Dr Joseph Douglas Jr – Author “Betrayed - Americas Missing POWs”
Senator McCain seemed to be one of the people that was an obstructionist
who was not interested in the truth coming out
who tried to attack people rather than learn what they had to say
Tracey Usry fmr Chief Investigator , US Senate Minority Staff
At no instance would he ever ever give in and say that there were POWs left behind
and my first question is “How would he know? or not know?”
So that which is reasonable he never exhibited
and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a guilt complex
Maybe he promised the Vietnamese something
ok - I don’t know what it is
and maybe he actually believed that
that would be the saddest of all
Delores Apodaca Alfono – Chairperson, National Alliance of Families
I mean he was yelling and screaming at me
he had me in tears
Tracey Usry
oh to everybody…
.. he was very rude to me on several occasions
Dr Joseph Douglas Jr
he probably did more harm to the idea of trying to get the truth out than any other single person
through the efforts he did to block the release of classified intelligence dealing with the POW MIA problem
Lynn OShea Dir of Research National Alliance of Families
McCain stepped in and in effect made it harder for us to get documentation
…We were hoping for a massive relase of documentation
Senator Bob Smith (R- NH)
Many many documents were held back, for no reason , and our goal on the commottee was to dump this stuff , declassify it literally to the public – but the US Govt withheld all kinds of information from the committee. I know that for a fact.
Al Santoli, American Foreign Policy Council
Even POW’s who wanted to see their own debriefings were not permitted because of the MCCain regulation
Rep, Bob Dornan (R-CA)
and where did McCain get compliments for doing this – the bureaucrats at the Pentagon
.. and did we need that bill to handle the Scott Spiker case – oh you bet we did!
Al Santoli
it would hold the bureaucrats accountable at law if they lied or withheld information , and he fought tooth and nail to protect those bureaucrats - cos they were protecting him.
Senator Bob Smith
I could never understand that – if someone was guilty of withholding information that would help us to solve the mystery of what happened to an MIA and did it deliberately – why would we not want to preosecute that person
…. I supported it, fought for it hard – in the US Senate and mostly in the Armed Services Committee where we debated it, but …
It was watered down to basically where it was almost worthless
Al Santoli
Now one of the things that happened with that bill is that we were submarined
On the House side we passed it with a pretty much unamimous vote
Rep, Bob Dornan
401 to zero on the House.
with every single Republican who is serving sponsoring it , and about a third of the Democrats.
Al Santoli
On the Senate side we had one person standing in the way of getting in positions that would have been very tough on Govt bureaucrats who didn’t tell the truth – and that one person was Senator John McCain.
3.50s
Cpl Bob Dumas
He didn’t want anybody to check HIS background. wanted to protect his background because a lot of POWs we had in the camp said that he was a collaborator of the enemy. He gave the enemy information they wanted
Dr James Lucier Former US Senate Chief of Staff
What we do know is that when he was there he cooperated with the communist news services in giving interviews that were not flattering to the United States
Tracey Usry
Information shows that he made over 32 tapes of propaganda for the Vietnamese Govt
Certainly you do what you need to do to stay alive
No body would fault anybody for that
but there comes a point in time where enough is enough
Rep, Bob Dornan
He made those transcriptions, and in those transcriptions
I heard a POW who heard them coming into his cell and said
OMG is that Admiral McCain’s son !? is that the Admiral’s son? Is that Johnny?
telling us that our principal targets are schools, orphanages, hospitals, temples, churches
4m45s that was Jane Fonda’s line!.