in millions of American young men. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services he introduced the first school lunch bill in 1946. Here's a conservative man from the South --oriented primarily in the direction of providing adequate military defences for the country-- who saw the introduction of school feeding as an important ingredient.

GM: The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program was first launched in 2003. Is that right? Can you talk to me about the program?

SGM: I talked to President Clinton about it before that while I was still on the job in 2001 as Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food And Agriculture. But the actual funding of $300 million didn't become available until 2003. Since then we've had another $200 million under the Bush administration. That combined total of $500 million has given us a good start.

     We're operating pilot school lunches now in 38 different countries. We don't have any total nation-wide programs yet. But we've set the basis for that.

GM: Are you looking for an increase in funding for this program?

SGM: If we could get the funding up to the Clinton level of $300 million from that first year. Then try to hit that target every year. It's a modest target. It's a figure that pays for the war in Iraq for about one day.

     Along with the $300 million from the U.S. --the rest of the world could provide say three times that much. That would give us one-quarter billion dollars a year. With that you could feed a whale of a lot of children overseas.

     The cost of a single daily school lunch per child is 19 cents. Commodities come cheaper overseas than they do here. Labour comes cheaper too. So across Africa, much of Asia, parts of Latin America and the Middle East, we could reach a big chunk of the school children. Not all of them. But enough to really have an impact. I'd like to see us bump up our funding to $300 million in the coming school year, and keep it no less than that.

GM: In the book you explain that: "If we can reach the 1996 World Food Summit of halving the number of hungry people from 800 million to 400 million by the year 2015, we should then be able to wipe out hunger entirely by the year 2030." Much of what you write is inspiring and optimistic. Are you an optimist at heart?

SGM: I'm an optimist at heart or I wouldn't have been running for high office as a liberal Democrat for 25 years in South Dakota. One of the appealing aspects of global hunger is that we know --deep in our minds and hearts-- that it's a solvable thing.

     When I came out of World War II --I dedicated my life to world peace and that's still of the utmost importance. But people have been killing other people even since Cain and Abel. It looks like human conflict isn't diminishing very much. It's an enormous problem to stop international squabbles and settle them peacefully. But hunger is something we can do readily with ease.

     If the world as an international community were to expend $67 billion a year --above what we're doing now-- we could just about put an end to all hunger in the world by 2030. It would take awhile to reach everybody. But when the resources are available it could be done. This effort would have to include helping people produce their own food. What I've tried to do in every place we've started school feeding programs is urge the local authorities to institute gardens around the school. The children could do some of the labour under the direction of an adult teacher or administrative person. They would be able to grow their own fruits and vegetables, because it's difficult to ship those things in from the outside. This would have the double effect of not only adding nourishment to the school lunch in the form of fruits and vegetables, but it would also teach them how to increase the productivity of their land for the rest of their lives.

GM: Gender inequality is a serious problem in the effort to end hunger in the developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa there are girls as young as eleven and twelve giving birth to babies. Gender inequality is deeply rooted in the culture isn't it?

SGM: Yes. What the United Nations researchers have discovered is of the 300 million school-aged children who are not now being fed anything during school hours --120 million of them don't go to school at all. They either never started or they dropped out. Most of those are girls, because of the favouritism towards us males in most cultures. As a consequence, some of these girls start getting married at eleven, twelve, and thirteen years of age. Before they're 21-years-old they'll have six children. That's the average birth rate for every illiterate girl. Whereas the ones that are drawn into school by the promise of a school lunch every day --they obviously marry later in life. Even if they only attend school from grade one to six --they have a better sense of life. They're not as easy to lead around by the nose by boys and men. They have a greater sense of their own bodies and words. They also have an average of 2.9 children. So the birth rate is cut in half just on the strength of education.

     The best magnet anyone has found anywhere in the world --including the United States-- to pull poorer kids into school is the promise of a good meal in the middle of the day (or breakfast after they arrive at school).

     I honestly believe that dollar-for-dollar the greatest return we receive on any kind of foreign aid is the investment in the education of girls. They're going to be the ones that raise the children and run the household. The more you can invest in these little girls the more a society is going to move forward.

GM: In the book Senator Dole says he fears apathy could be a problem in the effort to feed the hungry in the world. What is your fear?

SGM: I guess I have more than one fear. There's the fear of more and more internal conflicts, civil strife, and the violent struggles for political power that decimates a country. Look at what happened in Rwanda and Burundi. Also: The sadness of the struggle in Iraq now. We don't have a body count in the war. But I've seen estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed. The occupation of the country has knocked out the electrical system. Most of the houses are still in darkness. We've knocked out the water delivery system. Conflicts of that kind set back the effort to reduce hunger in the world.

     You know about the situation in Darfur. Those conflicts not only kill and wound a lot of people. But they trample the farms and wipe out years of work. That's a big problem.

     Another big problem is AIDS. In some of the African villages I've walked through, there just weren't many young people. There were people my age and little kids. But the young mothers and fathers in some of these villages are just gone --wiped out by AIDS. Hundreds of thousands of farmers are victims of AIDS in Africa. Who's going to do that work of producing food and taking care of the children? That's another fear I have. AIDS and physical battles: Those two things are hazards that hold back the effort to end hunger in the world.

     Senator Dole is right about apathy too. We become so busy and involved in our lives. That's understandable. People are going to take care of their own interests and families first. But there is the absence of political leadership --both on the receiving end in the poor countries and on the potential giving countries. There is apathy in some cases on both sides. Some of those developing countries are governed by miserable leaders.

GM: Can you talk to me about Donald Messer? I understand you first him in India when you were director of the Food for Peace program in the early 1960s.

SGM: He's had a lifetime of interest in the problems of the hungry, poor, and neglected. It's part of his Christian philosophy. He believes we're instructed by the prophets and great spokesman of the Bible to minister to the poor, needy, and hungry. That's built right into his spiritual and religious odyssey.

     He's an unusually perceptive and compassionate human being. That's the reason I agreed to his suggestion to persuade Senator Dole to join with me in going in with him to write this book. I'd previously written a book entitled The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time. Don Messer told me the subtitle he wanted for this new book was Ending Hunger Now.

GM: In the book you talk about your father. You explain that he was a Wesleyan Methodist minister who was "very conservative --but believed that we are obligated to feed the hungry." Your own Christian faith informs your outlook on life and social problems doesn't it?

SGM: Yes I'm a strong believer in the social gospel. My father was more oriented toward individual salvation. But I tend to think in terms of what we can do as a society and people. Also: what government can do and what obligations we have to help others as a group. Not that individual salvation isn't important. But sometimes Christians neglect the social action part of their religious and spiritual obligations. Jesus Christ never made that mistake. He said: "As much as you've done it unto one of the least of these my brother you've done it unto me." That's what I believe.

GM: What about the news media? Are they covering the efforts to end hunger in the world enough?

SGM: There's never enough to suit me. But every time I have a crack at the press they've responded positively --especially to this idea of a universal school lunch program. The press (and most Americans) are familiar with the school lunch program. That's something they can get their minds around. We've had a pretty positive reaction from the press. Obviously I wish there was more. But that's our job to generate even more press coverage.

GM: I can't resist asking you a question about American politics. I understand you joined the Democratic Party after hearing a speech by Adlai Stevenson in the early 1950s. Is that right?

SGM: It was an acceptance speech by Adlai Stevenson when he accepted the Democratic Presidential nomination in Chicago in 1952. Little did I know that 20 years later in 1972 I would be giving an acceptance speech --and like Stevenson I gave it in the middle of the night instead of prime time. They introduced Stevenson around one o'clock in the morning and I was introduced around two-thirty in the morning. Certainly in 1952 Democrats weren't attuned to the age of television and the importance of prime time. On that score we were slow learners in our camp 20 years later.

     But I couldn't believe that speech by Stevenson. Here's this highly refined, dignified, and eloquent man dropping these heart-stirring phrases at one or two o'clock in the morning. I was up painting the living room ceiling, and remember sitting on the top of that stepladder and just being enthralled. I finally came down and took a few notes. That was when I was first bitten. If there's such a thing as instantaneous conversion I experienced it that night.

Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.