STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Previously unseen footage emerged Thursday showing Republican presidential candidate John McCain as a proud, stoic prisoner of war in Hanoi on the day his Vietnamese captors released him to the U.S. military.
A former reporter from Swedish broadcaster SVT, Erik Eriksson, 71, said he found the video in the network’s archives while researching a book he was writing about his experiences as a Vietnam War correspondent.
The footage, filmed by a North Vietnamese photographer, begins with prisoners being led out of a Hanoi compound one by one, then climbing onto buses taking them to the handover area. McCain grimaces as he steps off a bus with other POWs. He has a pronounced limp and needs to put both feet on the same step before continuing but is not using crutches. The prisoners stand in rows until a Vietnamese official calls their names. McCain, like other prisoners, briskly walks up to salute and shake hands with U.S. officers.
