As director, McGovern urged the greater use of food to enable foreign economic development, saying, "We should thank God that we have a food abundance and use the over-supply among the underprivileged at home and abroad." He found space for the program in the Executive Office Building rather than be subservient to either the State Department or Department of Agriculture. McGovern worked with deputy director James W. Symington and Kennedy advisor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in visiting South America to discuss surplus grain distribution, and attended meetings of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In June 1961 McGovern became seriously ill with hepatitis, contracted from an infected White House dispensary needle used to give him inoculations for his South American trip; he was hospitalized and unable to come to his office for two months.