Jane Fonda's Address to U.S. POWs on Radio Hanoi

In a commentary on Nixon’s declaration that he has made progress in ending the war and particularly in ending American involvement in the war, visiting American actress Jane Fonda said Monday morning:

As the elections in the United States are drawing near, Richard Nixon is using the most cynical and criminal kinds of lies and trickery to fool the American opinion and world opinion into believing that he is trying to end the war in Indochina. How can he be ending the war when he is killing more people in Indochina than ever before, dropping more tons of bombs than ever before, creating more damage than ever before, and now bombing the dikes in the Red River delta, endangering the lives of 15 million people and their crops and animals.

He is counting on what he believes, that the American have no conscience. He believes that the American people don't care, since there are fewer American lives being lost. But he is wrong. We will learn the truth. Individuals who have come here have had the honor to have come here and -- and met -- meet the Vietnamese people and seen the damage being done. We will speak out louder than ever before. We will expose his lies, particularly now in this most important time just prior to elections.

We know that there is only one way to end the war, and that is in the Paris peace talks. The only way to end the war 1s by addressing ourselves in honor and in -- and in -- as true peace-loving people to the Seven-Point Proposal put forward last July 31st by the Provisional Revolutionary Government. The United States must set a date unconditionally for all troops -- air troops, ground troops, and CIA advisors to withdraw from Indochina. We must stop the support of the Thieu clique and let the people of South Vietnam to decide for themselves what kind of government they want to live under. And we will speak out about the Seven Points all over the world.

Commenting on U.S. attacks on North Vietnam's dikes and irrigation works, Jane Fonda said:

A relatively short time ago ((words indistinct)) 3 years ago, people told me that the United States government was committing crimes in -- in Vietnam, crimes on the ground against the people and crimes from the air with bombs. And I refused to believe it. I thought very hard because I had been brought up to believe that the United States government stood for freedom and democracy. Then I began to study -- I began to read, I began to listen to reports coming from the battlefield, and I began to talk to soldiers. Brave heroes of the war would come back from Indochina and I was told that it is we who committed crimes, it is we who burned villages and massacred civilian people and raped the Vietnamese women. It is we who did it and we are sorry, and we want the Amer1can people to know what is being done in their names.

And at that point I have had to, like tens of thousands of other American people, I had to let go of the lie. I had to admit to myself – and we all must -- that somewhere along the way the United States stopped being what it hoped to be in the beginning when we first fought a revolutionary war to free ourselves from the British, from the British control.

This is what is happening in Vietnam today. It is a people fighting to be free. They are fighting a righteous, revolutionary war to be free and independent the way we, the American people, did in the beginning of our own country. And we must allow them to do this. And if we are true Americans, and if we truly believe what it is our country stands for or started out to stand for, we must not only stop these barbarous acts being committed against the Vietnamese people, but we must help them achieve their revolution.

We must do everything we can in the name of democracy and freedom to allow them to live in peace and independence and freedom. We must take the opportunity since we are here on their soil -- under whatever conditions we are here -- to study their culture and study their history and talk to the Vietnamese people, try to sensitize ourselves to another kind of culture. One of the worst things that has taken place in the United States, I believe, is that we are cut off from other peoples around the world. We are -- we are made to -- to lack respect for other peoples, particularly people who are not white. And I think that this is wrong, I feel that people who are truly American and truly patriotic must say we love all people, and we have to understand how all people live, and we have to respect everyone's right for independence.

And, I'm sure that you -- that you know that we wish that you come home as fast as possible. I believe that the people who are speaking out against the war, who are trying to stop the war -- by voting against Mr. Nixon for one thing, by economic boycott for another thing, and by education and persuasion among the general American public -- that it is we who are doing what is best to get you home as fast as possible. The key to the prisons in the northern part of Vietnam is in Nixon's hands. It is Nixon who -- who will be able to free all of the prisoners. He can do this by (authoring?) the Seven-Point Peace Proposal that was put forward a year ago, last July.

It is very important for us to understand that the solution to your problems has existed for 1 year, for 1 year. If Richard Nixon at the Paris Peace Talks last July had addressed himself to the Seven-Point Peace Proposal, which is recognized by people all over the world as being the most just and righteous proposal ever put forward by one side during a period of war, all of you would have been home within 3 months. And we think this is a crime.

We think it is a crime that the President of the United States has cynically prevented your freedom, has cynically lied to the American people, making them believe that it is he who is seeking peace, when we know it is the contrary.

We hope that you are taking this time to study, to learn, so that when you come home you can speak to the rest of the American people. And we hope that will be soon.

SPRING 2004 (Volume 34, Number 1)

http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=412&hilite=jane+fonda

VVAW Letter of Support
By VVAW National Office

In recent months, VVAW and its credibility have come under attack from the loony Right and the mainstream press. As with the Nixon administration, these new voices are attacking us on whether or not we are really vets and whether we spoke the truth about the war and our participation in it.

Stand with VVAW now. Please sign on to this letter of support and get your friends to do so as well. For over 35 years, Vietnam Veterans Against the War has put itself on the line for veterans and active duty GIs.

Now we are putting ourselves on the line for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. This letter will be run as an advertisement in various publications and appear in the next issue of The Veteran.

The letter is printed below, along with the list of people who have already signed on. To show your support, please fill out the form.

Since its formation Vietnam Veterans Against the War has opposed unjust wars and supported the welfare of men and women on active duty. Whenever there has been a choice between the welfare of GIs and the interests of politicians, VVAW has always supported the welfare of fighting men and women.

The testimony of VVAW members in 1971 during the Winter Soldier Investigation first brought to public attention the conditions of service in Vietnam. Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War worked tirelessly to establish the credentials and accuracy of each witness before the investigation. A confidential Nixon-administration team led by Charles Colson worked ruthlessly to undermine the testimony of each witness afterward. To this day none of the Winter Soldier Investigation evidence has been shown to have been false.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War has continued to focus attention on the many unmet needs of veterans. Members of VVAW developed the rap groups that served as the model for counseling at veterans' outreach centers. Vietnam Veterans

Against the War was the first organization to draw attention to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the shameful neglect of patients in VA hospitals, the harmful effect of exposure to Agent Orange, and the inadequacies of educational and employment benefits. VVAW fought for amnesty for war resisters, including vets with bad discharges. VVAW has supported Gulf War veterans in their struggles with Gulf War Syndrome and depleted uranium (DU) ammunition.

The current negative attacks against VVAW are an attack on the whole anti-war movement and must be countered.

Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson (cofounders, Military Families Speak Out)
Fran Johns (Military Families Speak Out)
Ron Kovic (Vietnam veteran, "Born on the 4th of July")
W.D. Ehrhart, Ph.D. (poet, writer, teacher)
John Ketwig (Vietnam veteran, "And a Hard Rain Fell")
G. David Curry, Ph.D. ("Sunshine Patriots")
Annie Bailey (former regional coordinator, VVAW)
John Lindquist (former national coordinator, VVAW)
Ed Damato (former national coordinator, VVAW)
Dave "Buzz" Doyle (Gulf War I veteran)
Joe Bangert (WSI testifier, DCIII and more)(JOHN F'N KERRY'S GOOD BUD AND SOMEONE WHO HAS WORKED ON KERRY'S CAMPAIGN FOR 35 YEARS, INCLUDING 04)
Orlando Tizon, Ph.D. (Torture Abolition and Survivors
Support Coalition International (TASSC)*)
Sister Alice Zachmann (SSND, TASSC*),
Harold Nelson, Ph.D. (TASSC*, Korean Era veteran)
Yoomi Jeong (Korea Truth Commission*)
Jeff Stack (Mid-MO Fellowship of Reconciliation coordinator*)
Carl Davidson, (Chicagoans Against War & Injustice,* former national secretary of SDS)
Chukia Lawton (nurse, activist) Richard Stacewicz, Ph.D. ("Winter Soldiers: Oral History of VVAW")
Jane Fonda (actor, activist)

This is from VVAW's Website, less anyone doubt that Hanoi Jane did not support the VVAW and was NOT associated and with John (The Snake) Kerry.

The VVAW is still going strong, only now it has targeted the War in Afganistan and Iraq and not only has it helped organize the IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against War) but is actively supporting them.

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