http://www.etherzone.com/1999/raim092999.html
COLLABORATION
McCain was shot down on October 26, 1967, over Truc Bach Lake, near Hanoi. As I pointed out in my last column about McCain, he claimed in a US News and World Report article [May 14, 1973] that he languished in a cell for several days, his injuries untreated. Confronted with a North Vietnamese officers who was "a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends we had to deal with," as McCain put it, he decided to cooperate. According to his own account, McCain said: "OK, I will give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." While there are some conflicting stories about how long he was actually in that cell, he gave his first interview on October 31, with French television reporter Francois Chalais for Beirut's L'Orient, who wrote:
INTERVIEW WITH A PRISONER OF WAR
"This John Sidney McCain is not an ordinary prisoner. His father is none other than Admiral Edmond John McCain, Commander-in-chief of US naval forces in Europe. In a weak voice, he relates his story to me: 'I was carrying out a bombing mission, my twenty-third raid over Hanoi. It was then that I was hit. I wanted to eject but while doing so I broke both arms and my right thigh. Unconscious, I fell in a lake. Some Vietnamese jumped in the water and pulled me out. Later I learned there must have been about 12 of them. They immediately took me to a hospital, in condition two inches away from death. A doctor operated on my thigh. Others at the same time dealt with my arms."
A "WAR HERO" FOR OUR TIMES
Well, which is it, Senator McCain – did you trade military information for medical treatment, or did they take you to a hospital immediately and operate? Either way, you don't look so good – at least, not like any war hero I ever heard of.
DID THEY SERVE COFFEE AT THE HANOI HILTON?
In the course of being interviewed by Monsieur Chalais, McCain is described as smoking a cigarette and sipping a cup of coffee – amenities most American prisoners of war did not enjoy. While he was obviously acting under great duress, in this interview McCain seems just a little too eager to please his captors and the Commie Frog sent to interrogate him. Chalais asks: "How are you treated here?" McCain answers: "Very well. Everybody is very nice to me." "How is the food?" McCain grins "feebly. Obviously, the least reaction hurts him. 'This isn't Paris. But it is alright.'"
REASONABLE DOUBT
The Hanoi correspondent of Cuba's official Prensa Latina news agency cited an article in the Vietnamese Communist Party newspaper, Nhan Dan [November 9, 1967], which cites McCain as saying: "There is not any doubt for me, things are taking place in a favorable way for North Vietnam. In particular world opinion. At present the United States is standing [virtually] alone." No one can blame McCain for succumbing to torture: but there is some reasonable question as to whether McCain wasn't given preferential treatment from the very beginning, from the moment the Vietnamese fished him out of the lake and discovered his identity. At the very least, the popular image of McCain as the icon of the veterans and the virtual embodiment of the military virtues is challenged by the record.
COLLABORATION
McCain was shot down on October 26, 1967, over Truc Bach Lake, near Hanoi. As I pointed out in my last column about McCain, he claimed in a US News and World Report article [May 14, 1973] that he languished in a cell for several days, his injuries untreated. Confronted with a North Vietnamese officers who was "a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends we had to deal with," as McCain put it, he decided to cooperate. According to his own account, McCain said: "OK, I will give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." While there are some conflicting stories about how long he was actually in that cell, he gave his first interview on October 31, with French television reporter Francois Chalais for Beirut's L'Orient, who wrote:
INTERVIEW WITH A PRISONER OF WAR
"This John Sidney McCain is not an ordinary prisoner. His father is none other than Admiral Edmond John McCain, Commander-in-chief of US naval forces in Europe. In a weak voice, he relates his story to me: 'I was carrying out a bombing mission, my twenty-third raid over Hanoi. It was then that I was hit. I wanted to eject but while doing so I broke both arms and my right thigh. Unconscious, I fell in a lake. Some Vietnamese jumped in the water and pulled me out. Later I learned there must have been about 12 of them. They immediately took me to a hospital, in condition two inches away from death. A doctor operated on my thigh. Others at the same time dealt with my arms."
A "WAR HERO" FOR OUR TIMES
Well, which is it, Senator McCain – did you trade military information for medical treatment, or did they take you to a hospital immediately and operate? Either way, you don't look so good – at least, not like any war hero I ever heard of.
DID THEY SERVE COFFEE AT THE HANOI HILTON?
In the course of being interviewed by Monsieur Chalais, McCain is described as smoking a cigarette and sipping a cup of coffee – amenities most American prisoners of war did not enjoy. While he was obviously acting under great duress, in this interview McCain seems just a little too eager to please his captors and the Commie Frog sent to interrogate him. Chalais asks: "How are you treated here?" McCain answers: "Very well. Everybody is very nice to me." "How is the food?" McCain grins "feebly. Obviously, the least reaction hurts him. 'This isn't Paris. But it is alright.'"
REASONABLE DOUBT
The Hanoi correspondent of Cuba's official Prensa Latina news agency cited an article in the Vietnamese Communist Party newspaper, Nhan Dan [November 9, 1967], which cites McCain as saying: "There is not any doubt for me, things are taking place in a favorable way for North Vietnam. In particular world opinion. At present the United States is standing [virtually] alone." No one can blame McCain for succumbing to torture: but there is some reasonable question as to whether McCain wasn't given preferential treatment from the very beginning, from the moment the Vietnamese fished him out of the lake and discovered his identity. At the very least, the popular image of McCain as the icon of the veterans and the virtual embodiment of the military virtues is challenged by the record.
problemo...but run away is your game...carryon!
