From Vietnam Cell, McCain Mused On Future

Washington Post: In Hanoi Prison, McCain Had Resolved To Fulfill Ideals About Leadership And Character In Public Office

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Michael Leahy

To endure their long ordeal, John McCain and the other U.S. servicemen held as prisoners of war in North Vietnam in the 1960s developed a number of survival techniques. None was quite as effective as the one former Navy pilot Richard Stratton remembers: "If you kept your mind occupied, you were going to be okay."

Stratton would imagine meticulously assembling a large glider and flying it over the Alps. Another prisoner imagined himself fishing. But McCain had the most audacious dream of all, and he shared his vision one day with a group of fellow POWs. "He was talking about his father to us and then he said: 'I want to be president of the United States. Someday I'm going to be president,' " Stratton recalls. "If the cell wasn't so small, we'd have been rolling around laughing."

His friend, thought Stratton, ought to be concentrating far less on his fantasy and more on how to redirect a naval career that had been adrift before he was shot down over Hanoi. "We reminded him that he had dug himself a big hole with his demerits in the past and nearly being the bottom man of his class at the Naval Academy," Stratton recalls. "And now he was talking about being president? 'Come on, John. Get your career straightened out.' "

Not at all dissuaded, McCain offered his view on the meaning of real command, shaped in part by his father's perspective on genuine power. He wanted to be the one who made the decisions, McCain said, and his father had taught him that even such impressive-sounding jobs as chief of naval operations, the service's highest uniformed position, didn't always provide that opportunity. The only job that guaranteed it was that of president, McCain believed.

"Pursuit of command," as McCain often referred to it, was an ethos bordering on obsession in his family, and it was in Vietnam that he embraced it. But though McCain was the son and grandson of admirals, he decided his pursuit would be in another arena -- politics, where he would come to define success not in terms of ideas or legislation but in fulfilling his family's ideals of leadership and character.

Over the next few years, according to the recollections of men who knew him well, McCain didn't vacillate over conflicting career paths as much as lurch from one to the other, depending on how much he was despairing at a given moment about his reputation in the Navy, or how he was gauging his relative chances for leadership in politics vs. the military.

He hadn't come any closer to deciding on his future when, in March 1973, a peace accord gave the POWs their freedom and McCain was suddenly flying home toward a reunion with his wife, Carol, and their three children in Florida. Even before their plane reached the mainland, McCain and the other POWs received an inkling of the country's fascination with them: When they made a stop in Hawaii, the tarmac was bathed in lights and ringed by television cameras.

The national jubilation and intense media coverage that greeted the returning men only heightened McCain's indecision about his future. He discovered he had new status, new friends and, potentially, new career opportunities outside the military. A president, a magnate and a powerful governor all wanted to fete him and the other POWs. President Richard M. Nixon issued orders to arrange for a gala White House dinner. Ross Perot, a Naval Academy graduate and billionaire entrepreneur, followed up on the financial assistance he had given to Carol McCain and some other POW wives during their husbands' captivity by throwing a huge party for the freed men.

California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who had developed a keen interest in the POWs, chose McCain to be the principal speaker at a prayer breakfast that he was having in Sacramento for about 1,000 businessmen and civic leaders. Reagan introduced him as a war hero and personal inspiration, and McCain spent most of his short speech recounting how he'd been held for a while in a stiflingly hot box placed outside under a broiling sun.

"He talked about the desperation of the situation, and about the box being the size of nothing more than a couple of coffins," remembers Nancy Clark Reynolds, a former Reagan aide. "Then he said something about finding a prayer scratched on the side of this box by a previous prisoner and how much that'd helped him. . . . He recited the prayer. By then everybody in there was crying. Ronald Reagan, too. If you were watching it, you realized the power of John McCain's story."

During the whirlwind of well-wishers and media that greeted his return to his Florida home, McCain told neighbors he was eager to get back to active duty. But within a few weeks, he confided to another naval officer that he planned to retire from the Navy as soon as he reached the 20-year mark necessary for obtaining a pension. He had new plans, he said cryptically.

Bob Fitzsimmons, who had served as a liaison between the Navy and Carol McCain during her husband's captivity, expressed surprise. "John, why the hell would you want to do anything like that? Your father and grandfather are four-star admirals -- you could do a lot in the Navy," he recalls saying.

As Fitzsimmons remembers, McCain simply shook his head and said: "Nope, that's not what I want to do. I've got other plans. I've had a lot of time to think about it. I know what I'm doing."

Testing the Waters

In 1976, despite the grumblings of some officers who believed that his family name had won him what his qualifications could not, McCain became the commanding officer of a large naval aviator training squadron at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Fla. The squadron, VA-174, had seldom received stellar performance reports -- a consequence of allowing too many disabled aircraft to sit in hangars, which left it unable to provide enough training hours to please the Navy. Under McCain, the squadron's training hours rose, as the maintenance department fixed the ailing planes and got them into the air.

Meanwhile, McCain explored the possibilities of a political career. Intrigued by the electoral ambitions of several other Vietnam veterans, he had called former POW Leo Thorsness, who had won South Dakota's 1974 Republican senatorial primary, earning the right to face off against George S. McGovern, the antiwar senator and the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee. "McCain gave us his congratulations," remembers John LeBoutillier, a Thorsness campaign aide who went on to become a New York congressman. "He was very excited about politics -- he wanted to get into the game."

In early 1976, a group of GOP businessmen from the Jacksonville area urged McCain to run for Congress, though other influential Republicans, including former Florida state senator Tom Slade, cautioned him against running in a hopeless race against a popular Democratic incumbent, Charlie Bennett. A World War II veteran and reliable defense establishment supporter, Bennett thrived in a district where Democrats vastly outnumbered Republicans.
McCain went to Slade and said, as the local Republican leader recalls, "I think I can beat Charlie Bennett."

Slade responded bluntly: "If you think so, John, you're the only man on Earth who does."

Other Republican leaders, citing private polls, told McCain he needed to serve in another office and build his political profile before running for Congress. But McCain was insistent. He told classmates from the Naval Academy of the interest in his potential candidacy, to which one of his closest academy friends, Chuck Larson, voiced his incredulity. "John, that'd be the stupidest thing you could do," the future four-star admiral recalls telling McCain. "You have 18 years or so in the Navy. You should stay in for the 20 years at least and get the pension. Where is the money for this race? Where is your organization? John, get your pension."

A disappointed McCain made it clear that he wasn't giving up on his dream, merely deferring it. When Slade reiterated his view of Bennett's invincibility, McCain retorted, "Well, if I can't beat him, then I'll find somebody else I can whip."

By 1977, McCain was looking beyond Florida, letting the Navy brass know he was interested in coming to Washington and working, as his father once had, as a naval liaison to Congress. But while the elder McCain had operated as chief of legislative affairs for the Navy, his son would serve, if chosen, in a subordinate capacity.

The decision to hire McCain fell largely to the commander of naval operations, four-star Adm. James Holloway, who had known Jack McCain during his liaison days and thought that his son might be aptly suited for the same line of work. "John was a personable young guy who had been brought up in the right atmosphere," Holloway recalls. "I mean, he had that kind of social education that came from seeing his parents entertain a lot of people from Congress. . . . He had good genes, and he also had a good sense of humor and social skills at a cocktail party. He was a guy who could play poker and help with arrangements, a good fellow."

The new job demanded conflicting loyalties, not an unusual dilemma for naval liaisons. On the one hand, he was supposed to represent the wishes of the Navy secretary and the country's commander in chief, President Jimmy Carter. But Carter and Navy Secretary W. Graham Claytor Jr. had a view of the defense establishment that was at odds with that of the Navy's brass, who chafed against the administration's trimming of defense expenditures and its reluctance to support appropriations for several big-ticket defense projects.

Carter, himself a Naval Academy graduate, struck McCain as a misguided and ineffectual chief executive. Behind the scenes, the liaison joined high-ranking naval officers in stealthily performing end runs around the administration, lobbying senators on behalf of defense appropriations resisted by Carter, including funding for a new $2 billion nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. McCain's efforts brought him closer to Senate hawks, particularly Texan John Tower, then the leader of the Republican minority on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Tower saw McCain as a genuine war hero," remembers Rhett Dawson, who was an aide to Tower. "He was looking to McCain for great things from the moment he got there."

The senator frequently went out of his way to pop into the liaison's cramped office for a drink and a long chat. McCain had become the older man's tonic, Tower aides thought -- a raconteur with an endless supply of exotic tales, a bon vivant as comfortable having a shot of whiskey as he was discussing Hemingway and recounting the adrenaline rush that went with flying in combat.
"Tower took delight in McCain's enthusiasm about everything," Dawson recalls. "And McCain turned to Tower for advice about a lot, political and personal." But, as much as mutual affection, the business of politics drove Tower toward McCain. "Tower prided himself on having a good eye for political horseflesh, and he thought he saw something in McCain," Dawson says. "A lot of people thought he had the right background to be a candidate."

Among those drawn to McCain was Sen. William S. Cohen, a Republican best known during the 1970s as the Maine congressman who bucked the prevailing sentiment of his party during the Watergate scandal by voting for articles of impeachment against Nixon. Not even Cohen's 1978 election to the Senate had softened the grudges of powerful Republicans. "I was an outcast," recalls Cohen, who, looking at McCain, thought he detected a kindred political spirit. "I saw John as somebody drawn to the unorthodox. . . . He was not going to be a party-line guy."

The two men became close, and soon McCain was talking about his worries over what to do next with his career. His war-damaged shoulders prevented him from reaching high enough above his head in a cockpit to pull an ejection lever, leaving him unable to continue flying. And if he couldn't fly, he couldn't lead a carrier or battle group at sea, which, in the opinion of many high-ranking naval officers, was a prerequisite to becoming an admiral for someone in McCain's position.

Meanwhile, his personal life was in chaos, his marriage collapsing. Unknown to his family's circle of friends, McCain had spent time with other women, including his future wife, a 24-year-old special-education teacher and Arizona native named Cindy Hensley, a tall, blond beauty he'd met in Hawaii while on liaison business. The McCains' breakup escaped public notice. They divorced in 1980 and during that same year McCain prepared to marry Cindy, whose Phoenix-based father, Jim Hensley, owned a flourishing Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship.

Leaving the Navy

As McCain transformed his private life, he was moving toward a career change, looking for a new path to leadership. In late 1980, he started talking seriously to Cohen about the possibility of running for a House seat. "He thought Congress was a mess and that he could do better than some of the people there," Cohen recalls.

In early 1981, shortly after taking office, the Reagan administration's new Navy secretary, John Lehman, asked to see McCain. Eager to keep the supportive liaison in the Navy, Lehman sought to reassure McCain that he was on his way to becoming an admiral. But Lehman couldn't guarantee that McCain would rise to four stars, and McCain's doubts about reaching his father's and grandfather's status overrode all other considerations.

He listened for a while longer before telling Lehman he was leaving the Navy. "I think he'd made up his mind before he ever saw me," Lehman says. "He'd been excited by what he saw on the Hill, I think."

[dante805]

No good American will actually VOTE for Obama. The Chavez loving castro apologist is DANGEROUS to this country''s future. Look at his associates; ACORN, AYERS, WRIGHT, FARAKHAN, Pelosi, Reid. Do you really want Obama appointing 3 supreme court justices just like Ruth Ginsburg? Scary. think twice before voting for a Marxist.

[tigerrram9]

I commend John McCain for his service to his country, but I don''t agree with hime giving interview while a prisoner of war. He should have followed the Code of Conduct to give only Name Rank and Serial Number. How many viet nam prisoners of war failed to receive medical aid and died in captivity because they abided by the code of conduct. I served 21 year and I still remember the past of the code.."When questioned should I become a prisoner of war, I am bound to give only name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.
John, Why didn''t you abide by our code of conduct? Why give information and grant interviews? Many prisoners died because they wouldn''t cooperate with the enemy. Why? My friend and neighbor came home paralyzed for life from viet nam..he also served honorably.
God Bless America and our brave servicemen and service women.
America when you vote in November vote with your heart and good judgement. Don''t vote because you fear another human being another American.
VOTE YOUR HEART NOT YOUR FEARS..

[ioweign]

McCain attended ACORN rally

The very same ACORN his campaign now rails against and is accusing of trying to "steal" the election for Obama:

Miami Dade College press release:

Miami, Florida - February 20, 2006 - Leaders from a diverse array of sectors will hold a rally in Miami on Thursday, February 23, 2006, in support of comprehensive immigration reform in an effort to keep immigration reform at the forefront of the public debate. Leaders from both political parties, immigrant communities, labor, business, and religious organizations will gather to call on Washington to enact workable reform.

The rally will feature Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as the headline speaker along with elected officials, immigrants and key local and national leaders. Sen. McCain is one of the chief sponsors of the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act; bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform legislation introduced last Congress and scheduled for consideration by the Senate in the coming weeks. A similar rally with Sen. McCain is planned for New York City on February 27.

[abbe91]

"In 1976, despite the grumblings of some officers who believed that his family name had won him what his qualifications could not," ...

See, for example,
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-aviator6-2008oct06,0,7633315.story

[jimesmith2]

I think this is a legitimate question: What about all the propaganda films he made for the Communist Vietnamese? Is there a film fest we can attend to see our brave hero resist his captures? There were plenty of prisoners who bravely did not make or succumb to making anti-American films.

[shingles1]

This Washington Post piece sounds like it was written by the McCain campaign.

For a slice of the real McCain, in which he comes across as a completely selfish and dishonest sc*mbag, who has always put McCain First, read this:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

[ubrew12]

Carter wisely understood that when Iran fell to Islamism, it was just the culmination of 40 years of Republican destruction of the democracy in Iran, that occurred when Eisenhower deposed the duly-elected Prime Minister of Iran and installed the dictator Shah in his place. (Republicans and democracy have always had a loose association, at best.) Carter patiently waited them out... your hero Reagan actually sold the Iranians weapons systems (under the table for which he was almost impeached).

Learn a little history before you bring up the Carter years: you embarrass yourself and your cause.

[ubrew12]

Logansprings said: "many of us do remember the Carter years -- double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, gas lines, our citizens being terrorized and taken hostages in Iran."

Unlike predecessors Nixon and Ford, Carter chose to pay for the Vietnam War AND deal with oil shortages directly, without ballooning the Federal Debt. This led to high inflation, so Carter appointed Paul Volcker to the Fed to tame the inflation beast, which he did (too late to help Carter politically, of course, but Carter was more about the nation than his political career, unlike most Republicans).

And when Russia invaded Afghanistan to control future oil pipelines from Central Asia to Saudi Arabia, Carter armed the mujahadeen, who embroiled the Soviets in their own private Vietnam. Historians believe that Carters action in Afghanistan did as much to end the Soviet Empire as Reagan''s bluster did (and, of usual, Carters actions was incredibly cheap compared to Reagans, which helped bankrupt America 30 years later).

[Torilin]

herald the economic leadership of a man who just voted for a $700,000,000,000.00 Wall Street bailout on credit?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by Logansprings

That bailout is one of those things that''s needed but no one wants to do it. If we allow all these banks to bite dust what happen is that the FDIC will still have to dish out the cash to each single account up to $100,000/each individual....the price could be much higher than 700 billion.

[dburfears]

DISHONOR AND INFIDELITY OF CINDY & JOHN

Cindy CHEATED with JOHN McSHAME while JOHN WAS STILL MARRIED TO HIS FIRST (and FAITHFUL) WIFE. Cindy is a CHEAP HOME WRECKER.

Every American needs to know the story of McSHAME''s REPEATED infidelities against his first wife. AFTER his first wife was MILDLY DISABLED IN A CAR ACCIDENT, McSHAME treated her like cr*p, having adulterous affairs with multiple women. Then Cindy became his adulterous lover while John McSHAME was still married. McShame married this rich money-pump- a perfect match for his political ambitions.

This happened in McSHAME''s 30''s, when he had a 10 YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER with his first wife. McSHAME is a fraud. He cannot take care of his own family, let alone our country. Cindy is an adulterer and home wrecker.

McSHAME''s SLEAZE is a horrible indictment against his judgment and ability to lead this country.

Every woman and responsible man should know the REAL McSHAME STORY: Poor Officer, despicable husband, absentee father, Navy troublemaker, and liar.

This couple is certainly no "FAMILY VALUES" example. Just hypocrites being supported by hypocrites who claim they are the "family values" party.

[wogerwabbit]

The Republicans can rationalize as much as they like, but the last 4 years of hate and fear have been a freakin disaster and the blame has settled squarely on your shoulders. Blame Carter, blame Clinton, blame Obama, blame anybody you want, but first blame yourselves because everybody else is. You won''t even own up to the mess you''ve made and expect us to trust you to fix what you don''t even see.

[logansprings]

I guess that as long as this blog is going to devolve into a biography on G. Gordon Liddy, we might as well make it interesting:

G. Gordon Liddy has done it and speaks from personal experience. Who else has been a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, an Army artillery officer, and the youngest Bureau Supervisor in the FBI who out drew and captured a man twice on the Ten Most Wanted list?

The G-Man has also been a high Treasury official, a White House aide and a maximum security prisoner. He wrote the memo that led to the creation of the DEA, helped start the first Sky Marshal program and selected their weapons, is the author of three best-sellers and has acted in numerous television shows and movies.

An Israeli trained paratrooper who has jumped with the elite Israeli army, Liddy has the NEED FOR SPEED. He drives a 200mph sports car and rides two Harley Davidsons, has piloted a Soviet aerobatic plane and World War II allied and Luftwaffe aircraft.

The G-Man has been there, done that, and taken home the Tee shirt. That''s the difference. What other men can only fantasize and dream about, G. Gordon Liddy has done and still does!

At least he has experience, which is more than can be said for Barack Obama...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The G-man is the real thing!

[logansprings]

"You are right and every other American who disagrees with you is wrong. You are the only one who accurately remembers what happened in the lead up to the Carter Administration and during the Carter Administration. You are the one with all the answers. All hail Logansprings."

--posted by buffalonyusa--

With just a few corrections, buffalohead, you have just posted the mantra of the Obamabots for their Lord and Messiah:

Lord Obama, you are all knowing and wise. Your wisdom is righteous and every other American who disagrees with you will be assailed by the Truth Squads, William Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright!

Lord Obama, you are the one and the only one who can lead us to the promised land of wealth redistribution and national socialism that tried and failed during the Carter Administration!

Lord Obama, you are the one and the only one with all knowledge and the kool-aid!

All hail Lord Obama!

[ioweign]

Liddy''s "continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great:" Did McCain mean to include Liddy''s instructions to listeners of his radio show in 1994 (around the time Ayres and Obama were on a board together discussing education programs and other plots) on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents (aim for the head)?

If ATF agents attempt to curtail a citizen''s gun ownership, Liddy counseled, "Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they''re going to be wearing bulletproof vests."

More recently, Liddy explained making the Clintons objects of shooting practice: "I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we - I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn''t. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House."

[ioweign]

In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain''s senatorial re-election campaign -- the two posed for photographs together; and as recently as May, 2007, as a presidential candidate, McCain was a guest on Liddy''s syndicated radio show. Inexplicably, McCain heaped praise on his host''s values. During the segment, McCain said he was "proud" of Liddy, and praised Liddy''s "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

[logansprings]

So, if we are comparing Palin to Obama while using the word inexperience, that would imply that the Democrats have their ticket upside down, which I would agree with.

While I don''t agree with the politics of Biden as he is the 3rd most liberal voting member of the Senate (Obama is 1st most liberal voting Senator during his 143 days of actual work in the Senate), I would agree that Joe Biden has the most experience, or as buffalonyusa puts it, Biden is "quite old now"

By the way, I was 18 when Carter ran for President and cast my first Presidential vote for him. But, some mistakes you just have to own up to and live with.

Unless you are Barack Obama.

[ioweign]

During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg''s psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.

Certainly McCain''s continuing "association" and relationship with the convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy might suggest that is the case, if we are to apply the standards drawn by the McCain campaign.

[logansprings]

How is it, Peanuthead, that you can decry Nixon as a fool for going off the gold standard and then herald the economic leadership of a man who just voted for a $700,000,000,000.00 Wall Street bailout on credit?

[logansprings]

Well, in case you missed this one too, the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center was not the first one. The only reason that the World Trade Center wasn''t taken down during the Clinton Administration is that the terrorists botched the job. So while Clinton fiddled, the terrorist fires burned.

As such, the failed military and foreign policy of the Clinton administration (and the luck of a botched terrorist attack) set the groundwork and the stage for a successful attack.

But, don''t misunderstand. Such assertions do not suggest commendations for the failures of the Bush administration. By being inexperienced in leadership and handling important issues in intelligence, military matters, and terrorism, the Bush administration failed to make the correct decisions and misled or was misled or both. But, that doesn''t change what Obama can''t do.

As for the War in Iraq, apparently you have missed the fact that our troops are not coming home to stop the bloodshed (as earlier promised by Barack Obama). They will simply be "redeployed" to another arena of human sacrifice where the Soviet Union failed earlier. So, the Obama plan is to not learn from another''s failure but to follow in the path of failure by full deployment in Afghanistan (kind of like the way we followed the French into Viet Nam under Kennedy and Johnson).

There''s some more "Change" we can believe in...

[ioweign]

Operation Eagle Claw failure actually falls on the military under Carter''s watch.