'White Tornado'

McCain raised hell the 1950s way. "I thank God every day there weren't drugs around when I was growing up," he says. At the Tony Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., he styled himself a James Dean rebel; as a plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy, he was a scrappy if unfocused boxer, charging to the center of the ring and wildly throwing punches until someone went down (an approach some of his colleagues in the U.S. Senate believe he still employs today). McCain finished fifth from the bottom in the class of 1958, racking up demerits for hundreds of minor infractions. In flight training, he ditched one plane in Corpus Christi Bay; flew another so low in Spain that he cut power lines and plunged part of the country into darkness. The young pilot was a rake. He recounts in his book showing up at a proper party with a scantily clad date he calls "Marie, the Flame of Florida," who proceeded to pick her fingernails with a switchblade.

The puckishness that would lead a major presidential candidate to tell that story runs deep. McCain's father and grandfather both led colorful lives (and did poorly at the Naval Academy) before going on to storied careers as heroic admirals. His 86-year-old mother, Roberta, is herself an adventurer (last week she was driving across Turkey with her twin sister, Rowena). Asked recently by Sam Donaldson why she was so proud of her son, Roberta McCain replied: "Because he's such a scamp."

But one of the clues to John McCain's character development is that "McNasty" was also McNice. While George W. Bush was known at prep school and college for hazing underclassmen, McCain was known for sticking up for them. "I just thought it had become too demeaning," he says of the Naval Academy hazing rituals he refused to take part in. In his classic 1995 account of famous midshipmen, "The Nightingale's Song," Robert Timberg tells of McCain and his roommate Frank Gamboa in the mess hall one Saturday night during their sophomore year. A "firstie" (senior midshipman) began abusing a Filipino steward.

"Hey, mister, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" McCain said.

"What did you say?" the firstie snapped.

"I don't think it's fair for you to pick on that steward," McCain shot back at the upperclassman, a brave move in the Annapolis culture of the day. Gamboa, a Mexican-American whom McCain had befriended, recently cut a radio ad telling the story to New Hampshire voters. The message: he's a stand-up guy.