National Archives - McGovern: ‘The word stalemate was coined with Ireland in mind’

SENATOR George S McGovern is probably best remembered as the Democrat Party’s nominee defeated by Richard Nixon in the US presidential election of 1972, but the tactics used, especially in the Watergate building, led to Nixon’s resignation less than two years later.

In the summer of 1977 Sen McGovern visited Ireland and wrote a report for the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee entitled Ireland in 1977.

“All concerned parties are stranded in irreconcilable positions,” he wrote. “One could conclude that the word ‘stalemate’ was coined with Ireland in mind.”