The Unauthorized Randy “Duke” Cunningham Page

You've obviously put an incredible amount of work into this site ... why? I know Duke personally, having worked as a volunteer on his first two campaigns. Sidebar: do you remember a guy named Jim Bates? But I met him first through his book "Fox Two" which, contrary to the "I flew here and shot down this MiG, then shot this Mig down over there ..." is the story of several thousand individuals living and working on a aircraft carrier as a team. It was written years before Duke ran for Congress, and a central figure in the book is Randy White - a black enlisted man who was Duke's plane captain. Returning to the Constellation after his first aerial victory, Randy White dashed up to Duke (nearly bowling over an admiral) and grabbed his arm and said "WE got OUR MiG today, didn't we?" When I first met Duke, still years before his political career started, his F-4 Phantom was being dedicated as an exhibit at the museum in Balboa Park. He and Willie Driscoll had tracked Randy White down, found him just recently retired from the Navy and coaching at a high school in Arizona and flew him to San Diego for the ceremony. This was decades after the fact; not one person present that night would have thought "Hey, what ever happened to Randy White?"

Who would you have rather had in Congress when the Gulf War started? A freshman congressman named Duke Cunningham, or Jim Bates?

I would have rather had someone from the district not on the take. . . .

Well, Jim, what in the heck do you think of your boy now? I know him also, he has always been a jerk since I first met him at Miramar in about 1969 or 1970.