Jane Fonda, fresh off a triumph at the 1972 Academy Awards, sat atop a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun outside Hanoi, mugging for the cameras. The resulting images flashed around the world, landing on newspaper front pages and, decades later, in history books.
She has never lived down those photographs or her ill-advised trip to North Vietnam.
The actor has won a second Oscar and launched a fitness craze since her days as an antiwar activist, and she’s now been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. But many Americans are not willing to forgive and forget the propaganda bonanza she gave the U.S.’ enemy during the Vietnam War. And the hall of fame might have to pay the price, CNN reports.
Greg Lazzaro, a Seneca Falls supervisor, is calling for the town to pull its funding support for the museum, redirecting the designated money to building sidewalks and other basic infrastructure needs. And he’s getting a lot of support in the town where, in 1848, America’s first women’s-rights convention was held.
“I realize back then there were real emotional views, but her views were unacceptable then and they’re unacceptable now,” Lazzaro told the cable-news network. “I don’t believe she deserves to be in the hall of fame.”
Jane Fonda visits anti-aircraft gun position near Hanoi, Vietnam, July 1, 1972. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS
Along with the shocking photo op, Fonda also took to the airwaves while in Hanoi in the summer of 1972, broadcasting over the Voice of Vietnam “to implore U.S. pilots to stop the bombings” of non-military targets in the north. Back in the U.S., she became known, derisively, as “Hanoi Jane.”
More than 58,000 Americans died during America’s decade-long involvement in the war.
Years after her trip to North Vietnam, Fonda apologized for offending American veterans of the war, saying it was a “terrible mistake” to pose on an anti-aircraft gun that shot at U.S. planes. In a 2005 memoir she said she realized only after the photos had been taken that she was sitting on a gun. She said she pleaded with her hosts “to be sure those photographs are not published.”
The Seneca Falls town council is expected to vote Tuesday on Lazzaro’s resolution.
-- Douglas Perry
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