hat they can make their own judgments and interpretations themselves instead of it being mediated through a book or novel or some secondary tech that people can go to our website and hear the stories of veterans and their own words and draw their own conclusions, and we have tried to use some of our different tools, things like our website. we have an online exhibit and also a blog to show people the wide variety of different types of stories in our collection and the -- not even lessons that can be learned but the different experiences that are there, to point those out to people and show the wide forest city -- the wide diversity of different experiences. rios: thank you for being with us. patrick: thank you for having me. >> now senator john mccain, who was interviewed as part of the library of congress veterans history project. senator mccain served as a navy pilot in the vietnam war. the north vietnamese captured

him in 1967. he was held as a pow for over five years. he talks about his time as a captive and his near-death experiences. it's about 30 minutes. >> my name is michelle kelly and i'm the director of oral history for the battleship massachusetts, and we are an official partner of the veterans oral history project that the library of congress. i'd like to start by asking you a few questions about your background. could you state your full name and title? senator mccain: john cindy mccain, united states senator from arizona. kelly: when were you born? senator mccain: august 29 1936. kelly: did you always feel that you were bound for life in the navy? senator mccain: i believe so. i resisted it from time to time, but i was pretty sure that was what was going to happen. kelly: where would you when president kennedy was

assassinated, and what we are thoughts? senator mccain: i was at virginia beach, virginia, in a house that three other bachelors and i were living in, and i happened to be at home. i was watching television, and, of course, heard the news. i think my emotions were very similar to the majority of americans -- shop, sorrow, anger , but mostly shock. kelly: what lessons did annapolis teach you that have stayed with you? senator mccain: i think that over time, a school like the naval academy and stills and you certain principles -- adherence to a certain code of honor dependence on your comrades, a class system where you are loyal to your classmates and then, of course, a reverence for and desire to stimulate leaders that

you are taught about. john paul jones, teddy roosevelt -- those kinds of people, i think. over the four years, it's sort of ingrained in you. kelly: what made you choose to be a navy pilot? senator mccain: i thought it was the most glamorous and exciting life any person could ever choose. that was always my goal, and my grandfather had been in aviator as well. kelly: before you actually went to vietnam, what did you know about the war through the media and military? senator mccain: i did not know a lot. read about various conflicts and the battles that had taken place. like most americans, i had never heard of the 1954 agreements in geneva that divided north and south vietnam. i did not have any knowledge of

the background and history of the vietnamese people. i believed it was the classic struggle between communism and freedom. kelly: in the time before you were taken prisoner, how did the actual experience of being in vietnam differ from what you imagined? senator mccain: my views about the conflict were not affected in any way that i can remember, but the futility of the way we were carrying on the air war became more and more apparent. we'd watch the russian freighters pull into the harbor unload the missiles and truck them up and put them in place. we could not touch them, and then they would be fired at us. that kind of war -- targets picked by lyndon johnson in the basement of the white house. i remember one target i had one

day was a place that had been bombed numerous times before and 100 yards away was a bridge. could not strike the bridge, but could make the concrete ounce at the target i was assigned. it was foolish, and all of us knew it was foolish, and it was worse than that in many respects because so many of my squadron mates and air wing mates were shot down and killed and captured. kelly: what was a typical day like at yankee station? senator mccain: there was periods on yankee station where we had just sort of routine launches every hour and 40 minutes where you you would get probably a couple of sorties a day where you would go out in two or four airplanes on various specific targets. the other was when we were in the kinds of operations we called alpha strikes. that would be once a day and maximum of twice a day where practically all the air wings would be launched at one time. we would rendezvous and usually go strike a major target usually in the hanoi area.

on the day i was shot down, for example, it was the thermal power plant in hanoi that we were striking which was downtown hanoi. those kind of strikes required very large numbers of airplanes. sometimes even joining up with the air wings from other aircraft carriers that were on station as well. kelly: can you tell me about the fire aboard the forester? senator mccain: we were preparing for an alpha strike. there was a large number of airplanes. i was in mine, had started the engine checks. across the flight deck from me was an f-4 phantom. on the phantom wings were zuni rockets which are six-foot-long rockets. and the procedure that's required, onboard safety procedures is that -- say what we call a pigtail, which is an electrical connection that goes to the rear end of the rocket,

and the way the rocket is fired is an electrical impulse fires -- goes through that and fires the rocket. well, that pigtail as it's called is not supposed to be inserted until it's on the catapult facing the water. those rules were violated unfortunately that day and the pigtail was inserted in the zuni rocket. as the pilot went from external power which is what's used to start the engine of the airplane much like a commercial airliner to internal power which means that you use the power from the -- you're not dependent on the outside source of the electricity any more, a very large charge of stray electricity went to the pigtail and fired the zuni rocket across the flight deck, punched through the fuel tank, the 200 gallon fuel tank that was underneath my a-4 sky hawk and continued on.

the fuel spilled out naturally and the fuel was on fire, and in a very short period of time there was a huge conflagration on the far stall which ended up taking the lives of 135 young sailors and took about 12-18 hours, depending on how you look at it to put the fire out. i felt the shock, saw the fire jumped out by going on a refueling probe. all this is on film, by the way, because it was -- we had constant filming of the flight deck and rolled to the fire, went across the other side of the flight deck, saw people running around, saw a number of things including people with a fire hose.

i saw the pilot plane next to mine jump out of his airplane, opponent he didn't jump as far. when he rolled out, he was on fire. i started towards him just as i did the first bomb blew off and knocked me back and then other bombs started going off. that's when the conflagration started from -- i would say there couldn't have been more than about two minutes between the time that my airplane was hit by the zuni rocket until the time that the first bomb went off which then complicated the disaster dramatically, of course. kelly: between that incident and the two plane crashes you were in, did you ever feel superstitious? senator mccain: i'm always superstitious. i'm very superstitious. kelly: you didn't go on the ariskeni. senator mccain: they had the

highest losses of any air wing in the vietnam conflict. kelly: did you do things -- being superstitious, did you do things for good luck? senator mccain: yeah, and i'm sorry because i always had this -- on the forestal, there was a young parachute rigger. the guy in the squadron that takes care of the pilot's equipment. i always kind-this view that my visor needed to be cleaned. after my plane was started and after i was ready to go, i would always hand my helmet down to him and he would clean the visor off and give it back to me and put it on. i had just gotten the helmet back from him after he cleaned the visor and put it on when the first -- when the rocket hit. unfortunately, we never saw him again, unfortunately. but i still am one who tries to avoid stepping on a crack and will pick up a penny if the head's up and all of those things. kelly: can you describe the circumstances under which you were taken prisoner by the

vietnamese? senator mccain: well, we were striking the hanoi thermal power plant. it was a very large air strike. we came in. there was heavy and concentrated both anti-aircraft fire and surface to air missiles were everywhere. at that time hanoi was the most heavily defended place in history. and as i rolled in to bomb the target, i rolled in and sighted on the power plant which sat on the end of a lake, the western lake. just as i released the bombs and started to pull back on the stick, surface to air missile hit and took the right wing off my airplane. my airplane violently gyrated. i ejected. as the airplane was going down striking my knee on the canopy when i went out, and broke my arm as well.

both my arms, and parachuted into a lake called the western lake. i had some difficulty getting my life vest to inflate. i had to use my teeth to pull the toggle on it. after struggling around. when i floated to the surface, some vietnamese came out and pulled me into shore. the crowd was rather angry which is understandable, and they hit me and broke my shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted me a couple of times. then army guys came and took pictures of some woman giving me a cup of tea, then threw me into the truck and took me to the prison which we know of as the hanoi hilton, an old french prison -- built by the french, a prison in downtown hanoi. kelly: can you tell me about

living conditions at the hanoi hilton and how they changed after you refused early release? senator mccain: conditions were very poor in the first few years. guards were very tough. the food was poor. a lot of dissentary. -- dysentery. i lived most of the time in solitary confinement, although i was always in contact by tapping with other prisoners. i was never beaten very badly up until the time i refused the early release, but after that it was very severe for about eight or nine months as they attempted to get a war crimes confession out of me. but after a while that eased off some. then after about middle to late 1970 after ho chi minh had died,

our treatment changed for everybody and it improved rather dramatically. kelly: what kind of food did they give you? senator mccain: soup twice a day, piece of bread usually, and soup. four months a year, it was pumpkin soup, four months a year it was cabbage soup. four months a year, it was a greens kind of a thing that looked like clipped grass. sometimes there would be some meat in it, sometimes not. that was basically our food. as i say, with the change in treatment, the food improved significantly. kelly: can you tell me why you refused early release? >> well, i was not in good shape. i knew that the vietnamese thought i was an important prisoner because of my father being an admiral and commander of u.s. forces in the pacific. it wasn't an easy decision because i was in very poor

physical health, but i also knew the code of conduct said sick and injured go first and then by order of capture. everett alvarez had been there three years before i ever got there. unfortunately, i did not have much communication except with the guy in the cell next to me so i had had no contact with the senior ranking officer. but i made the decision that it was better for me to go home in order. i'm very happy i didn't know i was going to be there for another three years. kelly: did that have to do with the code of honor? senator mccain: well, the korean conflict which was our first experience with the brainwashing. 37 americans after the korean war chose to live in china and not come back to the united states, the code of conduct was developed.

it says very clearly i will not accept parole, i will go home in order of -- go home in order of capture except for those who are sick and injured. so it was very clear in the code of conduct. the question was how sick and injured was i? that was a bit of a question. it's the wisest decision that i ever made. kelly: you referred to many p.o.w.'s by name in your book. how many of these men did you actually have the opportunity to communicate with directly while in prison? senator mccain: during the first few years, very few. only those around -- the cells around me because we were kept either in solitary confinement or two to a cell. later on when we were put in large rooms of 25-30 p.o.w.'s in each, i got to know very well about maybe 40 or 50 p.o.w.'s. kelly: in "faith of my fathers," you referred to being

interviewed by a cuban dr. fernando burrell posing as a psychiatrist in the presence of cuban torturers in the hanoi hilton. did you have any other contact with cubans in vietnam? senator mccain: no, and i didn't, fortunately, have contact with the cuban interrogators. they were in another camp. but the people who were there said they were extremely brutal. kelly: what kind of relationship did dr. burrell appear to have with the north vietnamese? senator mccain: it's hard for me to tell. obviously they were a guest of the north vietnamese. but it was one of these things where they took me in a jeep and blindfolded and i walked into this room, sat down, talked to him for about 15 minutes or so and left. kelly: when i was reading your

book, i was surprised at how much humor was used by you and by the other p.o.w.'s. can you tell me about the role that humor plays in this situation? senator mccain: humor is vital to one's resistance and mental stability. we used to play this program that we called hanoi hannah. it was a radio program every morning and evening. it was always entertaining. to make fun of the guards rather than be afraid of them. we called the camp commander sloped head. we would give different names to different guards. it's very important. communication is absolutely essential. a sense of humor is very important. if you don't have that, you have a tendency, your captor, to become larger and larger and more and more powerful and therefore you are more and more intimidated. if you laugh at them, then it puts them back to their actual size. kelly: you said when you first got there, when you weren't treated quite in such extreme violence as some of the other p.o.w.'s because of your father's position, and so you acted out more. in what ways did you?

you were more reckless. that's the word you used. senator mccain: yes, because i wasn't punished as badly as others when i would be communicating or talking back to the guards. that was a luxury that i enjoyed until the time i refused to be released. kelly: how much did you know about the progress of the war while you were a prisoner? senator mccain: we knew more biomission than commission. -- by omission than commission. for example, i remember hearing night after night about how kaison was going to fall, the marines were surrounded, they had no chance. then one night we didn't hear about kaison anymore, which clearly indicated to us that it had not fallen. most of the rest of it was such blatant propaganda that you just dismissed it. so it was hard to know what was going on. what we really didn't appreciate, because we blocked

out most of the information, was how strong the anti-war movement had become in the united states. that came as a great surprise to us. when i was shot down in 1967 the anti-war movement was, you know, just another irritant, and so it was hard for us to imagine how divisive the war had become in our society until we came out. it was probably my greatest surprise. kelly: how did you first find out about that? senator mccain: well, they told us all this stuff but we didn't believe it. whenever anywhere in the world someone burned an american flag, we would hear about it. but we dismissed it as just communist propaganda. it wasn't until we got out and found out that it really was one of the most divisive crises in the history of our country. kelly: what were some of the

traits of your fellow prisoners that you admired the most? senator mccain: courage ingenuity, humor. i was privileged to observe acts of courage, compassion, and love. it was the great honor of my life. kelly: can you tell me about your release from the prison camp and how you adjusted to everyday life back in the united states? senator mccain: the vietnamese divided us up into different camps, in groups of when we had been shot down because the releases were -- the first group released were the earliest shot down, alvarez and company, second group, third group, i think there were five groups over a period of about three months. the vietnamese came and gave us shoes, they gave us pants and a shirt. food obviously was really dramatically good. we had stuff to read. one day they took us outside of the camp and we got on the buses and the buses went to the airport in hanoi, and we got off

the buses and there was a table with vietnamese americans. they called out your name. you went forward. an american greeted you and you got on the airplane. we went and spent about three days in the philippines where we got initial physical exams, that kind of thing. then flew back to the places that we had been stationed when we were shot down. my case was jacksonville florida. it took me about 45 minutes to adjust. i have never had a mayor, i have -- i've never had a nightmare. never had a flashback. i have never had any difficulties at all. some physical difficulties obviously, but it didn't take me any time at all to adjust. the last couple of years, we were together in groups. we did a lot of things, from history classes and mathematics to putting on plays and skits and movies and playing cards.

so, you know, it wasn't as if i had just walked out of three years of solitary confinement into the outside world. so it didn't take most of us long at all. kelly: what experiences prompted you to go into politics? senator mccain: my last job in the navy was the navy liaison officer in the senate. i and a marine, major jim jones who now is the head of nato later became a commandant of the marine corps and now is the head of nato -- i worked there and got interested in the political process because i observed it saw how impactful a dedicated knowledgeable member of the senate can be, so i aspired to be one. kelly: what do you consider to

be some of your major successes as a public servant? senator mccain: passage of the campaign finance reform law was probably one of the major achievements, but i have been involved in a host of national security issues. s chairman of the commerce committee, i've been involved in many of the telecommunications aviation transportation issues. as one of the authors of the transportation security act, which, you know, post-9/11. i think we have tried to take care of our constituents who need help. i'm very proud of that. so, you know -- normalization of relations with vietnam is something that i'm proud of. kelly: you refer to hemingway's "for whom the bell tolls." how do you feel your life and public service has gone according to the philosophies extolled in that book?

senator mccain: well, robert jordan, hemingway's hero and protagonist in "for whom the bell tolls," was a man who was dedicated selfless, brave capable, but also stoic. he recognized that the cause he served was a flawed one, but he still served it to the point where he was willing to sacrifice his life even if not only the cause but the particular enterprise -- the blowing up of a bridge -- would have no effect on the conflict. he still went out and did it and then was willing to sacrifice his very life, and his final words were "the world is a fine place and worth fighting for, and i hate very much to leave it." kelly: what is your idea of

honor, and from your father and grandfather? senator mccain: my idea of honor is to serve a cause greater than your self-interest, and there's lots of good causes, and you can serve them in many ways. you do not have to serve them in the spanish civil war, as robert jordan did. you can serve them in your own community and even in your own home. kelly: you told the story of your father's presence in operation torch. did he ever mentioned seeing the uss massachusetts, which was also there? senator mccain: i'm sure he did but i honestly don't remember. kelly: is there anything else that we should talk about? senator mccain: no, except to say that i have been very fortunate in my life.

i think i'm probably the luckiest person that you will ever interview. i survived many near-death experiences. i have had the privilege of serving the country now for 22 years in the navy and now 22 years -- nearly 22 years in the congress of the united states and i have had opportunities to see and be involved in some important moments in the history of our country and played a very, very small role in our country's great story, so i think that i am really the most fortunate person that i have ever known or heard of and am truly blessed. kelly: we do have one more question for you -- what do you think about our current involvement and the possibility of going to war with iraq? senator mccain: i think it's

very likely we will be in a conflict. i think it will be brief. i think we will win with a minimum of casualties, although any casualty is a tragedy, and i think we have the opportunity to put a democratic form of government in iraq and end a very brutal, oppressive regime on the people of iraq. i regret that we have to do this because we will lose american lives, but at the same time, i think there's a possibility of doing great and wonderful things . kelly: thank you very much senator. senator mccain: thank you. thank you for having me. >> your are some of our featured programs for this holiday weekend on the c-span networks. tonight it in :00 p.m. eastern, former texas state senator and gubernatorial candidate wendy davis -- tonight at 8:00 p.m. on the challenges of women in politics.