A Family Duty

Early in McCain's captivity, the North Vietnamese, well aware of who their prisoner was, offered to release him. He refused, sensing it would shame his father and demoralize his comrades.

In 1972, the admiral was called on to implement B-52 bombing raids on Hanoi, where he knew his son was being held. "B-52s in those days were not exactly totally precision bombing," McCain says. "There was never a doubt in his mind what he would do. But still, you know your kid's there, and you're ordering the bombing of the area."

According to his book, McCain and his fellow POWs rejoiced at the bombings. "Thank you!" the Americans shouted as the ground shook and their guards scrambled for cover.

By then, their ordeal was almost over.

Peace accords ending the war were signed in January 1973, and McCain was released in March. His father, who had already retired and was in failing health, was invited to the welcome-home ceremony in the Philippines. He asked whether the parents of other POWs were invited. Told they were not, he declined.

Father and son were reunited a few weeks later in Jacksonville, Fla. "It was a very touching reunion," McCain says, between the war-weary, old-school admiral and the son he might have killed.

"He had aged," McCain says.

Before his son's release, Jack McCain had asked to stay in his post to see the war to its conclusion, but he was turned down. His father was lost without the Navy. And he believes that despair helped produce the heart attack that killed him in 1981.

On the day of his father's funeral, McCain retired from the Navy. "It was the first time in the 20th century," he wrote, that "the name John McCain was missing from Navy rosters."

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Twelve years later, on May 26, 1993, McCain spoke to the Naval Academy's graduating class, an address that Timberg recounts in his book. McCain had just been elected to a second term in the Senate. Friends from around the country had come to hear his speech at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

It was a warm, breezy day and a triumphant moment. McCain's father had spoken at the academy's commencement in 1970, while McCain was a POW in Hanoi.