Film showing McCain's release from Vietnamese prison emerges

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Previously unseen footage emerged Thursday showing US presidential candidate John McCain as a proud, stoic prisoner of war in Hanoi on the day he was released by his Vietnamese captors to the US military. A former reporter from Swedish broadcaster SVT, 71-year-old Erik Eriksson 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 was filmed by a North Vietnamese photographer with whom Eriksson had contracted to film the release of US prisoners of war. Eriksson said he covered the Vietnam War for SVT as well as US networks CBS and NBC. He explained that in February 1973, he was in Hanoi filming the release of the first American pilot prisoners, but had to return home to edit the film "because it was the first release that was sensational."