Take a close look at the above photos, circa 1992, of McCain enthusiastically embracing Vietnamese individuals allegedly responsible for torturing McCain and executing men that McCain claims as comrades in arms. Focus on the smiles and hugs in the center and right photos. Bui Tin, on the right, interrogated McCain during the war. Mai Van On, in the middle, was allegedly part of a Vietnamese gang that allegedly shattered McCain’s shoulder with a rifle butt and allegedly bayoneted his foot after his plane crash-landed in a lake. For now, I’m not doubting that his shoulder was shattered or his foot stabbed. I am questioning how those injuries were inflicted.
What kind of American war hero gives such a warm welcome to war criminals responsible for tormenting him and murdering his comrades? Something doesn’t add up. With the photos as a backdrop, consider these additional data points:
1. Accordingly to a
2000 article in Insight on the News, Bui Tin has told at least two former POWs, David Hackworth and Charles Bates, that
McCain was not tortured in Vietnam. Bates told Insight:
[D]uring a three-day seminar on the Vietnam War at the Center for Vietnam War Studies at Texas Tech University, I and another POW activist, Joe Jordan, spoke to Bui Tin about McCain’s treatment in Hanoi. Tin said, “No, McCain was never tortured. He was too important. We called him the prince. He received special treatment.” . . .
When Tin testified at the 1992 hearings McCain ran down to the floor and threw his arms around this guy. Everyone knew that this was the guy that had reportedly tortured him. Try and imagine someone from the Bataan death march throwing his arms around his captor. You can’t. So this is why there is concern among veterans that he really may have collaborated with the enemy. . .
Today’s Veteran’s Dispatch suggests that McCain’s Viet Cong lovey-dovey may be a manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome a symptom of which is that the captive bonds to his captors. If other data supported the idea that McCain really was tortured, I might buy it. But the data points elsewhere. The Insight article notes that, in a May 14, 1973 article in U.S. News and World Report, McCain admitted giving military information to the Viet Cong. That report (according to Insight) quotes McCain as saying
“O.K., I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital,” reported the then recently returned POW in that article in U.S. News.
Bates observes, “[Y]ou have to think that if he’s elected president and this did happen, he could be open to blackmail.” Duh. Imagine the foreign policy choices that would be totally off the table for a President McCain compromised by a collaborator past or the Stockholm Syndrome. Talk about a setup for Vlad Putin!
Even in domestic policy and Supreme Court appointments, McCain could be led by the nose to do whatever his Hanoi handlers (who likely still have a soft-spot for Vlad Putin) want. In this context, a blank-slate Obama or even a thoroughly cynical and corrupt Hillary would be preferable.
2. An article in today’s
U.S. Veteran Dispatch — quoting McCain’s own 1999 campaign — seems to corroborate the idea that McCain
wasn’t tortured:
The 1999 campaign released a statement by Dr. Michael M. Ambrose, director of the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, that said: ”Senator McCain has never been diagnosed with or treated at the center for a psychological or psychiatric disorder. He has been subject to an extensive battery of psychological tests and following his last examination in 1993, we judged him to be in good physical and mental health.”
McCain’s campaign made this statement in a effort to prove that McCain somehow miraculously escaped PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) which would manifestly render him unfit to command the nation’s military. I see it as additional evidence that McCain was never subjected to the torture he claims he was. The Dispatch article describes the trauma that McCain allegedly suffered. It’s hard to imagine anyone emerging from such a crucible without lasting psychological damage. I’m reaching the point where I don’t believe that it happened. I think McCain is lying when he says it did.
3 . McCain has publicly and brutally abused family members of other POWs and MIAs who have tried over the years to learn what happened to their loved ones. What would motivate this anti-social behavior? One explanation is that he wants to intimidate them into silence because he knows that if those men or their records are found, they will finger McCain as a fraud. Check out this segment of the Dispatch story:
Members of the two major POW/MIA family organizations know the “real” John McCain and they despise him. They have experienced firsthand his cruel, angry temperament.
In 1996, McCain encountered a group of POW/MIA family members outside a Senate hearing room. The family members were some of the same who worked tirelessly during the Vietnam War to make sure Hanoi released all U.S. POWs - including POW McCain.
McCain immediately began quarreling with the POW/MIA family members, who were eager to question him on the issue of what happened to their loved ones.
Instead showing courtesy and appropriate compassion by answering their questions, the Arizona senator pushed through the group, shoving them out of his way, nearly toppling the wheelchair of POW/MIA mother Jane Duke Gaylor. Her son, Charles Duke, a civilian worker in Vietnam, is among 2,300 American POWs and MIAs still unaccounted for by the communists.
The POW/MIA families, shocked at McCain’s overly aggressive behavior toward Mrs. Gaylor, registered complaints with senate officials.
In an earlier incident involving families of servicemen still MIA, McCain got so angry that he went ballistic.
McCain was advised (Nov. 11, 1992) that Dolores Apodaca Alfond, chairwoman of the National Alliance of POW/MIA Families (her pilot brother Capt. Victor J. Apodaca is missing in action in North Vietnam), was offering testimony critical of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. He rushed into the hearing room to confront her.
Award winning journalist Sydney Schanberg described the scene. “His face [McCain] angry and his voice very loud, he accused her of making ‘allegations … that are patently and totally false and deceptive.’
“Making a fist, he shook his index finger at her and said she had insulted an emissary to Vietnam sent by President Bush. He said she had insulted other MIA families with her remarks. And then he said, through clenched teeth: ‘And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people’s [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours.’
“By this time, tears were running down Alfond’s cheeks. She reached into her handbag for a handkerchief. She tried to speak: ‘The family members have been waiting for years — years! And now you’re shutting down.’ He kept interrupting her. She tried to say, through tears, that she had issued no insults. He kept talking over her words. He said she was accusing him and others of ’some conspiracy without proof, and some cover-up.’ She said she was merely seeking ’some answers. That is what I am asking.’ He ripped into her for using the word ‘fiasco.’ She replied: ‘The fiasco was the people that stepped out and said we have written the end, the final chapter to Vietnam.’ ‘No one said that,’ he shouted. ‘No one said what you are saying they said, Ms. Alfond.’ And then, his face flaming pink, he stalked out of the room, to shouts of disfavor from members of the audience.”
4. Finally, McCain has done everything in his power to prevent the release of not only his post-POW debriefings but also the debriefings of other POWs. Because of McCain, none of those men are able to get access to
their own debriefing files. The same goes for Vietnam’s files on former POWs.
Insight reports:
According to one Capitol Hill insider, “The chances of anyone actually seeing these records is a million-to-one, but if John McCain requested his records I’m sure they’d release them to him.” To date that request has not been made. There also appears to be no chance of releasing any records held by the Vietnamese. According to Bill Bell, former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs, “In May of 1993 I attended a meeting in Hanoi with John McCain, Pete Peterson, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam and ex-POW. McCain and Peterson were very interested in getting an agreement from the Vietnamese that the records of the former POWs would never be made public.”
Why? The only apparent explanation: The files — both Vietnamese and U.S. — contain damning evidence against John McCain. Tad Cochran’s “
cold chill” may be for a reason much more serious than McCain’s bad temper.
Yesterday, some readers were horrified that I confessed a willingness to “be persuaded” to pull the lever for McCain in the general election. I am still willing to be persuaded. A necessary — though not sufficient — step will be for McCain to open his debriefing records all the way and give us some straight talk on his days in Hanoi. I would also expect a heartfelt McCain apology to Dolores Apodaca Alfond and other POW/MIA families whom McCain has abused over the years. When Johnny came marching home, he left some major baggage behind. Time to clean it up.
Plug in "John McCain" + "viet-cong collaborator" and check out the search results yourself.
