John McCain: True Presidential Character
On October 26, 1967, McCain was flying as part of a 20-plane attack against a thermal power plant in central Hanoi, a heavily defended target area that had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids.[47][48][45] McCain's A-4 Skyhawk had its wing blown off by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile[48] while pulling up after dropping its bombs.[49][50] McCain fractured both arms and a leg in being hit and ejecting from his plane[51] as it went into a vertical inverted spin.[52] He nearly drowned after he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.[47] After he regained consciousness, a mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes.[52] Others crushed his shoulder with the butt of a rifle and bayoneted him in his left foot and abdominal area; he was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Loa Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by American POWs.[52][53]
Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information; they beat and interrogated him, but McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.[52] Soon thinking he was near death, McCain said he would give them more information if taken to the hospital, hoping he could then put them off once he was treated.[54] A prison doctor came and said it was too late, as McCain was about to die anyway.[52] Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care[52] and announce his capture. At this point, two days after McCain's plane went down, that event and his status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times[40] and The Washington Post.[55] Interrogation and beatings resumed in the hospital; McCain gave his ship's name, squadron's name, and the attack's intended target.[56] Further coerced to give the names of his squadron members, he supplied the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line.[57][56]
McCain spent six weeks in the Hoa Loa hospital, receiving marginal care.[47] 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.[52] Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that he must be part of America's political-military-economic elite.[52] Now having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white,[47] McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed "the Plantation"[58] 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.[59] In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.[52] 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.[5] McCain was immediately offered a chance to return home early:[47] the North Vietnamese wanted a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially.[52] McCain turned down the offer of repatriation, due to the Code of Conduct principle of "first in, first out": he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.[60] McCain's refusal to be released was even remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Le Duc Tho to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.[61]
In August of 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.[52][47] Teeth and bones were broken again, as was McCain's spirit; the beginning of a suicide attempt was stopped by guards.[47] After four days of this, McCain signed and taped[62] an anti-American propaganda "confession" that said he was a "black criminal" and an "air pirate",[47] although he used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced.[57] He felt then and always that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement,[63] but as he would later write, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."[52] His injuries to this day have left him incapable of raising his arms above his head.[14] Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement, and this time, his will to resist restored, he refused.[52] He received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal.[64] Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions",[52] with many enduring even worse treatment than McCain.[65] However, on one occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain's painful rope bindings for a night; when months later the guard later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross in the dirt with his foot[66] (decades later, McCain would relate this Good Samaritan story during his presidential campaigns, as a testament to faith and humanity[67][68]). On Christmas Eve 1968, a church service for the POWs was staged for photographers and film cameras; McCain defied North Vietnamese instructions to be quiet, speaking out details of his treatment then shouting "Fu-u-u-u-ck you, you son of a bitch!" and giving the finger whenever a camera was pointed at him.[69] 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.[52]
In May 1969, U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird began publicly questioning North Vietnamese treatment of U.S. prisoners.[70] On June 5, 1969, a Radio Hanoi broadcast denied any mistreatment, and excerpted from McCain's forced "confession" of a year before to this effect.[70][71] 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[52] and the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, including McCain's brother Joe, heightened awareness of the POWs' plight.[72] In December 1969, McCain was transferred back to the Hoa Loa "Hanoi Hilton";[52] his solitary confinement ended in March 1970.[52] McCain continued to refuse to see anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime;[52] 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."[52] 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.[52] Back at the "Hanoi Hilton" from November 1971 onward,[52] 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.[52][73]
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,[74] having been a POW for almost an extra five years due to his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer.[75]