A family spokesman says former U.S. Sen. George McGovern,
the Democrat who lost to President Richard Nixon in
1972 in a historic landslide, has died at the age of 90.
   
The spokesman, Steve Hildebrand, told The Associated Press by
telephone that McGovern died at 5:15 a.m. Sunday at a hospice in
Sioux Falls, surrounded by family and friends.
   
McGovern was a bomber pilot in World War II who became an early
critic of the Vietnam War and a leader of the Democrats' liberal
wing.
   
He was elected to his first of three Senate terms in 1962.
   
McGovern ran for president three times, also making a try for the
nomination in 1968 and 1984.
   
Despite the 1972 Watergate break-in, Nixon won a second term in
one of the biggest landslides in modern history.
   
(The Associated Press)