THe Espionage Act could have been used against Tom Hayden/Jane Fonda and company for aiding the North Vietnamese during the war.Unfortunately Watergate wiped out a planned congressional hearing into their “Hanoi Lobby” activities on Capital Hill, especially after Congress learned of their trip to Paris in Oct. 1973 to get instructions for setting up the 1974-75 anti-aid lobbying campaign.
Hayden used the Coalition to Stop Funding the War to illegally use tax-exempt organizations, esp. churches, to funnel donations to the lobbying effort. He was never really called on it, though you will find some information on the Hanoi Lobby and Anti-Defense Lobby in the hearings of the House Ways & Means Committee hearings on revising the Lobbying Act, held in 1987, statement/report attached to the publication.
John Kerry should have been charged, as well as Hayden/Fonda/Dellinger, etc. under the 1798 Logan Act which forbids a private US citizen from “negotiating” with a foreign government (i.e. conducting foreign policy outside of the government).
A hearing on this, or a trial, would have opened up the can of worms of the Hanoi Lobby and how it operated throughout the world and thru Hayden’s group, PCPJ, New Mobe, Women Strike for Peace, World Peace Council and Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Vietnam, the latter having been takenover in late 1972/early 1973 by the maoist Revolutionary Communist Party of Barry Romo and company.
While the Espionage Act of 1917 was not written well, it did have very definitive sentences about “aiding and abetting the enemy during a time of war”.
Court decisions up to the federal level held that Vietnam was a “war” and a “legal” one at that. Thus the prosecution of the Hanoi Lobby would have been not only justified, but eye-opening, to say the least (would have nailed Tom Harkin and a bunch of the old Communist Party network in Congress for aiding the enemy - Conyers, Abzug, Cranston, etc).
If you only knew what was going on back in those days, information that never made it to the light of day, you would cringe and demand firing squads immediately.
Don’t even ask about the newsmen who served the communists, a few willingly, many as dupes such as in the Pham An spy case.
Great summary! Never thought about the Espionage Act, but Kerry was open to myriad UCMJ charges as well. He was still in uniform. Never happened. But it’s interesting that he chose Boston College for his Bachelor of Law degree. The notorious Fr. Drinan, who ran for and was elected to Congress, was Law faculty at BC, and JF*K worked on his campaign. Guess we’ll never know whether it was a dishonorable discharge that kept him from the better-known law schools, but we certainly DO know that his connection to a BC democrat helped in his admission to ANY law school!
The Curse of Obamanation continues to be “Moving Forward” with NO resistance from our sorry Congressional RINOs.
Please tell me that SOB Church was one of them, I was a kid then, but the more I hear about him it makes my head explode...