TRUTH about “Hanoi” Jane Fonda – Forgotten History
During World War I and World War II America’s celebrities such as sports figures actors and musicians joined the war effort supporting the troops overseas and most even enlisted in the military to serve in whatever capacity they could. During the Korean War a few celebrities still served especially athletes although there was not the enthusiasm for the support as in prior conflicts. But Vietnam was completely different.
Many celebrities actually condemned the military fighting the war as well as the government and presidents in office but one actress took it to another level and she should have been tried for treason according to some. Who is Jane Fonda? Why did she support the Communist and endorse their totalitarian position? How did she commit what is by every legal definition treason against the United States and was never prosecuted? How did the men she visited in the Hanoi Hilton feel about her after her staged propaganda event? Why was she not indicted for treason when others had been in the past? Hello I’m Colin Heaton former
history Professor Army and Marine Corps veteran and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History. Jane Fonda was born on December 21st 1937 in New York City and is the daughter of legendary actor and World War II naval officer Henry Fonda. During Vietnam Fonda and her first husband film director Roger Vadim who lived in Paris where they mixed with the extreme liberal French cultural elites.
Funda became a radical anti-war and anti-establishment activist in the late 1960s and supported various radical social causes and groups like the Black Panthers The Weather Underground supported Native American issues and was a major proponent of Gloria Steinem’s feminist movement. She also supported Vietnam Veterans Against the War speaking at rallies and raising money and she became their honorary national coordinator.
In May 1972 Fonda accepted the North Vietnamese delegation’s invitation for a two week visit to Hanoi extended to her at the Paris peace talks. Fonda jumped at the chance to go and visited one of the bastions of communist ideology. Fonda did not just go on a fact finding humanitarian mission as she stated.
Many compared her to World War II’s Tokyo Rose as Fonda made 10 broadcasts on Hanoi Radio telling American fighting men to lay down their arms because they “were fighting an unjust war against the peace loving North Vietnamese.” She also condemned the US military policy in Vietnam and stated that pilots should “cease bombing nonmilitary targets” which did not happen anyway.
She “addressed American POWs who were forced by the Vietnamese to listen to her broadcast condemning them as war criminals.” Fonda also traveled with an East German camera crew and wanted to take photos and have film that implicated the Nixon Administration in the bombing of civilians hospitals schools and breaking dams and bombing the dykes to flood civilian areas.
Fonda took a tour of Hanoi visiting villages installations and even people’s homes. What really became a sensation were the many photos of her visiting a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery sitting on an anti-aircraft gun. These actions were what earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane” which made most Vietnam veterans develop a great resentment for her especially aviators who had been shot down captured and tortured.
What was disturbing to many veterans was her denying the reported conditions of American POWs especially that anyone had ever been tortured or mistreated. The most heinous and persistent allegation was that she turned over secret messages from POWs to their captors. According to the POWs themselves especially Captain Michael McGrath President of NAM-POWS himself a POW in Hanoi and who would have had every reason to grind and ax stated that,”that story was not true.” In a telephone conversation
that I had personally with Captain McGrath on May 30th 2024 he stated quote, “There is enough information that is true about Jane Fonda’s actions just keep to the facts. No need for false stories.” Medal of Honor recipient and POW Colonel George E. “Bud” Day who full disclosure was my attorney and friend and by no means a fan of Jane Fonda stated during his interview that “…the story was not factual.
I do not know who started that but that ridiculous situation not withstanding she was still a traitor she tried to do harm to our military and elevate the Communists to a more palatable and acceptable version of humanity.” Admiral James Stockdale, United States Navy retired also a POW in Hanoi and recipient of the Medal of Honor said during his interview, “If those actions had been conducted by anyone else other than a high-profile liberal they would have been charged with treason and rightly so.
” Even without that tantalizing and untrue story of betrayal there was more than enough evidence to charge her with treason in some legal circles due to her actions. One only has to examine the comparative case of Iva Toguri D’Aquino who was convicted and later pardoned for being the World War II radio propagandist Tokyo Rose. D’Aquino was an American citizen and the daughter of Japanese immigrants who traveled to Japan and was trapped after Pearl Harbor. She was charged with treason and imprisoned for the same actions as perpetrated
by Jane Fonda with regard to propaganda. However unlike D’Aquino Fonda had a meeting with seven “cooperative” prisoners who’d never shown their captors any resistance and they were Captain William G. Byrns United States Air Force, Major Edward K. Elias US Air Force who accepted early release on September 25th 1972, Captain Kenneth J.
Fraser US Air Force, Lieutenant Commander David W. Hoffman United States Navy, Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller United States Marine Corps, Major James P. Padget US Air Force and Commander Walter Eugene Wilbur United States Navy, with two of those men being alleged collaborators and “while those seven have unequivocally stated that they were not coerced to meet with her and tell her all about their fair and humane treatment other hard-case POWs have said that they were tortured before and after her visit.
” Unlike Fonda D’Aquino was trapped in Japan, an American citizen with little choice in the matter while Fonda made the conscious and active decision to support the enemies of the United States and our allies and derogate American servicemen possibly endangering them. Fonda joined other celebrities such as Donald Sutherland on a vaudeville type of entertainment campaign as part of their “Anti- USO Tour”.
Part of their program was to get veterans to speak out against the war citing their own experiences including future senator and presidential candidate John Kerry who controversially served in the US Navy during Vietnam and gave even more controversial some say perjured testimony on atrocities that were supposedly committed by US troops against civilians.
Fonda escalated her visibility as an anti-war protester in the 1970s “focused on the rights of troops while in the military and of those who wanted to resist being drafted,” she pursued anyone with a Vietnam story like Kerry did that could be used to support support the anti-war movement. And like Kerry Jane Fonda also gathered testimonies from people who were complete frauds not veterans and those who had been veterans had never served in Vietnam this was when she became deeply entrenched with Vietnam Veterans Against the War providing her personal time and bundling money. She supported those who evaded national conscription and fled abroad as
well as deserters from active duty. According to the Washington Post “some lawmakers saw her protest as treasonous and the Veterans of Foreign Wars called for Fonda to be tried as a traitor. At one point the Maryland state legislature considered banning her and her films from the state.
” Filmmaker Lynn Novick stated “I think she was courageous for going to Hanoi and taking a stand even though they didn’t agree with everything she had to say.” More recent scholarship has also emphasized the ways in which the idea of “Hanoi Jane” has has grown far beyond Fonda’s actual actions during that tumultuous period.” Jane Fonda herself wrote: “There is one thing that happened while in North Vietnam that I will regret to my dying day.
I allowed myself to be photographed on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. It happened on my last day in Hanoi. It was not unusual for Americans who visited North Vietnam to be taken to see Vietnamese military installations and when they did they were always required to wear a helmet like the kind I was told to wear during the numerous air raids I had experienced.
Fonda also stated: “Whenever possible I try to sit down with vets and talk with him because I understand and it makes me sad. It hurts me and it will go to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers.” Citing from Captain McGrath’s website and Factbook: “Fonda is remembered by veterans for urging mutiny of beleaguered US troops with her broadcasts from Radio Hanoi, and for the escalation of the already brutal treatment of US POWs following her visit
hosted by Vietnamese Communists. Although the POWs had been beaten starved and tortured Jane Fonda said the POWs were liars and hypocrites. In 1969 Jane Fonda spoke to Michigan State University students telling them ‘you would hope you would pray on your knees that we would someday become communist.
‘ In 1999 AAUW’s award to Fonda prompted criticism from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. A 1989 VFW resolution still in effect urged that she be investigated by the Justice Department for the crime of treason.” Lieutenant Commander and US Senator John McCain said “These people Ramsey Clark Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda were on the side of the North Vietnamese. I think she only saw eight selected prisoners I was beaten unmercifully for refusing to meet with the visitors.
‘ Major Howard Kushner said, ‘I think the purposes of Fonda and Clark were to hurt the United States to radicalize our young people and to undermine our authority.’ Colonel Alan Brunstrom said, “We felt that any westerners who showed up in Hanoi were on the other side. They gave aid and comfort to the enemy and as far as I’m concerned they were traitors.’ After the US prisoners of war returned and had landed at Clark Field in the Philippines in 1973 Jane Fonda publicly said that they were “hypocrites and liars and history will judge them severely.
‘ Jane Fonda has now apologized for a photograph but she speaks about some unexplained context. The context is the crime. The photograph is merely the visual evidence of the crime.'” But the question persists were her actions treasonous? The Nixon Administration wanted to indict her but public sentiment being formed due to the compliant and complicit liberal anti-war media the prosecution was not actively pursued.
So was Jane Fonda truly a traitor or just a misguided misinformed tool of the liberal Marxist left? According to constitutional attorney author and Brooklyn Law School Emiritus Professor Henry Mark Holzer who investigated this entire situation in his book “Aid and Comfort: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam” she could have been charged prosecuted convicted and the conviction upheld on appeal if the law was strictly applied.
Other POWs I have interviewed over the years agreed but we will let you decide. See the list of those interviewed in the sources. Thank you for watching this episode of Forgotten History. If you liked what you saw please click like share and subscribe and if you would like to assist with the ever increasing cost of production please consider becoming a channel member and joining our Patreon page. Please check out our merchandise store and thanks for watching.
