Editing Jane Fonda (section)

===Opposition to the Vietnam War===
{{See also|Opposition to the Vietnam War|RITA Resistance Inside the Armies#Jane Fonda and RITA}}
[[File:Jane Fonda 1975d.jpg|thumb|left|Fonda at an anti-Vietnam War conference in the Netherlands in January 1975]]

On May 4, 1970, Fonda appeared before an assembly at the [[University of New Mexico]], in Albuquerque, to speak on [[G.I.]] rights and issues. The end of her presentation was met with a discomfiting silence until [[Beat Generation|Beat]] poet [[Gregory Corso]] staggered onto the stage, drunk. He challenged Fonda, using a four-letter expletive: why hadn't she addressed the [[Kent State shootings|shooting of four students at Kent State]] by the Ohio National Guard, which had just taken place? In her autobiography, Fonda revisited the incident: "I was shocked by the news and felt like a fool." On the same day, she joined a protest march on the home of university president Ferrel Heady. The protesters called themselves "They Shoot Students, Don't They?" – a reference to Fonda's recently released film, ''They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'', which had just been screened in Albuquerque.{{sfn|Bosworth|2011|pp=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780547152578/page/98 98], 315}}

In the same year, Fonda spoke out against the war at a rally organized by [[Vietnam Veterans Against the War]] (VVAW) in [[Valley Forge, Pennsylvania]]. She offered to help raise funds for VVAW and was rewarded with the title of Honorary National Coordinator.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5hq2_JFvV0kC |title=Home to war: a history of the Vietnam veterans' movement |last=Nicosia |first=Gerald |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-7867-1403-2 |publisher=Carroll & Graf |page=73 |access-date=December 2, 2018 |archive-date=April 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415184612/https://books.google.com/books?id=5hq2_JFvV0kC |url-status=live }}</ref> That fall, Fonda started a tour of college campuses on which she raised funds for the organization. As noted by ''The New York Times'', Fonda was a "major patron" of the VVAW.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/us/2004-campaign-massachusetts-senator-71-antiwar-words-complex-view-kerry.html|title=The 2004 Campaign: The Massachusetts Senator; In '71 Antiwar Words, a Complex View of Kerry|work=The New York Times|first=Todd S.|last=Purdum|date=February 28, 2004|access-date=September 8, 2022|archive-date=August 12, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812135024/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/us/2004-campaign-massachusetts-senator-71-antiwar-words-complex-view-kerry.html|url-status=live}}</ref> For example, as part of the settlement of a lawsuit Fonda filed against ''[[Playboy]]'' in 1966,<ref name=WP66/> the February 1971 issue contained a full-page ad in support of the VVAW, and as a result "the VVAW was transformed into one of the most important actors in the antiwar movement".<ref>{{cite book|title=Mayday 1971|author=Lawrence Roberts|year=2020|publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]]|isbn=978-1-328-76672-4|page=90-91}}</ref>

In 1971, Fonda, with [[Fred Gardner (activist)|Fred Gardner]] and [[Donald Sutherland]] formed the [[Free The Army tour|FTA tour]] ("Free The Army", a play on the troop expression "Fuck The Army"), an anti-war road show designed as an answer to [[Bob Hope]]'s [[USO]] tour. The tour, described as "political [[vaudeville]]" by Fonda, visited military towns along the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]], aiming to establish a dialogue with soldiers about their upcoming deployments to Vietnam. The dialogue was made into a movie (''[[F.T.A.]]'') which contained strong, frank criticism of the war by servicemembers; it was released in 1972.<ref>[https://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=2376 Rotten Tomatoes profile of ''F.T.A.''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206183459/http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=2376 |date=December 6, 2008 }}; retrieved April 2, 2006.</ref>

====Visit to Hanoi====
[[File:Hanoi Jane.jpg|thumb|upright=.75|Jane Fonda on the NVA anti-aircraft gun]]

Between 1965 and 1972, almost 300 Americans – mostly civil rights activists, teachers, and pastors – traveled to [[North Vietnam]] to see firsthand the war situation with the Vietnamese, believing that the news media in the United States predominantly provided a U.S. viewpoint. American travelers to North Vietnam were routinely harassed upon their return home.{{sfn|Hershberger|2005|pp=75–81}} Fonda visited Vietnam in July 1972, traveling to [[Hanoi]] to witness the bombing damage to the [[Levee|dikes]]. After touring and photographing dike systems in North Vietnam, she said the United States had been [[Bombing of Vietnam's dikes|intentionally targeting the dike system along the Red River]]. Sweden's ambassador to Vietnam likewise observed the bomb damage to the dikes and described it as "methodic". Other journalists reported that the attacks were "aimed at the whole system of dikes".{{sfn|Hershberger|2005|pp=75–81}} Columnist [[Joseph Kraft]], who was also touring North Vietnam, said he believed the damage to the dikes was incidental and was being used as propaganda by Hanoi, and that, if the U.S. Air Force were "truly going after the dikes, it would do so in a methodical, not a harum-scarum way".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879148,00.html|title=VIET Nam: The Battle of the Dikes|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=August 7, 1972|access-date=April 1, 2008|archive-date=March 6, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140306151316/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879148,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Due to the publicity surrounding Fonda's visit, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA) assessed aerial photography of the North Vietnamese dike system in a secret 1972 report, arriving at two conclusions: First, that the North Vietnamese dike system was incredibly robust, meaning it would be costly to attack and easy to repair. They noted that "A crew of less than 50 men with wheelbarrows and hand tools probably could repair in one day the largest crater observed."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2007-03-09 |title=North Vietnam: The Dike Bombing Issue |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R001700040062-8.pdf |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=CIA Reading Room |publisher=CIA}}</ref> Second, they found that "all the damaged sections of dikes are close to valid military-related targets",<ref name=":0" /> and not in areas that would cause the most damage to the dike system. Thus the CIA argued that "A study of available photography shows conclusively that there has been no concerted and intentional bombing of North Vietnam's vital dike system." French geographer [[Yves Lacoste]] published an analysis in 1973 which concluded the dike system was intentionally targeted in the eastern region of the delta, with bombs consistently targeting the most vulnerable concave sections, and resulted in critical sub-surface damage which left them vulnerable to failure in subsequent flooding.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8330.1973.tb00502.x |title=An Illustration of Geographical Warfare: Bombing of the Dikes on the Red River, North Vietnam |journal=Antipode |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=1–13 |year=1973 |last1=Lacoste |first1=Yves |bibcode=1973Antip...5....1L |hdl=10214/1826 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Fonda was photographed seated on a North Vietnamese [[anti-aircraft gun]]; the photo outraged a number of Americans,<ref>{{Cite news|title=Jane Fonda relives her protest days on the set of her new film|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/7911158/Jane-Fonda-relives-her-protest-days-on-the-set-of-her-new-film.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/7911158/Jane-Fonda-relives-her-protest-days-on-the-set-of-her-new-film.html |archive-date=January 10, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|date=July 26, 2010|first=Laura|last=Roberts|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|location=London|access-date=July 19, 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref> and earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/23/list-top-10-jane-fonda-mistakes/ |work=Washington Times |title=Jane Fonda mistakes |date=December 23, 2012 |access-date=November 7, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012201224/http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/23/list-top-10-jane-fonda-mistakes/ |archive-date=October 12, 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=How Jane Fonda's 1972 trip to North Vietnam earned her the nickname 'Hanoi Jane'|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/09/18/how-jane-fondas-1972-trip-to-north-vietnam-earned-her-the-nickname-hanoi-jane/|access-date=October 19, 2021|issn=0190-8286|archive-date=March 28, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328185031/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/09/18/how-jane-fondas-1972-trip-to-north-vietnam-earned-her-the-nickname-hanoi-jane/|url-status=live}}</ref> In her 2005 autobiography, she wrote that she was manipulated into sitting on the battery; she had been horrified at the implications of the pictures. In a 2011 entry on her official website, Fonda explained:

<blockquote>It happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit&nbsp;... The translator told me that the soldiers wanted to sing me a song. He translated as they sung. It was a song about the day 'Uncle Ho' declared their country's independence in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square. I heard these words: 'All men are created equal; they are given certain rights; among these are life, Liberty and Happiness.' These are the words Ho pronounced at the historic ceremony. I began to cry and clap. 'These young men should not be our enemy. They celebrate the same words Americans do.' The soldiers asked me to sing for them in return&nbsp;... I memorized a song called 'Dậy mà đi' ["Get up and go"], written by anti-war South Vietnamese students. I knew I was slaughtering it, but everyone seemed delighted that I was making the attempt. I finished. Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. But if they did I can't blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen&nbsp;... a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever&nbsp;... But the photo exists, delivering its message regardless of what I was doing or feeling. I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm.<ref name=truth2011july>[http://janefonda.com/the-truth-about-my-trip-to-hanoi "The Truth About My Trip To Hanoi"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140216105409/http://janefonda.com/the-truth-about-my-trip-to-hanoi |date=February 16, 2014 }}. July 22, 2011; accessed January 27, 2014 at the Jane Fonda official website.</ref></blockquote>

Fonda made radio broadcasts on Hanoi Radio throughout her two-week tour, describing her visits to villages, hospitals, schools, and factories that had been bombed, and denouncing U.S. military policy.{{sfn|Fonda|2005|p=324}}<ref name="snopes2005">{{cite web|url=http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp|title=Hanoi'd with Jane|author=Mikkelson, David|website=[[Snopes.com]]|date=May 25, 2005|access-date=August 25, 2008|archive-date=April 28, 2013|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130428000937/http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp|url-status=live}}</ref> During the course of her visit, Fonda visited American [[prisoners of war]] (POWs), and brought back messages from them to their families. When stories of torture of returning POWs were later being publicized by the Nixon administration, Fonda said that those making such claims were "hypocrites and liars and pawns", adding about the prisoners she visited, "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed."{{sfn|Andersen|1990|p=266}} In addition, Fonda told ''[[The New York Times]]'' in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture&nbsp;... but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie."<ref>{{cite news|title=Jane Fonda Grants Some P.O.W. Torture|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/07/archives/jane-fonda-grants-some-pow-torture.html|work=The New York Times|date=April 7, 1973|access-date=July 23, 2018|archive-date=July 23, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723093631/https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/07/archives/jane-fonda-grants-some-pow-torture.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Her visits to the POW camp led to persistent rumors that prisoners had been coerced into meeting with Fonda by the North Vietnamese with torture, which were repeated widely, and continued to circulate on the Internet decades later. Fonda, as well as the named POWs, have denied the rumors,<ref name=truth2011july/> and subsequent interviews with the POWs showed these allegations to be false—the persons named had never met Fonda.<ref name="snopes2005"/>

In 1972, Fonda helped fund and organize the [[Indochina Peace Campaign]], which<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cwluherstory.com/indochina-peace-campaign.html |title=Indochina Peace Campaign |publisher=The Chicago Women's Liberation Union Herstory Project |work=Womankind |date=November 1972 |access-date=February 3, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708214602/https://www.cwluherstory.com/indochina-peace-campaign.html |archive-date=July 8, 2011}}</ref> continued to mobilize antiwar activists in the US after the 1973 [[Paris Peace Accords|Paris Peace Agreement]], until 1975 when the United States withdrew from Vietnam.<ref>{{cite web|title=Indochina Peace Campaign, Boston Office: Records, 1972–1975|url=http://www.lib.umb.edu/node/1607|publisher=University of Massachusetts|access-date=September 8, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100610031445/http://www.lib.umb.edu/node/1607|archive-date=June 10, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> Because of her tour of North Vietnam during wartime and the subsequent rumors, resentment against her persists among some veterans and serving U.S. military. For example, when a [[U.S. Naval Academy]] plebe ritually shouted out "Goodnight, Jane Fonda!", the entire company of midshipmen plebes replied "Goodnight, bitch!"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/Brush/fonda.html |title=Hating Jane: The American Military and Jane Fonda |last=Brush |first=Peter |publisher=[[Vanderbilt University]] |year=2004 |archive-date=April 4, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100404102645/http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/brush/fonda.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N4TMYCIt5ywC&pg=PA229 |isbn=978-0-19-518172-2 |first=Steven J. |last=Ross |year=2011 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |page=229 |chapter=Movement Leader, Grassroots Builder: Jane Fonda |access-date=November 7, 2014 |archive-date=April 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415184612/https://books.google.com/books?id=N4TMYCIt5ywC&pg=PA229 |url-status=live }}</ref> This practice has since been prohibited by the academy's ''Plebe Summer Standard Operating Procedures''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Plebe Summer Standard Operating Procedures|url=http://www.usna.edu/Commandant/Instructions/COMDTMIDNINST_3120.1J_PLEBE_SUMMER_STANDARD_OPERATING_PROCEDURES.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130719091245/http://www.usna.edu/Commandant/Instructions/COMDTMIDNINST_3120.1J_PLEBE_SUMMER_STANDARD_OPERATING_PROCEDURES.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 19, 2013|publisher=United States Naval Academy|access-date=April 14, 2013|pages=5–4|date=March 13, 2013}}</ref> In 2005, Michael A. Smith, a U.S. Navy veteran, was arrested for disorderly conduct in [[Kansas City, Missouri]], after he spat chewing tobacco in Fonda's face during a book-signing event for her autobiography, ''My Life So Far''. He told reporters that he "consider[ed] it a debt of honor", adding "she spit in our faces for 37 years. It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did." Fonda refused to press charges.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite news |title=Jane Fonda rips QVC after appearance scuttled |url=http://www.today.com/news/jane-fonda-rips-qvc-after-appearance-scuttled-wbna43786427 |publisher=[[msnbc.com]] |first=Brandi |last=Fowler |date=July 18, 2011 |access-date=July 19, 2011 |archive-date=April 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420143108/http://www.today.com/news/jane-fonda-rips-qvc-after-appearance-scuttled-wbna43786427 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Veteran Not Fonda Jane|url=http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b49693_veteran_not_fonda_jane.html|first=Julie|last=Keller|date=April 20, 2005|publisher=[[E! Online]]|access-date=July 19, 2011|archive-date=July 19, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719201635/http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b49693_veteran_not_fonda_jane.html|url-status=live}}</ref> When [[Los Angeles County]] tried to name April 30 as "Jane Fonda Day" for her environmental work in 2024, it was met with immediate backlash from the region's large [[Vietnamese American]] community because it fell on the same day as [[Black April (Tháng Tư Đen)|Black April]], the day when [[Fall of Saigon|Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces]]; the day was later moved to April 8 instead to avoid further controversy with the county stating that April 30 was originally chosen because it was the scheduled day the county met to commemorate people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dailynews.com/2024/05/21/la-county-to-move-jane-fonda-day-so-it-doesnt-fall-on-black-april-the-day-of-the-fall-of-saigon/|title=LA County moves Jane Fonda Day so it doesn't fall on Black April, the day of the fall of Saigon|website=[[Los Angeles Daily News]] |date=May 21, 2024}}</ref>

====Regrets====
In a 1988 interview with [[Barbara Walters]], Fonda expressed regret for some of her comments and actions, stating:

<blockquote>I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families. ... I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.<ref>{{cite web|title=Interview with Barbara Walters|url=http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet.html#aftermath|publisher=UC Berkeley Library Sound Recording Project|year=1988|access-date=February 16, 2008|archive-date=October 8, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008102714/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet.html#aftermath|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

In a ''[[60 Minutes]]'' interview on March 31, 2005, Fonda reiterated that she had no regrets about her trip to [[North Vietnam]] in 1972, with the exception of the anti-aircraft-gun photo. She stated that the incident was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege". Fonda said, "The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine." She later distinguished between regret over the use of her image as [[propaganda]] and pride for her anti-war activism: "There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with the POWs. Both sides were using the POWs for propaganda ... It's not something that I will apologize for." Fonda said she had no regrets about the broadcasts she made on Radio Hanoi, something she asked the North Vietnamese to do: "Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jane-fonda-wish-i-hadnt-31-03-2005/|title=Jane Fonda: Wish I Hadn't|publisher=CBS|work=60 minutes|access-date=February 16, 2008|date=March 31, 2005|archive-date=June 15, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070615070838/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/31/60minutes/main684295_page2.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref>