How McCain dumped his first wife and met Charles Keating.

[efhmc]

By Bill Muller
The Arizona Republic
June 05, 1999 12:12:00

"In 1979, John McCain came face to face with his future.

He was in Hawaii, attending a military reception. While there, he met a young, blond, former cheerleader named Cindy Hensley.

It was an incredible stroke of luck for McCain.

How fortunate could one man be? Here was McCain, who had his eye on Congress, meeting a young, attractive beer heiress from Arizona, which was adding a congressional district in 1982.

McCain recalls that both he and Cindy fudged their ages at first. McCain made himself a little younger and Cindy made herself a little older. They found out their real ages when the local paper published them. McCain was 43, Cindy 25.

''So our marriage,'' McCain cracks, ''is really based on a tissue of lies.''

While they were dating***, McCain called Cindy from Beijing, where he was traveling with a contingent from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while she was in the hospital recuperating from minor knee surgery. She thanked him for the lovely flowers in her room, sent from ''John.''

What McCain didn't tell Cindy was that he hadn't sent the flowers. They were from another John, who lived in Tucson.

''I never thanked him,'' Cindy notes with a grin.

After a whirlwind courtship, John asked Cindy to marry him. But there were some details to clear out of the way.

McCain needed a divorce from his wife of 14 years, Carol, who had been badly injured in a car accident while McCain languished in Hanoi.

The marriage had been strained by his years of absence, along with McCain's admitted affairs after returning from Vietnam.

In February 1980, less than a year after he met Cindy, McCain petitioned a Florida court to dissolve his marriage to Carol, calling the union ''irretrievably broken.'' Bud Day, a lawyer and fellow POW, handled the case.

''I thought things were going fairly well, and then it just came apart,'' Day recalls. ''That happened to quite a few. . . . I don't fault (Carol), and I don't really fault John, either.''

In the divorce settlement, McCain was generous with Carol, the mother of their daughter Sydney and two other children, whom McCain had adopted. Among other things, McCain gave Carol the rights to houses in Florida and Virginia, and agreed to pay her medical bills for life.

Except for signing the property settlement, Carol did not participate in the divorce. A court summons and other paperwork sent to her during the proceeding went unanswered.

In April, the judge entered a default judgment and declared the marriage dissolved.

A month later, McCain married Cindy in Phoenix, and they moved there.

McCain was immediately plugged into Arizona's power elite. Cindy's father, Jim Hensley, owned a Phoenix Anheuser-Busch distributorship that had made him a millionaire many times over.

It was no secret that McCain was interested in a political career. In the six years after he returned from Vietnam, he had been in rehab and then was assigned to a political post, working in the Navy's Senate liaison office in Washington.

While there, McCain made friends with such political movers as Sen. Gary Hart and Sen. John Tower, who was the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee. He also met Sen. Bill Cohen, now the secretary of Defense, who ended up being the best man at John and Cindy's wedding.

In 1981, McCain retired from the Navy, mostly because of his badly injured knees and shoulder, compliments of his North Vietnamese captors. Hensley gave his new son-in-law a job as vice president of public relations, but McCain was soon bored.

''Jim Hensley didn't care about PR,'' said Bill Shover, a former executive with Phoenix Newspapers Inc. who met McCain in 1981. ''When you have the Budweiser franchise, you have a license to steal. You don't need PR.''

It didn't take long for McCain to meet wealthy power brokers such as developer Charles Keating Jr. and Fife Symington III, who would later be elected governor. Local pols suggested McCain start slowly by running for the state Legislature, but McCain would have none of it."

***Could someone explain to me how one can "date" while still married?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. The only member of the Keating Five still in the U.S. Senate is John McCain.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. and he shouldn't be there

[efhmc]

8. Is the fact that he was one of the Keating Five well known? Has it been

discussed at all in the MSM?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. here is some info about it and Cindy's involment and drug addiction too

The Keating Five (or Keating Five Scandal) refers to a Congressional scandal related to the collapse of most of the Savings and Loan institutions in the United States in the late 1980s.

Following the deregulation of the banking industry in the 1980s, savings and loan associations (also known as thrifts) were given the flexibility to invest their depositors' funds in commercial real estate. (Previously, they had been restricted to investing in residential real estate.) Many savings and loan associations began making risky investments. As a result, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the federal agency that regulates the industry, tried to clamp down on the trend. In so doing, however, the FHLBB clashed with the Reagan administration, whose policy was deregulation of many industries, including the thrift industry. The administration declined to submit budgets to Congress that would request more funding for the FHLBB's regulatory efforts.

In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln's chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift's failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of $1.3 million (collective total) in campaign contributions from Keating. Lincoln Savings and Loan's collapse is said to have cost taxpayers $3.4 billion <1>.

This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The ethics committee's investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D-CA); Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ); John Glenn (D-OH); John McCain (R-AZ); and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI), who became known as the "Keating Five".

After months of testimony revealed that all five senators acted improperly to differing degrees, the senators continually said they were following the status quo of campaign funding practices. In August 1991, the committee concluded that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle's conduct constituted substantial interference with the FHLBB's enforcement efforts and that they had done so at the behest of Charles Keating. The committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for "questionable conduct".

As it happened, Cranston, who was nearly 80 years of age, had already decided not to run for re-election in 1992. DeConcini and Riegle continued to serve in the Senate until their terms expired, but they did not seek re-election in 1994. DeConcini was appointed by President Bill Clinton in February, 1995 to the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. <1>

Glenn did choose to run for re-election in 1992 and it was anticipated that he would have some difficulty winning a fourth term in the Senate. However, Glenn handily defeated Lieutenant Governor R. Michael DeWine for one more term in the Senate before retiring in 1999.

The scandal was followed by a number of attempts to adopt campaign finance reform—spearheaded by U.S. Sen. David Boren (D-OK)—but most attempts died in committee. A weakened reform was passed in 1993. Substantial campaign finance reform was not passed until the adoption of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002.

Now about Cindy


In 1989, Cindy McCain became addicted to opioid painkillers such as Percocet and Vicodin.<22> She later attributed her addiction to pain following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs<23><24> as well as emotional stress during her husband's entanglement in the Keating Five scandal of that time,<22> which also involved her role as a bookkeeper who had difficulty finding receipts of Keating-related expenses.<14> The addiction progressed to the point where she resorted to stealing drugs from her own AVMT.<23> During 1992, Tom Gosinski, the director of government and international affairs for AVMT, discovered her drug theft.<25> Subsequently in 1992, McCain's parents staged an intervention to force her to get help;<14> she told her husband about her problem, attended a drug treatment facility, began outpatient sessions, and ended her three years of active addiction;<22> a hysterectomy in 1993 resolved her back pain.<22><24> In January 1993, McCain terminated Gosinski's employment on grounds of budgetary reasons.<25> In spring 1993, Gosinski tipped off the Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate McCain's drug theft.<25> Her activities violated federal statutes, so a federal investigation was conducted. McCain's defense team, led by Washington lawyer John Dowd,<25> secured an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office that limited her punishment to financial restitution and enrollment in a diversion program, <4><25> without anything being made public.

Meanwhile, in early 1994 Gosinski filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against McCain, which he told her he would settle for $250,000.<25> In April 1994, Dowd requested that Maricopa County officials investigate Gosinski for extortion.<25> At this point, the Phoenix New Times was preparing a negatively-cast story about the whole affair and was about to publish it.<25><22> Cindy McCain pre-empted this<22> by publicly revealing her past addiction, stating she hoped it would give fellow drug addicts courage in their struggles: "Although my conduct did not result in compromising any missions of AVMT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them."<4> A flurry of press attention followed, including charges by Gosinski that she had asked him to lie concerning her drug use when the McCains were applying to adopt their baby from Bangladesh<22> and statements by past AVMT employees that Gosinski had once threatened to blackmail her. A few weeks after her announcement, the Variety Club of Arizona canceled its Humanitarian of the Year award dinner in her honor citing poor ticket sales.<4> In the end, both Gosinski's lawsuit and the extortion investigation against him were dropped.<22> AVMT concluded its activities in 1995.<11>

[efhmc]

18. Good information.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. It's like digging up old bones

I think there are more skeletons in the closet besides these two.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

19. I haven't seen much on it for years (certainly they are trying to hide it)

[Lerkfish]

2. simple. If you're a republican, and have "family values"

you can date, wear diapers, have a wide stance, do crystal meth, join sex clubs....you name it.
everything is allowed if you could only be republican.

[efhmc]

9. How well known is this information about his affair, divorce and

marriage. The information in this article is proven and should be spread about to those who have such high family values.

[monktonman]

3. When your wife is confined to a hospital bed

theres little she can do about it.
pretty fucked up huh?

[efhmc]

11. I bet he attends this rich little lady with much more attention when she is

sick.

[madaboutharry]

4. His entire persona is a fake.

Nothing about his public image is true.

[TwilightGardener]

5. But...did you know he was a POW? Yep, it's true. Nothing else matters.

[momster]

7. Retired Just from Injuries?

Or was it also his naval career was stalled...he wasn't heading toward Admiral like Dad...he would remain a captain until retirement. Not acceptable for a man whose whole family was Navy.

[Divernan]

10. Here's more from a vets' group about his pre-Cindy adulteries with subordinates

www.usvetdsp.com/mcaindiv.htm
Divorce
Before John McCain's tour of duty in Vietnam, he married Carol Shepp, a model from Philadelphia. On his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam in 1967, McCain was shot down and captured.While he was imprisoned, Carol was in an auto wreck (1969), thrown through her car's windshield and left seriously injured. Despite her injures, she refused to allow her POW husband to be notified about her condition, fearing that such news would not be good for him while he was being held prisoner.

When McCain returned to the United States in 1973 after more than five years as a prisoner of war, he found his wife was a different person. The accident "left her 4 inches shorter and on crutches, and she had gained a good deal of weight." Yearning to make the grade of admiral, McCain enrolled in the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. and underwent physical therapy in order to fly again. The Navy excused his permanent disabilities and reinstated him to flight status, effectively positioning him for promotion.

In his book, The Nightingale's Song, Robert Timberg chronicled McCain's post-Vietnam military assignments and some of his "adulterous" behavior leading to his divorce from Carol and marriage to Cindy Hensley. Timberg wrote, "in the fall of 1974, McCain was transferred to Jacksonville as the executive officer of Replacement Air Group 174, the long-sought flying billet at last a reality. A few months later, he assumed command of the RAG, which trained pilots and crews for carrier deployments. The assignment was controversial, some calling it favoritism, a sop to the famous son of a famous father and grandfather , since he had not first commanded a squadron, the usual career path."

While Executive Officer and later as Squadron Commander McCain used his authority to arrange frequent flights that allowed him to carouse with subordinates and "engage in extra-marital affairs." Such behavior was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice rules against adultery and fraternization with subordinates.Timberg wrote, "Off duty, usually on routine cross-country flights to Yuma and El Centro, John started carousing and running around with women. To make matters worse, some of the women with whom he was linked by rumor were subordinates . . . At the time the rumors were so widespread that, true or not, they became part of McCain's persona, impossible not to take note of."

####################################################################################
The article continues to detail that in early 1977, Admiral Jim Holloway, Chief of Naval Operations promoted McCain to captain and transferred him from his command position "to Washington as the number-two man in the Navy's Senate liaison office. "It wasn't long before the 'fun loving and irreverent' McCain had turned the liaison office into a 'late-afternoon gathering spot where senators and staffers, usually from the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, would drop in for a drink and the chance to unwind.' It was at this point that he, still married, but with numerous adulteries to his (dis)credit, that he met the next Mrs. McCain

[efhmc]

12. Except for actually flying in Vietnam, he is a great deal like *bush.

[hfojvt]

14. I think many married people date when they are 'separated'

but he sure sounds like a grade-A scumbag.

[NDambi]

17. agreed

[kskiska]

15. You can even propose and become engaged

while still married, if you're a family values Repug.

[efhmc]

16. Well, not being a repug, I did not know the rules.

[Cleita]

20. McCain's tawdry personal life doesn't interest me. What does

interest me is the fact that he is bat shit crazy and no one should ever think that he's suitable to be President of the United States, particularly since we have just suffered under another bat shit crazy President the past 7 and 1/2 years. I just talked to a friend of mine who is conservative politically and she agrees with me. She regrets voting for Bush and will not vote for McCain.

[efhmc]

22. The only reason I "care" about this is that it speaks to the

truth about this "straight" talker.