to know more about “the nature and destiny of man, about the adequacy of our contemporary value system and the capacity of our institutions to nurture those values.”

He returned a hero. On one of 35 missions against Nazi targets in Europe, he took hits that blew out most of the nose of the plane and wounded a gunner. Shrapnel cut the hydraulic brake and electrical lines. He ordered his crew to crank down the landing gear and tie parachutes to girders just inside the rear hatches. He landed and released the parachutes. Not a life was lost. McGovern was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After the war he returned to Dakota Wesleyan, and then entered Garrett Theological Seminary in Chicago. He liked preaching, but the counseling and ceremonies thatwere part of ministry held little appeal. So he switched to Northwestern University.

He read Hegel, then Walter Rauschenbusch, a noted advocate of what was called the social gospel. To McGovern, it meant applying the idealism of Christianity, and it became his secular belief. He supported the Progressive Party’s Henry Wallace for president in 1948. But, according to Robert Sam Anson’s “McGovern: a Biography” (1972), McGovern grew disillusioned by fanaticism among Wallace’s supporters, so he became a Democrat. He opposed the Korean War and favored recognition of the communist government of Beijing.

He earned a doctorate in history and returned to Dakota Wesleyan to teach.

In 1956 he ran for Congress and became the first Democrat from South Dakota to be elected to the House of Representatives in 22 years. After