Jane Fonda Finally Apologizes

It only took 40 years. But finally, actress-turned-workout-specialist Jane Fonda has apologized for sitting on a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun during her 1972 visit to North Vietnam. Fonda, who used her fame to push her radical leftism during her heyday, traveled to Hanoi in 1972 in solidarity with the Viet Cong. While there, she proceeded to blame the US for supposedly bombing a dike system, and did a series of radio broadcasts stating that US leaders were “war criminals.” Those broadcasts were replayed for American POWs being tortured by the Viet Cong. Later, when POWs spoke about their experiences of torture, Fonda would call them “hypocrites and liars,” stating, “These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed.” She explained that these POWs were “careerists and professional killers.”

Now, four decades removed, sitting in the lap of luxury, Fonda has decided that the pictures on the anti-aircraft gun were a mistake. Not the actual visit – she stands by that. “I did not, have not, and will not say that going to North Vietnam was a mistake,” she said. “I have apologized only for some of the things that I did there, but I am proud that I went.”

But when it comes to those gun photos, then she wishes she’d done something different: “Sitting on that gun in North Vietnam. I’ll go to my grave with that one.” Of course, as John Nolte of Big Hollywood points out, that’s “a step up from what we learned in Patricia Bosworth’s biography, ‘Jane Fonda,’ where the star reportedly said: ‘My biggest regret is I never got to f*** Che Guevara.”

Back in July 2011, she spelled out why she regretted the anti-aircraft gun photo:

It happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit. 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. When we arrived at the site of the anti-aircraft installation (somewhere on the outskirts of Hanoi), there was a group of about a dozen young soldiers in uniform who greeted me. There were also many photographers (and perhaps journalists) gathered about, many more than I had seen all in one place in Hanoi. This should have been a red flag ….

Here is my best, honest recollection of what happened: someone (I don’t remember who) led me towards the gun, and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. The cameras flashed. I got up, and as I started to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what had just happened hit me. “Oh my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes.”

Of course, it never occurs to Fonda that the pain she caused with that photo was a mere sliver of the pain she caused by acting as a propagandist for one of the worst regimes in human history. But that’s because in Hollywood, being such a propagandist merely endears you to elites, as Sean Penn can tell you. Tom Lehrer once mocked NASA for working with former Nazi scientist Wernher Von Braun; “‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down,’” Lehrer sang, “‘That’s not my department,’ says Wernher von Braun.” But in Hollywood, it’s worse than that: you’re feted for siding with the world’s most evil people.

That’s why Hollywood continues to treat the blacklist as one of the worst blots on American history. The truth is somewhat different: the Soviet Union was working with the American Communist Party infiltrate Hollywood in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and succeeded in infiltrating the Hollywood unions to a large extent. The Communist Party was interested in the overthrow of the American way of government. Not all of those blacklisted were card-carrying communists; that was the tragedy of McCarthyism. But to sympathize for those who treated Stalin as a hero rather than shunning them as moral reprobates is a move only Hollywood could make. Dalton Trumbo, perhaps the most celebrated member of the Hollywood Ten, bragged to his bosses in the Soviet Union that the Communist Party in Hollywood had helped quash anti-Soviet films like an adaptation of Arthur Koestler’s masterwork Darkness at Noon. Some of the Communist Party’s favorite Hollywood movies included Mission to Moscow (1943), in which Hollywood gave a clean bill of health to the Stalinist show trials. Meanwhile, when it comes to today’s Hollywood blacklist of American conservatives, Hollywood honchos brag that it’s a positive development.

Jane Fonda should rightly have been written off by America’s most powerful institutions four decades ago. Instead, she still kicking – and next, she’s playing Nancy Reagan, whom she brags she’ll prevent from looking “too mean.”

Excellent book.

“Aid And Comfort”: Jane Fonda In North Vietnam”

By: Henry Mark Holzer & Erika Holzer
Price: $39.95
Foreword by Col. George “Bud” Day
Format: Hardback
(7 x 10)
Pages: 216
ISBN: 0-7864-1247-X
Publication Date: 2002

Buy from Amazon.com
Buy from McFarland Publishers

Jane Fonda’s visit to Hanoi in July 1972 and her pro–North Vietnamese, anti–American conduct, especially her pose with an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes and her propaganda broadcasts directed toward American troops, angered many Americans. In their eyes, she was guilty of treason, but she was never charged by the American legal system. Instead, she has made millions, been the recipient of countless awards, and remained an honored American icon.

This work investigates Fonda’s activities in North Vietnam and argues that she could have been indicted for treason, that there would have been enough evidence to take the case to a jury, that she could have been convicted, and that a conviction probably would have been upheld on appeal. It also considers Fonda’s early life and the effect it had on her behavior and beliefs in her later years, her audience of American pows who were forced by the Vietnamese to listen to her broadcasts condemning them as war criminals, her arrival in Vietnam and how it was viewed by American servicemen and civilians, the crime of treason throughout history, and the only Congressional inquiry into her actions, which resulted in the government’s decision to take no legal action against her. Texts of Fonda’s radio broadcasts to American servicemen comprise the appendix.

Henry Mark Holzer is professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School. Erika Holzer is a lawyer, novelist and essayist.

Reviews and other praise for “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam

The case of Robert Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” has resurrected the issue of treason. What constitutes treason? What are the precedents? Why wasn’t Lindh, who was captured early in the war in Afghanistan, charged with treason? The answers to these and many other questions can be found in a very useful new book about another high-profile case involving an American citizen, who like Lindh, arguably “adher[ed] to [America’s] enemies, giving them aid and comfort”—Jane Fonda.

“Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam” by Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer is a veritable sourcebook on treason. While the book is fairly short, it contains a great deal of documentation, including transcripts of Miss Fonda’s propaganda broadcasts and other interviews, long passages from court decisions, and congressional testimony.

But the Holzers, both attorneys (Mr. Holzer is also professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School) succeed remarkably well in making a notoriously difficult topic understandable to the non-lawyer.

The first part of the book, while interesting, is probably the least useful. Based on the work of other writers, it provides a summary of the evolution of Jane Fonda from young starlet to left-wing radical. The second part of the book examines the treatment of U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong and Miss Fonda’s actions during her visit to North Vietnam in July 1972. The evidence against her is to be found in this section.

In the third and by far the most important section of “Aid and Comfort,” the Holzers provide a history of the concept of treason and its place in constitutional law. This part is very helpful in thinking about the case of Lindh. Here the Holzers also make a very strong case that Miss Fonda should have been indicted on the charge of treason for her actions in North Vietnam. Indeed, the case against her is actually stronger than the one against Lindh.

As the Holzers point out, the constitutional and legal foundation for the crime of treason was laid in England nearly seven centuries ago during the reign of Edward III. The wording of the Statute of Edward served as the basis for treason legislation passed during the American Revolution and the text of Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, which defines treason as “levying war” against the United States, or in “adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Miss Fonda’s defenders claim that her propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the North Vietnamese did not constitute treason against the United States because Congress did not declare war in the case of Vietnam. Besides, they claim, she was only exercising her right to free speech. The Holzers make mincemeat of these defenses.

They point out that Aaron Burr was indicted for the “levying war” prong of treason even though the United States was not at war with anyone at the time. This principle was reinforced in United States vs. Greathouse (1863). In this case, Justice Stephen Field made the point that “the term ‘enemies,’ as used in [the treason clause of Art. III, Sec. 3], according to its settled meaning, at the time the constitution was adopted, applies only to the subjects of a foreign power in open hostility with us.” As the authors observe, “if . . . [Justice Field] meant to refer to ‘war,’ he certainly would have done so. Instead, he chose the word ‘hostility,” denoting a very different relationship: one not of war.”

The Holzers could also have made the point that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution constituted a contingent declaration of war. In retrospect we may say that the resolution was an abdication of congressional responsibility, but it did give the president the authority to use force against a state in open hostility to the United States. According to the principle established by Greathouse, the charge of treason was appropriate during the Vietnam War.

No one accuses Miss Fonda of “levying war” against the United States, but they do contend that she adhered to America’s enemies during the Vietnam War and gave them “aid and comfort.” Most of the treason cases arising from World War II were of this nature-—involving Americans who broadcast propaganda for the enemy—and the courts routinely rejected the “free speech” defense.

These cases were decided in federal Courts of Appeal according to certain principles established by the Supreme Court in Cramer vs. United States and Haupt vs. United States: a charge of treason requires proof, which can be circumstantial, of treasonable intent and at least one overt act of betrayal; and that the overt act, proved by two witnesses, must provide actual aid and comfort to the enemy.

The Holzers demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that, based on cases that included the United States vs. “Tokyo Rose” and “Axis Sally,” Jane Fonda could have been indicted for treason and that the government might well have won its case. For reasons the Holzers show to be very weak, the government chose not to proceed against her.

The Holzers conclude with the observation that there will never be a legal indictment of Jane Fonda for treason. “But there is another kind of indictment: a moral one. And that one, too, has no statute of limitations. Nor should it.”

The Holzers need not worry. For most Americans, the name of Jane Fonda is infamous, conveying the image of a dim bulb, an empty vessel filled with the half-baked ideas of the closest alpha male, who lent her celebrity and wealth to the cause of America’s enemies. But her fate may be even worse than infamy - she is an object of ridicule. -————Mackubin Thomas Owens, Professor of Strategy and Force Planning, Naval War College, in The Washington Times.

“We former POWs will never forget being forced to listen to the propaganda broadcasts of Jane Fonda from Hanoi. “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam is ‘must reading’ for those who want irrefutable proof of Hanoi Jane’s treachery, and its legal significance.” Mike McGrath, Capt. USN (Ret.), President, NAM-POW.

“No American who loves their country will fail to be sickened by the story Professor and Mrs. Holzer have told in this book. They are owed a debt of gratitude by those who cherish liberty and continue to defend it.” David Horowitz, President, David Horowitz Freedom Center.

“Using [Fonda’s] own speeches . . . Professor and Mrs. Holzer cleverly connect her eagerly delivered statements to the law of treason, and lead you through a thicket of law and evidence with incontrovertible logic. Follow them through this remarkable book as they prove that there was enough evidence to indict and convict her of the grandfather of all crimes. You, too, can review that evidence and then cast a ‘guilty’ ballot.” George E. “Bud” Day, Col. USAF (Ret.), Recipient of the Medal of Honor.

“Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw—all of whom were punished as traitors—would have been amazed to read “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam. The sum fo their acts of treason equals a small fraction of the acts of aid and comfort Jane Fonda gave our Communist enemies. This book will shock many Americans. That Fonda committed many acts of aid and comfort documented here is astonishing. That the American government looked the other way is astounding. This book provides the indictment that the government oculd have handed to a jury—if it had the wil to do so in those days. A ‘must read’!” Fred Kiley, Col. USAF (Ret.), Co-author, Honor Bound, American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973.

“ Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam is not a potboiler; it is a blood boiler, and your blood will surely boil when you read the Holzer’s description of Jane Fonda’s treachery during the Vietnam War. As a combat infantry officer in Vietnam, I can attest to the fact that Jane Fonda, and people like her, succeeded very well in lowering troop morale, and as any combat vet will tell you, low morale leads to lowered effectiveness, and that leads to battlefield deaths. Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer present a well written, well researched, and very logical indictment for treason against Jane Fonda. This book is not only about the past, it is about the post-September 11, 2001, present; it is about people who can find nothing good about their country, people who see no moral justification in national defense, people who make excuses for and who aid and abet repressive and hostile regimes. For those of us who answered the call of duty, and who put their lives on the line for this country, Jane Fonda will forever be a symbol of treachery, divisiveness, and cowardness. In a way, she got away with treason, but the Holzer’s book goes a long way in righting a terrible wrong. ” Nelson DeMille, Author, Up Country.

“This excellent and meticulously researched book indisputably makes the case that Jane Fonda could have and should have been indicted for treason for her unconscionable activities on behalf of our nation’s enemy during the Vietnam War.

Contrary to what other reviewers have opined, this is NOT ‘ancient history.’

With our troops once again in harm’s way in a shooting war, Ms. Fonda’s despicable activities need to be kept clearly in mind by those who would cross the line separating robust discourse from the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy.

Disagreeing with our nation’s foreign policy does not give one license to commit treason. Ms. Fonda’s treasonous actions, and our government’s weak-kneed failure to prosecute her for her crime, also need to be kept in mind by our current leaders. When the government makes the decision to commit our armed forces to war and (for some) death, it has an obligation to prosecute those who cast in their lot with the enemy our troops have been ordered to defeat. Like it or not, wartime is different; not everything goes. And any government who, in the name of “freedom,” fails or is afraid to prosecute the treasonous, itself betrays our nation and its armed forces. The tale of Jane Fonda — and what she did, and what the government didn’t do — is indeed a timely one.” Pierce Haveko, Lawyer.

http://www.henrymarkholzer.com/books.html

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