2. May 25, 1934 to January 12, 1941
If you were born between May 25, 1934 and January 12, 1941, you acquired U.S. citizenship at birth if both your parents were U.S. citizens and at least one lived in the United States before you were born. You didn’t have to do anything special to keep your U.S. citizenship.
You could also get U.S. citizenship if only one of your parents was a U.S. citizen, as long as that parent lived in the United States at some time. If your U.S. citizenship came from only one parent, you would have been required to reside in the United States for at least two years between the ages of 14 and 28 in order to retain your citizenship. If the one U.S. citizen parent was your father and you were born outside of marriage, the same rules applied if your father legally legitimated you.
This is from FIND LAW and posted on FR earlier today.
If you were born between May 25, 1934 and January 12, 1941, you acquired U.S. citizenship at birth if both your parents were U.S. citizens and at least one lived in the United States before you were born. You didn’t have to do anything special to keep your U.S. citizenship.
This is addressed to the McCain issue?
No doubt McCain is a citizen. Question is whether he is a "natural born" citizen under Article II, Sec. 1, Par. 4 of the U S Constitution. Although there is disagreement, the usual consensus among the Constitutional lawyers is that he is not because the usual interpretation view is that "natural born" means born in the geographical U S.
I have addressed this issue several times and set out in detail the analysis that gets to that result--I urge you to read it.
That analysis is certainly not a "final word"--the courts might get to a contrary result.
My own predictions about the outcome as to McCain is affected by the pendency of the issue with respect to Obama. If a legal attack is mounted with respect to Obama (there are cases pending in several district courts challenging McCain; none challenging Obama yet as far as I know); existence of challenges to both will occasion a more careful examination of the issue with respect to McCain and in that environment, a political decision would likely disqualify both.