Admiral Stockdale, a political neophyte, gave a memorable opening statement in the nationally televised vice-presidential debate against Dan Quayle and Al Gore, asking ''Who am I and what am I doing here?" But he offered several rambling answers during the debate and later said he didn't feel comfortable in the public eye.
During the debate, he commented on an exchange between Quayle and Gore:
''I think America is seeing right now the reason this nation is in gridlock. The trickle-downs and the tax-and-spends, or whatever you want to call them, are at swords point."
When Perot ran again in 1996 as the candidate of his Reform Party, Admiral Stockdale had rejoined the Republican Party.
Admiral Stockdale was born in Abingdon, Ill., and graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1947.
In the mid-1950s, he became a Navy test pilot and instructor. He also earned a master's degree in international relations from Stanford University.
During the Vietnam War, he was a Navy fighter pilot based on the USS Oriskany and played a key role in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August of 1964. The captain of the USS Maddox, which was on patrol in the gulf, believed he was under attack from North Vietnamese vessels and immediately ordered a retaliatory attack at nightfall. Admiral Stockdale, flying a reconnaissance mission, insisted he saw no enemy vessels. ''Not a one," he replied, ''nothing but black sea and American firepower."
President Lyndon B. Johnson, however, used the event to persuade Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which allowed him to accelerate US involvement in the war.
Admiral Stockdale was ordered to lead an immediate attack, the first of the war, on the North Vietnamese oil refineries.
It was one of 201 missions he flew in Vietnam until Sept. 9, 1965, when he was catapulted off the deck of the Oriskany for the last time. Antiaircraft artillery brought down his plane, forcing Admiral Stockdale to eject. He broke his back during the ejection and dislocated his knee upon landing.
Taken to Hoa Lo Prison, infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton, he became the highest-ranking naval officer captured during the war.
