Capitalism: A Love Story
2009
Search results
Jan 28, 2008 · Jan. 28, 2008, at 11:00 a.m. Francois Chalais. John McCain lies in a hospital bed in Hanoi, North Vietnam, after being taken prisoner of war. John McCain spent 5½ years in captivity as a...
- Contributor
Aug 27, 2018 · Drawing on his POW experience, he also becomes the Senate’s most vocal and credible opponent of the use of torture on prisoners, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist...
- Greg Daugherty
- Overview
- Early years and military service
- Political career
John McCain (born August 29, 1936, Panama Canal Zone—died August 25, 2018, Cornville, Arizona, U.S.) U.S. senator who was the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2008 but was defeated by Barack Obama. McCain represented Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives (1983–87) before being elected to the U.S. Senate (1987–2018). Although a sel...
McCain had strong Southern roots–—his great-great-grandfather, William A. McCain, owned a Mississippi plantation with more than 50 slaves and died fighting for the Confederacy in 1863—but he believed that his heritage lay almost entirely inside the country’s military. The son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals, he graduated from the United States Naval Academy near the bottom of his class in 1958, his low class rank attributed to indifference both to disciplinary rules and to academic subjects he did not enjoy. He then served in the navy as a ground-attack pilot. In 1967, during the Vietnam War, McCain was nearly killed in a severe accidental fire aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, then on active duty in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Later that year McCain’s plane was shot down over Hanoi, and, badly injured, he was captured by the North Vietnamese. In captivity he endured torture and years of solitary confinement. When his father was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific in 1968, the North Vietnamese, as a propaganda ploy, offered early release to the younger McCain, but he refused unless every American captured before him was also freed. Finally released in 1973, he received a hero’s welcome home as well as numerous service awards, including the Silver Star and the Legion of Merit.
McCain relocated to Arizona, and in 1982 he was elected to the House of Representatives. After serving two terms, he successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1986. Two years later he gained national visibility by delivering a well-received address to the Republican National Convention. But McCain also became embroiled in the most spectacular case to arise out of the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, as a result of his connections with Charles Keating, Jr., the head of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, California, who had engaged in fraud. Although cleared by the Senate in 1991 of illegalities in his dealings on Keating’s behalf, McCain was mildly rebuked for exercising “poor judgment.” Duly embarrassed, McCain became a champion of campaign finance reform; he collaborated with the liberal Democratic senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and, after a seven-year battle, the pair saw the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act signed into law in 2002. The legislation, which restricted the political parties’ use of funds not subject to federal limits, was McCain’s signal achievement on Capitol Hill.
On most issues—including military spending, labour legislation, abortion, and gun regulation—McCain’s record in the Senate was basically conservative. Yet quite apart from campaign reform, McCain took stands on specific issues that distanced him from the conservative Republican mainstream in Washington. Despite his years in captivity in Vietnam, McCain strongly advocated restoring diplomatic relations with that country, finally achieved in 1995. He led unsuccessful efforts to enact a new federal tax on tobacco products that would fund antismoking campaigns and help the states pay for smoking-related health costs. On immigration reform, health care, restriction of so-called greenhouse gas emissions (a primary cause of global warming), reduction of pork-barrel government spending, regressive tax cuts, and the political power of religious conservatives, McCain stood out. His critics claimed that his contrarian stance was calculated and mostly for show and that the favourable impression it made inside the news media far outweighed the political risks. Still, with congressional Republicans increasingly marching in lock step during the 1990s, McCain’s dissent made him look like a genuinely unconventional conservative.
Are you a student? Get Britannica Premium for only 24.95 - a 67% discount!
Learn More
Aug 26, 2018 · Senator John Mccain, right, leads a group of men released from a P.O.W. camp In Hanoi, North Vietnam, on March 14, 1973.
- 2 min
- Lily Rothman
Aug 26, 2018 · “No American reached Hoa Lò in worse physical condition than McCain,” observed John G. Hubbell in his book P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience...
People also ask
Was John McCain a political maverick?
Was John McCain struck by a Zuni?
What happened to John McCain's left arm?
Aug 26, 2018 · McCain's experience as POW shaped lifelong opposition to torture - ABC News. He became an outspoken critic of CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques." By Elizabeth McLaughlin. August 26, 2018, 12:57 AM. 6:49. Lieutenant Commander John McCain is welcomed by Preside...Show More. Show More. Getty Images, FILE.
McCain's oft-cited strengths as a presidential candidate for 2008 included national name recognition, sponsorship of major lobbying and campaign finance reform initiatives, his ability to reach across the aisle, his well-known military service and experience as a POW, his experience from the 2000 presidential campaign, and an expectation that ...
