‘The Mythical John McCain’
In a one-hour special on ‘Hannity’s America, Fox News TV show (Sunday, March 16, 2008), Sean Hannity interviewed Senator John McCain. This interview produced quite an inspiring story, told on the political campaign trail to bolster support for Senator John McCain’s candidacy for president of the United States of America. In text format it renders a sense of true heroism for some in the viewing audience, and at least respect for his service to our country for all of us. But when viewed on the TV screen, McCain’s body language was quite revealing. During all of the talk of heroes, etc., he looked like a ‘deer in the headlights.’ Something was wrong. He looked as if there might be some out there in the viewing audience who would know that he was dissembling, misleading, and possibly hiding behind the ‘heroism of others’ by telling his story as if their ‘heroism’ would somehow conform to that which Hannity was attempting to attach to McCain. So I started looking for answers. I scoured the two exhaustively detailed books ‘P.O.W.’ and ‘Honor Bound,, on the subject, which have been written since the POWs returned home in March of 1973. Robert Timberg’s book [4], ‘The Nightingale’s Song,’ was also used as an excellent account of McCain’s early years. What I found was truly astounding. Senator McCain has not been telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
It is at this point that new information, heretofore privately held, but now available and previously authenticated by Department of Defense authorities at the time, documents the extent to which John McCain ‘sang like a canary’ while in the North Vietnamese hospital and in his ‘room’ during the several weeks he was at the Hoa Lo prison before being transferred to the Plantation prison complex. He revealed military information to the enemy in return for obtaining medical treatment as he had promised his interrogator, ‘the Bug.’ Such medical treatment was denied to many other, similarly wounded POWs.
This new information is summarized below and is reproduced at this hyperlink:
Within the first four days of his capture, while in his initial interrogation (26-30 October 1967) at the Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi, and while recovering from his shootdown wounds in the North Vietnamese military hospital (31 October 1967 through mid-December 1967), John McCain provided military information far beyond that which the Code of Conduct – and that which other POWs, while undergoing extreme torture – refused to divulge to the enemy. Colonel Ted Guy, McCain’s Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) while they were both imprisoned at the Plantation prison complex in Hanoi, gathered information from various sources after the POWs were released in March 1973.
This information comes from U.S. intercepts of North Vietnamese broadcasts to American servicemen in South Vietnam around 31 October 1967, as well as from dispatches by North Vietnamese and Cuban correspondents — using material from a Nhan Dan (the central organ, the voice of the Communist Party of Vietnam, then and now) correspondent who interviewed John McCain. This material was published on 9 November 1967. The latter were backed up by the intercepts of these messages by the Message Center of the U.S. Department of Defense National Military Command Center, dated 11 November 1967.
A separate interview of McCain by a Soviet Union correspondent was published by Pravda in Moscow on 8 December 1967. And finally, McCain was interviewed by a French correspondent who published a series of interviews announced on 25 December 1967 and began 27 December 1967. This interview was intercepted by the Message Center of the U.S. National Command Center and disseminated via message on 1 January 1968.
Each of these official records of John McCain’s interviews with foreign correspondents, while held captive in Hanoi is reproduced at the hyperlink above. Observe that each one of these interviews contains military information — far, far beyond the limits required by the Code of Conduct. Indeed this information is far beyond what nearly all of the POWs were severely tortured to obtain — the insignificant ‘gray area’ information such as nebulous ‘air pirate’ signed statements. Only those few who were turncoats and anti-war sympathizers among our POWs gave up more information to the enemy than did John McCain.
Indeed, John McCain made good on his promise to his interrogator, ‘the Bug,’ to provide U.S. military information in return for medical attention to his shootdown wounds. See the essay, ‘John McCain as a POW’ for the context of this promise. That essay also contains the contents of McCain’s formal confession, under duress later, as an ‘air pirate’ as well as a completely unforced interview with a Cuban psychologist during 1970 when the torture had essentially ended for most of the POWs in the North Vietnamese propaganda battle with the U.S. The latter interview gives a deep insight into the character of John McCain.
Indeed, John McCain’s gift as a ‘raconteur extraordinaire’— while both a prisoner of war in Hanoi as well as on the ‘Straight Talk Express’ is truly astounding.