Denton was previously a United States Navy rear admiral and naval aviator taken captive during the Vietnam War.

Denton was widely known for enduring almost eight years of grueling conditions as an American prisoner of war (POW) in North Vietnam after the A-6 Intruder he was piloting suffered severe damage resulting from a defective bomb, which detonated as he released the weapon(s) in 1965.

As one of the earliest and highest-ranking officers to be taken prisoner in North Vietnam, Denton was forced by his captors to participate in a 1966 televised propaganda interview which was broadcast in the United States.

While answering questions and feigning trouble with the blinding television lights, Denton blinked his eyes in Morse code, spelling the word "T-O-R-T-U-R-E"—and confirming for the first time to U.S.

In 2019, the United States Secretary of the Navy announced that an upcoming Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer will be named in Denton's honor.

This strategy called for concealing aircraft carriers from radar by intermingling with commercial shipping and avoiding formations suggestive of a naval fleet.

In February 1965, he became the Prospective Commanding Officer of Attack Squadron Seventy-Five serving aboard aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV-62).

On July 18, 1965, Commander Denton was piloting his A-6A Intruder jet (BUNO 151577) while leading a 28-aircraft bombing mission over North Vietnam off the Independence which was stationed in the South China Sea.

He and LTJG Bill Tschudy, his bombardier/navigator, were forced to eject from their plane, damaged by one of their own Mark 82 bombs exploding shortly after its release after which it went down out of control near the city of Thanh Hoa in North Vietnam.

[6] Denton is best known from this period of his life for the 1966 televised press conference in which he was forced to participate as an American POW by his North Vietnamese captors.

"Alcatraz" was a special facility in a courtyard behind the North Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense, located about one mile away from Hoa Lo Prison.

[9][10][11][12][13] On February 12, 1973, both Denton and Tschudy were released in Hanoi by the North Vietnamese along with numerous other American POWs during Operation Homecoming.

[3] In 1980, Denton ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat from his home state of Alabama, and was supported by Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.

As a senator, Denton was most outspoken on issues related to the regulation of sexual promiscuity and the preservation of the nuclear family, a goal that he sought to pursue through a $30 million bill to push chastity among teenagers.

By the mid-1980s, he told Time at the outset of the decade, "We will have less national security than we had proportionately when George Washington's troops were walking around barefoot at Valley Forge.

[19] Citing testimonies from journalist Claire Sterling, former CIA director William Colby, neoconservative writer Michael Ledeen and journalist and spy thriller writer Arnaud de Borchgrave, the committee alleged that left-wing activist groups, publications, and think tanks had been infiltrated by Soviet agents of the KGB.

[20] Media at the time referred to committee's role and its accusations bearing similarity to the Red Scare tactics used by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1940s and 1950s.