(Reuters) – Jeremiah Denton, a former U.S. senator who was held as a prisoner of war by North Vietnam for more than seven years and revealed his treatment by blinking the word “torture” in Morse code during a televised interview, died on Friday at age 89.
Denton died at a hospice facility in Virginia Beach, Virginia, from a heart ailment, his family said.
President Barack Obama said in a statement that Denton “leaves behind a legacy of heroic service to his country.”
“The valor that he and his fellow POWs displayed was deeply inspiring to our nation at the time, and it continues to inspire our brave men and women who serve today,” Obama said.
Denton was most famous for spending seven years and seven months as a Vietnam War POW after his plane was shot down during a bombing mission from the aircraft carrier USS Independence in 1965. Imprisoned in brutal conditions in and around Hanoi, Denton encouraged fellow American prisoners to resist their North Vietnamese captors.
American POWs were sometimes paraded in propaganda films and in 1966, the captive Denton was interviewed for such a film – it later aired on U.S. television – apparently in the hope that he would denounce the U.S. war policy.
“Well, I don’t know what is happening,” he told his interviewer. “But, whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. And whatever the position of my government is, I believe in it – yes, sir. I’m a member of that government and it is my job to support it. And I will as long as I live.”
During the interview, he pretended to have light sensitivity that caused him to blink his eyes. What he was actually doing was blinking in Morse Code to spell out “t-o-r-t-u-r-e.”
Denton was the highest ranking officer who returned from Vietnam. He was in the first group who were released. I will never forget seeing those broken, tortured men disembark from that plane in 1973. I can recall sitting there in the living room floor, home alone, weeping. Jeremiah Denton was 89 years old at the time of his death.
Part of an era has slipped away. RIP Jeremiah Denton. Your bravery and valor made us all very proud.
Death of a Sailor
“There is a port of no return, where ships may ride at anchor for a little space,
And then some starless night the cable slips, leaving only an eddy at the mooring place.
Gulls veer no longer; sailor, rest your oar.
No tangled wreckage will be washed ashore.”
Very nice.
The idea that he sat in a Vietnam prison for 8 years being tortured was incomprehensible. That he blinked out in Morse code the word torture was amazing. Any country that tortures its prisoners is wrong, there is never any excuse for barbaric behavior.
May he rest in peace! He was a great man, Catholic, father of seven. In later years he ran for public office in Alabama as a Republican. After he left office he was very involved in local and national pro-life and teen chastity work. A book was written about his time in Vietnam but I do not recall the name.
It might also be noted that John McCain had similar experiences as a POW.
Elena is right. NO country should use torture.
The title was When Hell was in Session or something like that. There was a movie based on it starring Hal Holbrook as Denton.
I know nothing of Jeremiah Denton other than as a war hero and POW during the Vietnam War. No one should have to endure what he endured.
Jeremiah Denton, you are now in a safe harbor. Rest in peace Shipmate. Fair winds and following seas.
UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Robert Lewis Stevenson–Requiem
I knew you would handle it. Thank you, George.
My privilege. I have known some of these brave souls–they are all good men.