The Books of John

In the past 10 years, I've edited five books by John McCain and his longtime aide and collaborator, Mark Salter. At my urging, McCain and Salter have written a children's book of virtues, "Character Is Destiny"; a meditation on bravery, "Why Courage Matters"; a portrait of the maverick life, "Worth the Fighting For"; and an examination of decision making, "Hard Call." (Their first book, "Faith of My Fathers," recently returned to the best-seller list, where it initially spent half a year beginning in 1999.) Together, the books have helped define McCain's persona, and they've sold more than a million copies.

Critics of McCain dismiss these works as an exercise in self-mythology and career advancement; they see in them certain ideals—about rabble-rousing and honor, for example—that they say McCain the candidate has abandoned. But I see them differently—as books in which McCain, as narrator and an occasional character, shows us the way to a nobler purpose. I know from personal experience that John McCain is honorable, kind and wise. (He's the only author I've worked with who has read all six volumes of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" andHerman Wouk's "Youngblood Hawke.") Having read each of his books several times, I've noticed some themes—literary leitmotifs that may illuminate McCain's sensibility and world view:

He has long believed in the possibility of heroes, even imaginary ones. In "Faith of My Fathers," McCain writes of his boyhood love of tales of King Arthur's court. In "Worth the Fighting For," he describes his youthful fascination with two freedom fighters: Robert Jordan, a Montana professor who risks his life to battle Spanish fascists in Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and Marlon Brando's portrayal of Emiliano Zapata, in McCain's favorite movie, "Viva Zapata!" (The psychologically relevant dialogue: "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.") McCain sees real significance in these heroes, even when they're fictional: "One man on a white horse cannot make history. He can make a difference. He can do justice. He can help force the moment when enduring change occurs, when history swings on its hinge toward a better world."

Things end badly for many of McCain ' s heroes, but their lives have lasting meaning. In "Why Courage Matters," he pays tribute to Hannah Senesh, an underground Jewish commando who endured torture and was executed rather than betray her comrades during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. "She made a choice to be heroic, but to be heroic in order to be true," McCain and Salter write. "Her purpose wasn't to die. She died for her life's purpose." While we were editing "Character Is Destiny," I had to ask the authors to rearrange the order of the chapters so the book wouldn't begin so darkly—with Thomas More's beheading, Joan of Arc's burning at the stake and Viktor Frankl's imprisonment at Auschwitz. They compromised by augmenting the first section of the book with profiles of Gandhi (who was assassinated) and Sir Ernest Shackleton (who survived a failed Arctic expedition). These were chapters in a children's book! In McCain's world, straight talk begins at an early age.

Of all the heroes in McCain ' s life, his grandfather and father loom the largest. "Faith of My Fathers" is best known for his recounting of his imprisonment in Vietnam, but the memoir is framed by the experiences and influences of his grandfather and father (the only family tandem in U.S. history to achieve the rank of four-star admiral). After reading the early pages of the manuscript in 1998 and realizing how profoundly his grandfather and father inspired him, I suggested the book be titled "Family Honor." We ultimately realized that title sounded too much like a Mafia novel, but the way McCain sought to emulate the first two John S. McCains resonates through his books. "My father was the most honest man I know," he writes in "Why Courage Matters." In "Character Is Destiny," he recalls a moment when his mother, while playing cards with his father, teasingly accused him of cheating: "He shot up from the table, in great distress, and begged her never, ever to doubt or even pretend to doubt his honesty … He simply couldn't bear the idea of being deceitful or being accused, wrongly, of deceiving anyone." But the senator speaks frankly of his father's struggle with alcoholism. He recently told NEWSWEEK's Jon Meacham, "I saw him at his greatest strengths and at periods of his greatest vulnerability to a disease that changed him."

McCain ' s Vietnam and Iraq experiences are analogous. In "Faith of My Fathers," McCain and his fellow Navy aviators considered America's civilian commanders to be "complete idiots who didn't have the least notion of what it took to win the war." Later the authors describe the efforts of McCain's father, then commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific during the war, to persuade "back-channel correspondents" such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of defense to rethink military strategy and stop the drawdown of American forces. In publicly criticizing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's failed strategy in Iraq, and in later advocating the views of Gen. David Petraeus, McCain was once again following his father's example, though in a more public and controversial way. It's clear from reading McCain's books that he feels the sacrifice made by those sent to war and regards his commitment to them as a sacred trust, just as his grandfather and father did. In "Faith of My Fathers," McCain quotes an officer who said of his grandfather, "When there isn't anything to be done, he's the kind of fellow who does it."