Today, I’d like to talk about an American hero. A man who served his country in Vietnam and bravely endured hell while in the captivity of the North Vietnamese. I’m not talking about John McCain, I’m talking about Jeremiah Denton (1924-2014).

Denton in North Vietnamese captivity, 1966.

Denton had a 31-year career in the navy and one of his achievements was crafting the “Haystack Concept” for nuclear war tactics: the concealing of aircraft carriers from radar by having them travel with commercial shipping and avoiding naval formations (Angevine). He was one of the many unfortunate men serving in Vietnam to fall into North Vietnamese captivity, being shot down while flying in 1965. He and his men were tortured for information, and Denton was among the leading soldiers who resisted, for this he was put into “Alcatraz” for solitary confinement along with other prominent resistors, which included Admiral James Stockdale (who ran as Ross Perot’s VP in 1992) and Sam Johnson, who would later be a longtime representative from Texas. When trotted out for a broadcast to show how allegedly well they were being treated in 1966, while Denton was speaking, he blinked morse code for “torture”. This was observed by a few observant watchers, and this was the first indicator to the American public as to how prisoners of war were being treated. Denton would live for 7 1/2 years in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton”. Denton was released in 1973, and his captors only likely got wise to his morse code when he was awarded the Navy Cross for valor in 1974, as he didn’t face direct consequences for his interview (CBS News). he would write about his horrible experiences in captivity in his book, “When Hell Was in Session”. In 1977, Denton retired from the navy as a rear admiral. In 1979, Denton told the Los Angeles Times that “They beat you with fists and fan belts. They warmed you up and threatened you with death. Then they really got serious and gave you something called the rope trick [cutting off circulation to his limbs with ropes]” (CBS News).

After his naval career, Denton decided to focus on politics, and in 1980 he ran for the Senate as a Republican, his motivation to do so being over what he saw as President Carter’s weak response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Watson). He was elected to the Senate over Democrat Jim Folsom Jr. by three points, running ahead of Ronald Reagan, who won the state by just over a point. This made him the first Republican to be elected to the Senate from Alabama since Reconstruction and he became only the second Navy admiral to serve in the Senate, the first having been Connecticut’s Thomas Hart. In the Senate, Denton was a staunch conservative. Consistent with his conservative Catholic upbringing, he had a particularly strong focus on social issues (Watson). Denton promoted abstinence as the most reliable form of birth control, supported the Hatch-Eagleton Human Life Amendment, backed a school prayer amendment, and extolled the nuclear family. He was also a strong advocate of national security legislation. Denton’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.467, placing him among the conservatives per that scale. The American Conservative Union thought similarly, giving him an 89%. In 1982, he voted against extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as he thought it had unfairly penalized the South (Watson). However, the following year supported the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Denton held that although King was personally imperfect, the change he brought to the South warranted the holiday (Congressional Record). While he would have no problem winning reelection in Alabama were he to run today on his conservatism, the Democratic Party was considerably stronger in Alabama in the 1980s, and in 1986 they ran Congressman Richard Shelby, also known as a conservative. Had Denton run for reelection in a different year, he may have won given that 1986 was a pretty bad year for the GOP in the Senate, and he lost by less than a point. Interestingly, Shelby himself would become a Republican in 1995 and served in the Senate until 2023. Denton continued advocating for conservative causes and in 2004, there was a minor controversy surrounding him being prevented from speaking before the California Assembly by the Democratic leadership on July 4th, on account of his conservative politics (Mikkelson). On March 28, 2014, he passed into history from a heart ailment, aged 89. Denton served as a fine example of courage in the face of great adversity, as well as a strong advocate for social stability and public morals and the nuclear family from which he believed these were based.

References

Angevine, R.G. (2011). Hiding in Plain Sight: The US Navy and Dispersed Operations Under EMCON, 1956-1972. Naval War College Review, 64 (2), 80-82.

Retrieved from

https://web.archive.org/web/20111118061108/http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/bfd7502d-682c-444d-946c-63245227ae68/Hiding-in-Plain-Sight–The-U-S–Navy-and-Dispersed

Denton, Jeremiah Andrew, Jr. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/14901/jeremiah-andrew-denton-jr

Ex-senator and Vietnam POW who blinked “torture” in Morse code dies. (2014, March 28). CBS News.

Retrieved from

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeremiah-denton-ex-senator-and-vietnam-pow-who-blinked-torture-in-morse-code-dies-at-89/

He Survived Captivity, One Minute At A Time. (2014, March 29). NPR.

Retrieved from

https://www.npr.org/2014/03/29/296211985/j-denton-fo

Lowry, R. (2014, March 31). Jeremiah Denton: Grade-A hero. New York Post.

Retrieved from

https://nypost.com/2014/03/31/jeremiah-denton-grade-a-hero/

“Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.” Congressional Record 129: 16 (October 19, 1983) p. 28341-28380.

Retrieved from

Click to access GPO-CRECB-1983-pt20-6-2.pdf

Mikkelson, D. (2004, July 15). Jeremiah Denton. Snopes.

Retrieved from

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jeremiah-denton/

Sen. Jeremiah Denton. American Conservative Union.

Retrieved from

http://ratings.conservative.org/people/D000259

Watson, E.L. (2010, November 9). Jeremiah Denton Jr. Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Retrieved from

https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/jeremiah-denton-jr/