Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy Duke Cunningham, History's Most Corrupt Congressman [NOOK Book]

Chapter One The Duke Ronald McKeown was in a mood to celebrate. The handsome, square-jawed Navy lieutenant commander had just been picked for his first command, and it was the one he had been dreaming about. The message the thirty-four-year-old had picked up in the end of May in 1972 in the pilots' ready room on the aircraft carrier Midway was the answer to his prayers. He was headed to San Diego to take command of the newly commissioned U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known by its code name, Top Gun. For a fighter pilot like McKeown, it meant training pilots for dogfighting, the thrill of air-to-air jet combat at five hundred miles per hour. McKeown could have been ordered up by central casting to play the part of a fighter pilot. A former Navy running back, he brimmed with confidence and bristled with intensity and a fierce competitive drive. His boxing skills and pugnacious attitude earned him the nickname Mugs. McKeown grew up in the west Texas town of Ysleta, where he became a football star. Princeton, Harvard, and Dartmouth had all sent letters of acceptance, but the Naval Academy offered something the Ivy League schools didn't: the chance to play in the Army-Navy game, which, in the days before the advent of the Super Bowl, was the biggest football game in the world. In 1960, McKeown's third year at the academy, Navy was ranked third in the country and played in the Orange Bowl, and McKeown's teammate Joe Bellino won the Heisman Trophy. During that magical 1960 season, Navy played the University of Washington on the road. The team practiced at a naval air station in Seattle on a field next to a landing area, where three F-8 Cougars landed and rolled to a halt. The pilots got out, locked up their planes, and three women in convertibles drove up. Watching the scene, McKeown thought to himself there was a lot to be said for naval aviation. Football brought out McKeown's ultracompetitive nature, his hatred of losing, which fit the classic fighter-pilot profile. McKeown found that he loved to fly and loved dogfighting more. Even though his father wasn't a hunter and there were no guns in his household growing up, McKeown discovered that he excelled at air-to-air gunnery. He would hit the target 17 percent of the time, when 8 percent was considered excellent. Dogfighting had become something of a lost art after the Korean War. In Vietnam, Navy pilots fared poorly against the Soviet MiGs flown by the North Vietnamese. The Navy had lost one plane for every two Soviet-made MiGs they shot down over North Vietnam, the worst ratio in the history of American naval aviation. Top Gun began informally in 1969 in a trailer at Miramar with the goal of turning these trends around. The results had been impressive, and Navy pilots soon dominated the skies over Vietnam. The majority of Navy kills were made by pilots who had gone through Top Gun. Success bred success, and the Navy had established Top Gun as a formal command. McKeown was determined to make sure the school didn't disappear when the conflict in Vietnam did. Before he even got to San Diego, McKeown had heard through the Navy grapevine that one of the instructors under his command was Lt. Randy Cunningham, the first ace of the Vietnam War and the Navy's most celebrated pilot. Tall and physically imposing, Cunningham had a broad face, a flat nose, a Caesar haircut with a pair of long sideburns, and eyes that squinted when he smiled. If any in the Navy didn't know Cunningham and what he had done in Vietnam, they had probably been underwater for months on a nuclear submarine. On May 10, 1972, flying with Bill Driscoll in a two-man F-4 Phantom, Cunningham had shot down three enemy planes in the biggest air battle of the Vietnam War. On his way back to his carrier, the USS Constellation, Cunningham's plane was shot, but he somehow kept his burning aircraft rolling toward the coast until he and Driscoll were able to reach safe waters and avoid capture by the North Vietnamese. Cunningham's three kills that day brought his total for the war to five, which, under a tradition that dated back to World War I, conferred on him the exalted status of fighter ace and put him in the pantheon of fighter-pilot heroes. Until he became an ace, the thirty-year-old pilot from Shelbina, Missouri, had a so-so Navy career. He applied for augmentation to leave the reserves and join the ranks of regular, career officers on three separate occasions in 1971 and 1972, the last time ten days after his first MiG kill. He was turned down each time. "Lt. Cunningham was not a fast starter as a junior officer; however, his performance and overall potential to the Navy has continued to steadily improve," read one letter of recommendation. "Since his decision to request augmentation into the regular Navy there has been a very noticeable increase in overall performance as well as enthusiasm for Navy life." In Cunningham's copy of his military records he handwrote in the margin of this letter, "Sound like Navy trash me." But all was forgiven the moment he became the Navy's ace. Realizing that losing Cunningham would be a public relations disaster, the Navy made a rare at-sea appointment to the regular Navy and decided to send him home to capitalize on his publicity. The Navy plucked Cunningham and Driscoll out of Vietnam and sent them on a five-month publicity tour of the United States in the hopes of building support for an unpopular war. The two aviators visited New York, where they stayed in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, took in a Broadway show, and dined at the "21" Club, one of the city's most famous restaurants. They arrived in Washington, D.C., on May 18 for four weeks of closely scheduled public appearances, press conferences, and meetings with senior military and congressional leaders. The tour took them to Norfolk, Charleston, St. Louis, San Diego, Pensacola, Denver, Boston, and Jacksonville, and by the end of the tour, Cunningham and Driscoll made more than five hundred speeches. Adoring audiences heaped praise on them. "During those five months I received thousands of cards and letters lauding our efforts and accomplishments," Cunningham wrote in his 1984 memoir, Fox Two. "I found but one adverse note. There were no ticker tape parades, no large crowds gathered to honor us as they did the POWs, but I did appreciate the small civilian and military groups full of questions and appreciation." During a visit to his hometown of Shelbina, it seemed to Cunningham that all 2,000 residents turned out to cheer the local hero as he paraded through town in the back of an open convertible. Cunningham's new status sparked a good deal of jealousy in the ultracompetitive community of fighter pilots. After Cunningham's triple kill, McKeown had sent a message over to the Constellation: "Send Duke home. Give us a chance." Many pilots felt that given the same opportunities Cunningham had had, they could have accomplished the same thing and also become an ace. The simple truth, however, is that no one else in the Navy did. Air-to-air combat was a lot scarier than many macho pilots wanted to admit. Cunningham was gifted in the cockpit. As a natural hunter he showed almost no fear, and he trained and practiced with the dedication of an Olympic athlete. There may have been better pilots than Cunningham, but few were more aggressive or better prepared. While Cunningham was off touring the country in the fall of 1972, three Top Gun instructors who knew him well from Vietnam approached McKeown as he got settled in his office in Hangar Two at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego. The pilots told McKeown to make sure he kept an eye on Cunningham, warning him that Cunningham had an oversize ego and tended to exaggerate. Some in the squadron believed that Cunningham had been shot down by a MiG pilot, not a surface-to-air missile as he claimed. "Well, I'm used to that," McKeown replied. "I've been around fighter pilots my whole life." McKeown already knew Cunningham from their first meeting years earlier. At the time, McKeown was briefing fighter squadrons in San Diego on the latest tactics for the Sparrow missile system. When he had finished, Cunningham asked McKeown if he had enough fuel left in his plane to take a few turns in the air. "What do you mean?" McKeown asked. "I was just wondering if you want to go up in the air and do one-on-ones for grins," Cunningham asked. "Sure," McKeown replied coolly. Someone in the squadron prodded Cunningham to ask McKeown if he was up to the challenge. "Yeah, you think you can hack me?" Cunningham asked. "I don't think anybody's been born that can beat me," McKeown replied. "But go ahead." The two men got into two good mock dogfights, and to the amusement of others in the squadron listening in on the radio, Cunningham lost both. When Cunningham's publicity tour ended and he reported to Top Gun, it was apparent that his ego had grown even bigger than McKeown remembered. Pilots were supposed to have a healthy ego, a sense of confidence, maybe even the arrogance that there was none better. After all, a moment's indecision in the cockpit at supersonic speeds could be deadly. In the eyes of some of his fellow pilots, however, Cunningham had crossed the line of what was acceptable. Many pilots considered it in poor taste when Cunningham took to shamelessly promoting himself as a war hero. Even though his reputation usually preceded him, Cunningham introduced himself as "Randy Cunningham, the first MiG ace." He carried signed eight-by-ten, glossy photos of himself in a briefcase and had business cards printed up that read, "Have MiG, Will Travel." Several pilots recalled the ace doing commercials for a Datsun dealership, and many pilots winced when they opened the newspaper in August 1972 to find a photo of a grinning Cunningham showing off the new license plate on his Datsun, which read MIG ACE. He might as well have had the words NAVY HERO tattooed on his forehead. Still, for the students or "nuggets" at Top Gun, Cunningham was a living legend, the embodiment of what a pilot was supposed to be. Whatever he said, one former student recalled, was gospel. Fellow instructors, however, were not so impressed by Cunningham as a teacher. "He wasn't thinking about teaching kids, of telling them, 'The hell with who I am, let's work on you and make you the best fighter pilot you can be,' " said Gregg Southgate, a fellow instructor who had served with Cunningham in Vietnam. Cunningham's focus seemed to be Cunningham, and he continued his self-promotion even when he had to cover the costs out of his own pocket. The public appearances, McKeown felt, were starting to affect Cunningham's performance at Top Gun; other pilots had to cover for him when he was out giving speeches. McKeown, who had shot down two MiGs himself, didn't believe that Cunningham's heroics in Vietnam excused him from his duties at Top Gun. Cunningham needed to improve in many areas. For one, his writing was atrocious. He seemed unable to write a simple declarative sentence. When McKeown filled out Cunningham's fitness report, he ranked him in the bottom third. Cunningham was upset. He believed that he deserved to be ranked number one. McKeown felt that in some ways Cunningham's poor performance wasn't the fault of the ace. The Navy had sent him around and around on publicity tours, and Cunningham hadn't matured as an officer. "As the Navy's sole MiG ace, Lt. Cunningham has inordinate demands made upon his private life and leisure time," McKeown wrote in his review. Still, McKeown felt he couldn't in good conscience give Cunningham high marks. He had a squadron full of talented officers, and he told Cunningham so. "Duke, these other guys can fly. Not only can they fly, but they can write and they can read," McKeown said. For their actions on May 10, Cunningham and Driscoll were nominated for the Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in the United States. Usually awarded by the president, often posthumously, the medal honors members of the military who show extraordinary gallantry and bravery. Through the award process, the recommendation was downgraded to the Navy Cross, the service's second-highest honor. Cunningham was deeply upset. As the Navy's only ace in Vietnam, he believed he deserved the Medal of Honor and told his wife, Susan, that he couldn't understand why the Navy wouldn't give it to him. Shortly after his arrival at Top Gun, Cunningham tried to enlist McKeown's help and advice. He told McKeown he had been promised the Medal of Honor by an aide to Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, the chief of naval operations. McKeown told Cunningham that the Medal of Honor required concurrence from all the branches of the service, and the Army and the Air Force would be unlikely to sign off on it. "Well, I'm planning on that money," Cunningham said. What money? What was Cunningham talking about? Cunningham explained that Medal of Honor winners do not have to pay taxes. McKeown couldn't fathom what Cunningham was saying. Even assuming that what Cunningham was saying was true, his tax savings would be minimal. He wasn't a millionaire who might actually save large amounts of money by avoiding taxes. At the time, Cunningham was earning $1,500 a month as a pilot. "Well, I'm going to hold out for the Medal of Honor," he told McKeown. "Duke, you don't hold out for the Medal of Honor," McKeown replied. "You die for the Medal of Honor." Copyright © 2007 by Seth Hettena. All rights reserved.