On a flight from Orlando to Atlanta on a recent August day, John McCain spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jon Meacham about the legacy of his father, Adm. John S. McCain Jr., of his grandfather, Adm. John S. McCain Sr., and of his vivacious and politically astute mother, Roberta. Edited excerpts:

MEACHAM: You and Senator Obama both fit into an interesting pattern. A large number of presidents have come from essentially fatherless families, or they have had very strong, powerful relationships with their fathers. It ' s striking to have the two of you come from such different places. How important was the relationship with your dad to making you the kind of man you are right now?
MCCAIN: He was absent a lot—World War II, Korean War, when he was assigned sea duty, even in peacetime. He was gone a great deal. My mother did a good job of keeping him alive for us—your father this, your father that. She was very good at reminding us of him and of his example. And of course when he was home, not only did I get to know him but his fellow naval officers. You know, people always talk about how I am the son of an admiral, but he was not promoted to admiral until after I graduated from the Naval Academy, so it's not as if I grew up as the, quote, son of an admiral. When I was born, he was lieutenant junior grade; when I was in high school, I think he was a commander, so it's not as if he was in some exalted position. But I think my mom, who really idolized my dad, had the effect on us of kind of idolizing him.

Yet at the same time, I became aware, I think when I was either in my very earliest teens or even before that, that my father had a struggle with alcohol. And I watched him fight and fight this sickness. I think we can all agree that alcoholism is a sickness, an illness, and I saw him fight it and I saw him when he would have a slip, as they say in AA, and he'd become a totally different person. So I not only idolized him, but I also understood that he had flaws like all of us, and probably his greatest was his struggle against alcoholism, which made him a very religious man. He prayed every night on his knees; he was very religious, because he saw hell combating [alcoholism, a struggle that] he knew he could not successfully win by himself.

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What effect do you think your father ' s drinking had on you?
I'm not sure I can analyze myself, as you know. But I think it may have attenuated both my appreciation for his strengths and my distress at his illness. I know enough about AA and I know enough friends of mine who have been alcoholics, and I know from my mother—who attended every AA meeting with him—that it is an illness and a sickness, so I saw him at his greatest strengths and at periods of his greatest vulnerability to a disease that changed him. We all know people in our own lives who are alcoholics and the effect that it has on them.

I would imagine for any military officer that the AA thing must have been a tough thing. At what point did he start going?
I know that he started very early on. In World War II, drinking was encouraged by the military—drinking and smoking. And for a period of time, he would be on these war patrols, on a submarine, out for 60 days, and then back to Midway, a very small island, for 30 days, and they would just be encouraged to drink, and they would drink. It was socially acceptable to overindulge in alcohol from Prohibition until sometime around—I don't know—I guess the late '60s or '70s. Certainly in the military, for example, when I was a young officer, we all went to happy hour on Friday night. Period. Everybody in the squadron went to happy hour. That was just the way we lived. So in my father's era—he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1931, the post-Prohibition era—they all drank, and they drank heavily. So his problem was exacerbated by the fact that it was kind of an accepted form of behavior, which it certainly is not nowadays. It was social interaction—"Let's have a drink."

Did you ever worry about yourself [and the risk of alcoholism]?
No. You know, I never did. Because I just didn't have the inclination. I could tell early on. I of course went to happy hour. I of course had drinks with my squadron mates, et cetera. But I never felt any particular appetite for alcohol, nor did I—oh, I'm sure there were times in my squadron life when I overindulged, but almost never. I just didn't. I'm sure the example of my father may have had some kind of effect.