As far back as he could remember, Johnny McCain knew he was going to Annapolis, knew it with such unshakable finality that he never really thought twice about it, at least not seriously. It was part of the air he breathed, the ether through which he moved, the single immutable element in his life. He also knew that if he said what he thought--hold it, screw Annapolis, the place sucks--shock waves would reverberate through countless generations of McCains, shaking a military tradition that could both inspire and bully.
An indifferent student except in English and history, he might have taken a dive on the entrance exams. Instead, he aced them, claiming his birthright. And so, on an early summer’s day in 1954, John McCain journeyed to Annapolis, raised his right hand, and marched joylessly into his future.
John’s grandfather, Slew McCain, graduated a lackluster 79th out of 116 from the Naval Academy. Like his son and grandson, both of whom ranked even lower, Slew McCain would prove that a second-rate record at Annapolis did not foreclose success in the Navy.
Aboard the Missouri in Tokyo Bay in 1945 Vice Admiral McCain took his place in the ceremony recorded for posterity, then left for his San Diego home. He was dead of a heart attack four days later. “He knew his number was up,” said one colleague, “but he wouldn’t lie down and die until he got home.”
Two decades later, his grandson would similarly face the temptation to lie down and die. But the old man had set the McCain family standard for grit and courage, and John McCain, always did his best to live up to family standards.
Roberta gave birth to Johnny at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone on August 29, 1936. The timing was auspicious. The base commander was his grandfather. Johnny’s father Jack was stationed nearby, at a small submarine facility. For that brief period, Panama became the epicenter of three generations.
Jack attempted to instill in his son the same code of personal honor by which he tried to live. “My strongest impression of my father is of this sense of integrity and honor, a code of gentlemanly conduct that was a trademark of his behavior,” said John.
But father and son did not hunt or fish together, go to the movies, museums, or ballgames. [John’s mother] Roberta said she doesn’t remember Jack ever disciplining John. “Jack was really kind of removed from things in a way,” she said.
John spoke of pride, honor, and integrity when discussing his father, but rarely love, as if their relationship was one of respect, but not real affection. There also seems to have been some resentment: “I didn’t spend as much time with him as maybe I would have if he’d been more committed to being around me,” John said on one occasion.
It was several days before she could speak. She was told she could never walk again, but amputation was ruled out. She spent the next 6 months in the hospital, undergoing a series of 23 operations. By the time surgeons finished with her, she was 5'4", 4 inches shorter than before the accident.
Soon after the accident, the doctors had said they would try to get word to John about her injuries. No, she said, he's got enough problems. I don't want to tell him. And she never did.
Some of his judgments were harsh, but he confined them mostly to the power structure. Political and military leaders had grossly underestimated the will and resiliency of the enemy. As for members of the antiwar movement, he did not buy their reasoning, but he endorsed their right to demonstrate. He even took a live-and-let-live attitude toward draft dodgers.
To the extent he admitted any anger, it was toward a system that put the burden of service on the poor and the powerless. "Those who were better off economically did not carry out their obligations, so we forced the Hispanic, the ghetto black, and the Appalachian white to fight and die. That to me was the greatest crime and injustice of the Vietnam War."
John and Carol would not discuss the breakup of their marriage in any detail. McCain spoke vaguely of time having taken its toll. "I had changed, she had changed," he said. "People who have been apart that much change."
Carol was less vague: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again."
The conventional view is that John came home to a real woman--older, shorter, crippled--and before long began to stray. No doubt it was more complicated. Like most marriages that fail, theirs was a drama that involved 2 people who themselves could only make educated guesses about what went wrong.
McCain's detractors would later say that he saw Cindy as the ultimate target of opportunity and locked on to her with single-minded, even cynical calculation. It was fine that she was young and beautiful, so it was said, but the real attraction was that she was the daughter of a well-connected businessman from a state that seemed to offer opportunities to someone with McCain's political ambitions.
The scenario is hard to take seriously. The courageous, crippled wife cast aside for a wealthy and beautiful younger woman--how understanding were the voters likely to be?
A simpler explanation: John saw her as reclaiming the life he had lost--Cindy stood for everything he didn't have in prison. It was as if McCain had decided to start life over again.
In 1982, an incumbent announced his retirement from Congress. On the same day, McCain got a house in the district. McCain campaigned door-to-door 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, personally knocking on 20,000 Republican doors. In addition, he raised $313,000 for the primary, more than half of it, $167,000, in loans from himself. [He won the GOP primary and the general election in November 1982.]
He knew a quagmire when he saw it. "The longer we stay in Lebanon, the harder it will be to leave," he said. McCain concluded by saying the American presence would not make a difference, that the same things would continue to happen--more factional violence, more innocent civilians killed--whether the Marines were there or not. "I am calling for an immediate withdrawal," he said. He cast his vote against the resolution, one of 27 Republicans to defy Reagan.
He promised to return to his congressional district every weekend, a ridiculous pledge entailing a 4,000-mile round-trip. He made good on it, though, racing to catch the last flight to Phoenix late on Thursday, when the House normally completed work, then riding the red-eye back Monday night so that he was in his office on Tuesday morning when the legislative week began in earnest. He did it 47 weekends that 1st year, a pace he barely eased in the years that followed.
The weekends were spent in grueling and frenetic political activity. He marched in parades, met with constituents, weighed in on local issues, held town meetings.
The most serious charges revolved around two meetings in April 1987 at which the senators allegedly pressured officials of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to make concessions that might help Keating save his ailing savings and loan. McCain had met with Keating, who demanded that McCain negotiate with the bank board on his behalf. McCain refused. His responsibility as a senator was to ensure that constituents were treated fairly, he said. McCain only attended, he said, because Keating was a major employer in his state.
After 6 weeks of deliberation, the committee rendered its judgment: McCain received a mild rebuke for exercising "poor judgment." He pronounced himself vindicated and put aside lingering thoughts of retirement.
The furor took its toll on her, but in late 1997 she boasted to a reporter of being drug-free for the previous 5 years. She was once again active in civic and humanitarian work while raising the couple's 4 children, including 7-year-old Bridget, whom the McCains had adopted as an infant after Cindy brought her home from Bangladesh.
The tobacco companies denounced the bill, saying the $506 billion price tag would bankrupt them and that the [cigarette] tax increases contained in the measure were regressive. They also insisted the bill would trigger bootlegging on a scale not seen since Prohibition.
Tobacco companies took aim at McCain, running TV, print, and radio ads denouncing what they labeled The McCain-Clinton Tobacco Tax, which they said would cost those who smoke 2 packs a day $1,460 a year. In June 1998 the tobacco industry managed to kill the bill with the help of lobbyists to whom it paid some $40 million.
McCain did the expected, voted to convict. In his statement that February day, he said that he had done things in his private life that he was not proud of and wished that circumstances had allowed the President "to keep his personal life private." Once Clinton's dalliances with Monica Lewinsky became public, however, he had an obligation to tell the truth when under oath.
McCain continued to make his twofold argument: The world's lone superpower, having committed itself militarily, cannot afford to be humbled by an army of 40,000 in a country no larger than Connecticut.
Telling an adversary that he does not have to fear facing ground troops is a form of unilateral disarmament and only emboldens that adversary. In other words, you may never use ground troops, but you need to be prepared to employ them if necessary, and you sure as hell don't tell the other guy he doesn't have to worry about them.
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The above quotations are from John McCain: An American Odyssey, by Robert Timberg. Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of John McCain. Click here for John McCain on all issues.
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