Palin doesn't know about Bush Doctrine

For a candidate running on character and biography, it is also an awkward time to remember: Mr. McCain abandoned his wife, who had reared their three children while he was in Vietnamese prisons, and he then began his political career with the resources of his new wife's family.

Yet although Mr. McCain's children and some friends were angry and disappointed with him at the time, they rally around him today. No candidate could be luckier in his choice of an ex-wife than Senator McCain, and he must be the only politician around who could cheat on his wife and divorce her and still get her support and her campaign contributions today. Even her friends rave about him.

Mr. McCain has acknowledged running around with women and accepted responsibility for the breakup of the marriage, without going into details. But his supporters and his biographer, Robert Timberg, all suggest that the marriage had already effectively ended and that the couple had separated by the time he met Cindy, his present wife.

That might be the most soothing way of explaining a politician's divorce from a disabled wife and his remarriage to a wealthy heiress, but it does not jibe with accounts of family members and friends.

John and Carol McCain had separated once briefly after they moved to Washington, when he moved his gear into his mother's house on Connecticut Avenue. That was the first hint that Joe McCain, John's younger brother, had of any marital problems, for neither John nor Carol confided much about personal problems.

''I remember asking him one time,'' Joe McCain recalled. ''I said: 'You don't look so happy. You want to talk about it?' And he said, 'No, pal.' ''

That separation lasted about two weeks and was not repeated until the final split, said their son Andy, and even close family friends never knew about it. To outsiders, who often visited the McCain household, the marriage seemed as close as ever.

''They were definitely living together as man and wife when I was there,'' recalled Mr. Smith, the former instructor pilot, who moved to Washington and lived with the McCains in their home from about February through May 1979. ''And there were no signs of strain.

Yet at precisely the time that Mr. Smith was a guest in what appeared to be a happy household, in April 1979, Mr. McCain accompanied a group of senators on a trip to China. The Navy threw a big cocktail party for the group during a stopover in Honolulu.

''John and I were talking, and then somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and exchanged a few words,'' said Albert A. Lakeland, then a Senate staff member. ''When I turned around, John was gone. I looked around, and he was making a beeline for this very attractive blond woman.

''He spent the whole party talking to her, and he kept avoiding me when I approached,'' Mr. Lakeland said. After the reception, Mr. McCain and the young woman, Cindy Hensley, went out to dinner, and the romance blossomed.

Mr. McCain continued to pursue Miss Hensley, calling her to keep in touch. When she thanked him for sending flowers that had just arrived (signed ''John'') he said it was nothing. As she discovered years later, they were from another man named John.

Over the next six months, Mr. McCain pursued Miss Hensley aggressively, flying around the country to see her, and he began to push to end his marriage. Friends say that Carol McCain was in shock.