What Donald Trump Was Up to While John McCain Was a Prisoner of War - The Washington Post

8202019 What Donald Trump Was Up to While John McCain Was a Prisoner of War - The Washington Post

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What Donald Trump was up to while John McCain was a

prisoner of war

Left John S McCain USN is shown in this undated photo lying

injured in North Vietnam wearing an arm cast He was held

prisoner during the Vietnam War (AP)

Right Donald Trump in 1976 (Tom AllenThe Washington Post)

It was the spring of 1968 and Donald Trump had it good

He was 21 years old and handsome with a full head of hair He

avoided the Vietnam War draft on his way to earning an Ivy

League degree He was fond of fancy dinners beautiful women

and outrageous clubs Most important he had a job in his fatherrsquo



real estate company and a brain bursting with money-making

ideas that would make him a billionaire

ldquoWhen I graduated from college I had a net worth of perhaps

$200000rdquo he said in his 1987 autobiography ldquoTrump The Art o

the Dealrdquo written with Tony Schwartz (Thatrsquos about $14 million 2015 dollars) ldquoI had my eye on Manhattanrdquo

More than 8000 miles away John McCain sat in a tiny

squalid North Vietnamese prison cell The Navy pilotrsquos body was

broken from a plane crash starvation botched operations and

months of torture

As Trump was preparing to take Manhattan McCain was trying to

relearn how to walk

The stark contrast in their fortunes was thrown into sharp relief

Saturday when Trump belittled McCain during a campaign speecin Iowa

ldquoHersquos not a war herordquo Trump said of McCain

ldquoHersquos a war hero because he was capturedrdquo Trump said

sarcastically ldquoI like people that werenrsquot capturedrdquo

[Enough already Des Moines Register tells Trump to call it quits]

[ McCain makes his first public comments since incident Trump

should apologize to military families]



What not to say if youre running for president Donald Trump

on Sen John McCain

Play Video298309821

Businessman and 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump

grabbed headlines and ignited a GOP firestorm with his

controversial remarks that Sen John McCain (R-Ariz) is not a w

hero The Fixs Chris Cillizza discusses why this was a bad move

for Trump (Julie PerchaThe Washington Post)

Trumprsquos comments drew scorn from his fellow Republican

presidential contenders But The Donald didnrsquot back down

ldquoWhen I left the room it was a total standing ovationrdquo he told AB

News in reference to his already infamous Iowa speech ldquoIt was

wonderful to see Nobody was insultedrdquo

In fact a lot of people were insulted

[ The Take Trumprsquos comments mark a turning point for him mdash and

the GOP ]

ldquoJohn McCain is a hero a man of grit and guts and character

personifiedrdquo Secretary of State John F Kerry said in

a statement ldquoHe served and bled and endured unspeakable acts

of torture His captors broke his bones but they couldnrsquot break h

spirit which is why he refused early release when he had the

chance Thatrsquos heroism pure and simple and it is

unimpeachablerdquo



If Trump doesnrsquot think that thatrsquos heroic then what exactly is

admirable in his eyes

And what was he doing while McCain was locked up in the

infamous prison that POWs sarcastically dubbed the Hanoi Hilton

The answer reveals deep divides in the two menrsquos lives and claim

to leadership They may similarly embrace free enterprise but

when it comes to character the two GOP presidential hopefuls

could hardly be more different

McCain famously followed his father and grandfather mdash both

admirals mdash into the Navy He has said his role model was Teddy

Roosevelt the barrel-chested bear-hunting war hero turned

president He also saw his grandfather and father as heroes too

as he wrote in his autobiography ldquoFaith of My Fathersrdquo

ldquoMy grandfather was a naval aviator my father a submariner Thewere my first heroes and earning their respect has been the mos

lasting ambition of my liferdquo

Growing up in Queens Trumprsquos role models were more hellip

theatrical

ldquoTwo of the people I admired most and who I kind of studied for

the way they did things were the great Flo Ziegfeld the Broadwa

producer and Bill Zeckendorf the builderrdquo he told the New York

Times in 1984 ldquoThey created glamour and the pageantry the

elegance the joy they brought to what they did was magnificent



McCain grew up in a military household Trump grew up in a hom

dominated by his hard-charging penny-pinching businessman

father

Both young men had rebellious streaks At the US Naval

Academy at Annapolis McCain was known as a ldquotough meanlittle fmdashmdashrdquo who ldquowas defiant and flouted the rulesrdquo but never

enough to get kicked out according to Robert Timbergrsquos ldquoThe

Nightingalersquos Songrdquo

McCain entered the Navy in 1958 Around the same time Trump

was sent to the New York Military Academy to straighten him outafter his own youthful transgressions rdquoHe was a pretty rough

fellow when he was smallrdquo his father told the Times in 1983

But the similarities stopped there Despite a successful stint at th

military school Trump doesnrsquot seem to have been eager to enlist

It was 1964 and the Vietnam War was escalating

He considered going to film school in California ldquoI was attracted

the glamour of the moviesrdquo he said in ldquoTrump The Art of the

Dealrdquo adding that he ldquoadmiredrdquo Hollywoodrsquos ldquogreat showmen Bu

in the end I decided real estate was a much better businessrdquo

Instead Trump attended Fordham for two years before transferrin

to the University of Pennsylvania where he took economics

courses at its famed Wharton School (According to a book by

Gwenda Blair Trump was allowed to transfer into the Ivy League

school because of family connections and has exaggerated his



performance at Penn)

During his time in school Trump received four student deferment

from the draft

ldquoIf I would have gotten a low [draft] number I would have been

drafted I would have proudly servedrdquo he told ABC News ldquoBut I

got a number I think it was 356 Thatrsquos right at the very end And

they didnrsquot get mdash I donrsquot believe mdash past even 300 so I was mdash I

was not chosen because of the fact that I had a very high lottery

numberrdquo

As Trump was enjoying the Ivy League and avoiding the war

McCain was about to become one of its most high-profile

casualties

The lieutenant commander had been flying for months

conducting targeted strikes on North Vietnam He had alreadybeen injured in an aircraft carrier fire that killed 134 fellow sailors

And he had already made a name for himself as a pilot

On Oct 25 1967 McCain had destroyed two enemy MiG fighter

planes parked on a runway outside Hanoi He begged to go out

the next day too

But as he flew into Hanoi again on Oct 26 his jetrsquos warning lights

began to flash



John McCain in a Hanoi Vietnam hospital as a prisoner of war inthe fall of 1967 McCain spent 20 years in the Navy a quarter of i

in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp after his jet was shot down

over Hanoi during a bombing mission Oct 26 1967 The Navy

pilot nearly gave up during his captivity but his memory of books

and movies helped him survive (AP)

ldquoI was on my 23rd mission flying right over the heart of Hanoi in

dive at about 4500 feet when a Russian missile the size of a

telephone pole came up mdash the sky was full of them mdash and blew

the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomberrdquo he wrote in a 1973

account of his ordeal ldquoIt went into an inverted almost straight-



down spin I pulled the ejection handle and was knocked

unconscious by the force of the ejectionrdquo

McCain regained consciousness when his parachute landed him

in a lake The explosion had shattered both arms and one of his

legs With 50 pounds of gear on him and one good limb hestruggled to swim to the surface

North Vietnamese dragged him to shore Then stripped him to hi

underwear and began ldquohollering and screaming and cursing and

spitting and kicking at merdquo

ldquoOne of them slammed a rifle butt down on my shoulder and

smashed it pretty badlyrdquo he wrote ldquoAnother stuck a bayonet in m

foot The mob was really getting up-tightrdquo

He was interrogated for four days losing consciousness as his

captors tried to beat information out of him But he refused

As the voluble Trump was already making a name for himself

sweet-talking deals for his dadrsquos real estate developing company

McCain was clamming up in his filthy prison

And as Trump drove around Manhattan in his fatherrsquos limo McCawas refusing to mention his dad for fear of handing valuable

intelligence to the enemy

Defiant Trump unapologetic over McCain remarks

Play Video198309832



Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump refuses to

apologize for saying that SenJohn McCain is not a war hero

(Reuters)

McCain might have died from his injuries had the North

Vietnamese not found out on their own that his father was anadmiral Instead they moved him to a hospital and performed

several botched operations on him They sliced his knee ligamen

by accident and couldnrsquot manage to set his bones

ldquoThey had great difficulty putting the bones together because m

arm was broken in three places and there were two floatingbonesrdquo he wrote ldquoI watched the guy try to manipulate it for abou

an hour and a half trying to get all the bones lined up This was

without benefit of Novocainrdquo

That Christmas as Donald Trump was celebrating the holiday wit

his family McCain was starving in a prison camp called ldquoThe

Plantationrdquo a satellite POW site near the Hanoi Hilton

ldquoI was down to about 100 pounds from my normal weight of 155

he wrote ldquoI was told later on by [cellmate] Major Day that they

didnrsquot expect me to live a weekrdquo

McCain survived however slowly regaining his strength By the

spring of 1968 he had taught himself to walk again Not that the

was anywhere to walk He was in solitary confinement inside a ho

stifling windowless cell



Trump meanwhile was taking Manhattan by storm He had

already made a small fortune mdash $200000 then is almost $14

million today mdash working for his father during college

In his autobiography Trump describes these early years as fraug

with danger a quick learning curve for the soon-to-be-celebrityCEO as he went around learning the business ldquoThis was not a

world I found very attractiverdquo he wrote in ldquoTrump The Art of the

Dealrdquo

ldquoIrsquod just graduated from Wharton and suddenly here I was in a

scene that was violent at worst and unpleasant at bestrdquo

The danger Collecting rent



Left Donald Trump stands next to a model of the DC convention

center he hoped to develop in 1976 (Tom AllenThe Washington

Post)

Right John McCain is welcomed by President Richard Nixon in

1973 (US Navy)

ldquoOne of the first tricks I learned was that you never stand in front

of someonersquos door when you knock Instead you stand by the wa

and reach over to knockrdquo Trump wrote of collecting for his father

who owned low-income housing blocks ldquoThe first time a collecto

explained that to me I couldnrsquot imagine what he was talking abou

lsquoWhatrsquos the pointrsquo I said The point he said is that if you stand to

the side the only thing exposed to danger is your handrdquo

ldquoThere were tenants whorsquod throw their garbage out the window

because it was easier than putting it in the incineratorrdquo he wrote

horror

Meanwhile McCain languished in a genuine hell When he wasnrsquo

being tortured mdash several times his interrogators rebroke his

mended bones mdash he was battling everything from dysentery

to hemorrhoids

The prisoner of war survived on watery pumpkin soup and scraps

of bread He saw several fellow prisoners beaten to death yet

McCain refused to sign the confession that would have granted

him a speedy release (and a publicity coup to the North

Vietnamese)



Trump was living large mdash maybe not by todayrsquos Trump standards

but larger than most Americans He ate in New York Cityrsquos finest

restaurants rode in his fatherrsquos limousines and began hitting the

clubs with beautiful women

ldquoThe turning point came in 1971 when I decided to rent aManhattan apartmentrdquo he wrote ldquoIt was a studio in a building on

Third Avenue and 75th Street and it looked out on the water tank

in the court of the adjacent buildinghellip I was a kid from Queens

who worked in Brooklyn and suddenly I had an apartment on the

Upper East Sidehellip I got to know all the good properties I became

a city guy instead of a kid from the boroughs As far as I was

concerned I had the best of all worlds I was young and I had a l

of energyrdquo

That energy went into signing some of his first real estate deals mdash

and into partying

ldquoOne of the first things I did was join Le Club which at the time

was the hottest club in the city and perhaps the most exclusive mdash

like Studio 54 at its heightrdquo he wrote ldquoIts membership included

some of the most successful men and the most beautiful women

in the world It was the sort of place where you were likely to see wealthy 75-year old guy walk in with three blondes from Sweden

ldquoIt turned out to be a great move for me socially and

professionally I met a lot of beautiful young single women and I

went out almost every nightrdquo he added ldquoActually I never got

involved with any of them very seriously These were beautiful



women but many of them couldnrsquot carry on a normal

conversationrdquo

He was so good looking he said that the manager of the club

ldquowas worried that I might be tempted to try to steal their wives H

asked me to promise that I wouldnrsquot do thatrdquo

As McCain remained in solitary confinement tapping messages

on the filthy walls to his fellow POWs in Morse code Trump was

out partying at legendary nightclubs

Several years later Trump was frequenting ldquoStudio 54 in the

discorsquos heyday and he said he thought it was paradiserdquo Timothy

OrsquoBrien wrote in ldquoTrumpNation The Art of Being the Donaldrdquo ldquoH

prowling gear at the time included a burgundy suit with matching

patent-leather shoesrdquo OrsquoBrien wrote

ldquoI saw things happening there that to this day I have never seenagainrdquo Trump told OrsquoBrien ldquoI would watch supermodels getting

screwed well-known supermodels getting screwed on a bench i

the middle of the room There were seven of them and each one

was getting screwed by a different guy This was in the middle of

the roomrdquo

As Trump made plans to buy and refurbish bankrupt

hotels McCain was staving off death in Hoa Lo Prison aka the

Hanoi Hilton

And as McCain continued to refuse special treatment Trump



actively courted it

ldquoThe other thing I promoted was our relationship with politicians

such as Abraham Beame who was elected mayor of New York in

November of 1973rdquo he wrote in ldquoTrump The Art of the Dealrdquo

ldquoLike all developers my father and I contributed money to Beameand to other politicians The simple fact is that contributing mone

to politicians is very standard and accepted for a New York City

developerrdquo

McCain refused to meet with most visitors for fear of being used

as a puppet by the North Vietnamese But back in the UnitedStates Trump was too eager to manipulate the press

ldquoAt one point when I was hyping my plans to the press but in

reality getting nowhere a big New York real estate guy told one o

my close friends lsquoTrump has a great line of smdash but where are th

bricks and mortarrsquordquo he wrote ldquoI remember being outraged when

heard thatrdquo (Expletive deleted by The Post not by Trump)

If Trump was used to dining well the only decent meal McCain

had during his five years in prison was the night before he was

released

It was March 14 1973 McCain arrived back in the United States

physically broken man but also a hero

That word has yet to be applied to Trump

That same year the Department of Justice slapped the Trump



Organization with a major discrimination suit for violating the Fair

Housing Act

ldquoThe Government contended that Trump Management had

refused to rent or negotiate rentals lsquobecause of race and colorrdquorsquo

according to the New York Times ldquoIt also charged that thecompany had required different rental terms and conditions

because of race and that it had misrepresented to blacks that

apartments were not availablerdquo

Trump at first resisted signing a consent decree according to the

Times He hired his friend Roy Cohn the lawyer and former righthand man to US Sen Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin ldquoMr Trum

said he would not sign such a decree because it would be unfair

his other tenantsrdquo the Times reported ldquoHe also said that if he

allowed welfare clients into his apartments hellip there would be a

massive fleeing from the city of not only our tenants but the

communities as a wholerdquo

But ultimately the company came to terms with the government

Trump would weather the scandal of course and go on to build

his fortune to its present day tally of $4 billion

McCain in contrast received a Silver Star Bronze Star Purple

Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross He would become a US

senator and run for president

Whether Trump can triumph where McCain came up short remain



to be seen

More on Donald Trump

How to be a lsquostraight shooterrsquo like Trump in 7 steps

Monkey Cage Blame the media for Trumprsquos surge

The Fix Trump will probably claim Iowa voters donrsquot care about

McCain And hersquoll be wrong

Michael E Miller is a foreign affairs reporter for The Washington

Post He writes for the Morning Mix news blog Tweet himMikeMillerDC



real estate company and a brain bursting with money-making

ideas that would make him a billionaire

ldquoWhen I graduated from college I had a net worth of perhaps

$200000rdquo he said in his 1987 autobiography ldquoTrump The Art o

the Dealrdquo written with Tony Schwartz (Thatrsquos about $14 million 2015 dollars) ldquoI had my eye on Manhattanrdquo

More than 8000 miles away John McCain sat in a tiny

squalid North Vietnamese prison cell The Navy pilotrsquos body was

broken from a plane crash starvation botched operations and

months of torture

As Trump was preparing to take Manhattan McCain was trying to

relearn how to walk

The stark contrast in their fortunes was thrown into sharp relief

Saturday when Trump belittled McCain during a campaign speecin Iowa

ldquoHersquos not a war herordquo Trump said of McCain

ldquoHersquos a war hero because he was capturedrdquo Trump said

sarcastically ldquoI like people that werenrsquot capturedrdquo

[Enough already Des Moines Register tells Trump to call it quits]

[ McCain makes his first public comments since incident Trump

should apologize to military families]




on Sen John McCain

Play Video298309821













the GOP ]







unimpeachablerdquo



















theatrical










father
























from the draft






numberrdquo



casualties






the next day too


began to flash


































Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen











on Sen John McCain

Play Video298309821













the GOP ]







unimpeachablerdquo



















theatrical










father
























from the draft






numberrdquo



casualties






the next day too


began to flash


































Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen


























theatrical










father
























from the draft






numberrdquo



casualties






the next day too


began to flash


































Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen












father
























from the draft






numberrdquo



casualties






the next day too


began to flash


































Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen












from the draft






numberrdquo



casualties






the next day too


began to flash


































Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen









































Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen





























Play Video198309832





(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen












(Reuters)



























Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen
















Dealrdquo








Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen












Post)


1973 (US Navy)










horror




to hemorrhoids





Vietnamese)














of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen





















of energyrdquo


and into partying













conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen











conversationrdquo
















the roomrdquo



Hanoi Hilton




actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen










actively courted it






developerrdquo










released








Housing Act






















to be seen











Housing Act






















to be seen










to be seen








Date post:	07-Aug-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	investor-protection
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What Donald Trump Was Up to While John McCain Was a Prisoner of War - The Washington Post

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