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This is a description of John McCain's imprisonment in North Vietnam as found in http://www.wikipedia.com/.
"McCain spent six weeks in the Hoa Loa hospital, receiving marginal care.[40] He was interviewed by a French television reporter whose report was carried on CBS, and was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese, including the famous General Vo Nguyen Giap.[44] Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that he must be part of America's political-military-economic elite.[44]
Now having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white,[40] McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed "the Plantation"[46] in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week (one was Bud Day, a future Medal of Honor recipient); they nursed McCain and kept him alive.[47]
In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would be for two years.[44] In July 1968, McCain's father was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater.[4] McCain was immediately offered a chance to return home early:[40] the North Vietnamese wanted a mercy-showing propaganda coup for the outside world, and a message that only privilege mattered that they could use against the other POWs.[44] McCain turned down the offer of repatriation due to the Code of Conduct of "first in, first out": he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.[48] McCain's refusal to be released was even remarked upon by North Vietnamese officials to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman at the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.[40]
In August 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain, using rope bindings into painful positions and beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery.[44][40] Teeth and bones were broken again as was McCain's spirit; the beginnings of a suicide attempt was stopped by guards.[40] After four days of this, McCain signed an anti-American propaganda "confession" that said he was a "black criminal" and an "air pirate",[40] although he used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal the statement was forced.[49] He would later write, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."[44] His injuries to this day have left him incapable of raising his arms above his head.[13] His captors tried to force him to sign a second statement, and this time he refused. He received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal.[50] Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions".[44]
On one occasion when McCain was physically coerced to give the names of members of his squadron, he supplied them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line.[49] On another occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain's painful rope bindings for a night; when he later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross in the dirt with his foot[51] (decades later, McCain would relate this Good Samaritan story during his presidential campaigns, as a testament to faith and humanity[52][53]). McCain refused to meet with various anti-war peace groups coming to Hanoi, such as those led by David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father.[44]
In October 1969, treatment of McCain and the other POWs suddenly improved, after a badly beaten and weakened POW who had been released that summer disclosed to the world press the conditions to which they were being subjected.[44] In December 1969, McCain was transferred back to the Hoa Loa "Hanoi Hilton";[44] his solitary confinement ended in March 1970.[44] McCain continued to refuse to see anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime;[44] to one visitor who did speak with him, McCain later wrote, "I told him I had no remorse about what I did, and that I would do it over again if the same opportunity presented itself."[44]
McCain and other prisoners were moved around to different camps at times, but conditions over the next several years were generally more tolerable than they had been before.[44] Back at the "Hanoi Hilton" from November 1971 on,[44] McCain and the other POWs cheered the intense, Hanoi-focused, B-52-led U.S. "Christmas Bombing" campaign of December 1972 — whose explosions lit the night sky and shook the walls of the camp, and whose daily orders were issued by McCain's father, knowing his son was in the vicinity — as a forceful measure to force North Vietnam to terms.[44][54]
Altogether McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming arrangements for POWs took longer; McCain was finally released from captivity on March 15, 1973,[55] having been a POW for almost an extra five years due to his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer.[56]
Paul Streitz
amfirst@optonline.net |