Gerald Ford, George McGovern among those attending Dole Institute dedication

LAWRENCE -- From the beginning, Bob Dole has said he wanted the Institute of Politics that bears his name at the University of Kansas to be bipartisan. The latest evidence of that comes from former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern and former President Gerald R. Ford, both longtime friends of Dole's.

Both men have accepted Dole's invitation to participate in the dedication of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, July 20 through 22. Both McGovern and Ford have distinguished World War II records, making them natural participants in what KU organizers are billing as the "Greatest Generation's Greatest Celebration." The event promises to attract thousands of World War II veterans to Lawrence for a vintage air show, a re-created USO-style show, a living history encampment and vehicle display, a dance with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and much more.

An authentic war hero, McGovern left Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D., in 1943. He flew 35 combat missions as a B-24 bomber pilot in Europe, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. Much later, he inspired Stephen Ambrose's best-selling 2001 volume, "The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany."

Returning to his native South Dakota, McGovern became a much admired professor of history and political science before beginning a 22-year career in Congress, put on hold when President John F. Kennedy named him the first director of the Food For Peace Program, and later conducting a 1972 presidential campaign. Since leaving the Senate in 1981, McGovern has served as a United Nations delegate to the General Assembly, a visiting professor at numerous institutions and the first UN global ambassador on hunger.

It was a shared commitment to fighting hunger in the United States and around the world that first brought Dole and McGovern together in the early 1970s. Out of their seemingly unlikely alliance grew a close friendship that endures to this day.

"In his letter accepting Senator Dole's invitation, Senator McGovern said there was almost nothing he wouldn't do for Bob Dole -- except vote Republican," said Richard Norton Smith, director of the Dole Institute. "Clearly Dole's not the only former senator around here with a sense of humor."

The Ford-Dole connection, best known from the 1976 presidential campaign in which they were running mates, actually dates back to the early 1960s. As a candidate for House minority leader, Ford owed his narrow victory over incumbent Charles Halleck to the Kansas delegation, led by a young Congressman named Bob Dole. Dole was not alone in seeing the leadership qualities of the former Eagle Scout and University of Michigan football hero who had turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers to study law at Yale. A pre-World War II isolationist, Ford's wartime experiences led him to adopt an "internationalist" outlook similar to that of his political hero, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg.

In April 1942, Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and was commissioned as an ensign. A year later he began service on the aircraft carrier USS Monterey, which took part in South Pacific operations and nearly was lost in a vicious typhoon in the Philippine Sea in December 1944. Returning to his native Grand Rapids, Mich., Ford the internationalist took on an entrenched Republican incumbent over the issue of American involvement in global affairs. In January 1949, Ford took the oath of office for the first of 14 terms on Capitol Hill. He quickly earned the trust of members in both parties, leading President Lyndon Johnson to appoint him to the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy and prompting his fellow Republicans to elevate him to the post of minority leader in 1965. Eight years later, President Richard Nixon appointed Ford as vice president to replace the disgraced Spiro Agnew.

Ford became the nation's 38th president on Aug. 9, 1974, when Nixon resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal. For the next two and a half years, Ford would try to heal a nation all but torn apart by the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. His controversial pardon of Nixon today is widely regarded as an act of political courage, sufficient to earn him the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage award in 2001. Following his loss to Jimmy Carter in the November 1976 presidential election, Ford took up residence in Rancho Mirage, Calif. In the years since, he has lectured at more than 200 college campuses, hosted the annual World Forum of the American Enterprise Institute and worked closely with his wife, Betty, founder of the world-famous Betty Ford Center.

One other bond unites McGovern and Ford: both received the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor -- from President Bill Clinton on Aug. 9, 1999 -- 25 years to the day that Gerald Ford was sworn into office in the same East Room of the White House.