A Man Called John

By Dr. Allan E. Goodman
President and CEO of IIE

 Capitol Flag Half Mast

On Friday it was a privilege to join thousands of others in the nation’s capital to pay our respects to Senator John McCain. We knew each other from working with Senator John Kerry and Ev Alvarez (one of the longest serving POWs in U.S. military history) on the normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations. He also knew I had seen the inside of the infamous Hanoi Hilton after the war was over and had urged the Vietnamese government to tear it down. 

The Senator seemed to take the air shuttle between New York and Washington monthly and always gave me time. Sometimes the topic was Fulbright, other times Scholar Rescue and Iraq, and the last few times Iran. He always listened. And then asked one or two very good questions. Except for Vietnam and Fulbright, we probably disagreed about a lot. But that never interfered with him wanting to know the latest things on which IIE was working.

The eulogies this week mentioned all the right stuff: honor, humor, integrity, service, and courage. I would put listening right there too. I know he did.