There is evidence, including first-hand accounts from some of his fellow prisoners, that John McCain was tortured by the North Vietnamese, so I do not lend credence to claims that he was not.
I want to be clear that I am in no way a supporter of John McCain. His behavior as a politician and elected official has been nothing short of reprehensible, in my opinion. I also do not consider him any more or less of a "hero" than anyone else who simply did his duty during war time. It is my opinion that he served with honor but without distinction - and I do not think he collaborated with his captors.
Read the linked story.
John McCain rescued
John McCain being saved from drowning. The Vietnamese on the left, probably Mai Van On, holds his arm. McCain was confronted by an angry mob when he reached shore.
McCain was candid, though, in admitting that the injuries caused by his ejection, particularly his broken knee, drove him to try to bargain with his prison interrogators. He told them he would give them information if they took him to a hospital. He claimed he didn’t really intend to keep his word. But very soon he, like Chuck Rice, like James Stockdale, like every American POW in Hanoi, was broken. McCain did what the North Vietnamese ordered: He signed and made taped statements that could be used as propaganda against the United States of America.
There was no question that McCain was beaten and underwent torture and that he suffered a brutal experience. But as he put it in Faith of My Fathers:
“I also suspected that my treatment was less harsh than might be accorded other prisoners. This I attributed to my father’s position, and the propaganda value the Vietnamese placed on possessing me, injured but alive. Later, my suspicion was confirmed when I heard accounts of other POWs’ experiences during their first interrogations. They had endured far worse than I had, and had withstood the cruelest torture imaginable.”