Jane Fonda and the POWs

I was aware of the fact that many people, especially Vietnam veterans, were angry with Jane Fonda for some of her actions during the Vietnam War. I was only aware of the fact that she posed for some propagandist pictures (including the most famous, in which she peers into a Vietnamese jet). But a friend told me all about how she had gotten five men beaten so severely that four of them died and how Barbara Walters had railed against her inclusion in some kind of women in history TV special.

Neither of these things are true.

Apparently the entire story originated online with a chain e-mail written by an unknown source and blends fact with fiction, though I was hard-pressed to find too many facts in the actual e-mail. Fonda was included in a list of 100 most influential women of the 20^th Century... in 1999. Barbara Walters never spoke about her publicly, though she did include her in a 1999 TV special focused on the 100 most important women of the 1900s.

I had never heard this version of events because it is completely false. Fonda apparently did do some pretty messed-up stuff during the Vietnam War though, including making several propagandist radio spots in which she denounced the American government. But she was not directly responsible for any American POWs' deaths or anything like that.

I think this came up this week because of Gerard Depardieu's visit to Russia to meet Premier Putin. My friend listens to a lot of talk radio and reads a lot of "news" online and though he may have come across this misinformation organically, I have a feeling it rose to the top of wherever he found it because of that. Depardieu has made statements about leaving France and met with Putin publicly to receive his Russian passport. Some have speculated on the purpose of Depardieu's visit through largely political lenses.

© C Harris Lynn, 2012