From Susan Katz Keating, "Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW-MIA Myth in America." ...On one occasion 1, Sampley placed bamboo cages containing live protestors on the front lawn of the house owned by Ronald Reagan's chief of staff Don Regan. The protestors were arrested. Another time, Sampley led a group to the home of former National Security Council head Frank Carlucci. In the midst of a major snowstorm, Sampley and his followers blocked Carlucci's driveway with 1,800 "care" packages addressed to POWs in Laos. On yet another occasion, Sampley orchestrated a "bounty hunt" for Ann Mills Griffiths and other leaders of the National League of Families. Hunters were challenged to hit their prey with cream pies, water balloons, and rotten tomatoes. ...In a scenario similar to the one he had created about Wetzel, Sampley said that Tucker had parachuted alive into a crowd of angry villagers, who had hacked at him with a hoe. "They carried him to a North Vietnamese hospital where he was put on an operating table and died," Sampley told reporters. The remains, along with Tucker's flight helmet, were then placed inside the glass case, Sampley said. "The Vietnamese public gawked at this display for fifteen years." ...In 1992 Sampley — now an official MIA family member through his marriage to the daughter of a man missing in Laos — finally organized a stunt that evolved into a national news story. He planned for a group of hecklers to disrupt President Bush's scheduled speech before the annual- National League of Families assembly. League officials thought Sampley might try something at the convention and told the Secret Service not to let him gate- crash. As expected, Sampley tried to get in to see the president's speech. When he refused to leave, Sampley was arrested and charged with trespassing.
But the hecklers were already in place. Even with Sampley absent, they performed as scheduled. When Bush began his talk, Sampley's people drowned him out, yelling, and "No more lies!" Bush asked the protestors to please let him finish. They yelled even louder. The exchange continued until Bush lost Ws cool and shouted, "Shut up and sit down!"
The quote made national headlines. It was a triumphant moment for the activists, who used the episode to trumpet their claim that Bush had nothing but disrespect for the families. Sampley jumped to claim credit, threatening more such outbursts if the president did not order the immediate release of all government documents pertaining to MIAs.
But if Sampley and his followers were pleased by the exchange, the National League of Families was highly embarrassed, and also very uneasy. The group's leaders were afraid that Bush would blame the entire organization for the disruption and that the episode might damage their relations with the government. The League took out newspaper ads apologizing to Bush.
While activists and family members were still abuzz over the confrontation, Sampley was already deep into his next project. It was his most scurrilous 2 to date, a sustained campaign to label Senator John McCain an undercover agent of the KGB.
Sampley, who years earlier had defended Bobby Garwood's actions as motivated by the need to survive, now accused McCain of being a weak-minded coward who had escaped death by collaborating with the enemy. Sampley claimed that McCain had first been compromised by the Vietnamese, then recruited by the Soviets.
To those who know McCain and are familiar with his behavior in captivity, the charge is ludicrous. McCain resisted his captors to such a degree that he was isolated in a special prison for troublemakers. He repeatedly refused special favors, including early release, and emerged as a spiritual and religious leader for other prisoners. Nonetheless, Sampley was persistent enough in his claims that the press in McCain's home state of Arizona picked up on the KGB story.
Sampley's antagonism toward McCain stems from the senator's failure to live up to Sampley's idea of how a former POW should embrace the MIA cause. In Sampley's estimation, McCain's personal experience should have caused him to champion the search for live POWs, the way it had Red McDaniel. Instead, McCain focused on the more neutral search for "truth," as well as on the prosecution of charlatans who took money from MIA families.
When McCain took the position that the United States should establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam in return for cooperation on the MIA issue, Sampley was outraged. He believed the United States should not have any dealings with its former enemy. Anyone who said otherwise — specifically, John McCain — was a traitor.
Sampley launched a private war 3 on McCain. He searched into the senator's background, digging up old school records, military reports, and the like. Among his finds was an obscure clipping from a Cuban newspaper dated 1970. The article contained high- lights of a Cuban psychiatrist's interview with POW McCain.
Michael Pugliese