Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain [1] was a 527 Political Action Committee formed in 1997. [2] The group made controversial allegations against John McCain concerning his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The group was founded by Vietnam veterans Jerry Kiley and Ted Sampley. [2]
In 2000, Sampley called McCain a "Manchurian candidate" on his Web site and said that McCain was an agent of the Vietnamese, and in 2008, Kiley, who says he served in Vietnam for about a year, was behind a flier that claimed McCain was a "Hanoi Hilton songbird" who collaborated with the enemy.
In 2004, Kiley and Sampley formed a similar group targeting another Vietnam veteran, John Kerry, who was running for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. In May 2018, a Fox News analyst, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, was terminated from the network for reviving the debunked charges against McCain, calling the senator “Songbird John”. [3]
The group made a video in which Bob Smith, former Republican senator from New Hampshire, Bob Dornan, former Republican representative from California, former Congressional staffers and others made various allegations against McCain. [4] The group also disseminated taped excerpts [5] of McCain's questioning of Dolores Alfond of the National Alliance of Families before the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs.
John Sidney McCain III was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama.
Hỏa Lò Prison was a prison in Hanoi originally used by the French colonists in Indochina for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. During this later period, it was known to American POWs as the "Hanoi Hilton". The prison was demolished during the 1990s, although the gatehouse remains as a museum.
Wayne Thomas Gilchrest is an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing Maryland's 1st congressional district. In 2008, Gilchrest was defeated in the Republican primary by State Senator Andy Harris. Following his departure from politics he has worked on environmental education. He is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One. In 2019, Gilchrest changed his party affiliation to Democratic.
Samuel Robert Johnson was an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 3rd congressional district in Congress from 1991 to 2019. He was a member of the Republican Party. In October and November 2015, he was the acting Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, where he also served as chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee.
Jeremiah Andrew Denton Jr. was an American politician and military officer who served as a U.S. Senator representing Alabama from 1981 to 1987. He was the first Republican to be popularly elected to a Senate seat in Alabama. Denton was previously a United States Navy rear admiral and naval aviator taken captive during the Vietnam War.
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), was a political group of United States Swift boat veterans and former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War, formed during the 2004 presidential election campaign for the purpose of opposing John Kerry's candidacy for the presidency. The campaign inspired the widely used political pejorative "swiftboating", to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The group disbanded and ceased operations on May 31, 2008.
The Hanoi Hilton is a 1987 Vietnam War film which focuses on the experiences of American prisoners of war who were held in the infamous Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi during the 1960s and 1970s and the story is told from their perspectives. It was directed by Lionel Chetwynd, and stars Michael Moriarty, Ken Wright and Paul Le Mat. Music was done by Jimmy Webb.
Operation Homecoming was the return of 591 American prisoners of war (POWs) held by North Vietnam following the Paris Peace Accords that ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
VoteVets.org is a progressive political action committee (PAC) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization in the United States.
The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs was a special committee convened by the United States Senate during the George H. W. Bush administration to investigate the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, that is, the fate of United States service personnel listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. The committee was in existence from August 2, 1991 to January 2, 1993.
The early life and military career of John Sidney McCain III spans the first forty-five years of his life (1936–1981). McCain's father and grandfather were admirals in the United States Navy. McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone, and attended many schools growing up as his family moved among naval facilities. McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958. He married the former Carol Shepp in 1965; he adopted two children from her previous marriage and they had another child together.
John Sidney McCain III retired from the United States Navy in April 1981. His last four years in the service had been spent as the Navy's liaison to the United States Senate. He moved to Arizona with his new wife and, aided by a job from his father-in-law and the contacts it gave him, soon began a new career in politics.
John McCain ran for U.S. president in the 2000 presidential election, but failed to gain the Republican Party nomination, losing to George W. Bush in a campaign that included a bitter battle during the South Carolina primary. He resumed his role representing Arizona in the U.S. Senate in 2001, and Bush won the election. Bush was President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. McCain won re-election to the Senate in 2004, 2010 and 2016.
Faith of My Fathers is a 2005 American biographical drama television film directed by Peter Markle and written by Markle and William Bingham, based on the 1999 memoir of the same name by United States Senator and former United States Navy aviator John McCain. It aired on A&E on Memorial Day, May 30, 2005.
The 2002 United States Senate election in Georgia took place on November 5, 2002. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Max Cleland ran for re-election to a second term, but was defeated by Republican Saxby Chambliss by nearly a 7 point margin.
John Arthur Dramesi was a United States Air Force (USAF) Colonel who was held as a prisoner of war from 2 April 1967 to 4 March 1973 in both Hoa Lo Prison, known as "The Hanoi Hilton", and Cu Loc Prison, "The Zoo", during the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action (MIA) during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia. The term also refers to issues related to the treatment of affected family members by the governments involved in these conflicts. Following the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, 591 U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) were returned during Operation Homecoming. The United States listed about 2,500 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action but only 1,200 Americans were reported to have been killed in action with no body recovered. Many of these were airmen who were shot down over North Vietnam or Laos. Investigations of these incidents have involved determining whether the men involved survived being shot down. If they did not survive, then the U.S. government considered efforts to recover their remains. POW/MIA activists played a role in pushing the U.S. government to improve its efforts in resolving the fates of these missing service members. Progress in doing so was slow until the mid-1980s when relations between the United States and Vietnam began to improve and more cooperative efforts were undertaken. Normalization of the U.S. relations with Vietnam in the mid-1990s was a culmination of this process.
Lawrence Nicholas "Larry" Guarino was a U.S. Air Force officer, and veteran of three wars. Shot down on his 50th combat mission, he spent more than 8 years as a prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War and earned the Air Force Cross.
Members of the United States armed forces were held as prisoners of war (POWs) in significant numbers during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973. Unlike U.S. service members captured in World War II and the Korean War, who were mostly enlisted troops, the overwhelming majority of Vietnam-era POWs were officers, most of them Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps airmen; a relatively small number of Army enlisted personnel were also captured, as well as one enlisted Navy seaman, Petty Officer Doug Hegdahl, who fell overboard from a naval vessel. Most U.S. prisoners were captured and held in North Vietnam by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN); a much smaller number were captured in the south and held by the Việt Cộng (VC). A handful of U.S. civilians were also held captive during the war.
Theodore Lane Sampley was an American Vietnam War veteran and activist. He primarily advocated for those servicemembers still considered missing in action or prisoners of war (POW-MIA) as of the end of hostilities in 1975. A staunch political conservative, he also ran for local political office several times. He is credited with the research that identified Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie as the Vietnam fatality buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and for his role in organizing the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle event in Washington. In Kinston, North Carolina, where he lived for much of his adult life, he was known for his local civic activism, most notably his effort to build a replica of the Confederate ironclad CSS Neuse, the only full-size replica of a Confederate ironclad, in the city's downtown.