RUSH EXCERPT:
KISSINGER: "Our country has had the good fortune that at times of national trial a few great personalities have emerged. To remind us of our essential unity and inspire us to fulfill our sustaining values. John McCain was one of those gifts of destiny. I met John for the first time in April, 1973 at a White House reception for prisoners returned from captivity in Vietnam. He had been much on my mind during the negotiation to end the Vietnam war, oddly also because his father, then commander in chief of the pacific command when briefing the president answered references to his son by saying only I pray for him. In the McCain family national service was its own reward that did not allow for special treatment. I thought of that when his Vietnamese captors during the final phase of negotiations offered to release John so that he could return with me on the official plane that had brought me to Hanoi. Against all, I thanked him for the offer but refused it. I wonder what John would say when we finally met. His greeting was both self effacing and moving. Thank you for saving my honor. He did not tell me then or ever that he had had an opportunity to be freed years earlier but had refused, a decision for which he had to endure additional periods of isolation and hardship. Nor did he ever speak of his captivity again during the near half century of close friendship. John’s focus was on creating a better future. As a senator, he supported the restoration of relations with Vietnam, helped bring it about on a bipartisan basis in the Clinton administration and became one of the advocates of reconciliation with his enemy. Honor, it is an intangible quality, not obligatory. Has no code. It reflects an inward compulsion, free of self interest. It fulfills a cause, not a personal ambition. It represents what a society lives for beyond the necessities of the moment. Love makes life possible, honor and nobility. For John it was a way of life. John returned to America divided over its presidency, divided over the war, amidst all of the turmoil and civic unrest, divided over the best way to protect our country and over whether it should be respected for its power or its ideals. John came back from the war and declared this is a false choice. America owed it to itself to embrace both strengths and ideals in decades of congressional service, ultimately as chairman of the Senate armed services committee, John was an exponent of an America strong enough to vindicate its purpose. But John believed also in a compassionate America, governed by — guided by core principles for which American foreign policy must always stand. With liberty and justice for all is not an empty sentiment he argued, it is the foundation of our national consciousness. To John American advantages had universal applicability. I do not believe he said that there’s an errant exception any more than there is a black exception or an Asian or Latin exception. He warned against temptation of withdrawal from the world. We will not thrive in the world he warned when our leadership — we would not deserve it. In this manner John McCain’s name became synonymous with an America that reached out to oblige the powerful to be loyal and give hope to the oppressed."