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Politics : John McCain for President -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Red Heeler who wrote (71)	12/5/1999 8:02:00 PM
From: Red Heeler	Respond to of 6579

Reuters McCain Shrugs Off Doubts About Temper, Stability Updated 5:44 PM ET December 5, 1999 By John Whitesides WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential contender John McCain on Sunday dismissed doubts about his temper and released voluminous medical records indicating he was in "good physical and mental health" despite spending more than five years in a Vietnamese prison camp. Countering persistent questions about whether he was too volatile for the White House, the former Navy flyer said his temper was under control and expressed hope that by making available more than 1,500 pages of medical records he would put the issue to rest. "I don't know if there is any whispering campaign," the Arizona senator said of lingering questions about whether his 5-1/2 years in a Hanoi prison camp left him with psychological wounds that rendered him unfit to serve as president. "It doesn't matter to me. I think the thing is we need to move forward and I hope that this will at least have that beneficial effect," McCain said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The records, made available to Reuters, include the results of regular psychiatric evaluations and medical examinations conducted since his return from captivity in 1973. "We judged him to be in good physical and mental health," Michael Ambrose, director of the Robert Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, which conducted the exams over a 20-year period, said in a statement. EXAMS SHOW NO INSTABILITY The psychiatric exams provide no evidence of instability, with a report shortly after his release indicating his emotional status was "stable" and a 1974 report noting that during his captivity McCain "learned to control his temper better, to not become angry over insignificant things." The reports show McCain had no nightmares or recurring stress related to the frequent beatings and long stretches of isolation during his captivity. In a 1976 questionnaire asking if former prisoners had received enough help, he told authorities: "Enough and too much. Kid gloves didn't turn out to be necessary," adding that returning POWs had been "treated too much like horses." McCain has been plagued throughout the campaign by persistent questions about his stability, and the Arizona Republic newspaper recently questioned in an editorial whether he had the temperament to be president. Nevertheless, McCain has closed the gap in New Hampshire on Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican front-runner, with a new Newsweek poll on Saturday showing him pulling into a statistical dead heat. Asked about the so-called "whispering campaign," McCain said: "I hope it goes away." He said he has apologized to "three or four" senators for blow-ups, but his temper was "not only under control" but after nearly a year of running, "I have, I think, conducted this campaign with the dignity that people expect and I'm very proud of the way that I have conducted this campaign and myself." MCCAIN SUSTAINED SERIOUS WOUNDS IN WAR The records show McCain, who was tested with an IQ of 133, sustained serious physical wounds when he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and during his subsequent captivity. He might eventually require joint replacements of his shoulders and right knee, which suffer from degenerative arthritis, said his physician, Dr. John Eckstein, who has conducted regular exams since 1992. He also had a small, malignant melanoma skin cancer removed from his left shoulder in 1993, but it did not spread and there has been no recurrence, the records showed. "I've had a lot of little things cut off -- I think it's an Irish or Scotch curse that when you have fair skin and spend a lot of time in the sun, you're going to have those problems," McCain said.