See Part 1 on Romney in the post below.
Part 2 from man’s man, conservative adventurer Dr. Jack Wheeler on McCain:
HOW THE CLINTONS WILL DESTROY JOHN MCCAIN
The number of fellow Senators who think John McCain is psychologically unstable is large. Some will admit it publicly, like Thad Cochran who says, "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine."
Others relate times when McCain screamed four-letter obscenities right in their faces in the Senate cloak room, like Dick Shelby, Rick Santorum, or Jim Inhofe. "The man is unhinged," one Senator told me. "He is frighteningly unfit to be Commander-in-Chief."
That John McCain is clinically nuts is scary enough. What worries a small group of GOP Senators and Congressmen even more is a deep and dark skeletal secret in McCain’s glorified past to which they are privy, and which the Clintons will use to blackmail him.
They have been having discussions with a Russian whom we’ll call "T" for Translator. T’s father was the Soviet military intelligence officer who ran the "Hanoi Hilton" prison holding captured Americans during the Vietnam War. One of those prisoners was John McCain.
The GRU — Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije or Main Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet (now Russian) Armed Forces – operated the entire North Vietnamese prison system holding American prisoners of war. GRU officers, all of whom were Russians, oversaw the interrogation of every American POW.
The interrogations themselves were conducted by Vietnamese who spoke some English. After each interrogation session, which could often include torturing the prisoners at the direction of the GRU officers, the Vietnamese interrogator would write a report of the session – in Vietnamese.
These reports had to be translated into Russian. T, a bright teenager living in the GRU compound in Hanoi, had become fluent in Vietnamese, and ended up translating many of the reports and interrogators’ notes.
John McCain, flying his A-4 Skyhawk, was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967. Badly injured from the ejection, he was beaten and abused by his captors. In July, 1968, his father, US Navy Admiral J. S. McCain, was made CINCPAC, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command, commander of all US military forces in the Vietnam theatre. Upon learning this, the Vietnamese offered – according to McCain – to release him.
McCain claims he refused, because he demanded all American POWs captured before him be released as well. He thus remained a prisoner when he could have gone home, and was subjected to constant brutal beatings and torture for years: that is the source of the "war-hero" saga making McCain a greater war-hero than any other American POW.
Yet the offer of release would had to have been approved by the GRU overseers of the North Vietnamese – and T does not recall any such offer being made. T admits, however, that this took place before McCain was transferred to Hoa Loa prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by the POWs. T had only direct knowledge of what happened at Hoa Loa, and not the other prisons, where T’s father was in charge.
McCain was kept at the Hanoi Hilton from December 1969 until his release, along with all the remaining POWs, in March of 1973. During this time, T translated all the Vietnamese interrogators’ notes and reports regarding John McCain.
According to T, they reveal that McCain had made an "accommodation" with his captors, and in exchange, T’s father saw that he was provided with an apartment in Hanoi and the services of two prostitutes. Upon returning to his prison cell, he would say he had been held in solitary confinement. That may be why so many of his fellow prisoners said later they saw so little of him at Hoa Loa.
The notes and reports written in Vietnamese were sent to Moscow, where T was a now a college student, for T’s translation into Russian, then placed into GRU archives. That’s where they stayed until 1991. Late that year, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the CIA and the GRU made a deal for a document swap.
All of what it involved, T doesn’t know. What T’s father, by now retired but still with substantial contacts within the GRU, did learn (and thus T learned) was that the swap included all of T’s translations.
In other words, the CIA has in its possession the notes and reports of John McCain’s interrogators at the Hanoi Hilton, in both the original Vietnamese and translated Russian, showing collaboration with his Communist captors.
Allegations of this nature have been made over the years, many by Vietnam veterans. There is an even an organization, Vietnam Veterans Against McCain. But they are based on suspicions and circumstantial claims. There has never been any hard direct evidence.
What T says the CIA has is such evidence. Its release would destroy McCain. The threat of its release could force McCain to take a fall, blow the election and lose on purpose. And just who do you suppose would know what the CIA has and work with them to release it?
Someone who has been a CIA asset since he was recruited by London station chief Cord Meyer while a student at Oxford in 1968?
(Back in the 90s years after he retired, if Cord drank a little too much Scotch, he would laugh derisively at those conspiratorialists who accused Bill Clinton of being connected with the KGB.
"They all darkly point to Bill’s participation in anti-war peace conferences in Stockholm and Oslo, and his trip to Leningrad, Moscow, and Prague while he was at Oxford. ‘Who could have paid for this?’, they ask. ‘It had to be the KGB!’ they claim." Cord would shake his head. "What rot – we paid for it. We recruited Bill the first week he was at Oxford. Bill’s been an asset of The Three Bad Words ever since." Cord passed on in 2001.)
The small group of Senators and Congressmen who have been briefed by T have been unable to confirm with the CIA any details of its document swap with the GRU beyond an admission that such a swap "may have happened." They are very nervous about pursuing the matter any further.
The Clintons are not nervous. They are utterly ruthless, and have buddies at Langley all too happy to help them.
It has been noted many times here in To The Point that while most folks think the CIA is a right-wing outfit, it is not. The CIA has been dominated by left-wing hyper-liberals for years.
The CIA is a left-wing, liberal outfit, and its main job for some time now is not attacking America’s enemies but conservatives in general and George W. Bush in particular. The story is best told by friend, Ken Timmerman in his new book Shadow Warriors.
When the time is right, the Clintons will see to the leaking of the GRU archives on McCain to the media. Bet on it, just as you can bet they’ll follow it up with media disclosures of the lady lobbyists in Washington having adulterous affairs with McCain. (There are at least three of them; I know the name of one but I’m not going to put it in writing.)
Maybe McCain will try to fight back by confirming Hillary’s well-known bisexuality and her lesbian affair with her beautiful assistant, Huma Abedin. Google "Hillary" and "Huma Abedin" and you’ll get almost 6,000 hits. Turns out Huma is a Moslem who grew up in Saudi Arabia and is strongly suspected of working for Saudi intelligence.
Or maybe he’ll capitulate to Clinton blackmail. You never can tell what a psychologically unstable guy will do.
And that last point is why – be prepared for this, folks – I would not in any circumstances vote for John McCain, not if either Hillary or Obama were the alternative. Evil is safer than crazy. Leftie amateur inexperience is safer than crazy. So I agree with Ann Coulter who says:
"I’d rather deal with President Hillary than with President McCain. With Hillary, we’ll get the same ruinous liberal policies with none of the responsibility."
How in the world can the Republican Party get saddled with a nutcase whack-job who knows nothing about economics, is so anti-capitalist he uses "profit" as a term of derision, has never run a business or had any job outside of government, will raise taxes, is so stupid that he believes "stopping global warming" is worth destroying the American economy, won’t drill ANWR, won’t appoint strict constructionist justices, won’t protect marriage, will give amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens, is beloved by the New York Times, and lives in a delusionary world of vanity and rage?
Rush is right. A McCain presidency will be the destruction of the Republican Party. It needs to be rebuilt, not wiped out with the field clear for the fascists of the left to consolidate power and eliminate freedom.
And maybe the only way to rebuild it is in dedicated impassioned opposition to a Clinton White House. That should be the subject of Ann Coulter’s next book. I’ve already got the title for her. Her last book was If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans.
Ann needs to now write this book: If Republicans Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans.
[A Yogi Berra note. There still is a chance for Romney, the last remaining hope. If he can win enough delegates on Super Tuesday next week, combined with Huckabee winning Georgia and other southern states, it may still be possible for McCain to end up with only a plurality of delegates, not a majority, at the end of primary season. An open convention is still possible, during which Republicans could come to their senses. It’s not over until it’s over.]
Here’s the link to Wheeler’s website.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I think Governor Romney’s supporters would do greater service to their candidate and greater justice to their attacks if they turned to the far more reasonable and rational arguments against Senator McCain’s candidacy that exist. No candidate is perfect, and God knows I do not think McCain is flawless. Let’s have a spirited debate on his stances on global warming, illegal immigration, and taxes. The slanderous innuendo that Dr. Wheeler posits, however, has no place in the Republican Party and no place in America.
A constant companion on the McCain campaign trail has been Colonel Budy Day, who shared a cell with the senator during their unexpected stay in Vietnam. Day, along with two other veteran supporters that I know of, are MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENTS. Furthermore, the dozens upon dozens of POWs who have endorsed McCain (http://blog.4president.org/2008/2007/11/former-pows-sup.html) probably would not have done so if they had any whiff of the treason that Dr. Wheeler alleges.
It is a sad day indeed when Republicans resort to the kind of gutter-politics practiced by the Clintons.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Just to be clear, I did anticipate a potential backlash effect — albeit very minor, of course — in support of McCain by posting something that would undoubtedly be considered ludicrous by many.
It is also interesting to see Wheeler put his credibility on the line, given his long history as a patriot, most notably in support of the Afghan rebels against the Soviets (Charlie Wilson was Wheeler’s best man).
February 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
See a response to Wheeler’s piece from a fellow McCain POW (from modernconservative.com):
A few days ago, an article came to our attention claiming that there was evidence that John McCain collaborated with the communists during his captivity. The article was detailed and specific…and it appears to have been a complete fabrication and libel.
When the article came to our attention, we noted that it was terrible, be it were true or not. A terrible slur if untrue, and obviously nightmarishly terrible if it were true. We would not believe something like this a priori, and any a posteriori belief would be predicated on there being TONS of corroboration. We noted that it is not normally our style to even mention these sorts of things without that level of corroboration, but that in a situation of such importance, we hoped that by making a brief post on it, we could receive information (hopefully) debunking it or (please God no!) supporting it. In fact, we specifically requested that we be contacted with such information.
A reader, friend, and colleague just contacted us with information mercifully debunking the article. It is not a direct, point-for-point refutation, but it is from one of McCain’s fellow prisoners, and by God, that is good enough.
Of the top-tier GOP candidates, McCain has not been—as is well-known to many of you—my first choice. But Wheeler’s article has no place in civilized discourse. It is a slur on an American hero, and while we may take issue with his positions or even his temperament as regards his candidacy, we cannot allow slurs of American heros to go unchallenged. For reasons of temperament and issues, I urge a vote for Mitt Romney tomorrow. For reasons of patriotism and decency, I urge you all to spread the word that Dr. Wheeler’s article is a pack of lies.
In our post on this, we also said that if this article were untrue, its author, Dr. Jack Wheeler, should be shunned from public discourse. Well, it’s untrue.
Unless he has a damn good explanation for why he wrote this…or he is completely and abjectly apologetic, he really should never be taken seriously ever again.
Here is the article by JAMES H. WARNER, McCain’s fellow P.O.W.:
Recently, I have seen several allegations that condemn Senator John McCain for his behavior as a prisoner of war. I believe that these allegations are false. I am in a better position than the Senator’s accusers to know the truth since I was a prisoner with him, having been captured a little over a month before him. I have contacted hundreds of my comrades on our e-mail list and not one of them can confirm anything that has been alleged against McCain. Let me tell you what they have told me and what I saw myself, and answer some of the charges.
First, I should say that I have great respect for Senator McCain, even though I am at odds with him on many issues and have remained distant from his campaign. I say this up front because I think that a defense mounted by one of his supporters would be less credible.
The first allegation is that the Soviets directed our interrogations and that John McCain gave up valuable intelligence during his interrogations. We doubt this. The Communists were not very skilled at keeping secrets from us and to my knowledge only one man saw someone whom he could identify as a Russian in any camp – a female “journalist’ who claimed to have been wounded as a tank commander in WWII. When the prisoner she was interviewing demanded that she show him her scars she knocked him off of his stool.
Everyone, when interrogated under torture, lied to the interrogators. Surely Soviet intelligence knew, as should any intelligent being, that there are no swimming pools on the decks of American aircraft carriers. Yet this lie was told and believed. One man was beaten for refusing to tell where the Navy keeps pigs and chickens on an aircraft carrier. Surely Soviet military intelligence knew that our ships have refrigeration and do not need to carry livestock. There are countless other such stories which cast doubt on the participation of the Soviets.
In any case, McCain was only a pilot. I cannot think of any tactical information which a Navy pilot could have which would be of any value to an enemy who lacked the capacity to attack an aircraft carrier. Nor can I think of much strategic information which any sensible person would give to a pilot who might be shot down and captured.
There are exceptions to this, of course. In any military or naval hierarchy, it is sometimes necessary, for day to day operations under unusual circumstances, for some men to be trained in various skills which may become useful should those circumstances arise. Even the existence of such skills should remain a secret as closely held as possible.
A few men in the camps had such a secret. Had it been disclosed by anyone, we would have known it instantly. It never was.
Someone has circulated a transcript of a radio broadcast made on June 2, 1969, in which McCain says that he received medical treatment and that we were being well treated. If it is authentic, it reads like a statement that he might have made when first captured. It did not take long for men to learn that they could manipulate language when tortured to make statements. Thus, at the Stockholm “War Crimes Tribunal,” the Vietnamese Communist government offered a statement from an American who confessed that Clark Kent (Superman’s alter ego) and Ben Casey (a character in a television show) ordered him to do terrible things. The Vietnamese only realized that they had been snookered when they saw Soviet journalists laughing at the joke the American had played on them. To John McCain’s critics I promise that I can get you, too, to make a statement on any subject I wish.
We have no evidence that Sen. McCain received special treatment. Since he was as thin as the rest of us, if he did, it was not in the form of decent food. It is alleged that he was taken into Hanoi and put up in a hotel with prostitutes. This is an improvement on the allegation spread during the 2000 campaign that he was given a Vietnamese woman to live with him in his cell, an allegation that led me to ask why, if he was my friend, didn’t he ask if she had a sister? Even when he was in solitary confinement, he was constantly in contact with others. Further, we always knew about movements within the camps because the Communists simply were not competent at preventing us from gaining intelligence. Men who were in the camps with him agree that they are not aware of a single night that he spent out of his cell.
A friend, whom I know to be reliable, was across the hall and one door down, from McCain’s cell when McCain was first captured. He has told me that he saw Communist officers enter the cell where the wounded John McCain lay, incapacitated. He heard them offer McCain early release and heard John answer that he would go home when we all go home. He heard the voices of the officers rising until they were shouting angrily at McCain and threatening him. This was followed by screams of agony from John McCain, and a stream of obscenities from him. He could not see what they did to him and I never heard from John McCain what it was. This does not sound like a collaborator.
In the spring of 1971 I personally witnessed evidence of John McCain’s loyalty. After the attempted rescue of POWs at the camp at Son Tay, in November of 1970, almost all Americans were moved to Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi, the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.” The Communists felt so threatened by the raid that, for the first time, they concentrated us in large cells with as many as sixty men in a cell.
One of the first things we did was to institute regular religious services in our cells. On January 1, 1971, we were told that all religious activity was forbidden. This led to a long series of increasingly hostile confrontations which someone has labeled “the Church Riots.” I was in a cell next to John McCain’s cell. In early March, the four senior men in his cell were removed and for some time we lost contact with them. Then the four senior men in my cell were removed, and we lost contact with them, also. The confrontations rapidly escalated.
My recollection is that John McCain was now the senior man in his cell. In any case, I know that he was deeply involved with what followed. The senior men in our two cells kept us under tight control, but carefully staged demonstrations of our anger over the religious ban and the removal of our cell mates. On March 19, St. Joseph’s Day, I remember the men in McCain’s room singing, at the top of their lungs, first “the Battle Hymn of the Republic,” then “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
We knew that this could not go on. The night before, when men from our cell went out to wash dishes, the largest men in the cell, me included, were sent out and told the stand a few inches in front of each guard, cross our arms, and stare angrily into their eyes. The guards were nervous. After ten minutes the one I was staring at began crying and ran away. Shortly thereafter a platoon of armed guards returned with him. A Vietnamese officer nervously ordered us to return to our cell. We stood fast. Finally, after we had repeatedly disobeyed the orders of the Vietnamese officer, the senior man in our cell stepped out and quietly told us to go inside.
The Communists were thoroughly frightened. Given the history of Communism, we had no illusions as to what might come from this. They had killed 100 million people to maintain their control. What would a few American pilots mean to people like that? For much of our incarceration they had threatened to execute some of us.
John McCain was involved in planning and carrying out these confrontations in order to gain the right to worship in our cells. He knew what we were risking. At sundown, on March 19, they came, first to McCain’s cell, then to ours. A total of thirty six of us were taken, at gunpoint, out of the cells. Outside our hands were tied, then our elbows tied behind our back, and we were blindfolded. We did not know what was about to happen but I am certain that none of us thought we were being taken to a hotel to have a party with Vietnamese girls. To our relief, we were taken to a camp where we were put in solitary confinement for the next seven months.
I may not agree with John McCain on some policies. However, I will go to my grave remembering the American officer who helped organize men to defy an enemy who wish to deprive us of religious observance. Even today I cannot hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic without tears as I am still moved by the courage of the singers and the leadership of John McCain.
James H. Warner is a retired attorney. He served as a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1985 until 1989.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Mr. Jantz – I also want to be clear; I know you posted the article in order to stir debate, not as a swipe against Senator McCain. Debate, as I said, is good for the party. I am glad that you brought up the article so it could be soundly disputed.
My anger is directed against Dr. Wheeler and others like him, patriots all, whose passion have blinded them to common sense. Ann Coulter, for example, is flat out wrong when she says Hillary Clinton is more conservative than John McCain.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Well said. Thank you.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:00 am
A couple of folks have emailed me directly to express concerns that I would post the above initial entry. I think they missed the point.
First, read Part 1 in the post below for the preface and stated intent.
Jack Wheeler’s post about McCain is circulating the internet and email; several activists have seen it and it is being forwarded. I used it as both an opportunity to point out the extent to which people will go in this type of campaign situation, and so folks could discount it by responding in this comments section about the sheer audactity of Wheeler’s contention.
It was obvious to me that FR readers would see my post for what it is.
The additional entry a couple of comments above with info from modernconservative.com was a response to Wheeler that I thought made the point, but that I also knew no one else would likely post. So I did.
That said, if anyone is suggesting that I should refrain from posting information or opinions that have run on other blogs and that are being circulated on the web, even to point out the level of the negatives, I beg to differ.
Those running for president I assume are adults and understand that bombs will be thrown, even very ugly ones.
If anyone is concerned that by reading something like this, people will accept it at face value to the point of beleiving it or even changing their vote, they underestimate conservative readers in general and FlashReport readers specifically.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I agree completely with the initial comments posted Feb 4 by Mr. Clifton Yin. Dr. Wheeler’s outrageous lies should not afford him an invitation to any “reasonable and rational” (Yin) debate about the issues. In this case, however, Dr. Wheeler’s efforts are displayed in full – 1,600 plus words – with a link to his web site. This just seems to be much, much more than he deserves.
Mr. Jantz, I attribute no ill intent to you. I’ve read your Part 1, and can only say that your stated intent could have been clearer. Please carry on.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Fair enough. I’d also ask that readers consider using the link to Wheeler’s website to go to his available contact information and let him know any concerns you might have. I would expect he’s getting some reaction, but have no way of knowing for sure.