McCain, John

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John McCain

Born August 29, 1936
Panama Canal Zone, Panama

U.S. senator from Arizona, 1987-present;
U.S. Navy pilot who spent more than five years
as a prisoner of war (POW) in North Vietnam

John S. McCain is one of the best-known American veterans to serve in the Vietnam War. A fighter pilot with the U.S. Navy during the war, he was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 while on a bombing mission. After ejecting from his plane, he was captured by Communist forces. He spent the next five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war (POW) before gaining his release in 1973. After returning to the United States, he became a U.S. senator representing the state of Arizona. In 2000 he launched a campaign to win the Republican nomination for the presidency. McCain's war hero status and reputation for honesty made him a strong candidate, but he eventually lost the nomination to Texas Governor George W. Bush.

Member of a famous military family

John Sidney McCain III was born August 29, 1936, in Panama, to John S. McCain, Jr., an American naval officer, and Roberta (Wright) McCain. As McCain grew up, he realized that he was a member of one of America's most prominent military families. In fact, his father and grandfather were the first father-and-son admirals in the history of the U.S. Navy. McCain's paternal grandfather, John S. McCain, Sr., commanded U.S. naval carriers in the Pacific during World War II. McCain's father, meanwhile, was a highly regarded officer who later commanded all American forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War.

As a youngster, McCain was known for his fearless but rebellious nature. After graduating from Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1954, he reluctantly enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. McCain had mixed feelings about pursuing a navy career, but he knew that his family expected him to continue its tradition of naval service.

After arriving at the academy, McCain quickly emerged as a leader among his fellow midshipmen (students). But he also gained a reputation as a rowdy rule-breaker. In fact, he accumulated so many demerits (marks against his record) for various infractions that his student ranking plummeted. He eventually graduated fifth from the bottom of his class of 795 students in 1958.

After graduating, McCain entered the U.S. Navy, where he trained as a fighter pilot. In 1965 he married Carol Shepp and adopted her two sons, Doug and Andrew. They later had a daughter together named Sidney Ann.

Goes to Vietnam

As McCain's navy career progressed, he followed the growing war in Vietnam with great interest. This war pitted the U.S.-supported nation of South Vietnam against the Communist nation of North Vietnam and its guerrilla allies—known as the Viet Cong—who operated in the South. The war began in the mid-1950s, when Communists first initiated efforts to take over South Vietnam and unite it with the North under one Communist government. But the United States strongly opposed the Communist maneuvers because of fears that a takeover might trigger Communist aggression in other parts of the world. As a result, the United States provided military and financial aid to South Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In 1965 the United States escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War. It sent thousands of American combat troops into the South and executed hundreds of air raids against Communist targets. But deepening U.S. involvement in the war failed to defeat the joint Viet Cong-North Vietnamese forces. Instead, the war settled into a bloody stalemate that eventually claimed the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers and caused bitter internal divisions across America.

McCain was sent to Vietnam in 1967, when American involvement in the war was reaching its height. He was assigned to the aircraft carrier Forrestal off the coast of North Vietnam. Over the next few months, he flew numerous combat missions against North Vietnamese positions. On July 29, 1967, however, he was nearly killed in a disastrous accident on the deck of the Forrestal. That day, a rocket from another aircraft accidentally came loose and struck the fuel tank of McCain's plane just as he was preparing to fly off the flight deck. The rocket triggered a deadly blaze that quickly spread across the deck. McCain barely escaped the flames, which quickly reached several other airplanes. Within a matter of minutes, the fire detonated several other powerful bombs and destroyed dozens of airplanes on the carrier. The massive fire did $72 million of damage to the ship, not including aircraft destroyed. It also claimed the lives of 134 servicemen, making it the worst military accident of the Vietnam War.

Shot down over Hanoi

The fire forced the Forrestal to undergo massive repairs. Eager to continue flying, McCain transferred to the Oriskany, another U.S. aircraft career that was in need of additional combat pilots.

On October 26, 1967, McCain took off from the Oriskany on his twenty-third bombing mission in Vietnam. He was part of a group of fighters that had been ordered to bomb power plants in the North Vietnamese capital city of Hanoi. While flying above Hanoi, however, a North Vietnamese antiaircraft missile destroyed the right wing of McCain's plane. As his plane spun out of control, McCain was forced to eject. He landed in a lake, where a crowd of Vietnamese dragged him out of the water, beat him, stabbed him with a bayonet, and turned him over to authorities.

McCain was taken to a prison known as the "Hanoi Hilton," where North Vietnam kept many American POWs. He was thrown in a prison cell with two broken arms, a broken shoulder, and a shattered knee. Over the next several days, his captors demanded that he provide them with military information, but he refused to cooperate. When McCain's interrogators asked him for the names of fellow American pilots, he gave them the names of the starting offensive line of the Green Bay Packers football team.

McCain received no medical care for his injuries for nine days. At that time, however, his captors learned that his father was a high-ranking officer with the U.S. Navy. They treated his wounds and allowed fellow POWs to help McCain, but the delay in treatment had a serious negative impact. He never regained full use of either of his arms or his broken leg.

After seven months of captivity, McCain was offered an early release from prison. The opportunity to go home was tempting, but he refused it. Instead, he obeyed the American prisoner of war code of conduct, which states that prisoners should only accept release in the order in which they are captured. By the time of McCain's imprisonment, more than a hundred other American POWs had already been captured. McCain knew that accepting early release would hurt the morale of his fellow prisoners and give the North Vietnamese a propaganda tool (a psychological weapon to hurt enemy morale) to use against the United States.

McCain's refusal to accept release ahead of his fellow prisoners infuriated his captors. They beat him for a week until he signed a statement confessing that he was a war criminal. While he is not blamed for signing the confession because of the torture he endured, McCain continues to express deep regret about it. "It's the only blemish [on my war record]," he told Robert Timberg in The Nightingale's Song. "It's something I'll never get over."

Over the next few years, McCain endured long months of solitary confinement in which he was not allowed to communicate with anyone. He also lost a third of his body weight because of malnutrition. In addition, he was beaten so many times for his defiant attitude that most of his teeth were broken off at the gum line. Finally, McCain's captors hung him up by his broken arms for hours at a time and tortured him in a number of other ways. But despite the physical and emotional trauma of his ordeal, McCain refused to give up his hope of eventually regaining his freedom.

McCain's POW ordeal ends

McCain and the rest of the American POWs held in Hanoi were finally released in March 1973, after the United States and North Vietnam agreed on a treaty that called for the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam. "When the American prisoners were released in 1973, we were flown first to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines," McCain recalled in People Weekly. "I have often maintained that I left Vietnam behind me when I arrived at Clark. That is an exaggeration. But from the moment I regained my freedom I was intent on not letting Vietnam, or at the least the most difficult memories of my time there, intrude on my future happiness. Looking back in anger at any experience is self-destructive, and I am grateful to have avoided it."

After receiving medical treatment in the Philippines, McCain returned to America, where he received a hero's welcome. In recognition of his bravery and sacrifice in service to his country, McCain received many of the nation's highest military awards, including the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

McCain then resumed his military career. He enrolled in the National War College in Washington, D.C., in 1973–74, then returned to flying as a training squadron commander. He was promoted to captain in 1977, the same year that the Navy named him their liaison (official representative) to the U.S. Senate. Around this time, however, McCain's marriage began to crumble, in part because he engaged in a number of extramarital affairs. In January 1980 McCain and his first wife divorced after a long separation. Five months later, he married Cindy Hensley, with whom he eventually had four children.

Enters the world of politics

McCain retired from the Navy in 1981 after twenty-two years of military service. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he became involved in the state's strong Republican Party. In 1982 he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican. He was reelected by a comfortable margin in 1984.

In 1986 McCain replaced Barry Goldwater (see entry) as one of Arizona's two U.S. senators after Goldwater decided to retire. Soon after assuming his Senate duties, McCain was named as one of the notorious "Keating Five." This was a group of five senators who were charged with improperly working on behalf of Charles Keating, the owner of a savings and loan institution that went bankrupt because of his irresponsible actions. The Senate Ethics Committee investigated the matter and determined that McCain was not guilty of any wrongdoing. But they criticized him for exercising "poor judgment" in his dealings with Keating. This scandal deeply embarrassed McCain, and he continues to regard it as the biggest stain on his political career.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s McCain put the Keating scandal behind him. Over time, he instead became better known for his conservative voting record and his strong sense of honor and patriotism. By the mid-1990s he had emerged as a crusader for campaign finance reform, a strong advocate for American military veterans, a supporter of increased defense spending, and a tough opponent of the tobacco industry.

During this period McCain also became an outspoken supporter of reestablishing trade and diplomatic relations with Vietnam. "I've made my peace with Vietnam and with the Vietnamese," explained McCain, who has made eight visits to Vietnam since the war ended. "There are Vietnamese whom I will never be able to forgive for their cruelty to us [American POWs]. The Vietnamese people will someday be free, but they are not yet. And our opposition to a regime that denies its people basic human rights was and is honorable. But I choose to use the opportunities afforded by normal relations to help Vietnam find a better future than its hard, war-torn past." In 1995, twenty years after the Vietnam War ended, the United States and Vietnam finally reestablished diplomatic ties.

Makes strong bid for the presidency

In September 1999 McCain announced his intention to run for the Republican Party's nomination for president in the year 2000. At the same time, he published a memoir called Faith of My Fathers. In this book McCain talked about the military careers of himself, his father, and his grandfather. The book, which includes an emotional account of McCain's experiences as a Vietnam POW, became a best-seller and helped McCain's campaign tremendously.

McCain waged a spirited campaign for the Republican nomination in late 1999 and early 2000. His personal history, his reputation for honesty and toughness, and his calls to clean up American politics all appealed to American voters. Ultimately, however, he lost the nomination to Texas Governor George W. Bush, a son of former president George H. Bush.