Carol Shepp and John McCain Marriage Profile

Described as "the woman who stood beside McCain through triumph and tragedy," Carol McCain is rarely mentioned. Here is information about the marriage of Carol Shepp and John McCain.

Born:

John Sidney McCain III: August 29, 1936 at Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone.

Carol Shepp: abt. 1938.

How John and Carol Met:

Carol and John met while he was at Annapolis and started dating in 1964 after her divorce.

Wedding Date:

John and Carol were married on a very hot day, July 3, 1965, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their wedding was held in the living room of the home of her close friend, Connie Bookbinder.

• Doug McCain: Born in 1959, Doug was adopted by John after he married Carol. Doug's father is Alasdair Swanson. Doug is a commercial airline pilot.
• Andrew (Andy) McCain: Born in 1962, Andy was adopted by John after he married Carol. Andy's father is Alasdair Swanson. Andy is a business executive.
• Sidney Ann McCain: Born in 1966, her mom is Carol Shepp. Sidney works in the music industry.

John has four other children with Cindy Hensley McCain.

Occupations:

John: U.S. Senator from Arizona, Vietnam veteran, Naval officer, presidential candidate.

Carol: Model for Jansen sportswear, press assistant for Nancy Reagan during the 1980 campaign, head of the White House Visitors Office, event planner, PR person for National Soft Drink Association.

Residence:

Carol retired in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

McCain-Shepp Divorce Timeline:

January 7, 1980: John and Carol separated.
February 19, 1980: John sued for divorce.
March 6, 1980: John and Cindy received their marriage license.
April 2, 1980: John and Carol's divorce was finalized.
May 17, 1980: John and Cindy were married.

Friend of Carol: "Carol didn’t fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, “He just wants to make up for lost time.”’
Source: Sharon Churcher. "The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind." DailyMail.co.uk. 6/8/08.

H. Ross Perot: "After he [John] came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history."
Source: Sharon Churcher. "The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind." DailyMail.co.uk. 6/8/08.

Paul Farhi: "According to court records, McCain gave his wife full custody of their three children, possession of their two homes in Alexandria and Florida, and agreed to pay $1,625 a month in alimony and child support. He also agreed to pay daughter Sidney's college tuition and his ex-wife's medical expenses for the rest of her life."
Source: Paul Farhi. "The Separate Peace of John and Carol", WashingtonPost.com, 10/6/08.

Other Marriages:

John: Soon after his divorce from Carol, John married Cindy Hensley.
Cindy Hensley and John McCain Marriage Profile

Carol: Carol was previously married from 1958 through June 1964 to Alasdair E. Swanson, a Navy pilot. "Carol sued for divorce, alleging that her husband had been unfaithful."
Source: Ralph Vartabedian, Richard A. Serrano. "McCain's broken marriage fractured other ties as well." Los Angeles Times. 7/11/08.

Quotes about the Marriage of Carol Shepp and John McCain:

John: "Today, in our excessively psychoanalyzed society, sharing one's secret fears with others takes courage. So does escaping a failing marriage."
Source: John McCain and Marshall Salter, Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life, page 14.

Robert Timberg about Carol and John's divorce: "His [John's] marriage to Carol had been effectively over for some time. After a number of trial separations, they were legally separated in January 1980 and divorced a month later."
Source: Source: Robert Timberg, John McCain: An American Odyssey, page 135.

Ralph Vartabedian: "On Christmas Eve 1969, while she was driving alone in Philadelphia, Carol McCain’s car skidded and struck a utility pole. Thrown into the snow, she broke both legs, an arm and her pelvis ... in the treatment she lost about 5 inches in height. After John McCain was released in March 1973 and returned to the U.S., he told friends that Carol was not the woman he had married."
Source: Ralph Vartabedian, Richard A. Serrano. "McCain's broken marriage fractured other ties as well." Los Angeles Times. 7/11/08.

John: "My divorce from Carol, whom the Reagans loved, caused a change in our relationship. Nancy . . . was particularly upset with me and treated me on the few occasions we encountered each other after I came to Congress with a cool correctness that made her displeasure clear. I had, of course, deserved the change in our relationship."
Source: Paul Farhi. "The Separate Peace of John and Carol", WashingtonPost.com, 10/6/08.

Paul Farhi: "Carol Shepp McCain, then 42, had endured much in more than 14 years of marriage to John. She had raised their three young children alone while her husband languished in a North Vietnamese prison camp for 5 1/2 years. Her tribulations grew immeasurably after a near-fatal car accident that immobilized her for months and left her scarred for life. Despite their reunion and physical rehabilitation, by the late 1970s the McCains' marriage had begun to crack, as John engaged in what he later termed "dalliances" with other women. Now it was being torn apart by his relationship with Cindy Hensley. McCain didn't hesitate in bringing his marriage to a swift end ... During a campaign forum in August, he called the end of his first marriage "my greatest moral failure."
Source: Paul Farhi. "The Separate Peace of John and Carol." WashingtonPost.com, 10/6/08.

Carol: "I'm crazy about John McCain and I love him to pieces, but I'm just not going to do any interviews."
Source: Nicholas Kristof. P.O.W. to Power Broker, A Chapter Most Telling." The New York Times. 2/27/2000.

Robert Timberg about John and Carol's marriage: "If there was one couple that deserved to make it, it was John and Carol McCain. They endured nearly six years of unspeakable trauma with courage and grace. In the end it was not enough. They won the war but lost the peace ... The conventional view is that John came home not to the Long Tall Sally of his overheated prison imagings but to a real woman -- older, shorter, crippled -- and before long began to stray. No doubt it was more complicated."
Source: Robert Timberg, John McCain: An American Odyssey, pages 124-125.

Carol: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning forty and wanting to be twenty-five again than I do to anything else."
Source: Source: Robert Timberg, John McCain: An American Odyssey, page 124.

John in Worth the Fighting For: "Sound marriages can be hard to recover after great time and distance have separated a husband and wife. We are different people when we reunite. But my marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine."
Source: Dan Norwicki and Bill Muller. "Arizona, the early years." AZCentral.com. 03/01/2007.