Jane Fonda is still protesting. On November 1, she and 45 others were arrested during their demonstration at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. All except one were carted off by police in plastic handcuffs, fined for creating a disturbance, and released. The single exception was the 81-year-old movie actress who was kept in a jail overnight because of previous arrests for similar lawbreaking.
Fonda took a break from California and relocated to Washington last September. She has led a protest about climate change somewhere in the district every Friday. She obviously believed her protests would be more effective if she conducted them in the nation’s capital. Her plan is to continue her crusade every Friday until January 2020, when she’ll head back to California and begin taping a television show.
Every time I hear the name of this infamous traitor, I wonder why she wasn’t jailed for treason, or deported, for what she did in 1972. The Vietnam War was still raging back then. Americans were still bleeding and dying in the struggle our leaders wouldn’t let them win. Top U.S. officials wouldn’t even discuss why victory was denied. They kept U.S. submission to SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) very quiet. But the now-defunct Asian group (similar to NATO) called the shots. Defeat for the United States was the goal from the day the conflict started, but the men and women who did the fighting were never told about the UN’s dominant oversight.
During 1972, the famed movie actress went all the way to North Vietnam as the guest of the regime that was daily killing Americans. Given royal treatment by her Communist hosts, she taped messages for the enemy’s radio network that called on U.S. forces to cease fighting. Labeling America’s leaders “war criminals,” she indicated they were no different than German and Japanese officials who were tried and executed for their crimes during World War II.
She also outdid herself by donning a North Vietnamese helmet and delightedly posing as a gunner on an anti-aircraft gun similar to the ones regularly targeting U.S. planes. Finally, she visited with captured U.S. soldiers and airmen in the aptly named Hanoi Hilton prison and urged them to provide their captors with statements denouncing America. Hoping to get praise for her the ongoing “peace movement” when she returned to the United States, she got next to none.
During Fonda’s betrayal, one American pilot was dragged from his stinking cell, cleaned, fed, dressed in clean prison garb, and ordered to describe for Fonda the “lenient and humane treatment” he was receiving. He spat at the movie star and received severe clubbing for his defiance. He told of that incident and more when he finally was released and returned to the United States. In summary, she did everything the Communist North Vietnamese asked of her. Over several days, it was quite a performance, part of it so detestable that she earned the name “Hanoi Jane,” something she has never been able to distance herself from.
For many, countering the efforts of Hanoi Jane became almost as popular as the actress herself. Texas state Representative Sam Johnson spent seven years as a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton and never forgot her “treasonous” message being broadcast over loudspeakers to demoralize him and his fellow prisoners. He spoke about her betrayal all over the South. When news about what Fonda had done became known, she suffered the loss of respect among a wide swath of Americans. In 1987, for instance, Nabisco Brands Incorporated cancelled its distribution of a videocassette featuring Ms. Fonda. But she never suffered any of this type of deserved ostracism from Hollywood’s leftists.
Now in her early 80s, Hanoi Jane is still protesting. The cause she has lately adopted would have our nation take actions supposedly designed to save the earth from environmental catastrophe. Though not as egregious as what she did in Hanoi almost 50 years ago, she is as wrong about protesting against supposedly human-caused climate change as she was about cooperating with Vietnamese Communists. Ignoring her, and registering an objection with the media for continuing to treat her as a worthwhile activist, is highly recommended.
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society.
