'Hanoi Jane' Partners with MoveOn.Org

'Hanoi Jane' Fonda is teaming up with a leading anti-Bush 527 group in a bid to register millions of women voters to cast their ballots for her old anti-war protest partner, John Kerry.

Fonda, who called President Bush a "radical ideologue" during a campaign stop in New York City last week, was asked about her latest move during a recent interview with CNN's Paula Zahn, and explained why she's come out of political retirement to back Kerry:

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about this partnership you have with MoveOn.org, an organization that has spent tens of millions of dollars to try to defeat George W. Bush. Is it your primary goal to elect John Kerry?

FONDA: Our primary goal is to try to get the 50 million women who are eligible to vote and have not voted to vote. We want the woman's voice to be in the body politic.

ZAHN: But the fact is, Jane, with the vast amount of money that MoveOn.org has spent running ads against President Bush, is there any way you can encourage women out there who would be inclined to vote Republican to come to the polls?

FONDA: We're the majority. If we voted, we would make a difference. We could decide who was elected. We could decide whether the person elected, man or woman, was going to care about and speak to our issues. . . . .

ZAHN: Jane, I find it hard to believe when you talk to these 50 million women out there that didn't vote that you just want them to vote their hearts. You really want them to vote for John Kerry, don't you?

FONDA: I'm not putting myself, nor am I asked to be in either campaign. I'm just saying that I know that if women voted and they voted with their hearts and with their bodies and their souls, that the future would be more safe, because that's where our hearts are.

FONDA: I'm a Democrat. My father would strike me dead from the heavens if I ever voted for a Republican. Ted could never understand: "You've never voted for a Republican?" I can't do that to my father, who was a yellow dog Democrat. What can I say? [END OF EXCERPT]

Zahn then broached the sensitive subject of the Vietnam War, which Fonda and Kerry protested together in 1970 and 71, prompting the controversial actress to share her insights into why so many Americans still hate her.

ZAHN: Jane, you have spent a number of years trying to put your controversial Vietnam past behind you. And yet for the last week or so, we have seen a tremendous amount of news coverage on George W. Bush's service in the national guard and questions being asked about John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

What does that tell us about how raw the feelings are to this day about the Vietnam War?

FONDA: It tells us that they're raw. It tells us that we have not healed. We need to heal from this wound, because it's very directly connected to what -- to the new wound. We haven't learned, you know, the lessons of Vietnam.

ZAHN: Jane, you have apologized to the families of Vietnam War vets, saying that maybe you have said some things that you wish you hadn't said along the way. Do you think you'll ever be able to satisfy people to this day who question what you did in Vietnam?

FONDA: No. There's a lot of people who -- who -- it's a cottage industry to hate me. And if they -- if they stop, that might mean that they'd have to look at some things that would question their own identity. And that's -- it's very hard for people to do. [END OF INTERVIEW]

Background of Jane Fonda's Anti-War Activities

While American Soldiers were fighting and dying in the Vietnam War, Jane Fonda, the daughter of Henry Fonda, was using her money and influence at colleges and universities to gather support to advocate communism and encourage rebellion and anarchy against the United States Government.

On November 21, 1970 she told a University of Michigan audience of some two thousand students, "If you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would some day become communist." At Duke University in North Carolina she repeated what she had said in Michigan, adding "I, a socialist, think that we should strive toward a socialist society, all the way to communism. " Washington Times July 7, 2000

Jane Fonda began her participation in anti-war activities around 1967, allegedly after meeting with Communists while in France and with American citizens who were revolutionaries. Her activities included active participation in demonstrations, rallies, radio broadcasts and plays.

Jane Fonda also helped in the organization of a production group called the F.T.A. (F*** The Army). This group helped to set up coffee houses near military bases where they would perform anti-war derogatory-type sketches for the visiting soldiers. The coffee-house sketches were intended to counterpoint the U.S.O. shows, such as Bob Hope and other U.S.O. sponsored performers whose performances increased morale and gave positive support to American soldiers. Some of the F.T.A. coffee house employees would mingle with the soldiers to help them to "relax and unwind", while encouraging the soldiers to desert. Some soldiers alleged that they were promised jobs and money by the F.T.A. if they deserted.

The Vietnam Veterans Against the War Organization received major financial support from Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda's F.T.A. coffee houses helped in recruiting soldiers and veterans for the Vietnam Veterans Against The War Organization. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War Organization membership was approximately 7,000 at it's highest. The Organization's membership number was comparatively low, when you consider that more than 2 1/2 million Americans served during the Vietnam war.

Jane Fonda personally sought out returning American soldiers from Vietnam to solicit them to publicly speak out against American atrocities against Vietnamese women and children during her broadcasts. North Vietnamese officials based in Canada allegedly coordinated her broadcasts. In 1972 Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden and others traveled to North Vietnam to give their support to the North Vietnamese's Government. When she returned to the United States, she advised the news media that all of the American Prisoners of War were being well treated and were not being tortured.

As the American POWs returned home in 1973, they spoke out about the inhumane treatment and torture they had suffered as prisoners of war. Their stories directly contradicted Jane Fonda's earlier statements of 1972. Some of the American POWs such as Senator John McCain, a former Presidential candidate, stated that he was tortured by his guards for refusing to meet with Jane Fonda and her group. Jane Fonda, in her response to these new allegations, referred to the returning POWs as being "hypocrites and liars."

The Wall Street Journal (August 3, 1995) published an interview with Bui Tin who served on the General Staff of the North Vietnam Army and received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. During the interview Mr. Tin was asked if the American antiwar movement was important to Hanoi's victory. Mr. Tin responded "It was essential to our strategy" referring to the war being fought on two fronts, the Vietnam battlefield and back home in America through the antiwar movement on college campuses and in the city streets. He further stated the North Vietnamese leadership listened to the American evening news broadcasts "to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement." Visits to Hanoi made by persons such as Jane Fonda, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and various church ministers "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses." Mr. Tin surmised that "America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win." Mr. Tin further advised that General Vo Nguyen Giap (Commanding General of the North Vietnam Army) said the 1968 Tet Offensive was a defeat. Gen. Giap in his book, made the same statement, adding that they were surprised by the news media reporting and the demonstrations in America. Instead of seeking a conditional surrender, they would now hold out because America's resolve was weakening and victory could be theirs.

From 1969 to the end of the war over 20,000 American soldiers lost their lives in a war that the United States did not have the resolve to win. If General Giap was accurate in his assessment that North Vietnam was going to seek a conditional surrender at the Paris Peace Conference, but stopped due to the sensationalism of the American news media and the anti-war protests following the 1968 Tet Offensive, it follows that those who participated in these anti-war activities have to share partial responsibility for those 20,000 + Americans deaths.

We won the war on the battlefield but lost it back home on the college campuses and in the city streets.

Americans must realize that there are agents* operating in this Country attempting to undermine our Country and it's leadership through our democratic principles in an effort to achieve a foreign country's goal. A prime example of such a person during the Vietnam War was Jane Fonda, an admitted Socialist, who blatantly supported North Vietnam. * Agent - Any person who works to obtain the goals of another nation either for money or for their own political beliefs.

A valuable lesson was taught by North Vietnam to other nations on how the United States may be defeated by fighting a two front war - the battlefield and the American home front. We must be aware of this vulnerability.

In 1975, after the fall of the South Vietnam Government, Jane Fonda returned to Hanoi with her newborn son Troy for a celebration in her honor for the work she had done for North Vietnam. During the celebration, her son was christened after a Viet Cong hero, Nguyen Van Troi. Troi had attempted to assassinate Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara while on his visit to South Vietnam in 1963. The South Vietnam Government executed Troi for this attempted assassination.

I have heard and read that some people believe that Jane Fonda was simply young and impressionable. Jane Fonda was born on December 21, 1937. She was 34 years old when she made her infamous trip to North Vietnam and was in her 30's when she participated in anti-war demonstrations and rallies. During this same time period a large number of young American soldiers, who had not yet reached their 21st birthday, were fighting the war in Vietnam and were held accountable for all of their actions. These same young soldiers were, upon their return to the United States, still not of legal age to vote or buy alcoholic beverages. Jane Fonda was an adult when she made these conscious decisions and actions, and as such, she is responsible and should be held accountable. The Vietnam Memorial Wall contains the names of 25,493 American soldiers who served their Country and paid the ultimate price for freedom who were under the age of 21 ( Casualty Statistics).

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