1972: 'Hanoi' Jane--Text from CNN.com, "Vietnam: Echoes of War, Cultural Timeline"
Jane Fonda & TheVietnam War
1972: 'Hanoi' Jane--Text from CNN.com, "Vietnam: Echoes of War, Cultural Timeline"
Jane Fonda -- actress, political activist and partner of anti-war protester Tom Hayden -- entered enemy territory for two weeks in November and emerged, in the eyes of many, as a traitor after posing for photographs at the seat of an anti-aircraft cannon and making radio broadcasts urging U.S. airmen to stop bombing North Vietnam. Fonda told servicemen stationed on aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin that the bombs they were loading into planes were illegal and that using the bombs "makes one a war criminal."
In 1988, Fonda went on ABC's "20-20" news program and apologized to Vietnam veterans and their families for her actions. "I was trying tohelp end the killing," Fonda said in an interview with Barbara Walters. "Bu tthere were times I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm ... very sorrythat I hurt them." Asked about the continued bitterness over something that happenedyears ago -- critics still refer to her as "Hanoi" Jane -- Fonda said, "Thereare still festering wounds and a lot of pain, and for some I've become a lightning rod."
Fonda said she didn't realize at the time the effect posing with the anti-aircraft gun would have. "I know the power of images," she said inthe 1988 interview. "To have put myself in a situation like that was a thoughtlessand cruel thing to have done. ... I take fullresponsibility for it."
Jane Fonda & activist husband, Tom Hayden, after Fonda's return from Hanoi.
Internet sources on Jane Fonda & the Vietnam War:
Warning: Some sites are vicious and graphic in their denunciation of Jane Fonda
For a full transcript of Jane Fonda's radio broadcast from Hanoi and some commentary, see: "Jane Fonda in North Vietnam" at: http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/fonda/fonda.html
"Hating Jane: The American Military and Jane Fonda." by Peter Brush. An edited version of this article appeared in Vietnam, Vol. 18, No. 6, April 2006.
'Hanoi Jane' Rumours Blend Fact and Fiction (David Emery)
Myths of Women's History: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam
Hanoi'd with Jane (Snopes.com)
Hanoijane.net (Henry Holzer, author of Aid & Comfort: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam)
"You Gotta Love Her," by Tom Hayden, Fonda's ex-husband, from The Nation, March 4, 2004.
Fonda: ‘Hanoi Jane’ visit was a mistake (MSNBC, March 31, 2005)
Jane Fonda in Wonderland Non-apology not accepted (National Review On-Line, April 29, 2005)
Operation Barbarella: Review of Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Anti-war Icon by Mary Hershberger, London Review of Books, Nov. 17, 2005.