More on LOST Vietnam POWs

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October 23, 2008

Report: McCain Suppressed Info on Fellow Vietnam POWs Left Behind

We speak to Pulitzer-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg about how the “war hero” candidate Sen. John McCain buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam. Writing for The Nation magazine, Schanberg reveals that McCain “worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home.”

John McCain’s time as a POW during the Vietnam war is back at the center of attention with the release of a 1967 interview of him while he is bedridden and imprisoned in Vietnam. The interview by reporter Francois Chalais originally aired on French television in 1968. The French national audiovisual archive posted the interview on its website Wednesday and some of the footage was also picked up by the McCain campaign. The interview shows an emotional McCain describing how his aircraft was shot down while bombing Hanoi in 1967.

John McCain interview from 1967.

McCain’s years as a prisoner of war and his return home as a war hero have been a central part of his political image. But there"s another part of the story thats rarely been told. And that has to do with the POWs who were left behind in Vietnam and never released back to the United States.

An investigation by veteran journalist Sydney Schanberg reveals that McCain “worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn”t return home." Schanberg’s report was published in the October 6th issue of the Nation magazine. Its called “Why Has John McCain Blocked Info on MIAs?”

Sydney Schanberg, Veteran journalist who has written extensively on foreign affairs. He has won several awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for reporting on the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. His latest article appeared in the October 6 issue of The Nation magazine. It’s about John McCain and the American prisoners of war left behind in Vietnam. It’s called Why Has John McCain Blocked Info on MIAs? . An expanded version is online at the Nation Institute website.