Posted on 03/02/2002 9:37:45 AM PST by GummyIII
Sneak Preview II Subject: Travel to NVN [North Vietnam] Jane Fonda As Dept. is likely aware from press reports, actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi July 8 via Aeroflot from Moscow. Subject was not carried as passenger on Aeroflot manifest deposited during Vientiane transit morning July 8 nor did she disembark to transit lounge. Fonda had left the United States, traveled to Paris and, fittingly, flown from there to Moscow. Boarding an Aeroflot flight in the Soviet capital, apparently incognito, she remained on the airplane when it landed in supposedly neutral Laos and exited only when she arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam. "Clad in black pajamas [typically worn by the Viet Cong in the South] and a white tunic, Jane stepped off her Aeroflot jet on July 8, 1972. … She arrived, she told her uniformed, helmeted hosts, with 'greetings' from revolutionary 'comrades' in America." Fonda had come to Hanoi — as had [Tom] Hayden, Joan Baez and other Americans before her — willingly and knowingly to provide grist for the North Vietnamese propaganda mill. Despite the "public-relations" risk of torturing American prisoners of war, the North Vietnamese chanced it because of the high value they placed on propaganda. At no time was this more apparent than in 1967, when the Communists opened yet another POW facility in Hanoi — this one "devoted specifically to the production and dissemination of propaganda." Among its several prisoner-given names, it is probably best known as the "plantation." "The Vietnamese converted a portion of the facility into a Potemkin village of sanitized cells, garden patches and scrubbed corridors that would serve as a showplace for displaying the captives to visiting delegations and conducting photo sessions and other propaganda activities." The POWs, however, were not going to play Hanoi's propaganda game. They resisted torture as best they could. Another method of thwarting the Communists' propaganda plans was self-defacement. [Navy Cmdr. James] Stockdale was convinced that officials at the [Hanoi] Hilton were after him to make a movie for propaganda-warfare consumption in which he would advise junior officers to cooperate with the captors. To defeat the plan, he tried fasting, then disfigured himself by chopping his hair and scalp with a razor and, when the Vietnamese requisitioned a hat, pounding his face with a stool and against the wall until he was unfit to be photographed or filmed. But the best counterextortion technique proved to be the self-defacement. Painful as it was — he had to "freshen" his bruises with his fists to keep his eyelids swollen and cheekbones mashed — it allowed him to regain some measure of control against his tormentors. Yet, in the face of the heroic, mostly successful, efforts of American POWs to deny the North Vietnamese their much-needed propaganda victories — by taking indescribable torture, by voluntarily defacing themselves, by seeing the plantation for what it was and acting accordingly and by every other means open to them — Jane Fonda handed her Communist hosts a pro-Communist, anti-American propaganda coup. Why? Fonda biographer Peter Collier understood what was driving the actress-turned-militant: "When she arrived in Hanoi, Jane was as malleable as she had been when she returned to the United States after her Paris exile two years earlier — ready to find her relevance in the use others could make of her." And use her, to good effect, the "others" — the Communists — would. Indeed, the use to which the North Vietnamese put Fonda — with her knowing consent and active participation — gave them what they needed: legitimacy and favorable propaganda. Once Fonda was in Hanoi, her Communist hosts laid on a full schedule for their American comrade who had come halfway around the world to assist them in their international propaganda efforts. In the years since Fonda's July 1972 pilgrimage to Hanoi, there have been many reports of what she did there. Some have been accurate, some not. Since our opinion that she could have been indicted and tried for treason rests mostly on Fonda's actual pro-Communist, anti-American, propaganda broadcasts and her other conduct in North Vietnam, it is essential to get the facts down correctly. Principally, Fonda's activities in North Vietnam fell into four categories: (1) broadcasts — some live and some taped — under the auspices of Radio Hanoi; (2) meetings with senior Communist officials; (3) tours of civilian and military sites; and (4) an "interview" with seven American prisoners of war. To set the record straight, let's begin with the broadcasts, which, outside of a few government agencies, have never been heard in the United States in their entirety. Indeed, few people outside of government have ever even read the transcripts. There are two categories: (1) Fonda's broadcasts to American military personnel and (2) her broadcasts targeted to others. From [her] broadcasts it is apparent that Fonda was addressing not only every American serviceman and woman (enlisted and officer) on the ground in Vietnam and on ships off the coast, but also South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians as well. Her broadcasts were beamed to the jungles of the South, the prisons of the North and even to Eastern (that is, Communist) Europe. To the extent there may be any sympathy at all for Fonda among Americans, it's probably because they've never known what she actually said in Hanoi and what was attributed to her. The list of her accusations follows:
On that literary suggestion, we can end this summary of Fonda's propaganda statements in Hanoi. Fonda's own words … make plain beyond any reasonable doubt the intent and import of her statements. They contained lies about the United States, its leaders, their motives and their acts. They maligned the president of the United States. They spouted the Communist propaganda line in every respect. They sought to undermine the morale and military effort of our soldiers in the field and our prisoners in jungle camps and North Vietnamese prisons. And her words even encouraged mutiny and desertion. That there was a consistent pro-Communist, anti-American, propaganda theme to virtually everything uttered by Fonda in her broadcasts from Hanoi, that Fonda's statements reveal a clear intent to aid the North Vietnamese and injure the United States, cannot be disputed. Although more detailed analyses of Fonda's Hanoi propaganda statements are found [later in the complete book], which address her statements' impact, it is useful to emphasize a related point here. Consider some of the statements made by this young actress who lacked political sophistication, who was ignorant of history, who had an almost nonexistent knowledge of international affairs and who probably had never before written anything more complicated than a check. What did she know about "neocolonialism," the 1954 Geneva Accords, what constituted a military target or the different types of aircraft and ordnance? It is obvious that in Hanoi, Fonda was acting as a willing tool of the Communists, to a considerable extent simply reading "canned" material created by professional Communist propagandists (albeit perhaps with an occasional ad-lib). Indeed, some of the words and syntax are those of a person or persons for whom English was not a first language, and it is doubtful that the political language came from Fonda herself. But Fonda's broadcasts were not her only statements in aid of the North Vietnamese. In addition to the live broadcasts made by Fonda on Hanoi Radio, and replayed endlessly not only throughout Vietnam but also within the Northern prison camps, she made many other statements while being escorted around the city and its environs to view what her hosts claimed were bombed-out civilian installations like schools and hospitals. Examples abound. She was taken to a hamlet called Hong Phong, and afterward the North Vietnamese issued a news release saying that the day before Fonda's visit American bombing had killed two elderly people — and adding that "Jane Fonda felt great indignation at the U.S. attack on civilian populations." As some of her propaganda broadcasts indicated, she "was taken to see dikes allegedly destroyed the day before. "In her assessment," read the Hanoi news release, "the U.S. had made deliberate attacks on dikes to jeopardize life and terrorize the people." At a press conference she said that every evidence of bombing that she had seen was directed at a nonmilitary target. As to Fonda's tours, it is noteworthy that virtually on her first day in Hanoi she was taken to the North Vietnam Communists' "War Crimes" museum which displayed ordnance and artifacts allegedly used by American forces in Vietnam. But even worse than her "War Crimes" museum tour, Fonda's most notorious visit was to the site of a Communist antiaircraft gun, which was used to blast American pilots and their planes out of the sky. Even many of Fonda's supporters were shocked and disgusted to see the helmeted Fonda smiling, clapping, shaking hands and otherwise fraternizing with the weapon's crew. Film of this episode makes clear beyond any doubt whatsoever that Fonda was enjoying herself greatly; indeed, she looks nearly orgiastic. Fraternizing with the gun crew was obscene enough. But then Fonda climbed into the antiaircraft weapon's control seat, put her eye to the sight and feigned taking a bead on imaginary American aircraft. The Communist crew smiled and applauded. The North Vietnamese propagandists had a field day, and French and other cameramen distributed the film worldwide. The photo's caption reads: "American actress and activist Jane Fonda is surrounded by soldiers and reporters as she sings an antiwar song near Hanoi during the Vietnam War in July 1972. Fonda, seated on an antiaircraft gun, is here to 'encourage' North Vietnamese soldiers fighting against 'American imperialist air raiders.' She is wearing a helmet and Vietnamese-made ao-dai pantaloon and blouse." In addition to this photo-op, there were many others — with "workers, peasants, students, artists and dancers, historians, journalists, film actresses, soldiers, militia girls, members of the women's union, writers" — especially when Fonda met and socialized with high-ranking North Vietnamese officials. At the end of her trip, she spent some time with Nguyen Duy Trinh, vice premier of North Vietnam. Fonda "told him that she was deeply impressed by the Vietnamese people's determination to emerge victorious. She also told the vice premier that his people would 'certainly triumph' over the Americans." Even worse than Fonda's broadcasts, her photo-op tours and her chumminess with North Vietnamese Communists was her encounter with American POWs being held captive in Hanoi. Since one of the two essential elements of the crime of treason is "adhering" to the enemy — that is, committing an "overt act" — it is unfortunate that there has been so much erroneous reportage about Fonda's interaction with American POWs in Hanoi. The fact is that Fonda is not guilty of certain acts attributed to her, but she is certainly guilty of others. Let's set the record straight. It has been reported in recent years on the Internet that POWs surreptitiously slipped Fonda messages which she turned over to the North Vietnamese. That story is false. Also untrue is that any POW died for refusing to meet with Fonda. It is true, however, that POWs were unwillingly made to meet with her. Needless to say, Fonda quickly lied about her meeting with the Hanoi Hilton POWs, continuing to parrot the North Vietnamese propaganda line: "This is Jane Fonda speaking from Hanoi. Yesterday evening … I had the opportunity of meeting seven U.S. pilots. Some of them were shot down as long ago as 1968 and some of them had been shot down very recently. They are all in good health. We had a very long talk, a very open and casual talk. We exchanged ideas freely. They asked me to bring back to the American people their sense of disgust of the war and their shame for what they have been asked to do. "They told me that the pilots believe they are bombing military targets. "They told me that the pilots are told that they are bombing to free their buddies down below but, of course, we all know that every bomb that falls on North Vietnam endangers the lives of the American prisoners. "They asked me: 'What can you do?' They asked me to bring messages back to their loved ones and friends, telling them to please be as actively involved in the peace movement as possible, to renew their efforts to end the war. "One of the men who has been in the service for many, many years has written a book about Vietnamese history, and I thought that this was very moving, that during the time he's been here, and the time that he has had to reflect on what he has been through and what he has done to this country, he has … his thought has turned to this country, its history of struggle and the people that live here. "They all assured me that they have been well cared for. They listen to the radio. They receive letters. They are in good health. They asked about news from home. "I think we all shared during the time I spent with them a sense of deep sadness that a situation like this has to exist, and I certainly felt from them a very sincere desire to explain to the American people that this is a terrible crime and that it must be stopped, and that Richard Nixon is doing nothing except escalating it while preaching peace, endangering their lives while saying he cares about the prisoners. "And I think that one of the things that touched me the most was that one of the pilots said to me that he was reading a book called The Draft, a book written by the American Friends Service Committee [Quakers], and that in reading this book, he had understood a lot about what had happened to him as a human being in his 16 years of military service. He said that during those 16 years, he had stopped relating to civilian life, he had forgotten that there was anything else besides the military and he said in realizing what had happened to him, he was very afraid that this was happening to many other people. "I was very encouraged by my meeting with the pilots [because] I feel that the studying and the reading that they have been doing during their time here has taught them a great deal in putting the pieces of their lives back together again in a better way, hopefully, and I am sure that when they go home, they will go home better citizens than when they left." This live broadcast by Hanoi Jane directed to American troops, free and captive throughout North Vietnam, was blatantly false.
These lies were simply more canned North Vietnamese propaganda, broadcast in furtherance of Fonda's intent to damage the United States and help the North Vietnamese. Can it be said that these lies, and the rest of what Fonda said and did in Hanoi, could have been construed by a jury as having provided "aid and comfort" to our North Vietnamese enemy? [We provide the answer to that in our book]. For now, suffice it to note the words of an American POW who would later become a U.S. congressman: In the summer of 1972, "the voice of Jane Fonda hung in the air over Camp Unity. Our camp guards and the commander were overjoyed to have a celebrity of her status come over and align herself with their 'humane cause.' I'll never forget seeing a picture of her seated on an antiaircraft gun, much like the one that had shot my plane out of the air and given seven years of my life to the North Vietnamese prison system. I stood in front of her photograph in a quiz [interrogation] room and stared in disbelief until the twisting in my gut made me turn away." While Sam Johnson was revolted by Fonda's visit, a prominent North Vietnam colonel/ "journalist," Bui Tin, saw the value of her presence in Hanoi: "That visit and the support it showed had great impact on the Vietnamese people. … We realized that there were two Americas — one who dropped bombs on us, and the other who had sympathy." From Paris, having spent nearly a month in North Vietnam consorting with America's enemy — by making broadcasts, by meeting with senior Communist officials, by touring civilian and military sites, by "interviewing" American prisoners of war — Fonda returned to New York. She landed at Kennedy Airport, reportedly wearing the black pajamas and coolie hat of the Viet Cong. Copyright © 2002 by McFarland & Co. Used by permission. These excerpts are from Chapter 4 of "Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, a new book by Henry Mark Holzer, professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School, and Erika Holzer, an attorney and novelist. To order a copy of the book, contact McFarland & Co. at (800) 253-2187, or visit www.hanoijane.net and follow the link to McFarland & Co.
How "Hanoi Jane" Betrayed America
By Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer
On July 11, 1972, a confidential cable from the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane, Laos, to the secretary of state in Washington, the United States delegation at the Paris peace talks, the commander in chief of Pacific Forces, and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, revealed the following:
Regards.
A true patriot that one.
You were doing ok until you made this statement. RJ, this was not schoolgirl politics, it was life and death to young men and women who were serving our country during this time. You sir, show your age with this statement and obviously don't have a clue as to the views of those of us who were their during this time.
Thank you, I thank you for what you have done.
(((((((( hug ))))))
Thank you so much.
"Time and Providence have taken their revenge on Jane Fonda. Once married to Tom Hayden she now has more blue veins in her legs than Hayden has in his nose, Recently, Fonda expressed regret for having her picture taken straddling a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. That took place in 1972, and the Vietnamese are still trying to shoo the flies off the muzzle. It's rumored, she still goes to Hanoi to shop."
Some things don't change...Big Oil and Big Sugar?
I don't have cable, but Bob in New York and Nancy in California told me that last night Hank Holzer cleaned Tom Hayden's clock, repeatedly correcting the factual record with an easy facility with quotes and dates and other details.
It's one thing to speak your mind in our country about something, and it's another to physically go into enemy territory, & be linked arm and arm with them in your criticisms.
We'll never know how much of a morale boost that was to them, and how many fellow Americans were killed or maimed because of her actions.
I saw it and this is an accurate description. Holzer was visibliy disgusted - it was quite powerful. As soon as I watched it a few times (I have TiVo, and I found the segment riveting so the rewind feature came in handy), I got online and ordered the book. I can't wait to get it.
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