The former Republican presidential candidate died on Saturday. Hero of the Vietnam war, popular, he also attracted the hostility of the hard-liners of the Republican camp.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain and former US presidential candidate for 2008 died on Saturday, Aug. 25 in Arizona at 4:28 pm local time. He was 81 years old.
The senator, who had brain cancer, decided to end his treatment, his family said on Friday . John McCain was careful in his State of Arizona, where his friends and colleagues marched for months to make their goodbyes, knowing that the end was near.

Veteran’s daughter Meghan McCain posted a text on her Twitter account that she stayed with her father until the end, “just like he was with me when I started . ”

John Sidney McCain III was born August 29, 1936 on the American military base of Coco Solo, in the zone of the channel of Panama then under American control. He comes from a military family, his father was admiral. His youth is marked by changes in his father’s assignment, causing him to attend many schools.

John McCain (d) with his father John S. McCain, Jr. and his brother Joe (L) on an undated photo in the 1940s. HO / AFP

After high school, he joined the Naval Academy Annapolis (Maryland State) in 1954 as his father and grandfather. He came out in the last places in 1958 after a hectic schooling. Military pilot, he is first instructor in the Navy and performs missions in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Atlantic. In 1965, he married Carole Shepp, a former model.

Then he was sent to Vietnam where he escaped death in a fire on July 29, 1967, on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. During his twenty-fourth mission, his plane was shot down on October 26, 1967, over Hanoi. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. Tortured several times, he was not released until 1973.

Photograph taken on October 26, 1967 showing Major John McCain (C) of the US Navy rescued in Truc Bach Lake, Hanoi by several residents of the North Vietnamese capital after his warplane was shot down. AFP

Photograph taken on October 26, 1967 showing Major John McCain (C) of the US Navy rescued in Truc Bach Lake, Hanoi by several residents of the North Vietnamese capital after his warplane was shot down.
He is decorated on his return from Vietnam by President Nixon. In 1977, he was appointed Navy Liaison Officer in the US Senate. He divorced his first wife in 1979 and in 1980 married Cindy Lou Hensley, a rich heiress to Hensley’s beer distributor.

He made his political debut in Arizona, in the Republican Party. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. Then, in 1986, he won one of the senatorial seats in the state. He will be re-elected in 1992, 1998, 2004 and 2010.

In 1993, along with another veteran of the Vietnam War, Democratic Senator John Kerry, he asked for the reopening of diplomatic relations with that country? It will be done two years later. In 1999, he wrote in his autobiography Faith of My Fathers (Random House, untranslated) his years in North Vietnamese jails.

Campaign of slander

In 2000, McCain was the candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidential election. But quickly George W. Bush is needed, McCain is the victim of an intense campaign of slander. And Bush is elected to the presidency of the country. In the Senate, McCain manages to adopt with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold in 2002 a reform of campaign financing. He proves this occasion, as in others, he does pass the public interest before partisan interests. Which earned him the hostility of some Republicans, especially on the right.

A supporter of American interventionism in the world, he supports the invasion of Iraq in 2003 even though he contests the strategy developed by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. He had approved the bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war under the Clinton presidency in 1999.

John McCain (c) addresses his supporters alongside Sarah Palin (L) and his wife Cindy (D) during a speech on November 4, 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona. MANDEL NGAN / AFP

John McCain (c) addresses his supporters alongside Sarah Palin (L) and his wife Cindy (D) during a speech on November 4, 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona.
In the 2004 presidential election, he supports George W. Bush. The latter is re-elected for a final term. Also in 2008, the way is open for a second application. But his age – 71 years – is a handicap against the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, 48 years old. He chooses right-wing Sarah Palin, the face of the Tea Party, a protest movement opposed to the federal state, as co-leader, but is largely beaten by Obama.

In 2016, during the presidential campaign, he expresses his criticism of Republican candidate Donald Trump. He will become one of the most critical Republicans of the new president. In particular, in November 2016, he denounced Trump’s ambiguous comments on the use of torture.

His intervention prevents, in July 2017, the repeal of Obamacare, the reform of the US health system wanted by Obama.

On a personal level, McCain’s health is deteriorating and he is being treated from July 2017 for a very aggressive brain cancer.

He published in May 2018 new memoirs, The Restless Wave (Simon & Schuster, untranslated), which concern the period following 2008, where he is still as critical of Trump.

McCain leaves the image of a committed politician, defending the general interest and his beliefs, including sometimes against his own side, which has earned him a high popularity.

Dates

August 29, 1936 Born at Coco Solo (US Naval Station in the Panama Canal Zone).

1954 Joined the Annapolis Naval Academy (Maryland).

July 1967 Escapes an explosion on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal.

October 1967 Shot at the controls of his plane, he remains a prisoner of North Vietnamese until 1973.

1982 Elected to the House of Representatives.

1986 Elected to the Senate.

2008 Failures in the presidential election against Barack Obama.

2017 Prevents the repeal of the Obamacare health reform.

Saturday, August 25, 2018 Died in Cornville, Arizona.