Jane Fonda, 71, has gotten in a great deal of hot water for her visit to Hanoi in the summer of 1972. And the rumors about her supposed pro-Vietnam activities have only increased as the Internet has grown. It’s a quick and easy way to pass information – and to distort information and pass that along too. In 1999, several emails started making the rounds claiming that Fonda gave the names of American POWs to the North Vietnamese. The highly-circulated email also claimed American POWs passed crumpled bits of paper to her, which is also untrue.
Jane says she will address all these rumors in her blog, which she recently started in advance of her return to Broadway in “33 Variations” in March.
Yesterday my blog went up online although I’ve been writing blogs almost daily since January 5th. Blogging just to record what’s happening day to day feels different than blogging when there’s starting to be a buzz about the very fact of my blog and people are beginning to actually visit my site.
I haven’t had a chance to read all the feedback and comments that have come in this far but I will over time. As I expected, there are a few people who want to know whether the things that have been said about me over the years, the things that I have been accused of — the Hanoi Jane stuff– are true. There are also those who need to believe they are true and, as a consequence, have nasty things to say. I intend to answer these questions. I would like nothing better than to put these lies and myths to rest once and for all. I will try to do this as soon as possible but these tech rehearsals are really exhausting and I can’t imagine being able to get to it until Sunday. But then, my daughter, Vanessa will be in New York this weekend doing a media training with the Women’s Media Center and Sunday is the day we’ll get to spend some time together, so even getting to it then isn’t a sure thing.
I encourage those folks who want to know about my activities during the Vietnam years to read my book, “My Life So Far.” The chapters entitled ‘Hanoi,’ ‘Bamboo’ and ‘Framed’ deal with all this. There is also an excellent and exceedingly well researched book, “Jane Fonda’s War,” by Mary Hershberger that answers all these questions in great detail.
[From Jane Fonda’s Blog]
Fox News has written several articles on Jane’s Vietnam trip, all of which refute the internet rumors. And it’s important to note that they don’t have any agenda or reason to side with her – she’s very liberal (they’re… not), and her ex-husband (with whom she’s still on good terms) is Ted Turner, the owner and founder of CNN – and Fox’s competition. They acknowledge that she shouldn’t have gone to Vietnam, made a radio address, or posed for pictures. But they clearly point out that the Internet has been a breeding ground for all sorts of urban legends, and Fonda is a great example of that.
It’s also important to note that Jane did apologize over 20 years ago for going to Vietnam. Nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to hear what new things she has to say about the fiasco. Her blog is very well-written and honest, without being completely soul-baring. As time has passed I’m sure her thoughts have changed a bit, and she’ll hopefully expand on her previous statements, and also address the Internet rumors herself.
Jane Fonda is shown on 2/2/09 in NY with her dog Tulea “talking on a panel for the re-released film ‘FTA’. A documentary made in 1972 of the Anti-War Touring group ‘Free Theatre Association’.” Credit: WENN
I thought that she did address this in her autobiog and it basically boiled down to “I did it so that my boyfriend/husband/male hairdresser would love me because my daddy was emotionally distant” or some equally evasive blather?
Now, I admit I haven’t read it and am just going by the excerpts that were published at the time it was released.
It was more than 20 years ago – 1972 is 37 years ago.
I think you had to live in it to understand what the emotional climate was. Most people hated that war, just as most people hate the Iraq war now. The difference is that now we support the kids who come back from fighting it, and then we didn’t always. She spoke out against it, and she got attention by going there. Her dad’s attention and everyone else’s. And since then, the “Hanoi Jane” crap has haunted her.
I like this woman, and think she deserves some peace.
I don’t think she should bother to do that. It would just stir it up again. Some people are just going to keep on repeating lies and urban legends until they die.
God get over it. She paid he dues for screwing up and she has admitted she screwed up. They need to stop beating a dead horse .
I adore Jane Fonda. Agree with Syko, I remember how volatile the climate surrounding the VN War was. It was on the news every evening, we would just stare gaping at the TV.
She should let the past stay in the past. Move on.
I admire her strength and think she is a terrific actress. Too bad her relationship with her Father was rocky.
It’s not so cut and dry for me… my dad was one of those soldiers over there and he feels so strongly disrespected by Fonda’s actions and feels that HER actions influenced OTHER’s who treated him so, so badly upon returning from doing the job he was DRAFTED to do.
I wasn’t born until 1973, but I see how this woman’s actions have hurt my dad, and therefore, I cannot and will not respect anything about her.
Uhm.
Going to Vietnam doesn’t make you a communist….
It’s a beautiful country. It’s got an amazing culture and amazing people.
I didn’t say going to Vietnam makes you a communist. My dad goes all the time, NOW. He even married a woman from there. Ms. Fonda did what she did very pointedly. She didn’t go to Hanoi for the frickin scenery.
And it doesn’t make her a traitor.
She can appreciate a people without being perceived as evil or a conspirator.
And she was right when she said one of the reasons America went over there was to hope to gain favor with a booming little industrializing nation. Nixon saw potential in future import/export talks with Vietnam.
And I think she was just preaching peace. Ultimately.
She was showing that the Vietnamese are just like us at the core of it.
I’m reading the transcript, and it seems to me that she was there to see what kind of people were being bombed.
(Random: Does this make you half-vietnamese?)
“Hanoi FU–ing Jane”, sat on enemy anti aircraft guns and was disapointed when no American Planes came over. Look at that little vagina, of a dog, on her lap, its ashamed that she owns her. USAF Retired Master Sergeant
Annie, you have your opinion of her and her motives, that’s fine. I only know the pain in my father’s eyes when she’s brought up because of what her actions, perceived motives aside, did to him and so many other soldiers over there doing what they were told.
Just realized you were pointing that half-Vietnamese question at me.
No, he married her last year. My mother is Native American.
Annie, you have your opinion of her and her motives, that’s fine
—
Well, I wasn’t around 30+ years ago, so I have no real idea of what happened when she went over.
I don’t think it was meant to show a lack of appreciation for the American soldiers who fought over there.
But then again, I have no idea. I’m just basing it on what I’m reading.
Like I said, I wasn’t born then, either, but it’s been my experience that the soldiers who were over there don’t feel quite as generous toward Fonda.
And my opinions come from no other place but the love for my dad.
~
Soldiers are betrayed by the governments who send them to fight, kill, die etc. in illegal and immoral wars.
Jane Fonda and I are from the same generation…she’s 71, I’m 70. I went to Vietnam too…but not for a photo-op.
I can forgive her youthful misjudgement (after all she was just 35 in 1972), but I can’t forget it. Actions have consequences, and she will have to deal with “Hanoi Jane” as long as she lives.
Bobby, that doesn’t make what Jane Fonda did any less or any more right.
So Diva, your dad is STILL personally hurt by something she did over 30 years ago? Someone he didn’t ever know? Something she’s apologized for? He seriously isn’t over that?
I dunno, honestly, I’m not trying to diss him, but I’m thinking there are way bigger problems in the world than something someone said over 30 years ago.
I guess I better put in my get out of jail free card here: I’m a veteran’s wife. And my father in law was in Vietnam three times. He’s a Republican and doesn’t give a shit what Jane Fonda said then. Doesn’t give a shit about it now, either. Seems to be working for him pretty well.
This is all much ado about nothing.
Wow, you’d think she personally pissed in the breakfast cereal of every single service member in Vietnam. I’m thinking people need to relax. A LOT.
Some of you sound really effing ignorant. Diva, I know where you are coming from. Of the Vietnam Vets that I have met and still know, they still express disappointment and anger at her actions.
I wasn’t in their situation because I hadn’t been born yet either, but the level of disrespect and hatred for the returning soldiers was only perpetuated by her actions.
A lot of you say that the soldiers should get over it. I think that’s pretty disrepectful.
She’s admitted she made a mistake. Good for her, but to a lot of people she will always be Hanoi Jane.
And her daughter was in some badass films. What happened to her? SWF was so good.
Are we running out of reasons and facts in the present day to ponder and criticize over ,that we need to dig into something said and done 30 years ago? The women knows she did a mistake and has apologized for the same, what exactly are people expecting her to do now?
Bottom line she screwed up and she knows it. She was an ignorant fool who got manipulated by many people in power. As far as giving pieces of paper, etc. there is no dedinitive proof of this at all, however there are the facts that AFTER her visit, some prisoners in question who claimed to have given her info were tortured and/or killed. I tend to believe that in the light of this fact that the evidence weighs in the area that she did did give up some sort of info, why else would those prisoners be persecuted after she left? I think she’s been carrying this guilt for long enough though and it’s time to let her off the hook……
@Syko, the apology was in 1988, 20 years ago, which is what JayBird meant. I realize the way she worded that made it sound like Fonda went to Vietnam 20 years ago and I’ll switch that sentence around for JB so that is more clear.
Here is the thing. It is not un-American to disagree with the policies of the government. This country disagreed with the Crown and thus the Revolutionary War.
This is an old story. She apologized (apparently Ted Turner made her say she was sorry while they were married) So I think she said sorry more than once. She didn’t have to, her opinion is just that. Her opinion.
We all have them and they are often wrong. This isn’t a story but maybe it is one that garners……attention and publicity and let’s face it that IS the name of this game
In fact, I’d say it’s pretty darn American to disagree with our government, that’s kind of the luxury that we have and other countries (MANY) don’t have. It’s what makes America great: Dissent.
Again, from what I can see of the transcript, it seems to me that she was merely trying to humanize the Vietnamese people since most Americans viewed them as savages. (Many refugees got spat on and worse when they fled communism.)
So, what you’re saying, then, is if, say Reese Witherspoon were to go over to Afghanistan or Iraq, or have a sit down with Al-Quaida, to, you know, show them that Americans weren’t all bad, that would be ok? Because Fonda didn’t go hang out with civilians in Vietnam, she went and sat and posed on guns that were killing American service people, she hung out with the guys who were shooting those guns.
Oh, and anastasiabea… you have NO IDEA what my dad, and many, many men like him, went through when they came back here from that war. Annie mentions refugees being spat on? These AMERICAN SERVICE MEN were spat on when they got off those planes and busses coming home… by AMERICANS. His own father told someone he was just “a friend of the family” because he was just back from the war. How dare you act like my dad is some sort of cry baby because he’s still pissed that this woman went and fraternized with the enemy when his life was in danger every day and night doing what his country sent him to do.
And, lastly, and then I’m done with this bullshit… My father doesn’t sit around crying about it like so many of the people on here do about a couple of celebrities who do nothing more than act, have kids and do charity.
WHEN the subject is brought up he states his feelings.
I’m out.
I was alive at the time when Jane made her visit to North Vietnam. I was a teenager, and deeply OPPOSED to the Vietnam war. And even I was shocked by Jane’s antics in NV. She posed, smiling and somewhat coquettish, with a plane used to bomb South Vietnam and U.S. Soldiers. It was appalling. It is difficult to see those photographs and not have the word “treason” spring to mind.
My opinion!
Anti-war political activists at that time were male-dominated and extremely sexist; Jane was their sexy cover girl, so to speak. Political radicals then idealized Communism; they regarded the Communist governments of North Vietnam, Cuba, and China as heroic governments of the people, when in fact they were as brutal and corrupt as the governments that preceded them. Jane’s visit was essentially propaganda used to romanticise and promote the North Vietnamese government, which is a far cry from trying humanize the Vietnamese. (Annie, I don’t know where you got the notion that the American people regarded the Vietnamese as savages. I don’t remember that being the case.)
Vietnam was a terrible tragedy. Our soldiers were pawns in cruel game – sent to fight a war that they were not allowed to win. It was brutal. People, civilians and soldiers, died horribly in massive numbers.
Personally, I think that Jane was guilty of simple minded thinking and youthful arrogance. However, she was no kid when she pulled this stunt. A lot of Vietnam veterans consider her to have been misled and let it go at that. Others are still wounded by her actions. They deserve respect. And obviously the issue is still unresolved for Jane or she would not feel the need to continue to discuss it.
There are a lot of parallels between Vietnam and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan today. Don’t blow this issue about Jane’s visit to Hanoi off as old news. As they say, what we don’t understand we are condemned to recreate and repeat.
Don’t know what happened -“My opinion” was written at the end but was transposed during tansmission to the 2nd paragraph above..
For those who are interested in learning more about the “Hanoi Jane” issue, Snopes.com has a pretty through discussion at:
http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp
Reading the piece was enlightening for me. Her behavior was worse than I had remembered, of course I was a teenage at the time.
Jane Fonda committed treason.
She should have been convicted in court and put to death as other traitors have been throughout American History.
American History is no longer taught.
Thus the comments on this thread.
It was never “a matter of opinion”.
It didn’t matter whether or not she gave aid and comfort to the enemy.
It didn’t matter whether Prisoners of War were severely beaten because of her action.
What matters is that she broke with the Constitution of The United States of America and must pay the price, via life imprisonment or death.
We cannot be a nation of laws without enforcing them…whether it is your opinion or not.
tigerlillie: Thank you for posting that link. I wasn’t born until 1975, and until now, never really knew the extent of her behavior.
Diva: I can absolutely understand why your father is still so troubled by the actions of this thoughtless woman, and I hope he’s been able to find some peace after all the hell he’s endured.
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Somebody sure as heck was asleep at the switch for much of this thread.
Jane Fonda is a dolt, and what she did in Vietnam was wrong. She has to be responsible for her actions, and its about time that she is.
She can clean up her image to the people that were not born in that era, but she will never do so with the people that had to pay with their lives for her actions.
There are always many sides to events in history. Having experienced the Viet Nam War, its after-effects on me and my fellow soldiers, I can convey this to you. The emotional rollercoaster produced by the “Hollywood” elite and their snippets of self promotion over the years pales in comparison to the affects of the Jane Fonda anti-aircraft photos and statements. Jane not only influenced and assisted the enemy but also the vicious treatment of veterans was encouraged by this from our own society. This is not something we choose to cling to but a flashing nightmare we Veterans will take this to our graves.
My husband was in Viet Nam, and died because of Agent Orange. It was a slow, terrible death. It’s too bad she wasn’t sprayed. I would never waste my money on any movie she has ever made, nor would I ever buy anything she rote.Not only do I not care to read, or hear any of her lies, but I feel I would be betraying the memory of a wonderful man. His name was Thomas McCusker. That name means a hell of a lot mare than the name “Jane Fonda”.
Here are a few of the facts;
Fonda pulled her little stunt during a period of the war when the NV were about
to throw in the towel. Because of her actions and the publicity it generated the North Vietnamse decided to keep fighting, so in affect her stupidity cost American, and yeah NV and SV lives.
She was a dimwit used by the NV and the rest of the world’s leftists as a tool, she was “a useful idiot’ as Stalin liked to call them.
Lastly, to our everlasting shame returning GI’s were treated like criminals. This country should get down on its knees and beg forgivness from every single one of them.
I think some people think of a soldier as a puppet or tool. I know that a lot of soldiers that went to viet nam were drafted but that doesn’t mean that many didn’t believe in what they were doing. Someone mentioned the Iraq war. Those soldiers belive what they are doing is bring peace to Iraq and keeping us safe. My husband came home from the war in Veit Nam in 1965 and two years ago a fellow vet finally said welsome home. Jane Fonda was wrong but my husband would be the first to say let it go. Wether she wanted the sacrifice or not he did it for her anyway.
The bigger question and much more relevent after all these years is why does the right always have to perpetuate hate? Why do they always have to milk every and any transgression or mistake even if it was or wasnt one made by a liberal? Especialy when over and over again they are guilty of far worse. Republicunts are the nations largest cult and the world hates us because of mostly there actions so I wouldnt be so high and mighty over what someone might have said 35 years ago.They need to always play the Blame Game instead of looking in the mirror. Course if it isnt Fonda its Michael Moore, Striesand, The Gays, Al Gore , Science,The Clintons, The Dixie Chicks,The French, The so called Liberal Media, Holly wood. San Fransico,The Muslems, Elmer fud etc etc etc you get my drift
Reading this thread I was consistently amused and completely gratified to find a liberal cursing conservatives at the very end. Conservatives don’t hate liberals. We’re just the same as they are–we just look through stronger microscopes so we can see the germs. We also love them because as far as we know, they are the only cynics who believe in leprechauns and boogeymen.
check out my”jane fonda tribute bike” i have been building it since 1988. i hope to finish it before i die, or jane fonda dies. see it at, bikepics.com look up harleydavidson then 1000 xlh then go to 1972 sporster owned by cadillachotrod you got to see it. painted like a 1972 f4 phantom II. a fitting tribute! ha ha.
i can only say one thing. what would happen to someone who did the same thing in 1944, and go to nazi germany during time of war, like she did during time of war in vietnan, and did the things she did, in the capital of a country we are currently in war with. would not she be on trial for treason? i do not see how she got away with it! and still is.