Plan B Forum

Lord Jim wrote:This was the high point of Hanoi Jane's acting career:

dales wrote:American actress Jane Fonda, born Dec. 21, 1937 in New York City.....and thereby hangs a tail.

You're bitter and cynical, dales, posting that picture some fifty years after the fact. Even Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally were eventually forgiven and forgotten.

Iva Toguri is the most famously-linked name behind the Tokyo Rose persona. Toguri was a native to Los Angeles and was stranded in Japan because she was visiting her family when the war broke out.[1] Toguri’s prominence saw her branded as one of the war’s most notorious propagandists, but evidence shows that she was not a Japanese sympathizer. Toguri’s program became conflated with more vicious propaganda,[3] and she was arrested and convicted of treason after the Japanese surrender. She was released from prison in 1956, but it was more than 20 years before she received an official presidential pardon for her role in the war

Gillars was indicted on September 10, 1948, and charged with ten counts of treason, but only eight were proceeded with at her trial, which began on January 25, 1949. The prosecution relied on the large number of her programs recorded by the Federal Communications Commission stationed in Silver Hill, Maryland, to show her active participation in propaganda activities against the United States. It was also shown that she had taken an oath of allegiance to Hitler.[13] The defense argued that her broadcasts stated unpopular opinions but did not amount to treasonable conduct. It was also argued that she was under the hypnotic influence of Koischwitz and therefore not fully responsible for her actions until after his death.[14] On March 10, 1949, the jury convicted Gillars[15] on just one count of treason, that of making the Vision Of Invasion broadcast. She was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison.[16] and a $10,000 fine. In 1950, a federal appeals court upheld the sentence.[17]

Gillars served her sentence at the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia. She became eligible for parole in 1959, but did not apply until 1961.[18] She was released on June 10, 1961.

dales, you drank the propaganda flavored US cool-aid, now I think it's time to wash the bitterness from your tongue. You're welcome.

TPFKA@W wrote:Ah youth, didn't each of us do something incredibly ill thought out at least once? She's an old lady now and recognizes that what she did was not the smartest move she could have made and she regrets it sorely. Time to cut her a bit of slack I think.

Bicycle Bill wrote:

dales wrote:American actress Jane Fonda, born Dec. 21, 1937 in New York City.....and thereby hangs a tail.

You're bitter and cynical, dales, posting that picture some fifty years after the fact.  Even Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally were eventually forgiven and forgotten.

-"BB"-

TPFKA@W wrote:Ah youth, didn't each of us do something incredibly ill thought out at least once? She's an old lady now and recognizes that what she did was not the smartest move she could have made and she regrets it sorely. Time to cut her a bit of slack I think.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:The worst part of Jane's transgression is that (on the political level) she was 100% correct. The USA had no real business getting 50,000+ of its own and hundreds of thousands of others killed - not to mentioned wounded and maimed for life.

The wrongness belonged to Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and their respective governments. I marched in anti-Vietnam protests in London and much more significantly so did many, many thousands of young US citizens did the same in this country. Her error was to make that protest in Vietnam and make it appear that the troops themselves were to blame.

But then, isn't that what most of the USA did when the troops came home? Didn't normal "decent" people treat them poorly? I'd bet (with no knowledge that it's the case) that Jane Fonda did more for veterans since her blunder than most people have done.

She's not up for sainthood - but a modicum of decency forbids this unreasoning hatred and bitterness

Total number of deaths
Waiting to Lift Off by James Pollock, Vietnam Combat Artists Program, CAT IV, 1967. Courtesy of National Museum of the U.S. Army
Deaths in Vietnam War (1965–1974) per Guenter Lewy
Allied military deaths ******************** 282,000
NVA/VC military deaths **************** 444,000
Civilian deaths (North and South Vietnam) 587,000
Total deaths **************************** 1,313,000

Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely depending upon the time period and area covered by the data.

Guenter Lewy in 1978 estimated 1,313,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during the period 1965–1974 in which the U.S. was most engaged in the war. Lewy reduced the number of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese battle deaths claimed by the U.S. by 30 percent (in accordance with the opinion of United States Department of Defense officials), and assumed that one third of the battle deaths of the VC/NVA were actually civilians. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table.[1]

A detailed demographic study in 1995 calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000.[2] The study has been criticized for its small sample size, the imbalance in the sample between rural and urban areas, and the possible overlooking of clusters of high mortality rates.[3]

Also in 1995, the Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955 to 1975. According to the Vietnamese, Communist battle deaths totaled 1.1 million and civilian deaths of Vietnamese totaled 2.0 million. These estimates probably include battle deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead.[4]

A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 1955 and 2002. For the period of the Vietnam War the totals are 1,310,000 between 1955 and 1964, 1,700,000 between 1965 and 1974 and 81,000 in 1975. (The estimates for 1955 to 1964 are much higher than other estimates). The sum of those totals is 3,091,000 war deaths between 1955 and 1975.[3] ... "

At the end of all that they are just whining that she didn't find the very best way to do the right thing.