Ever the diplomat, Senator George McGovern opened his address to the Marco Police Foundation by saying he chose to move to Marco Island because he heard there was so little crime.

The senator reminisced about growing up in South Dakota during difficult times, dust storms, and a depression.

"In the '30s we didn't have money. I don't remember feeling poor," he said, "because no one else had money either."

In Mitchell High School he soon traded a position on the football team for the debating team.

"I must have realized it would be good for public life."

When asked if he missed the Senate, McGovern said that there are days when he feels a "tug" for the quarter century he spent there, and most of all he misses the storytelling ability of the old southern Democrats like "Judge" Senator Sam Irving of North Carolina.

McGovern related how a course in music appreciation had him glued to the radio to write a critique of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, on Dec. 7, 1941, when the program was interrupted to announce the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

"I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was," he admitted, "but I instinctively knew I'd enlist."

McGovern and nine other young men went to Omaha, Neb. to be recruited.

"The 10 of us decided to be fighter pilots," he said. "Then we heard the Army was giving out free meal tickets - that's the cheapest I've ever sold out!"

He flew many bombing missions and recalled one frightening incident when his plane was hit over Austria and he had to hobble back to base.

Forty years later, as a visiting professor at the University of Innsbruck, a journalist who heard he had flown missions over Austria requested an interview. Reluctantly, McGovern agreed.

"Sir, do you ever regret bombing beautiful cities like Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck?" he was asked.

"Nobody likes war, it's a terrible thing. Hitler was a terrible monster. Austria was thoroughly integrated. No, I don't regret it. One thing I regret: we took a beating and as we started to come down, I realized our number 10 bomb didn't fall and we'd have to get rid of it. It was high noon and the bomb fell in the middle of an Austrian farm. When I got back to base, I got a cable telling me my wife had given birth to our first child. I thought to myself that I had killed a young German family in exchange."

That night in Innsbruck, an elderly Austrian farmer called the television station.

"Tell the American," he instructed them, "that it was my farm he hit. We saw the lone, crippled bomber - I got my wife and three children out of the house and we got down in a ditch. None of us were hurt. We detested Adolf Hitler. It was OK with us."

"Forty years later, I had redemption," McGovern said.

The senator discussed feeling "isolated" in Marco Island, surrounded by Republicans.

"If you think Marco Island is a stronghold of Republicans," he laughed, "you should have seen South Dakota: two Democrats and 108 Republicans. I knew I'd have to work hard in 1972, as no Republican or Democrat, especially a junior senator, had ever run in South Dakota - especially against an entrenched Republican president.

"I've never been against Republicans," he said. "My parents were both Republicans. My father was a Methodist minister, and during the war when his parishioners came and raved about the President, I recall his saying, 'Remember, the man is doing the best he can.'"

McGovern said to this day he has no regrets about saying what he thought: "No one today thinks Viet Nam was a good idea. I felt I did nothing more patriotic than speak against that ill-conceived, ill-begotten war. I cannot walk along that black marble wall in Washington without choking up."

Currently, McGovern endorses General Clark as "a well qualified person. In politics and in government, as Jack Kennedy said, there's no substitute for brains. Clark graduated in first place from West Point and went on to be a Rhodes Scholar.

"Democrats are accused of being weak in defense and national security. Clark is a four-star, decorated general who should be immune to that innuendo. He's a very tough, very capable candidate."

When asked about Cuba, McGovern said he would recognize the country and set up normal relations with them.

"We recognize China and Russia - I'd give Cuba the same consideration. It's in our best interest to have embassies and trade with Moscow and Beijing. If we're afraid of Castro, we need to have trained American foreign service officers watching him. I wouldn't let a handful of Cuban refugees in Miami dictate our policy. We haven't been in Cuba so we don't really know what's going on there. Since I don't have any interest in running for president, I don't have to worry about what I say. I say the same thing now I did then - I stand alone."

Republican or Democrat, McGovern was hardly alone when the audience stood to applaud him warmly.