In the final weekend of the campaign, McGovern assumed prophetic mode to issue “one more warning. If Mr. Nixon is elected on Tuesday, we may very well have four more years of war in Southeast Asia.” To a New York Times reporter, McGovern sounded more bitter than ever. He proved once more that he had no idea what he was up against, saying of Nixon: “He has no plan for ending this war. He has not let go of General Thieu. He’s not going to let that corrupt Thieu regime in Saigon collapse.” McGovern was sure of that, even if Thieu wasn’t. “He’s going to keep the bombers flying. He’s going to confine our prisoners to their cells in Hanoi for whatever time it takes to keep his friend General Thieu in office.” McGovern was as certain as he was wrong. Self-righteous and self-defeating to the end, the prairie populist turned on those who would not heed his warning of four more years of war: “It’s all right for people to be fooled once as they were in 1968. If they do it again, if they let this man lead them down the false hope of peace once again in 1972, then the people have nobody to blame but themselves.”1
In fairness, a share of the blame belonged to the people’s political leadership. When South Vietnam handed the Democrats a potentially devastating charge—that all the president had to show for four years of war and 20,000 American deaths was a deal that merely delayed and disguised defeat—the titular leader of the opposition scorned the very idea that Richard Nixon would ever abandon South Vietnam.
Nixon, for his part, did not use the last speech of his last campaign for office to warn or rebuke the people. The setting of the Election Eve campaign ad was simple and uncharacteristically casual: Nixon perched on the edge of a desk, bookended between framed family pictures, a simple curtain for a backdrop. Where McGovern seemed desperate, frantic, and shrill, the incumbent exhibited calm, confidence, and respect for the people’s judgment:
I am not going to insult your intelligence tonight or impose upon your time by rehashing all the issues of the campaign or making any last-minute charges against our opponents. You know what the issues are. You know that this is a choice which is probably the clearest choice between the candidates for President ever presented to the American people in this century.
I would, however, urge you to have in mind tomorrow one overriding issue, and that is the issue of peace—peace in Vietnam and peace in the world at large for a generation to come.
He had done all in his power to obscure the real choice voters faced: between two paths to defeat, one straight and clear, the other concealed from American eyes, though revealed to the Communists in classified negotiations.
“As you know, we have made a breakthrough in the negotiations which will lead to peace in Vietnam,” said the president. He ran through some of the popular provisions in the agreement with Hanoi.
He urged everyone to vote, whether for him or not.2 But he offered his supporters a share in his glory, an opportunity to view themselves as he led them to view him—as people whose strength, steadfastness, and resolve led in the end to success in war and peace:
There are still some details that I am insisting be worked out and nailed down because I want this not to be a temporary peace. I want, and I know you want, it to be a lasting peace. But I can say to you with complete confidence tonight that we will soon reach agreement on all the issues and bring this long and difficult war to an end.
You can help achieve that goal. By your votes, you can send a message to those with whom we are negotiating, and to the leaders of the world, that you back the President of the United States in his insistence that we in the United States seek peace with honor and never peace with surrender.3