Hanoi Hilton

Re-creation of conditions at Hoa Lo Prison

For those us who grew up during the Vietnam War Hanoi has a particular resonance.  It was the place anti-war activists visited before being denounced as traitors by some on the right.  It was the place of the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” the prison where Americans were held under terrible conditions.  And, of course, the home of Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Viet Cong effort against the Americans.  So the very name conjures up so many images of the past in a Proustian wave of memory.   I’m sure it does not have this sense to our children and grandchildren.

We visited Hoa Lo prison, otherwise known as the Hanoi Hilton by the American pilots who were held prisoner there during the Vietnam War.  It’s the prison where John McCain as well as many other pilots was held.   The prison was built by the French in 1886 to hold Vietnamese political prisoners, which was defined as anyone being against French colonial rule and wanting an independent Vietnam.  So long before the Vietnam War the prison was infamous. The cells are still set up the way they were then which is to say dark, airless, fetid and intimidating.  There is a guillotine there that was used for executing Vietnamese prisoners whose heads were often displayed afterward in gruesome displays.  Various instruments of torture are also displayed.  Often prisoners were shackled to their beds in way that pretty much restricted most movement.  Or put another way another kind of torture.  Most of the prison was razed to develop the Hanoi Towers, which interestingly is where our hotel is located.  The small section of the prison remaining is now a museum.  It was sobering to tour it.

Being here has been a thought-provoking experience.  Although I opposed America’s being in the Vietnam War at the time, this has reinforced my feeling that so many wars are foolish and counterproductive.  I still believe in the Augustinian principle of a just war, it’s just that finding one seems so difficult.  There are so few that seem to fall in that category.