McCain Explains Falwell Reconciliation

"I've Tried To Reconcile With My Enemies, My Adversaries, And I Have Always Benefited By It," He Says

(AP)  Republican presidential candidate John McCain used an anecdote about the time he spent as a prisoner of war to explain his reconciliation with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, whom he once described as among the "agents of intolerance."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, said Monday night that when he was held captive in North Vietnam, he heard a speech by a member of Students for a Democratic Society over a loudspeaker. He said the man giving the speech had traveled to Vietnam to sign a mock peace treaty with the North Vietnamese government. Many years later, McCain said, the man came to his office and apologized. McCain said the man wanted to work with him to promote human rights. McCain said he agreed.

When Falwell later came to his office and sat in the same chair, asking for reconciliation, McCain said he thought it was important to make peace with the televangelist.

"When reconciliation is called for, I've tried to reconcile with my enemies, my adversaries, and I have always benefited by it," McCain said.

As a candidate for president in 2000, McCain gave a speech during the Republican primaries in which he described the conservative Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson - both of Virginia - as "agents of intolerance."

McCain commented at the University of Pennsylvania, where the campus College Republicans group held a forum during which students questioned the Arizona senator. The man asking the question said he had volunteered for McCain in the 2000 New Hampshire primary and was disappointed that McCain had since embraced Falwell.

McCain also spoke about fighting climate change, the lack of public confidence in government and the Iraq war.

Earlier Monday, a campaign adviser said McCain will make his seventh trip to Iraq during the Thanksgiving holiday.

McCain will be part of a congressional delegation making the trip, including Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who has been among the strongest Iraq war supporters in Congress. Further details have not been released for security reasons, the adviser said.

McCain has made his support of the Iraq troop increase by the U.S. a central theme of his presidential campaign. He had long called for sending in more troops, an idea President Bush embraced earlier this year.