One senator, an outspoken opponent of the war, was not an intimate of my father’s, nor, apparently, was he familiar with my father’s ethics. When his turn came to question my father, he immediately took issue with his central argument, that we needed to increase our presence in the Pacific, and he did so in the one manner that anyone familiar with my father’s reputation for probity knew better than to pursue. In effect, he accused him of lying.
He callously implied that my father had intentionally exaggerated his threat assessments to justify force levels that were excessively large and unnecessary. To this senator, my father was an archetype, the old military hawk used to getting his way from unquestioning legislators who had always left military decisions to the military. But times had changed. The World War II–vintage military brass were no longer accorded automatic respect by younger members of Congress, who, though they may have lacked much if any military experience themselves, prided themselves on their modern sensibility and ability to see through an old hawk’s con. To this particular senator, men like my father had gotten us into an unwinnable, unpopular, and probably immoral war. They were not to be trusted.
This was not, of course, the first time my father had testified before a congressional committee. Nor was it the first time my father had encountered a quarrelsome legislator. He had forged personal relationships with a good many politicians and over the years had had any number of spirited debates with them on all manner of military subjects. It was, however, the first time any member of Congress had challenged his honesty, and that was an injury he would accept from no one.
Once the insult was offered, my father forgot all thought of the purpose of his testimony. Neither did he particularly give a damn about disputing the senator’s view of our force requirements. All that mattered to him was that he respond to the attack on his good name, which he did instantly and forcefully.
According to Admiral Vasey, who had accompanied my father to the hearing room and was seated right behind the witness table, the moment the senator finished making the offensive remark, my father jumped to his feet. Red-faced, and jabbing his finger in the direction of his accuser, he proceeded to deliver a heated and sarcastic lecture on strategy and the responsibilities of the Commander in Chief, Pacific. “I don’t remember his specific words,” Admiral Vasey recounted in a letter to me, “but he made it crystal-clear that he was an officer of the highest integrity, as was his father before him, and he strongly objected to any insinuation that reflected on the moral character of himself or his testimony, or of the United States military.”
When it appeared that my father was not about to let up on the offending senator, Admiral Vasey discreetly grasped the bottom of my father’s coat and pulled him down into his seat, “but not before observing the sly smiles on the faces of other committee members.”
Such outbursts were rare in those days in the ostentatiously formal precincts of Capitol Hill. They are even rarer today. There were few things in his life my father valued more dearly than his career. But his good name was one of them. He would have sacrificed anything to defend it, as the errant senator found out that day.
Of course, my father was at the end of his career, and already wore four stars. He had achieved his life’s ambition, and there was nothing an antagonistic member of Congress could do about it. My father did have hopes of extending his tour as CINCPAC, and that, of course, could have been put at risk by his publicly upbraiding a sitting member of Congress. I am confident, however, that my father did not give a damn about the risks involved in what some might have viewed as his astonishingly rash behavior. I doubt he believed any job was worth having if it required him to suffer such an insult in silence.
My father prided himself on being a strategic thinker. Obviously, the war consumed most of his time, but, as he had for most of his career, he focused much of his attention on the future threats to American naval supremacy in the Pacific. He had long been concerned about the growing strength of the Soviet Navy, and he believed one of his most important duties as CINCPAC was to ensure that the United States was prepared to contain the emerging Soviet naval threat. Toward that end, my father worked not just to maintain the Navy’s military advantage in the Pacific, but to strengthen the United States’ relationships with the countries in the region.
Needless to say, American diplomats in Asia were not always delighted to share their responsibilities with a naval officer, especially one as outspoken and often unpredictable as my father. But my father enjoyed warm, personal relationships with many Asian leaders and could speak to them more forthrightly and often to better effect than could a good many American ambassadors in Asia. Many Asian heads of state had come to power as military leaders. Many were not philosophically well disposed toward the virtues of democracy. They were often more comfortable in the company of a senior American military official who wished to talk with them only about questions of regional security and military power, and in a language familiar to them, than they were in the company of our diplomats.
My father’s reputation as a frank, gruff, and engaging American military representative was widespread throughout Asia. Most, if not all, of the Asian heads of state whose countries were either allies of the United States or officially nonaligned with either superpower considered him a personal friend. He was accorded extraordinary courtesies whenever he paid official visits to their countries.
A few years ago, I met with Lee Kuan Yew, who as Singapore’s “senior minister” has governed the city-state for decades and is considered by many to be the elder statesman of Asia. My visit was an official one, but Lee began our conversation by reminding me that he had been a friend of my father’s. He went on to talk at great length about my father, in a tone suffused with fond regard for his memory. He paid polite but rather less close attention to the official subjects I had come to discuss. Throughout our discussion, he kept returning to my father, and repeating how highly he had valued my father’s friendship and counsel. That was fine with me.
On another official visit, this time to Taiwan, I was invited to be the guest of honor at a luncheon banquet hosted by most of the Taiwan military command. The affair lasted over two hours, and considerable quantities of a Chinese rice wine that tastes more like whiskey than wine were consumed by the twenty or more aging generals in attendance. Every ten minutes or so, one or another of the generals rose to his feet and reverently offered a toast to the memory of my father, “the great American admiral, John McCain.”
Joe Vasey accompanied my father on his official visits to Asian capitals. He tells a humorous story about a trip they made to Indonesia during which they paid a call on President Suharto, who, until very recently, was one of Southeast Asia’s most durable dictators. The story illustrates my father’s diplomatic style and the respect accorded him by Asian leaders.
My father and Suharto enjoyed each other’s company, and the meeting lasted much longer than planned. Near the end of their conversation, my father surprised his host and the American diplomats who accompanied him to the meeting by commenting on Indonesia’s recent purchase of Soviet ships. “Why in the hell did you accept motor torpedo boats and submarines from the Soviets? Our intelligence reports indicate they are a bunch of junk.” Before Suharto could respond, my father asked his permission to visit one of the subs. After briefly consulting with an aide, Suharto agreed, and the next day my father and Admiral Vasey were flown to a naval base at the other end of Java.