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| McCain: aka: SongBird; aka: Manchurian Candidate |
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| Nearly 50 Years Later We Will Never Forget! |
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| POW Families |
What we have learned in the intervening years -- and recently, is that there was a concerted effort by the US government to deny the existence of US POW/MIAs; these efforts were led by none other than Henry Kissinger early on, since he had cut a covert deal in 1972, in Nixon's name, with the Chinese Government to advise them that the US government would not oppose Chinese incursions into Southeast Asia, and would in fact, give them a free hand to fulfill the Domino Effect -- i.e., making all of Southeast Asia a Communist entity.
China fulfilled that contract with Kissinger, and upon removal of all US forces from SEA in 1974-75, and Kissinger's forced closing of all US espionage networks in Southeast Asia
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| Doi Mae Salong Memorial |
In Saigon, Tourison worked with the CIA Station Chief-Saigon [Bill Colby] on the Phụng Hoàng [Phoenix] program designed to track Viet Cong leaders, but which evolved into a political action assassination program to eliminate opponents of South Vietnamese leaders. Wick quit that program to come to Laos to track US POWs and stayed on for three years.
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| US POWs Still in Viet Nam |
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| USPOWs at Xiang Khoung Camp |
Most notably, these sources claimed McCain had intentionally crashed his plane into the coastal waters and immediately scrambled out (uninjured) screaming he was an admiral's son and that he was surrendering.
McCain, according to a senior NVA officer, had cut a special deal with the NVA Intelligence officers to whom he revealed highly classified intelligence; he had also exposed the Top Secret rescue operations to recover captured US pilots.
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| Unexpected Interrogator |
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| Grieving Mother |
[Detailed information of McCain's KGB recruitment were provided by a senior NVA prisoner whom we interrogated/debriefed in Laos; this information was later verified with a recruited NVA source [a senior NVA field commander] who provided periodic updates to me on the NVA military situation in Laos and North Vietnam]; this information was further verified when the USSR collapsed and KGB/GRU files came into the hands of US Intelligence officers].
a) Some flyers lost their lives fighting the fire; meanwhile, McCain went below to the ready room to watch others fight the fire via closed-circuit TV. The next morning, McCain was evacuated - the only uninjured Naval person to be evacuated. As his shipmates mourned the lost, he went off to Saigon for R&R (Rest & Relaxation).
a) John McCain constantly ridiculed the POW activists, referring to the “bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists,” and calling them “hoaxers” and “charlatans.” Then he demanded that the Justice Department investigate some of the people who opposed him on this issue. St. John Mc Cain told reporters:
McCain: The people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam.b) The Justice Department probed two organizations, but found no evidence of a scam. McCain heaped scorn on H. Ross Perot, whose concern about the POW/MIAs was sincere and well-informed. McCain also attacked US Navy Captain and fellow POW Eugene "Red" McDaniel as a fraud.
In 1996, a group of MIA advocates asked to speak with him outside a committee hearing room. He erupted in anger and shoved them aside. They included Jane Duke Gaylor, a woman in a wheelchair who was the mother of a missing POW.
4) McCain's abuse of POW families speaking before the Senate Committee is legendary:
a) Dolores Apodaca Alfond, National Alliance of Families Chairwoman, testified that her pilot brother, Captain Victor J. Apodaca was shot down over North Vietnam and had been determined to still be alive in Vietnam; she insisted that the search for MIA-POWs be continued. Other than the panel’s second co-chairman, Senator Bob Smith [R-N.H], no other committee member attended this public hearing.
b) McCain suddenly rushed into the room to confront her. He angrily and loudly 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, through clenched teeth, he said:
“And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people’s [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours.”Alfond reached into her handbag for a handkerchief an tried to speak:
“The family members have been waiting for years — years! And now you’re shutting down.”
c) McCain 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.”
McCain ripped into her for using the word “fiasco.”
She replied: “The fiasco was the people that stepped up 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.
5) McCain's treachery was fully revealed in his Guantanamo Trial by Tribunal, during which he was sentenced to death. The exact time of his execution [hanging by the neck until dead] was announced, prior to reports of his "terminal brain cancer".
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Post-POW Days – Nixon’s Pardon
John McCain’s commander while he was a POW, Colonel Ted Guy, had prepared an outline of a case of treason against McCain. But he had to shelve that effort when President Nixon signed the blanket pardon for all returning prisoners of war. Thus, John McCain was able to finally return home free of any worry about being confronted under the military codes with a fear of prosecution. (Which might also explain the real reason he refused to return in 1968, having no pardon in sight at that time).
Though it would be impossible to prove – short of reviewing all of both McCain’s (Sr. and Jr.) military records that Jr. ensured would be sealed forever – that Nixon’s blanket pardon might have been the result of lobbying by McCain Sr., he would have been only one of many.
Despite his previous attempts to prefer charges against McCain and other POWs who failed to act according to the code of honor that he had been attempting to enforce, Ted Guy would, for over a decade, stand up for McCain in his public statements.
In the mid-1980s, however, when the new revelations of POWs (now “Missing in Action”) MIA began surfacing, he began realizing how he had been lied to. By 1991, his acquiescence on the issue had turned to a heightened resolve to find the truth of the issue.
When McCain revealed his own resolve – to begin “a long and vicious campaign to discredit and shoot down any new information or anyone advocating that the truth about our POWs be made public” -- caused Ted Guy to change his mind about McCain. Becoming so annoyed by catching him making a statement one day and contradicting it the next, Guy would say “I don’t trust him anymore. I think he is a total liar.”
As explained in a July 20, 2015 article in Veterans Today, Colonel Ted Guy’s list of McCain’s transgressions described as “real and supportable accusations against McCain. The evidence for these acts exists and is substantial” included the following accusations:
- Collaborating with the enemy;
- Giving information that led to the downing of 60 US aircraft;
- Training North Vietnamese air defense personnel;
- Making over 30 propaganda broadcasts against the US,
- (broadcasts he moved to have classified when he was elected to the senate).
To that list, compiled by Gordon Duff as cited in the endnote, additional issues have been added by Greg Davis, as explained next, adding great insight to the general charge of “collaborating with the enemy” while revealing the depth of McCain’s depravity in disclosing how far he voluntarily went to assist them:
- McCain disclosed the details of Pave Spike, a USAF mission designed to assist downed/captured US pilots by dropping plastic trees/bushes into the areas where pilots might be traveling on the ground. These artificial trees looked real, but had a mechanism by which the pilot could key in a brief code which would transmit the location and identity of the pilot.
- Once McCain revealed the details of the op, the NVA searched for these artificial trees and destroyed them, which eliminated the NSA ability to track future captured US pilots.
On the recommendation of Tom Lipscomb I recently interviewed Greg Davis, who had begun his career within Army Military Intelligence and had served many years in government service in various capacities. During the war he interrogated both Pathet Lao and NVA prisoners (he spoke Lao).
Davis has previously divulged only limited information that he became aware of during the course of his service but has come to believe that he has a higher duty to report his experiences as a matter of preserving a truthful report of actual events he personally witnessed. Below is a verbatim transcript of part of an interview I recently conducted with him:
One of my jobs in Laos was running interrogations and I had worked with the interrogation center for the Royal Lao Army and I would pick and choose amongst the prisoners to find who would be valuable for providing information. In my overall, more passive type of interrogation – I did not believe in delivering pain to people – because they, given the opportunity, will tell you everything you needed to know. At any rate, for the prisoners I talked to, I would always start with “are you aware of the existence of any U.S. prisoners, dead or alive, and, if so, where are they and what was the condition of the American you saw?” Through these interviews, I found live sightings of U.S. prisoners in different places in Laos; , and two of these prisoners were NVA (North Vietnamese Army] but these guys were pretty bright. They were officers who had been drafted towards the end of the war when they had run out of other people to draft; these guys had been educated in Europe and spoke excellent English. One of them had graduated from the London School of Economics . . . At any rate, we had engaged in intellectual conversations and I would conduct those debriefings at my house, a large ranch style house just built by an Air America pilot, but then leased by the US embassy. Maids would serve lunch with glasses of wine, making them feel quite relaxed.
"We discussed American POWs so they gave me the information on the Hanoi Hilton. Each of them, separately, said, 'why is it that you Americans regard this prisoner McCain as a hero?'
"And I said, well, I don’t know for certain because I’m barely familiar with him, but I do know that he’s the son of an admiral; they said, “well everyone knows that, it is the first thing he said when he got captured.” And, from that point forward, both of these guys had essentially the same story, that “this guy is pretty much living large at the Hanoi Hilton, and, in American History terms, he is your Benedict Arnold, except he makes Benedict Arnold look like a good guy.” And they explained to me, in detail, what they knew, and had been passed around the officer ranks of the North Vietnamese Army; that was that McCain [told them] everything he knew about U.S. military processes, he described in detail the defensive tactics that American pilots would take to avoid anti-aircraft fire so the NVA anti-aircraft people were much more accurate after he arrived; and then, as everybody else knows, he ratted-out his fellow prisoners . . . and his primary contact there with enemy intelligence [advised him that there was] a KGB contact in there who tries to recruit American prisoners. And then I said, “I figured as much, but I have no information on him,” and then they said that “McCain volunteered to be recruited by the KGB officer.” And this happened with both of them, separately.
"So I was sending reports on this all the time through the 500th MI Group, which came under the J-2 of PACOW PACOM [PACIFIC COMMAND], headed by Admiral McCain, also known as CINCPAC — commander in chief of all U.S. forces in the Pacific region, including Vietnam] and there’s also another direct line to DIA; so all of those reports are in the DIA files. [By inference, it can be presumptively concluded that McCain Sr. disposed of all reports that reflected poorly on McCain Jr., ensuring that the same documents are no longer in PACOM’s files."
In reference to what Mr. Davis knew about the return of the 591 POWs, he volunteered this stunning revelation:
[In 1973], my headquarters unit included the 17th Military Intelligence Detachment, in Bangkok; they sent three intelligence special agents armed with .45s [caliber pistols] to bring back the prisoners from Hanoi. These guys were aboard the plane and their mission was to prevent the other prisoners from killing McCain.
Finally, the answer to the long-mystery about “why no one—out of the hundreds, possibly thousands, who knew about McCain’s treasons – would speak out about them” was answered by Mr. Davis:
The general pardon [issued by President Nixon] applied to all the prisoners returned to the United States; basically, it was theoretically directed at anybody who may have had some inclination to spill their guts under torture [generally, it’s expected that everyone has a breaking point under torture, so they could all be viewed as culpable]. The thrust of that, though, was to protect McCain because so many of them knew and hated McCain, so by coming out with a presidential pardon, which included within it the requirement that they never discuss any of their personal views as to what went on in the Hanoi Hilton, that pretty much put duct tape over their mouths. That came along with private interviews with each one of them in which they were instructed, essentially, “if you say anything, particularly about McCain, you will risk losing all of your military benefits, all of your financials, and you may endanger your families.”
It was put to them in such a way that it pretty much frightened these guys, who had spent months, years, in captivity. So, if you’ve got a couple of goons facing you, either from the military or the FBI, giving you these threats, then you’re gonna obey, pretty much the same as what happened after Benghazi. {Immediately thereafter, a team of “FBI Agents” arrived on the scene to debrief the embassy staff there – not that they had anything to listen to, or wanted anything – but to force the embassy staff to sign non-disclosure agreements under penalty of treason, and threats to their families and careers].
This subject will be revisited below, in the context of when McCain was elected as a senator from Arizona, of examining McCain’s actions of how he blocked his own records as a POW, along with those of all other POWs, in spite of their efforts to open them.
Accused Traitor Becomes “Hero”?
Just weeks after his return to the U.S., McCain began a long and circuitous journey to refurbish his reputation and bury much of the historic truths. It consisted of a 12,000-word article for US News & World Report, published on May 14, 1973. Evidently, if one accepts the statements of many of his peers, he wanted to get ahead of any future stories that might impugn his integrity with fundamentally different “details” regarding his early capitulation to his captors as a means to ensure that he would not be tortured. For that was precisely what happened according to the numerous conflicting accounts of other POWs and documented evidence from other sources.
Famed blogger Paul Craig Roberts affirmed the point about the reports from numerous other POWs in an essay he published in February, 2017, updating an earlier article originally written in 2008:
An intrepid reporter decided to visit Vietnam and see what McCain’s former jailers thought of the possibility that their onetime captive might soon reach the White House, that the man they had spent years brutally torturing could become the next president of the United States. To the journalist’s apparent amazement, the former jailers seemed enthusiastic about the prospects of a McCain victory, saying that they hoped he would win since they had become such good friends during the war and had worked so closely together; if they lived in America, they would certainly all vote for him. When asked about McCain’s claims of “cruel and sadistic” torture, the head of the guard unit dismissed those stories as being just the sort of total nonsense that politicians, whether in America or in Vietnam, must often spout in order to win popularity.
In reference to how McCain was actually treated by his captors, the former military intelligence interrogator Greg Davis, cited above, stated that “I was told that McCain was furnished a nice second floor apartment with a window from which he had a pleasant view; as well known by the other POWs, there was no torture. He was treated with kid gloves.”
McCain As US Congressman and Senator
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John McCain repeatedly used his five-years as a prisoner of war to create and burnish his “hero” status throughout his two terms in the House of Representatives and over three decades in the Senate. His introductions during his frequent appearances on the Sunday morning television show circuit invariably began with mentions of that point, as he always smiled meekly at the mention of the “h” word, feigning the humility that was otherwise elusive in his many – probably uncountable – television appearances.
Upon his election to the Senate in 1986, his reputation as a heroic Vietnam POW became more prominent and the numerous stories about hundreds of POWs left behind suddenly became less frequent, and buried further back in the newspaper pages. There were 591 POWs released (including McCain) in March, 1973 but, according to highly credible reports, “the DIA received more than 1,600 first-hand sightings of live American prisoners” with even more secondary reports, all of which the DIA eventually decided was not sufficient evidence to justify further investigation. As one example, of the number of POWs released in 1973, nine (9) had come from Laos, despite the fact that there had been 311 in that sub-group who should have been accounted for.
In 1990, frustrated by the intransigence of every administration since Nixon’s to investigate the continuing “missing POW/MIA” scandal, public sentiment caused congress to create “The Truth Bill” to compel the Pentagon to aggressively and transparently investigate what happened to possibly thousands of men left in Vietnam. That bill was strongly opposed by the Pentagon (ergo, McCain), and it went nowhere. Several months later another bill was introduced, called “the McCain Bill,” to replace it. That bill was convoluted by design, and was merely an attempt to assuage the pain felt by the family members of the missing men, under a banner exploiting the name of the most famous former POW, presumed to be on the same side; unfortunately for them, his primary interest seemed to be directed to ensuring that his own records would never be released.
In late 1991, congress finally acted to create the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. Senator John Kerry, (D-MA) was chosen as chairman, Senator Bob Smith, (R-NH), was vice chairman, both being Vietnam veterans. Though chairman, Kerry never seemed to be particularly interested in the merits of the POW/MIA issues being verbalized by the passionate activists, and soon made his skepticism clear. Senator Smith, in his minority position, was more open to the possibility that live POWs might still remain in Vietnam. But the committee leadership was soon over-shadowed by Senator McCain, however, whose status as the only POW and designated “Hero” attracted the media spotlight. McCain proceeded to become friends with the skeptical chairman and eventually became a sort of “de facto” co-chairman, who also made his own skepticism very clear from the start.
It didn’t take long for Kerry and McCain to combine their efforts to change the committee’s direction from an aggressive “investigatory” stance to that of a passive and submissive one, aligned with the Pentagon officials who had been conditioned for two decades to accept the political reality imposed upon them by every administration from Nixon’s to those of G.H.W. Bush and, in the following year, Bill Clinton’s.
Frustrated by all the disinterest and skepticism, and the newly-imposed restrictions of the “McCain Bill,” many POW/MIA activists approached the hearings with their own brand of skepticism, concerned that their efforts had backfired on them. Some, including Ann Mills Griffiths, director of the National League of POW/MIA Families, were convinced that the committee – from the start – was intent on burying the matter “once and for all.” She continued:
What it did was tie up assets and resources for a very long time, cause great divisiveness, give a forum to irresponsibility as well as responsibility, and every time that happens the issue loses. It was a very well-orchestrated, concerted effort to pave the way for all of the steps that the Clinton administration would take. It was very well-done.
During one of the more antagonistic committee meetings – devolving into McCain’s use of such names as “whore”, “bitch”, and multiple “F-bombs” – McCain managed to bring Dolores Alfond, Chairwoman of Families of POW/MIA Coalition and the sister of a Vietnam POW/MIA, to tears with his rude behavior. After she saw Alfond weeping, Carol Hrdlicka, having traveled from Kansas to attend many of the committee meetings, nearly backed down from speaking at all, but she composed herself and presented evidence that her husband, David Hrdlicka, a Vietnam POW/MIA, was alive past 1973. She said:
There's been no evidence to date that he ever died," Hrdlicka says of her husband. "If he's dead, where's his body, or where's the evidence? And there's no one from a government agency anyplace that has ever been able to answer that question. I figured that anybody who was a former POW should have some compassion for the guys who were left behind," Hrdlicka says, adding, "McCain fascinated me, because he couldn't look me in the eye. And anybody that can't look you in the eye, I feel, is guilty.
In 1993, researcher Stephen Morris discovered a transcript made in 1973 of a briefing by North Vietnamese General Tran Van Quang who had stated to the Hanoi politburo that they were still holding – after the release of the 591 POWs in March of that year – 1,205 American prisoners. Their purpose in holding back hundreds of prisoners was to be leverage for Vietnam to use in demanding reparations for the damages sustained in the bombardment of their country. President Nixon, in another of his wily maneuvers, had tricked North Vietnam into believing that he had earmarked $3.2 billion in reparations if they released all of the remaining prisoners. That ploy had previously worked for them when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew their forces from Vietnam; they presumed that if France had paid ransoms for prisoners, then the U.S. would surely pay even more to them, given the war’s unpopularity there.
The aforementioned Greg Davis, in reference to Nixon’s actions, stated “Nixon was not necessarily the scheming SOB the Press conjures up. For the most part, he was kept in the dark by Kissinger, who would issue directives “from the President” about which Nixon was unaware. (That led to the Watergate subterfuge to dislodge Kissinger since no one could talk to Nixon without Kissinger’s OK.”)
The author of the lengthy article referenced above, Sydney H. Schanberg, a Pulitzer Prize winning former top editor at The New York Times, wrote that massively documented expose about McCain’s role in the POW/MIA cover up. This essay stated that McCain, who rose to prominence as a venerated Vietnam POW war hero, nevertheless worked to hide information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home. McCain – knowing that if the missing POWs were returned, his own secrets would be vulnerable – undoubtedly adopted the attitude of Nixon’s, as noted above, that there were none left who were still alive, and “who could prove differently.” Thus, the “war hero” – effectively beyond reproach, easily convincing most others on the sidelines that he was a “caped crusader” type, fighting hard for the release of POWs – actually became a chameleon, hiding evidence, lying and insulting the families, while quietly closing down the “investigation.” Mr. Schanberg summarized his stunning findings thusly:
Many stories have been written about McCain’s explosive temper, so volcanic that colleagues are loath to speak openly about it. One veteran congressman who has observed him over the years asked for confidentiality and made this brief comment: “This is a man not at peace with himself.”
He was certainly far from calm on the Senate POW committee. He browbeat expert witnesses who came with information about unreturned POWs. Family members who have personally faced McCain and pressed him to end the secrecy also have been treated to his legendary temper. He has screamed at them, insulted them, brought women to tears. Mostly his responses to them have been versions of: How dare you question my patriotism? In 1996, he roughly pushed aside a group of POW family members who had waited outside a hearing room to appeal to him, including a mother in a wheelchair.
[ . . . ]
The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington – and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that “men were left behind.” This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number – the documents indicate probably hundreds – of the U.S. prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.
Is McCain haunted by these memories? Does he suppress POW information because its surfacing would rekindle his feelings of shame? On this subject, all I have are questions.
Air Force Lieut. Gen. Eugene Tighe, who had headed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the 1970s, was the most prominent critic of the Pentagon’s steadfast refusal to admit that there were any live prisoners remaining in Vietnam’s custody. His Wikipedia page states “In 1986 he headed a five-month Pentagon review on whether American prisoners of war might still be held captive in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia - the panel concluded this might be the case.” It was from that finding that he attempted to advocate to the Kerry/McCain committee the need for an aggressive investigation of this long-festering, unresolved issue, but instead of achieving his goal, Tighe was ignored and smeared by the Kerry/McCain juggernaut and forced back into his earlier retirement.
Many veterans – a group that would normally be expected to support McCain – came to distrust, even despise, him even more after seeing his performance on that committee. In one widely viewed video, “John McCain Exposed by Vietnam Vets and POWs” one of their representatives asserted: “It took them nine months to set up the committee, mainly because of the opposition of Senator McCain, who was bitterly opposed at any attempt to find the POWs, which is remarkable, since he was a POW.”
Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), observed that “many, many documents were held back, for no reason, and our goal on the committee was to just dump this stuff, to declassify it, literally, to the public, but they withheld information from the committee . . .” Al Santoli, of the American Foreign Policy Council, said that even POWs who wanted to review their own debriefings were not permitted to do so because of McCain’s rulings. Other comments from House members and staff included:
- “On the senate side, we had one person standing in the way of getting positions that would have been very tough on government bureaucrats who wouldn’t tell the truth, and that one position was John McCain; (4:25-4:39)
- “He [McCain] insisted that no committee be set up unless he was the chairman, obviously his intent was to kill everything; (4:50-5:00)
- [Observing that during their testimony, nearly every senator had not shown up], “ . . . all the senators on the committee walked away; McCain took off, Kerry took off, all that evidence was [not being heard] because, if they came and listened to the truth, they’d have to keep the hearings open; (5:17-5:36)
- “They were not interested in any of the information, other than trying to discredit it;
- “Coincidental with Kerry running the committee, Vietnam gave to Kerry’s family sole rights to the negotiation of all real estate issues within Vietnam; (6:25-6:34)
- “I’m an old Vietnam veteran . . . back in the jungles, using a top-secret clearance for different things during my years, I know of a lot of Vietnam veterans and a few POWs, and all the POWs that I’ve talked to over the years say that John McCain is a lying skunk. (6:53-7:52)
Whether McCain was a “lying skunk” or not is a subjective call, but the preponderance of the evidence seems to validate the necessary predicate, that his habitual utterances were deceptive, intended to point the person away from truths and toward the lies he fabricated. The reader, weighing the facts presented here, might even decide that the term was insufficient to describe the totality of McCain’s duplicitousness.
