Foss for Congress

Banned by the state constitution from seeking a third two-year term as governor of South Dakota, hard-shelled Joseph Jacob Foss, 42, Marine Corps fighter-pilot ace in World War II (26 kills and the Medal of Honor), announced last September that he was retiring from politics, looked toward a comfortable job in private industry next January. Last week Joe Foss changed his mind, opened a campaign for the First District congressional seat held by George McGovern, South Dakota's first Democratic Congressman in 18 years. Reason: Foss was persuaded to run by 50 leading South Dakota Republicans headed by National Committeeman Axel Beck, who argued that Foss was the only Republican with a chance of beating Democrat McGovern and of staving off a statewide Democratic landslide in once religiously Republican South Dakota.

Such is the changed political climate of South Dakota that even Joe Foss enters the race as an underdog to a Democrat. George McGovern, 35, himself a World War II B-24 pilot with a Distinguished Flying Cross, is a hard worker and a skilled orator, has since his election in 1956 entrenched his position. As governor, Joe Foss, blamed for rising real estate taxes, won 1956 re-election by only 25,000 votes --and the First District does not include his areas of greatest strength. But Foss's greatest handicap this year is the same that got George McGovern elected in the first place: the Midwestern protest against Republican Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson for proposing lower farm subsidies--which has not subsided one whit.

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