To Fear Jane Fonda Is To Fear Ourselves

[Nova Land]

Earlier this year The Nation featured a pair of good articles debunking some commonly-held (but false) beliefs about Jane Fonda. I had intended to mention these articles at the time, thinking it might be of interest in light of election-year attempts to link Kerry with Fonda, but did not get around to it. The recent Sinclair "news" program, which attempts to smear Kerry with similar falsehoods, makes these articles of interest again.

One of these articles is available publicly on the web: Tom Hayden's "You Gotta Love Her" (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040322&s=hayden). Unfortunately, this is the less informative of the 2 articles, and serves more as a warm-up for the other one. Carol Burke's "Why They Love to Hate Her", is more detailed, but it is only available on-line to paid subscribers. I have therefore not posted a link to it but have excerpted some key passages."Why They Love to Hate Her", by Carol Burke
The Nation, March 22, 2004

Before going to bed at the US Naval Academy, a plebe shouts "Good night!" to the senior midshipman in the company, and the company commander answers "Good night!" in reply. A litany of good nights then passes down the chain of the company's command. At the end of this ritual courtesy, the plebe yells the final good night: "Good night, Jane Fonda!" and the entire company shouts its enthusiastic retort: "Good night, bitch!" ... The ritual has been practiced by some but not all companies over the years, although in the past two years a few company officers have discouraged it.

... [E]ven as a grandmother in her mid-60s [Jane Fonda] continues to attract a seemingly endless stream of abuse. More than thirty years after her trip to North Vietnam, veterans fill cyberspace with their resentment, and new recruits learn that being a real warrior and hating Jane Fonda are synonymous...

... Some of the more vitriolic veterans' websites provide forums in which contributors vent their anger toward the actress... They rail at "Hanoi Jane," belittle "Jane Fondle" and castigate her as a "pinko slut" who "appeared nude in movies, smoked pot, smuggled drugs, used profanity publicly, and now, worst of all, was aiding and abetting the enemy during wartime." Most recently, hate-Fonda sites have displayed Photoshopped images designed to undermine the campaign of John Kerry by presenting the two side by side (along with real photos showing them several rows apart at an antiwar rally).

... [F]ictionalized accounts of Fonda's 1972 visit with American POWs in North Vietnam charge her with conspiracy. In these word-of-mouth and Internet stories, which circulate widely among active-duty soldiers and veterans, the punishment inflicted on uncooperative POWs is linked to Fonda's presence. An oft-told variant of the torture legend depicts a single prisoner (generally considered to be POW Jerry Driscoll) who is forced to meet with Fonda and registers his defiance by spitting on the star:

Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJs, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American "Peace Activist" the "lenient and humane treatment" he'd received. He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed and dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward upon the camp Commandant's feet, which sent that officer berserk. In 1978, the AF Col. still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying days) from the Vietnamese Col.'s frenzied application of a wooden baton.

This story is pure fiction...

The most popular of all these legends is by far the most dramatic. As recounted on another anti-Fonda site:

He [Larry Carrigan] spent 6 years in the "Hilton"--the first three of which he was "missing in action." His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned/fed/clothed routine in preparation for a "peace delegation" visit. They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his [social security number] on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: "Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?"

Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper. She took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge...and handed him the little pile of papers. Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Col Carrigan was almost number four.

Vietnam POWs have tried to debunk the stories falsely attributed to them. Mike McGrath, the president of NAM-POWs and a prisoner from 1967 to 1973, has denounced them. Speaking for specific POWs named in the stories, McGrath has tried to set the record straight:

"They had nothing to do with the article attributed to them. They ask that we get their names off that bunch of crap. Tonight I talked with Larry Carrigan. He asked that we get his name off all that crap as well. He never left a room to talk to anyone like that. No torture or beatings to see Fonda. He was living with Bud Day, John McCain and a bunch of hard-nosed resisters during the Fonda visit...lots of witnesses if you want to question him (or them). Larry was never near Jane. There were never any POWs killed on account of Jane. (Did anyone ever provide a name of one of these tortured fellows?) That story about the notes has a nice theatric touch, but no such thing ever happened. The only ones who met with Jane willingly, to my knowledge, were CDR Gene Wilber and LCOL Ed Miller. One NAM-POW was forced to go before the Fonda delegation. And I think that was only to sit at a table for a photo opportunity. I doubt he ever got a chance to talk to her, let alone slip her a note. To my knowledge, the worst that happened to the rest of us was that we had to listen to the camp radio (Radio Hanoi and Hanoi Hannah) with the Fonda propaganda. It pissed us off, but I doubt you can call that 'torture.' So, if you get a chance to SHUT THIS STORY DOWN to the groups who are forwarding it, PLEASE DO SO. "

Despite the efforts of McGrath and others to stanch the flow of such legends, they continue to circulate...


PS: Thanks, and a tip of the hat, to the late Barbara Deming for the classy thread title

[a_unique_person]

She used profanity?

I have wondered about the whole thing. Just recently, a poster actually used one of those myths here.

They are popular, they are taken as truth, and will never be repudiated.

I think the reason she is hated so much is that she shattered the illusion so completely of US patriotism and faith in the military. It was the military that gave the US it's freedom, that fought wars around the world, that had defeated Hitler.

Now people were being asked to believe that this same body was not flawless, that it's leaders made mistakes, that the US was no longer the good guy, that civilians were dying in scores in the name of a policy that was wrong. And Jane didn't just say it, she was in your face about it. She was young, beautiful and talented.

It is interesting that the actual Vets, for whom all this fuss is supposedly being made, just want the truth told. I would guess they may not like Jane all that much, if that is so, fair enough, no one said they had to. The loathing that has been reserved especially for her, in their name, is something they want no part of. I think those who revell in these myths could learn something from that.

[Mona]

Originally posted by a_unique_person

I think the reason she is hated so much is that she shattered the illusion so completely of US patriotism and faith in the military. It was the military that gave the US it's freedom, that fought wars around the world, that had defeated Hitler.

Now people were being asked to believe that this same body was not flawless, that it's leaders made mistakes, that the US was no longer the good guy, that civilians were dying in scores in the name of a policy that was wrong. And Jane didn't just say it, she was in your face about it. She was young, beautiful and talented.

It is interesting that the actual Vets, for whom all this fuss is supposedly being made, just want the truth told. I would guess they may not like Jane all that much, if that is so, fair enough, no one said they had to. The loathing that has been reserved especially for her, in their name, is something they want no part of. I think those who revell in these myths could learn something from that.

Nonsense. While there are indeed some urban legends floating around about Jane, as documented at Snopes, (http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp) , she did do and say things that were putrid about our vets and the POWs. The truth told at Snopes includes this, starting with her Potemkin visit to the Hanoi Hilton:

Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress or find it unusual the she was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp (commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton") itself. She merely went home and told the world that "[the POWs] assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done." She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American prison-of-war camps.

To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."

[TragicMonkey]

I have never understood why anyone, ever, in any place, at any time, should give a monkey's buttock what any actor, musician, model, or "television personality" has to say on any subject outside acting, music, modelling, or television respectively. Who do they think they are? If I want an analysis of war time conditions, the first name that springs to mind isn't that of a rather inferior actress (who managed to get thoroughly upstaged by first-time actress Dolly Parton), any more than I'd listen to advice on the Kabbalah coming from Madonna, who spent the greater part of the eighties rolling around on stage in her underwear while touching herself.

Jane Fonda's a gullible idiot who backed herself into a corner and had to choose between publicly admitting how very stupid she was, or sticking to her mistake and swearing it's all true. She was only an actress. What did people expect? Brains? Insight? A cogent analysis of facts?

I suppose next we should send Jessica Simpson to tour Sudan, and ask for her analysis of the Janjaweed in the Darfur situation. Except she'd probably answer "I like their last album, but I don't really get the lyrics."

[Dorian Gray]

What I don't get is that right now, we know, KNOW, that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam yet somehow it's wrong for Kerry to have pointed it out 30 years ago.

[crimresearch]

And this would be the same Jane Fonda, paragon of integrity and honesty, who sold millions of dollars in 'exercise videos' to women suffering from poor body image disorders, telling them that they could look exactly like her with just a few minutes of exercise, all the while knowing that she herself looked like that because she was a purging anorexic.

Move over Dr. Mengele, your 'Physician of the Century' award has been passed on to St. Jane, the Health Queen...
:rolleyes:

[Mona]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray
What I don't get is that right now, we know, KNOW, that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam yet somehow it's wrong for Kerry to have pointed it out 30 years ago.

Do you stand by all that Kerry said about G.I. atrocities 30 yrs ago?

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Mona
Do you stand by all that Kerry said about G.I. atrocities 30 yrs ago?

Over two million dead vietnamese can't be wrong.

The testimony, if you read it, was not just about blatant war crimes, which not all members of the US war crimes were guilty of at all, and which it does not accuse them of. The crime is also using modern, hi-tech weapons to blast the cr@p out of the place. IIRC, there is the statistic that North Vietnam had more bombs dropped on it than the whole of Germany and Japan in WWII. To subject these people to that much of a barrage was just wrong in itself.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Mona
Nonsense. While there are indeed some urban legends floating around about Jane, as documented at Snopes, (http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp) , she did do and say things that were putrid about our vets and the POWs. The truth told at Snopes includes this, starting with her Potemkin visit to the Hanoi Hilton:

[

I think it is important to note that the Vets are asking for the lies being attributed to hem to stop, because it is causing them pain. If people really had a regard for the ex-pows, they would honor this request.

[Mona]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Over two million dead vietnamese can't be wrong.

The testimony, if you read it, was not just about blatant war crimes, which not all members of the US war crimes were guilty of at all, and which it does not accuse them of. The crime is also using modern, hi-tech weapons to blast the cr@p out of the place. IIRC, there is the statistic that North Vietnam had more bombs dropped on it than the whole of Germany and Japan in WWII. To subject these people to that much of a barrage was just wrong in itself.

Ok, I repeat: Do you stand by all that Kerry said about G.I. war atrocities 30 yrs ago?

[Mona]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
I think it is important to note that the Vets are asking for the lies being attributed to hem to stop, because it is causing them pain. If people really had a regard for the ex-pows, they would honor this request.

Um, ok.

And about Jane Fonda?

[SRW]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray
What I don't get is that right now, we know, KNOW, that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam yet somehow it's wrong for Kerry to have pointed it out 30 years ago.

No one denies that there were atrocities committed in Vietnam. However most of what John Kerry pointed out were lies and fabrications.

To her credit Jane Fonda has apologized for her statements and actions during the war. Kerry on the other hand does not have the guts to do the same.

[DavidJames]

Originally posted by SRW
No one denies that there were atrocities committed in Vietnam. However most of what John Kerry pointed out were lies and fabrications. Could you be more specific? How many of his claims were lies and can you list them along with the reasoning for believing they were lies?

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray
What I don't get is that right now, we know, KNOW, that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam yet somehow it's wrong for Kerry to have pointed it out 30 years ago.

Correction: It is wrong for Kerry to have lied about it 30 years ago. It is especially wrong to lie about his fellow soldiers, some of whom were still in the field or POW's and whose lives were at stake.

Christmas in Cambodia, anyone?

How about Kerry vs. Kerry on Meet the Press?

[SRW]

Originally posted by DavidJames
Could you be more specific? How many of his claims were lies and can you list them along with the reasoning for believing they were lies?

I suggest you see them for your self.

See for yourself (http://www.stolenhonor.com/documentary/program-excerpts.asp)

[DavidJames]

Originally posted by SRW
I suggest you see them for your self.

See for yourself (http://www.stolenhonor.com/documentary/program-excerpts.asp) I watched and did not see my questions answered. Now, please, quote the alleged lies and show me your evidence that they are lies.

[SRW]

Originally posted by DavidJames
I watched and did not see my questions answered. Now, please, quote the alleged lies and show me your evidence that they are lies.


First lie, Kerry clamed he was in Cambodia Christmas or
68, this was a lie, He stated this in his book and also to the US Senate.


His testimony to the US senate was biased on false statements form the winter solders.

He told multiple stories about the sipan that he Machine gunned killing a baby. depending on who the audience was.

Its late and I'm going to bed. If you are really intrested, look it up yourself. You are odioulsy to biased to believe anyting I show you anyway.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Mona
Um, ok.

And about Jane Fonda?

I don't recall they mentioned her at all.

[DavidJames]

Originally posted by SRW
First lie, Kerry clamed he was in Cambodia Christmas or
68, this was a lie, He stated this in his book and also to the US Senate. This discussion is about atrocities, does not apply.

His testimony to the US senate was biased on false statements form the winter solders. He told multiple stories about the sipan that he Machine gunned killing a baby. depending on who the audience was.
no quotes, no refuting evidence, no sale.

Its late and I'm going to bed. If you are really intrested, look it up yourself. You are odioulsy to biased to believe anyting I show you anyway. lol - you start by calling Kerry a lier, make claims w/o any quotes or evidence. I ask for some and after 2 replies you still refuse to supply and I'm biased. sweet dreams :)

[Mona]

Go here (http://4dw.net/jqueen/valor.html) for extracts from a book detailing the many and manifest falsehoods of Kerry and his Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group partially funded by...Jane Fonda.

[DavidJames]

Originally posted by Mona
Go here (http://4dw.net/jqueen/valor.html) for extracts from a book detailing the many and manifest falsehoods of Kerry and his Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group partially funded by...Jane Fonda. Spare me the propaganda from right wing fanatics. Show me the quotes from Kerry, with the source(s), and show me the evidence of the lie. So far, all I've seen are unsubstantiated claptrap, no actual evidence. While this is may be good enough for you, as of now, I do not have enough information to form an opinion.

[Lurker]

Originally posted by SRW


He told multiple stories about the sipan that he Machine gunned killing a baby. depending on who the audience was.


Feel free to source this one. I was under the impression that Kerry's gunner, Gardner, was the one who machinegunend the saipan and Kerry was down below. Kerry came up and bitched out Gardner.

So how is Kerry reponsible for Gardner's act, other than as his CO?

Lurker

[varwoche]

Originally posted by Mona
Go here (http://4dw.net/jqueen/valor.html) for extracts from a book detailing the many and manifest falsehoods of Kerry and his Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group partially funded by...Jane Fonda. Geez Mona, I'm really not on a mission to be a fulltime Mona debunker. But when you repeatedly provide data sources such as RandomBozo.com, i.e. the free web page hosting link above, it's borderline useless, especially on a skeptical forum.

You see, RandomBozo.com may kick ass. But it simply doesn't pass the initial "Why does this random bozo site merit a click, given the wealth of valid data sources?" filter. A blurb explaining why RandomBozo is meritorious would be helpful.

[SRW]

Originally posted by DavidJames
This discussion is about atrocities, does not apply.

no quotes, no refuting evidence, no sale.

lol - you start by calling Kerry a lier, make claims w/o any quotes or evidence. I ask for some and after 2 replies you still refuse to supply and I'm biased. sweet dreams :)

Well I do apologize for not responding correctly to your request it was late, and I admit I misread your question. Anyway I am at work today but will be off all day tomorrow so I will have time to quote book and verse. And you can hold me to that.

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
I don't recall they mentioned her at all.

The thread is about her, numbnuts, is it possible for you to play the game with a teeny tiny bit of intellectual integrity? Or is that too much to ask?? This is what Snopes (which has acknowleged a slight liberal bias) says about the traitorous b!tch:

Whether the war was right or wrong, those who risked (and gave) their lives fighting it deserve respect, and for Fonda to brand men who were held captive and tortured as "liars" and "hypocrites" (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) in order to defend her political views was and is unpardonable.

Good catch Mona! You add a dimension to this board which has recently been sorely lacking!

-z

BTW: Trying to "debunk lies" against Jane Fonda by lying about Jane Fonda is funny....trying to pass this clumsy apologetic off as the "truth" on a skeptics board is just plain stupid. :rolleyes:

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by rikzilla
The thread is about her, numbnuts, is it possible for you to play the game with a teeny tiny bit of intellectual integrity? Or is that too much to ask??

Yes, it is too much to ask.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

Nonsense. While there are indeed some urban legends floating around about Jane, as documented at Snopes, (http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp) , she did do and say things that were putrid about our vets and the POWs. First, my apologies for my delay in getting back to this thread. My on-line access is sometimes limited.

I think the Snopes article is good, although not perfect. I think it is a good complement to the Nation articles, and would recommend reading all three. There are matters not covered in each which are better understood when other sources are read.

One thing good in the Snopes article is that (like the Nation articles) it debunks some of the worst of the lies that have been spread about Fonda.from the Snopes article:

The most serious accusations... — that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result — are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.

"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."

The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.

The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true, though. That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs.

The unknown author of the "Hanoi Jane" e-mail appears to have picked up Benge's story online and combined it with fabricated tales to create the forwarded text. Some versions now circulate with Benge's name listed; others quote his statement anonymously.

In fact, Fonda carried home letters from many American POWs to their families upon her return from North Vietnam, and rumors that a POW was beaten to death when he refused to meet with her were nothing more than rumors.The one place here where I would question what Snopes reports is regarding Michael Benge. I am not familiar enough with this to know if it is true or not, and am curious what evidence Snopes used in reaching this conclusion. I have not yet been able to find anything Benge said in the 1970s about this. (I did find that Benge appears to believe that the North Vietnamese continued to hold US POWs in captivity well after the end of the war. He testified to Congress (http://www.aiipowmia.com/testimony/benge294.html) to that affect as recently as 1994.)

So that's something I'm curious about (and would be interested in learning more about). But, setting that aside, Snopes reaches the same conclusion as Hayden, Burke, and others (http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa110399b.htm) who have looked into the matter: Jane Fonda's actions and words did not lead to the torture or death of US POWs, and the stories that claim this are lies.

We now come to the part of the story that Snopes does not cover so well. Let me summarize the points in the section you quoted.

1. On returning home, she reported the POWs she saw were in good health and had not been brainwashed.

2. She charged that North Vietnamese POWs, in contrast, were systematically tortured.

3. When US POWs did come home and told stories of being tortured, she brushed aside these stories as exaggerations.

This is true, but it conveys a misleading impression (which is why it is often good not to rely on a single source but to get a multi-dimensional picture from reading a variety of sources).

First, let's get the middle item out of the way, since the first and third are related (and are more relevant to the point of this thread). Fonda charged that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured, and she was correct. This was an important thing to bring to public awareness at the time, and it took a good deal of courage to do so, as it was not something the US public wanted to hear. I believe this charge has been well-documented in the years since the war. I'll be glad to post links to support this if you or others disagree.

(While I'm on the topic of important matters she helped bring to public awareness, let me mention another -- conveniently located in the Hayden article (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040322&s=hayden) which I cited and linked to in my previous post.Erased from public memory is the fact that Fonda's purpose was to use her celebrity to put a spotlight on the possible bombing of Vietnam's system of dikes. Her charges were dismissed at the time by George H.W. Bush, then America's ambassador to the United Nations, who complained of a "carefully planned campaign by the North Vietnamese and their supporters to give worldwide circulation to this falsehood." But Fonda was right and Bush was lying, as revealed by the April-May 1972 White House transcripts of Richard Nixon talking to Henry Kissinger about "this sh*t-*ss little country":

NIXON: We've got to be thinking in terms of an all-out bombing attack.... I'm thinking of the dikes.

KISSINGER: I agree with you.

NIXON: ...Will that drown people?

KISSINGER: About two hundred thousand people.Now let's get to the main thing which Snopes says was discreditable about Fonda's actions: her cavalier dismissal of the mistreatment and torture that US POWs suffered at Vietnamese hands.

Fonda was wrong to dismiss all charges of torture as exaggerations. US POWs were indeed frequently subject to torture at North Vietnamese hands prior to 1969. Fonda's visit, however, occurred in 1972. Torture of US POWs in Vietnam by the time of Fonda's visit had become as rare or rarer than torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq today. Fonda was right when she reported the POWs she visited were in good health and had not been tortured or brainwashed. Since many US citizens were under the (government-fostered) misimpression that the North Vietnamese were routinely torturing captured US soldiers, her attempting to correct that misimpression is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here is a relevant passage from the Hayden article (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040322&s=hayden) which I cited and linked to in my previous post.In fact, Fonda was neither wrong nor unconscionable in what she said and did in North Vietnam. She told the New York Times in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture...but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie." Research by John Hubbell, as well as 1973 interviews with POWs, shows that Vietnamese behavior meeting any recognized definition of torture had ceased by 1969, three years before the Fonda visit. James Stockdale, the POW who emerged as Ross Perot's running mate in 1992, wrote that no more than 10 percent of the US pilots received at least 90 percent of the Vietnamese punishment, often for deliberate acts of resistance. Yet the legends of widespread, sinister Oriental torture have been accepted as fact by millions of Americans.Because this is an important point, I'm going to link to a couple of additional resources.

P.O.W: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973 , by John Hubbell (http://www.phil-books.com/POW_A_Definitive_History_of_the_American_PrisonerO fWar_Experience_in_Vietnam_19641973_0595138888.htm l)

Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973, by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick T. Kiley
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1557506949/102-2908427-1130526?v=glance)

I do not have either of these books at hand, but believe from their descriptions that these are good sources for information about the treatment of US POWs and will support the point I am making. Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from
an interview with Kiley (http://www.wlajournal.com/wlafall/A_Conversation.htm) which is available on-line:Shuttleworth: Didn’t the treatment of American PWs change during the course of their captivity?

Kiley: Yes, from late 1969 on, it moderated in the Hanoi camps.

Shuttleworth: Why was that?

Kiley: The death of Ho Chi Minh that year offered them an opportunity to reduce torture. There were other factors. The new Nixon administration adopted a policy called "Go Public" in which they made clear the brutality and savagery that had marked the treatment of American PWs. And they supported and openly encouraged the spouses of PWs and MIAs to speak out, to travel to Paris to confront Vietnamese delegations, and in general to turn up the heat on Hanoi from the humanitarian point of view. Furthermore, the Son Tay commando raid on what had been a PW camp in North Viet Nam persuaded the Hanoi government to consolidate several outlying camps into the large compound in central Hanoi, which from 1971 on generally improved treatment as well because the PWs lived together in larger groups and isolation and torture were reduced. And there’s reason to believe that the brutal deaths of certain PWs in Hanoi may have motivated the North Vietnamese to go a little easier from 1969 on. So Fonda was correct in her statement that the POWs she visited had not been tortured. Where she was incorrect was thinking that since POWs were not being tortured at the time that she visited that therefore all claims of torture were exaggerations. She was guilty of sloppy thinking and gross insensitivity there -- for which she has since apologized.

So Fonda was guilty of being insensitive, and of jumping to a wrong conclusion on an important matter. Her words caused a great deal of pain to the POWs, and their families. But she also spoke out courageously on some very important related matters -- the torture that we were inflicting on the people we were fighting against, and the plans our government had to inflict massive civilian casualties -- and she was right on both.

I wish she had been more thoughtful and sensitive regarding the treatment of US POWs. But her insensitivity 30 years ago does not justify people lying about her actions today, or using those lies to smear candidates whose politics they dislike.

[crimresearch]

Jane Fonda's actions and words did not lead to the torture or death of US POWs,

Which different from claiming that POWs who said they were tortured are liars.



Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players.

I'll take the photographic and documentary evidence over the 'word' of Fonda unless there is something else to tip the balance...since she has pretty well established her credibility and integrity as zero on other matters.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally posted by crimresearch
she has pretty well established her credibility and integrity as zero on other matters.

I knew someone was going to bring Ted Turner into this.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by crimresearch

And this would be the same Jane Fonda, paragon of integrity and honesty, who sold millions of dollars in 'exercise videos' to women suffering from poor body image disorders, telling them that they could look exactly like her with just a few minutes of exercise, all the while knowing that she herself looked like that because she was a purging anorexic... Irrelevant, at least to me.

Just as I find it interesting that many people believe in paranormal things based on stories which turn out to be manufactured falsehoods, I find it interesting that the same thing happens often in politics.

(Interesting isn't the only word that comes to mind, but I prefer to see this as interesting and a challenge rather than, say, depressing.)

I see the problems as being related. The same kind of thinking that leads to such widespread false belief regarding paranormal matters leads to widespread false belief regarding political matters. I therefore think it is worthwhile to try to identify falsehoods in both of these areas, to try to understand what things went into such stories being circulated and gaining acceptance (and to try to understand what it takes in order to counter false stories).

Whether Jane Fonda has done things to be ashamed of in her life -- apart from the things in the urban legends that this thread is about -- is of little interest to me because of course she has. I don't know anyone, including myself, who hasn't done things in their life to be ashamed of. For example, Arnold Schwartzenegger was, for many years, a shill in comic book ads for a body-building system which was, to my mind, as much an effort to separate fools from their money as Fonda's exercise videos (and probably did as much psychological harm to young males as Fonda's videos did to young females). But when it comes to evaluating his political views, his actions as governor of California, or stories that are being spread about him, I consider those comic books ads pretty much irrelevant and would be embarrassed to use them in a serious discussion of the issues except as an attempt at humor.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

Do you stand by all that Kerry said about G.I. atrocities 30 yrs ago? "All"? I don't know. But from what I've read, most of his testimony stands up pretty well. Are there particular factual matters of substance with which you disagree?

If you identify them clearly, I'll be glad to let you know whether I think specific points are correct or not. But (as I think others have already pointed out) the essence of his charges were, indeed, correct.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by SRW

To her credit Jane Fonda has apologized for her statements and actions during the war. Kerry on the other hand does not have the guts to do the same. Jane Fonda apologized for her insensitivity and poor choice of words. I don't believe she has apologized for bringing public attention to US misdeeds in Vietnam. At least I hope not, because she was right to do so. But she was wrong in some of the inflammatory and overwrought ways she expressed herself -- just as Ann Coulter and many others of her ilk are today.

John Kerry, likewise, apologized for the way in which he expressed his opposition to the war in the early 1970s. He, too, used inflammatory and overwrought rhetoric at times to make his point and many years ago admitted this was a mistake. I am surprised you were not aware of this. I'm pretty sure it dates back at least to the 1980s. If you like, I can try to look it up for you.

So: he was right to speak out against US misdeeds in Vietnam, he was wrong to do so in inflammatory language, and he was right to realize that and apologize for it. That shows maturity as well as guts. I hadn't thought before of his apology being that gutsy a thing to do, but you're right, it was.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal

Christmas in Cambodia, anyone? The fact is that during the Vietnam War US troops were sent illegally into Cambodia, and that the president of the US lied in denying this. Do you dispute this?

The point of Kerry's testimony was to remind people of this. And on that point, he was right. So if what you are interested in is whether the point that Kerry was making, that US troops had been illegally in Cambodia, was correct, then I can end this post here. There's little point your spending time on my verbiage when you could more profitably be spending time reading up on details from a shameful period in US history that your teachers may have short-changed you on in school.

But a lot of people raising this example aren't really interested in whether Kerry's point was right. They're talking about whether Kerry got the details of the particular illustration he used correct.

So if it's the details of Kerry's specific illustration, rather than the truth of the overall charge, that you're interested in, let's look at those details. Was Kerry (a) in Cambodia (b) on Christmas Eve, 1968, and (c) did the president of the US deny a US presence in Cambodia?

(a) Was Kerry ever in Cambodia during his term in Vietnam? From what I've read, I think he likely was. The arguments that he was never in Cambodia seem weak, especially when his arch opponent John O'Neill is on tape talking about how he (O'Neill) had been in Cambodia.

(b) Was Kerry in Cambodia Christmas Eve of 1968? I don't really care whether it was Christmas Eve (meaning the evening of December 24), Christmas Eve (meaning anytime during the day of December 24), Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, New Years Eve, or some-non-holiday-day when Kerry was in Cambodia. Quibbling about his recollection of the date, when the point was that he was in Cambodia when US troops should not have been, seems to me a very desperate form of nit-picking in order to evade the point of his testimony.

(c) Did the US president deny a US presence in Cambodia? Yes, although not necessarily on the day that Kerry was there. I have no trouble with the idea that Kerry took two strong memories -- one of being in Cambodia illegally, one of the president of the US denying this -- and mixed them together.

David James already said it well in his response. If you're going to charge that the substance of Kerry's charges was false, then you should be able to provide examples of that. Since no one (as far as I know) is denying that US troops were in Cambodia illegally during the Vietnam War, and that the president of the US lied about this to the US public, the use of "Christmas in Cambodia" as an example seems to underscore how weak the case against his testimony is.

[SRW]

Originally posted by Nova Land
The fact is that during the Vietnam War US troops were sent illegally into Cambodia, and that the president of the US lied in denying this. Do you dispute this?

The point of Kerry's testimony was to remind people of this. And on that point, he was right. So if what you are interested in is whether the point that Kerry was making, that US troops had been illegally in Cambodia, was correct, then I can end this post here. There's little point your spending time on my verbiage when you could more profitably be spending time reading up on details from a shameful period in US history that your teachers may have short-changed you on in school.

But a lot of people raising this example aren't really interested in whether Kerry's point was right. They're talking about whether Kerry got the details of the particular illustration he used correct.

So if it's the details of Kerry's specific illustration, rather than the truth of the overall charge, that you're interested in, let's look at those details. Was Kerry (a) in Cambodia (b) on Christmas Eve, 1968, and (c) did the president of the US deny a US presence in Cambodia?

(a) Was Kerry ever in Cambodia during his term in Vietnam? From what I've read, I think he likely was. The arguments that he was never in Cambodia seem weak, especially when his arch opponent John O'Neill is on tape talking about how he (O'Neill) had been in Cambodia.

(b) Was Kerry in Cambodia Christmas Eve of 1968? I don't really care whether it was Christmas Eve (meaning the evening of December 24), Christmas Eve (meaning anytime during the day of December 24), Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, New Years Eve, or some-non-holiday-day when Kerry was in Cambodia. Quibbling about his recollection of the date, when the point was that he was in Cambodia when US troops should not have been, seems to me a very desperate form of nit-picking in order to evade the point of his testimony.

(c) Did the US president deny a US presence in Cambodia? Yes, although not necessarily on the day that Kerry was there. I have no trouble with the idea that Kerry took two strong memories -- one of being in Cambodia illegally, one of the president of the US denying this -- and mixed them together.

David James already said it well in his response. If you're going to charge that the substance of Kerry's charges was false, then you should be able to provide examples of that.

Isn’t this the example where he said the experience was seared into his memory? I'm not sure but if that is true then you are going way out of your way to justify a lie. Damm this work getting in the way of researching all these important facts.

[SRW]

Originally posted by Nova Land
Jane Fonda apologized for her insensitivity and poor choice of words. I don't believe she has apologized for bringing public attention to US misdeeds in Vietnam. At least I hope not, because she was right to do so. But she was wrong in some of the inflammatory and overwrought ways she expressed herself -- just as Ann Coulter and many others of her ilk are today.

John Kerry, likewise, apologized for the way in which he expressed his opposition to the war in the early 1970s. He, too, used inflammatory and overwrought rhetoric at times to make his point and many years ago admitted this was a mistake. I am surprised you were not aware of this. I'm pretty sure it dates back at least to the 1980s. If you like, I can try to look it up for you.

So: he was right to speak out against US misdeeds in Vietnam, he was wrong to do so in inflammatory language, and he was right to realize that and apologize for it. That shows maturity as well as guts. I hadn't thought before of his apology being that gutsy a thing to do, but you're right, it was.

The only thing I heard from Kerry was a not so sincere non-apology on Meet the Press. If you have a real apology I would like to see it.

[Suddenly]

Originally posted by SRW
Isn’t this the example where he said the experience was seared into his memory? I'm not sure but if that is true then you are going way out of your way to justify a lie. Damm this work getting in the way of researching all these important facts.

Are you contending that a person's belief as to the quality of a recollection correlate to the accuracy of the recollection?

His claiming to clearly remember seems completely irrelevant to the theory that he was mistaken about detail unless you are implying the above assertion, an assertion that I seriously doubt you can provide evidence for.

Or do you mean something else? You seem to imply that since he has said his memory is clear, and since you believe that his memory cannot be a correct description of fact, this somehow means he must be lying as since his memory is "clear" it cannot be in error, so no memory must exist and the whole thing is made up.

This seems at best a poor argument, but if you can better state the significance of his claim of a clear recollection feel free.

Just to clarify and make clear my larger point, from the skeptic's dictionary:

Another interesting fact about memory is that studies have shown that there is no significant correlation between the subjective feeling of certainty a person has about a memory and the memory being accurate.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by SRW
I suggest you see them for your self.

See for yourself (http://www.stolenhonor.com/documentary/program-excerpts.asp)

There is something in the first video in this link that expresses one of the things I find the most hypocritical and most annoying of the anti-war movement, both present and past. The way the peace movement uses the deaths and/or suffering of our soldiers who cannot speak for themselves to further the cause of the anti-war activists. It is a despicable tactic.

For background, John Kerry held what was called the Winter Soldier Hearings prior to his Senate testimony.

A former POW speaks about an incident while he was in a Vietnamese camp:

The interrogator showed me a transcript of a testimony that my mother had given at something called The Winter Soldier Hearings. I read her testimony and it wasn't damning. But then I saw some of the other stuff that had gone on at this Winter Soldiers Hearing, and I wondered how did somebody get my mother, persuaded her to come and appear in something like this. And then uh, shortly thereafter he showed me some statement of John Kerry. I know that he did talk to her and he talked to my sisters. And, uh, I really don't know what was in their minds to participate in this, but I do know this, and that is, you know, it is really, it is really a contemptible act to take a grieving old lady and use, uh, prey upon her grief and manipulate her grief for, purely, for the promotion of your own political agenda.

Imagine how that guy felt seeing that transcript sitting in front of a Vietnamese interrogator.

Way to go Kerry!

[SRW]

Kerry’s memory certainly needs some work then, his own writhing state he was never in Cambodia. And He had Nixon putting him there in 1968; Nixon did not take office until 1969. But let’s not quibble with details. It is after all about the intent of his speech not the not the over all honesty of his arguments. He did not make this claim once but on many occasions over many years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27211-2004Aug23.html


I guess it Ok for me to start claiming I was in Viet Nam I am after all a Viet Nam Era Vet so the fact that I never left the states should not make that big of a difference.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by SRW
Kerry’s memory certainly needs some work then, his own writhing state he was never in Cambodia. And He had Nixon putting him there in 1968; Nixon did not take office until 1969. But let’s not quibble with details.



No, lets, because that is the kind of detail that has become accepted fact in folklore, but is just a twisted interpretation of what was really said.

[crimresearch]

Originally posted by Nova Land
Irrelevant, at least to me.

Just as I find it interesting that many people believe in paranormal things based on stories which turn out to be manufactured falsehoods, I find it interesting that the same thing happens often in politics.

(Interesting isn't the only word that comes to mind, but I prefer to see this as interesting and a challenge rather than, say, depressing.)

I see the problems as being related. The same kind of thinking that leads to such widespread false belief regarding paranormal matters leads to widespread false belief regarding political matters. I therefore think it is worthwhile to try to identify falsehoods in both of these areas, to try to understand what things went into such stories being circulated and gaining acceptance (and to try to understand what it takes in order to counter false stories).

Whether Jane Fonda has done things to be ashamed of in her life -- apart from the things in the urban legends that this thread is about -- is of little interest to me because of course she has. I don't know anyone, including myself, who hasn't done things in their life to be ashamed of. For example, Arnold Schwartzenegger was, for many years, a shill in comic book ads for a body-building system which was, to my mind, as much an effort to separate fools from their money as Fonda's exercise videos (and probably did as much psychological harm to young males as Fonda's videos did to young females). But when it comes to evaluating his political views, his actions as governor of California, or stories that are being spread about him, I consider those comic books ads pretty much irrelevant and would be embarrassed to use them in a serious discussion of the issues except as an attempt at humor.

Except this isn't politics, it is history.
Fonda, no matter what her politics, is claiming that the POWs lied about being tortured, and that the record of their physical condition upon returning is somehow faked...and as support for this extraordinary assertion, she offers up her eyewitness testimony, and her word.

And the extent to which we can reasonably question her word is affected by her track record of lying on other large issues.

[Mona]

Originally posted by DavidJames
Spare me the propaganda from right wing fanatics. Show me the quotes from Kerry, with the source(s), and show me the evidence of the lie. So far, all I've seen are unsubstantiated claptrap, no actual evidence. While this is may be good enough for you, as of now, I do not have enough information to form an opinion.

That you refuse to address the many Kerry and VVAW lies that bok documents, does not render it propaganda. It cites, among other things, contemporaneous debunkings in such outelsts as

The New York Times, and many other sources.

Sorry, but you can't get around the evidence for Kerry and VVAW's lies by calling a source you do not like "right-wing fanatics." Facts stand or fall regardless of who offers them.

Do you dispute any of the fact claims in that book's extract? If not, you have placed yourself outside of reasoned debate, if all you are going to do is traffic in the ad hominem in lieu of a rational response.

[Mona]

Originally posted by varwoche
Geez Mona, I'm really not on a mission to be a fulltime Mona debunker. But when you repeatedly provide data sources such as RandomBozo.com, i.e. the free web page hosting link above, it's borderline useless, especially on a skeptical forum.

You see, RandomBozo.com may kick ass. But it simply doesn't pass the initial "Why does this random bozo site merit a click, given the wealth of valid data sources?" filter. A blurb explaining why RandomBozo is meritorious would be helpful.

Ok.

Clever.

What fact claims in that source do you dispute?

You know, I am an ardent opponent of drug prohibition. As it happens, many far-leftists are as well. So, many of them make useful sources on which I sometimes rely. Not all, because some are not to be trusted, as they are ideologues who are less than careful with their fact-claims. But those who are careful, even if I disagree with them on many other issues, I will use thier anti-prohibition materials. I do not accept as valid responses from drug warriors that my ource is a "commie." No, I expect them to actually address the arguments and facts put forward. (Snarky paroidies of them also doesn't get past me.)

See my point?

Sure you do.

So now, what makes you imply that the fact-claims in my source -- claims you do not bother to address -- are not valid?

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by crimresearch

Fonda, no matter what her politics, is claiming that the POWs lied about being tortured, and that the record of their physical condition upon returning is somehow faked...No, that is incorrect. That is not something she is claiming, it is something which many years ago she was claiming -- and which she since has acknowledged she was mistaken about, and apologized for.

The urban myths about Jane Fonda which are used to smear her (and, this year, John Kerry) are not about her saying POWs were lying about being tortured. They are about how POWs were tortured at the time she made her trip to Vietnam, about how POWs were tortured in order to make them see her, tortured in order to make them say things to her, tortured (or killed) after she left. These are lies, and these are the things which the thread is about.

If you re-read the opening post, I think you will see that it is about the "fictionalized accounts of Fonda's 1972 visit". I'm sorry if I did not make that clear enough in the opening post. I thought the text I had quoted was reasonably clear, so tried to cut down on my usual wordiness.

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
"All"? I don't know. But from what I've read, most of his testimony stands up pretty well. Are there particular factual matters of substance with which you disagree?

If you identify them clearly, I'll be glad to let you know whether I think specific points are correct or not. But (as I think others have already pointed out) the essence of his charges were, indeed, correct.

Am I to understand you are defending him and the VVAW without knowing what they actually said? Look, if you can get past those who wish to dismiss my source as right-wingers and etc., I encourage you to read the book (extracts of it) that I linked to earlier. It details some of the more egregious lies, as well as fraudulent purveyors of said lies, and debunks them.

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
(a) Was Kerry ever in Cambodia during his term in Vietnam? From what I've read, I think he likely was. The arguments that he was never in Cambodia seem weak, especially when his arch opponent John O'Neill is on tape talking about how he (O'Neill) had been in Cambodia.





No, he is captured on the Nixon tapes in casual conversation misspeaking by saying he had been in Cambodia, and then immediately -- immediately -- correcting that by stating he meant on patrol along the border, in another part of Vietnam, and at a much later date, than was Kerry. (Kerry did not patrol the Cambodian border.) But O'Neill was not in Cambodia, as he immediately made clear to Nixon, and as he attests now.

Even Kerry's band of brothers, who were on his boat, decline to affirm that they were ever, at any time, in Cambodia, much less at Xmas.

Kerry lied, for political purposes.

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
First, my apologies for my delay in getting back to this thread. My on-line access is sometimes limited.

I think the Snopes article is good, although not perfect. I think it is a good complement to the Nation articles, and would recommend reading all three. There are matters not covered in each which are better understood when other sources are read.

One thing good in the Snopes article is that (like the Nation articles) it debunks some of the worst of the lies that have been spread about Fonda.The one place here where I would question what Snopes reports is regarding Michael Benge. I am not familiar enough with this to know if it is true or not, and am curious what evidence Snopes used in reaching this conclusion. I have not yet been able to find anything Benge said in the 1970s about this. (I did find that Benge appears to believe that the North Vietnamese continued to hold US POWs in captivity well after the end of the war. He testified to Congress (http://www.aiipowmia.com/testimony/benge294.html) to that affect as recently as 1994.)

So that's something I'm curious about (and would be interested in learning more about). But, setting that aside, Snopes reaches the same conclusion as Hayden, Burke, and others (http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa110399b.htm) who have looked into the matter: Jane Fonda's actions and words did not lead to the torture or death of US POWs, and the stories that claim this are lies.

We now come to the part of the story that Snopes does not cover so well. Let me summarize the points in the section you quoted.

1. On returning home, she reported the POWs she saw were in good health and had not been brainwashed.

2. She charged that North Vietnamese POWs, in contrast, were systematically tortured.

3. When US POWs did come home and told stories of being tortured, she brushed aside these stories as exaggerations.

This is true, but it conveys a misleading impression (which is why it is often good not to rely on a single source but to get a multi-dimensional picture from reading a variety of sources).

First, let's get the middle item out of the way, since the first and third are related (and are more relevant to the point of this thread). Fonda charged that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured, and she was correct. This was an important thing to bring to public awareness at the time, and it took a good deal of courage to do so, as it was not something the US public wanted to hear. I believe this charge has been well-documented in the years since the war. I'll be glad to post links to support this if you or others disagree.

(While I'm on the topic of important matters she helped bring to public awareness, let me mention another -- conveniently located in the Hayden article (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040322&s=hayden) which I cited and linked to in my previous post.Now let's get to the main thing which Snopes says was discreditable about Fonda's actions: her cavalier dismissal of the mistreatment and torture that US POWs suffered at Vietnamese hands.

Fonda was wrong to dismiss all charges of torture as exaggerations. US POWs were indeed frequently subject to torture at North Vietnamese hands prior to 1969. Fonda's visit, however, occurred in 1972. Torture of US POWs in Vietnam by the time of Fonda's visit had become as rare or rarer than torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq today. Fonda was right when she reported the POWs she visited were in good health and had not been tortured or brainwashed. Since many US citizens were under the (government-fostered) misimpression that the North Vietnamese were routinely torturing captured US soldiers, her attempting to correct that misimpression is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here is a relevant passage from the Hayden article (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040322&s=hayden) which I cited and linked to in my previous post.Because this is an important point, I'm going to link to a couple of additional resources.

P.O.W: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973 , by John Hubbell (http://www.phil-books.com/POW_A_Definitive_History_of_the_American_PrisonerO fWar_Experience_in_Vietnam_19641973_0595138888.htm l)

Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973, by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick T. Kiley
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1557506949/102-2908427-1130526?v=glance)

I do not have either of these books at hand, but believe from their descriptions that these are good sources for information about the treatment of US POWs and will support the point I am making. Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from
an interview with Kiley (http://www.wlajournal.com/wlafall/A_Conversation.htm) which is available on-line:So Fonda was correct in her statement that the POWs she visited had not been tortured. Where she was incorrect was thinking that since POWs were not being tortured at the time that she visited that therefore all claims of torture were exaggerations. She was guilty of sloppy thinking and gross insensitivity there -- for which she has since apologized.

So Fonda was guilty of being insensitive, and of jumping to a wrong conclusion on an important matter. Her words caused a great deal of pain to the POWs, and their families. But she also spoke out courageously on some very important related matters -- the torture that we were inflicting on the people we were fighting against, and the plans our government had to inflict massive civilian casualties -- and she was right on both.

I wish she had been more thoughtful and sensitive regarding the treatment of US POWs. But her insensitivity 30 years ago does not justify people lying about her actions today, or using those lies to smear candidates whose politics they dislike.


You do not demonstrate that Fonda was correct in her claims about bombing dikes. You show that Kissinger and Nixon 9in a snippet) discussed it, and whether it would produce large numbers of deaths. Not that it happened.

You do not demonstrate that no POWs were tortured after 1969; you cite a source who says torture was reduced after that date. Even your source does not say it did not happen. So, Fonda was wrong to claim it did not exist either before or during the period when she made her trip.

And yes, I'd like links to evidence that we tortured North Vietnamese POWS, including definitions of torture, as well as frequency.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

Go here (http://4dw.net/jqueen/valor.html) for extracts from a book detailing the many and manifest falsehoods of Kerry and his Vietnam Veterans Against the War... No, thank you.

Varwoche has an excellent point that this does not appear to be a reliable source. My objection is related, but even more basic.

Again, I'd like to draw a linkage between trying to encourage rational thinking on paranormal matters and on political matters. Some of the same methods which we know are used to promote misperceptions and faulty conclusions in one arena can be (and often are) used to do the same in the other arena. The offer of a whole book, no specific pages or examples specified, is one such method. No matter how many of the examples listed in the book that are refuted, the person offering the book can respond: Yes, but what about all the other examples given there?

(An especially frustrating variation is when, after one has spent time going through the cited source and refuting things there, the person complains that the items you dealt with weren't the ones they thought were so convincing.)

It takes time to read a source (such as the site you offer), pick out a manageable number of the misstatements, write up an explanation of why these things are false, and find links to reputable sources that verify the facts of one's explanation. I don't see the point in spending large amounts of time refuting examples which may or may not be the ones you actually think are valid.

What makes much more sense is for the person who believes that evidence to support their claim can be found at a particular site to go through that site and either summarize briefly or excerpt out the part you believe is relevant. Then we can discuss that part. In doing so, you are in effect saying: I have read this, and found it to be convincing. If you're willing to say that, I'm willing to spend my time reading that particular part and discussing it with you. That way, we can get down to the points you find convincing in your source right away, rather than wasting times on the things there that you haven't checked (or that you have checked and were not persuaded by).

So: which things at that site you link to have you checked and found to be credible? GIve me a brief list, and link if possible to where you found factual support for the assertions. (Please don't simply repeat sources or footnotes a site includes unless you have actually looked up the alleged source to verify it says what it is claimed to say. If you haven't checked out a claim, just say so.)

(If the number of things at that site which you have checked and found credible is so large that it would make an over-long post, just start with two or three that you think are strongest. Once we've verified those, you can post more.)

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Luke T.
There is something in the first video in this link that expresses one of the things I find the most hypocritical and most annoying of the anti-war movement, both present and past. The way the peace movement uses the deaths and/or suffering of our soldiers who cannot speak for themselves to further the cause of the anti-war activists. It is a despicable tactic.

For background, John Kerry held what was called the Winter Soldier Hearings prior to his Senate testimony.

A former POW speaks about an incident while he was in a Vietnamese camp:



Imagine how that guy felt seeing that transcript sitting in front of a Vietnamese interrogator.

Way to go Kerry!

Luke, the war was about much more than the POWS. Imagine over two million of your people dying in that war. I would think that would hurt even more. The US suffered, it's people suffered, the Vietnamese seem to be forgotten in all this, they suffered infinitely more. Kerry was trying to use these hearings to help stop that war.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

You do not demonstrate that Fonda was correct in her claims about bombing dikes. You show that Kissinger and Nixon 9in a snippet) discussed it, and whether it would produce large numbers of deaths. Not that it happened.Please re-read. What it said was to put a spotlight on the possible bombing of Vietnam's system of dikes

In 1972, it was widely suspected and feared in the anti-war movement that Nixon was planning to bomb the dikes in Vietnam. One of our priorities was to get word out, because we did not believe the US public would stand for such an act if it were known about in advance.

The government denied that any such action was contemplated.

We now know (and the link I provided is one way that we know this) that the anti-war movement was right. This was an action the government was seriously contemplating -- and which it ultimately decided against.

I take it you were not alive then and are not familiar with this period of history?

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

You do not demonstrate that no POWs were tortured after 1969; you cite a source who says torture was reduced after that date. Even your source does not say it did not happen.I don't say no torture occurred after 1969, because that is highly unlikely. What I do say -- and I chose my wording fairly carefully -- is that it had become "as rare or rarer than torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq today".

Getting torture down to zero in time of war is difficult, even in the best of countries. (And as someone born in the US, I do like to think that my country is among the best of countries, despite its many faults.) And yet, torture goes on in US prisons, torture goes on in POW camps run by the US, torture goes on in countries we support with the awareness (and, too often in the past, with the support) of the US government. Even so, I can see a significant distinction between US treatment of prisoners and treatment of prisoners in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Likewise, I can see a significant distinction between North Vietnamese treatment of prisoners of war before 1969 and after.

Prior to 1969, torture was routinely practiced by the North Vietnamese. After 1969, it was an aberration. Hubbell is a credible source, and that appears to be what he affirms.

I use the word "appears" because I have not been able to check the cited book for myself yet. I thought I said that clearly in my post, but if it wasn't clear then I'll repeat it now. I do not live near a good library, so it is often several weeks or longer between opportunities to look these things up. I find The Nation to be generally reliable in stating the contents of sources it cites, but I intend to look this up on my next opportunity and will be glad to post to confirm (or deny) that the book supports this point. So, Fonda was wrong to claim it did not exist either before or during the period when she made her trip.No, she was right that torture was not occurring by the time of her trip, which is why the POWs who are falsely claimed to have been tortured have taken efforts to get the lies that are being spread corrected. And yes, I'd like links to evidence that we tortured North Vietnamese POWS, including definitions of torture, as well as frequency. A good book to refer to is The Phoenix Program, by Douglas Valentine. I don't think a definition of torture is needed; if you don't recognize what is described in the following as torture, then we need a separate thread to discuss that.
The following excerpt from The Phoenix Program, by Douglas Valentine, is from Chapter 24: “Transgressions�. (http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/MyLaiPhoenix.html)

It was not until April of 1970, when ten Vietnamese students put themselves on display in a room in the Saigon College of Agriculture, that treatment of political prisoners gained the attention of the press. The students had been tried and convicted by a military field court. Some were in shock and being fed intravenously. Some had had bamboo splinters shoved under their fingernails. One was deaf from having had soapy water poured in his ears and his ears pounded. The women students had been raped as well as tortured. The culprits, claims Don Luce in his book Hostages of War, were Saigon’s First District police, who used false documents and signatures to prove guilt, and used torture and drugs to extract confessions.

The case of the students prompted two congressmen to investigate conditions at Con Son Prison in July 1970. Initially, Rod Landreth advised station chief Shackley not to allow the congressmen to visit, but Shackley saw denial as a tacit admission of CIA responsibility. So Landreth passed the buck to Buzz Johnson at the Central Pacification and Development Council. Thinking there was nothing to hide, Johnson got the green from light General Khiem. He then arranged for Congressmen Augustus Hawkins and William Anderson and their aide Tom Harkins to fly to Con Son accompanied by Public Safety Adviser Frank Walton. Acting as interpreter for the delegation was Don Luce, a former director of the International Volunteer Service who had been living in Vietnam since 1959. Prison reform advocate Luce had gained the trust of many Vietnamese nationalists, one of whom told him where the notorious tiger cages (tiny cells reserved for hard-core VCI under supervision of Nguyen Minh Chau, “the Reformer�) were located at Con Son Prison.

Upon arriving at Con Son, Luce and his entourage were greeted by the prison warden, Colonel Nguyen Van Ve. Harkins presented Ve with a list of six prisoners the congressmen wished to visit in Camp Four. While inside this section of the prison, Luce located the door to the tiger cages hidden behind a woodpile at the edge of a vegetable garden. Ve and Walton protested this departure from the guided tour, their exclamations prompting a guard inside the tiger cage section to open the door, revealing its contents. The congressmen entered and saw stone compartments five feet wide, nine feet long, and six feet high. Access to the tiger cages was gained by climbing steps to a catwalk, then looking down between iron grates. From three to five men were shackled to the floor in each cage. All were beaten, some mutilated. Their legs were withered, and they scuttled like crabs across the floor, begging for food, water, and mercy. Some cried. Others told of having lime buckets, which sat ready above each cage, emptied upon them.

Ve denied everything. The lime was for whitewashing the walls, he explained, and the prisoners were evil people who deserved punishment because they would not salute the flag. Despite the fact that Congress funded the GVN’s Directorate of Corrections, Walton accused the congressmen of interfering in Vietnamese affairs. Congressman Hawkins expressed the hope that American POWs were being better treated in Hanoi.

The extent of the tiger cage flap was a brief article in The New York Times that was repudiated by U.S. authorities. In Saigon the secret police cornered Luce’s landlady and the U.S. Embassy accused Luce of being a Vietcong agent. Rod Landreth approached Buzz Johnson with the idea of circulating evidence of Luce’s alleged homosexuality, but Johnson nixed the idea. When Luce began writing articles for Tin Sang, all issues were promptly confiscated and his press card was revoked. Finally, Luce was expelled from Vietnam in May 1971, after his apartment had been ransacked by secret policemen searching for his records.

Fortunately Luce had mailed his notes and documents to the United States, and he later compiled them in Hostages of War.
Michael Drosnin, in the May 30, 1975 issue of New Times, quotes Phoenix legal adviser Robert Gould as saying, “I don’t know for sure, but I guess Colby was covering up for Con Son too. Nothing really was changed after all that publicity... the inmates who were taken out of the Tiger Cages were simply transferred to something called ’cow cages,’ which were even worse. Those were barbed wire cells in another part of the camp. The inmates were shackled inside them for months and left paralyzed. I saw loads of spidery little guys — they couldn’t stand and they couldn’t walk, but had to move around on little wooden pallets.�28 According to Gould, “It was a well known smirking secret in certain official circles that with all the publicity about the Tiger Cages, no one ever found out about the cow cages.� 29

Added Gould: “The responsibility for all this is on the Americans who pushed the program. We finally made some paper reforms, but it didn’t make any difference. The Province Security Committees did whatever the hell they wanted and the pressure our ‘neutralization’ quotas put on them meant they had to sentence so many people a month regardless. And God, if you ever saw those prisons.� 30

In Hostages of War Don Luce refers to the GVN as a “Prison Regime� and calls Phoenix a “microcosm� of the omnipotent and perverse U.S. influence on Vietnamese society. He blames the program for the deterioration of values that permitted torture, political repression, and assassination. “While few Americans are directly involved in the program,� Luce writes, “Phoenix was created, organized, and funded by the CIA. The district and provincial interrogation centers were constructed with American funds, and provided with American advisers. Quotas were set by Americans. The national system of identifying suspects was devised by Americans and underwritten by the U.S. Informers are paid with US funds. American tax dollars have covered the expansion of the police and paramilitary units who arrest suspects.� 31What Valentine writes is more detailed and more graphic than what I was aware of. But for those of us who lived through that period of history, it was well-known that torture of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese was routine. We heard about it too often, from people who had been there. I can understand modern revisionists trying to deny the facts. But are there really people who lived through that time and followed the news who now deny that happened?

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
No, thank you.

Varwoche has an excellent point that this does not appear to be a reliable source. My objection is related, but even more basic.

Again, I'd like to draw a linkage between trying to encourage rational thinking on paranormal matters and on political matters. Some of the same methods which we know are used to promote misperceptions and faulty conclusions in one arena can be (and often are) used to do the same in the other arena. The offer of a whole book, no specific pages or examples specified, is one such method. No matter how many of the examples listed in the book that are refuted, the person offering the book can respond: Yes, but what about all the other examples given there?

(An especially frustrating variation is when, after one has spent time going through the cited source and refuting things there, the person complains that the items you dealt with weren't the ones they thought were so convincing.)

It takes time to read a source (such as the site you offer), pick out a manageable number of the misstatements, write up an explanation of why these things are false, and find links to reputable sources that verify the facts of one's explanation. I don't see the point in spending large amounts of time refuting examples which may or may not be the ones you actually think are valid.

What makes much more sense is for the person who believes that evidence to support their claim can be found at a particular site to go through that site and either summarize briefly or excerpt out the part you believe is relevant. Then we can discuss that part. In doing so, you are in effect saying: I have read this, and found it to be convincing. If you're willing to say that, I'm willing to spend my time reading that particular part and discussing it with you. That way, we can get down to the points you find convincing in your source right away, rather than wasting times on the things there that you haven't checked (or that you have checked and were not persuaded by).

So: which things at that site you link to have you checked and found to be credible? GIve me a brief list, and link if possible to where you found factual support for the assertions. (Please don't simply repeat sources or footnotes a site includes unless you have actually looked up the alleged source to verify it says what it is claimed to say. If you haven't checked out a claim, just say so.)

(If the number of things at that site which you have checked and found credible is so large that it would make an over-long post, just start with two or three that you think are strongest. Once we've verified those, you can post more.)

No.

I'm standing on that source unless and until you or someone can show me it has been discredited. I have read many of the facts in that piece in a number of places, but that is the best compendium of them all - which is why I have it bookmarked and was easily able to link to it. (And you say I cannot cite its footnotes?! Like The New York Times ? Uh, ok.)

Nope. Consider that extract my brief; attack it where you can, if you can.

{edited to render one sentence coherent, and again for a typo, which I do a lot}

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
Please re-read. What it said was to put a spotlight on the possible bombing of Vietnam's system of dikes

In 1972, it was widely suspected and feared in the anti-war movement that Nixon was planning to bomb the dikes in Vietnam. One of our priorities was to get word out, because we did not believe the US public would stand for such an act if it were known about in advance.

The government denied that any such action was contemplated.

We now know (and the link I provided is one way that we know this) that the anti-war movement was right. This was an action the government was seriously contemplating -- and which it ultimately decided against.

I take it you were not alive then and are not familiar with this period of history?

Nothing in your link shows that the government got anywhere near bombing dikes (and I am not in a position to know whether it would have been justified to do that or not, in any given instance). But if you want to try to redeem Fonda's sickening comments about our POWs with this dike issue, go for it.

But you are as wrong about my age as you are about Fonda and the anti-war movement. I am 48, and was attending junior high on a WI campus at a university school run for faculty brats during the late 60s and early 70s -- I was very politically aware, being the daughter of a history professor who was prominent in debates sponsored by this or that campus group. We had "hippies" into our social studies class to address us about the war, and I even missed school a few days when black militants and their supporters took over the administration bldg and closed the campus.

But even if I were 28, I can read. What I read, does not do credit to Fonda, Kerry or the VVAW.

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
I don't say no torture occurred after 1969, because that is highly unlikely. What I do say -- and I chose my wording fairly carefully -- is that it had become "as rare or rarer than torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq today".

Getting torture down to zero in time of war is difficult, even in the best of countries. (And as someone born in the US, I do like to think that my country is among the best of countries, despite its many faults.) And yet, torture goes on in US prisons, torture goes on in POW camps run by the US, torture goes on in countries we support with the awareness (and, too often in the past, with the support) of the US government. Even so, I can see a significant distinction between US treatment of prisoners and treatment of prisoners in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Likewise, I can see a significant distinction between North Vietnamese treatment of prisoners of war before 1969 and after.

Prior to 1969, torture was routinely practiced by the North Vietnamese. After 1969, it was an aberration. Hubbell is a credible source, and that appears to be what he affirms.

I use the word "appears" because I have not been able to check the cited book for myself yet. I thought I said that clearly in my post, but if it wasn't clear then I'll repeat it now. I do not live near a good library, so it is often several weeks or longer between opportunities to look these things up. I find The Nation to be generally reliable in stating the contents of sources it cites, but I intend to look this up on my next opportunity and will be glad to post to confirm (or deny) that the book supports this point. No, she was right that torture was not occurring by the time of her trip, which is why the POWs who are falsely claimed to have been tortured have taken efforts to get the lies that are being spread corrected. A good book to refer to is The Phoenix Program, by Douglas Valentine. I don't think a definition of torture is needed; if you don't recognize what is described in the following as torture, then we need a separate thread to discuss that.What Valentine writes is more detailed and more graphic than what I was aware of. But for those of us who lived through that period of history, it was well-known that torture of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese was routine. We heard about it too often, from people who had been there. I can understand modern revisionists trying to deny the facts. But are there really people who lived through that time and followed the news who now deny that happened?

I have no doubt that the South Vietnamese tortured prisoners. But your own source says few Americans were invlovled; Fonda SAID that we were toruring POWs in **American** POW camps. And she did so in the context of claiming our men had NOT been tortured.

And how cute that your spource lays all blame for any torture at the feet of the Evil Americans and their CIA. I guess no one in the world was ever tortured, no killing fields would have taken place, if those cursed American had not been around. Would he have us causing Stalin's purges, too?

What is your source for saying no American POWs were tortured by the time Fonda arrived, and also for the claim that some of them have lied in saying the contrary?

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

I have read many of the facts in that piece in a number of places...Having seen or heard a thing many times does not add to its credibility. What matters is having seen or heard it from a source that knows what it is talking about and not simply repeating something it is heard.

Assigning credibility to something simply because it has been repeated a lot is precisely how urban legends have become so prevalent.... but that is the best compendium of them all - which is why I have it bookmarked and was easily able to link to it.Great! That makes it easy for you to find and refer to, so that when -- as now -- you are in a position when you want to share the information in it, you should easily be able to go through it, select out the items listed there that you find particularly to be particularly convincing, and lay them before the rest of us.

So: which items in the compendium did you check out and find to be convincing? If you want to say all, I'll accept that -- provided you agree that you will accept the discrediting of any item I find there as sufficient reason to dismiss them all. (If you feel all items there are equally credible and equally strong, there's no need for me to go through them all. One should suffice.)And I cannot you say cite its footnotes?! Like The New York Times ?You misunderstand me. You are perfectly free to cite any New York Times article which you have read. If you have not read it, however, then it is dishonest to say that The New York Times is the source of your information -- because it's not. Your actual source is whoever told you that the New York Times said it.

You are apparently young and trusting. I, on the other hand, have read too many massively-footnoted books where the footnotes did not back up the claims made in the text. And I've seen too many cases where decent people wrote leaflets and articles passing on the lies in those books, confident in what they wrote because the author had provided footnotes. (Footnotes which they, in turn, copied without checking, thus not only spreading the lie but becoming liars themselves.)

All I'm asking is for you to be honest about the source of something. Don't try to make something sound more authoritative than it is. If Drat Mudge makes a claim and cites the New York Times as his source, then what you honestly know is that Drat Mudge says that the New York Times says... -- and that's what you should say.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

Nothing in your link shows that the government got anywhere near bombing dikes...And nothing in my post asserts that they did. What I have said is that the government was considering doing this.... (and I am not in a position to know whether it would have been justified to do that or not, in any given instance).It would have been a war crime, similar to terrorists bombing a dam in the United States with the intention of flooding a nearby populated city. Such an action would be terribly demoralizing to the country suffering such a loss -- which was the reason the US considered such an action -- but it is the kind of action forbidden by the Geneva Convention. I am puzzled that you do not feel in a position to judge such an action. It is the right and the responsibility of every citizen to judge and speak out about such actions on the part of its government.

Fortunately there are citizens who do not share your hesitation. Upon his return from Vietnam, John Kerry was one of them. In 1972, Jane Fonda was another. I am 48... I was very politically aware...I am sorry to hear that, but my memory of things past isn't perfect either so I can sympathize with you and hope yours doesn't deteriorate further. Some stories from those years -- such as the tiger cages -- were so shocking that it is hard for me to imagine someone having heard them and forgotten about it. Fortunately there are libraries where people such as you and I can go to refresh our memories of those times.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Mona
I have no doubt that the South Vietnamese tortured prisoners. But your own source says few Americans were invlovled; Fonda SAID that we were toruring POWs in **American** POW camps. And she did so in the context of claiming our men had NOT been tortured.

And how cute that your spource lays all blame for any torture at the feet of the Evil Americans and their CIA. I guess no one in the world was ever tortured, no killing fields would have taken place, if those cursed American had not been around. Would he have us causing Stalin's purges, too?

What is your source for saying no American POWs were tortured by the time Fonda arrived, and also for the claim that some of them have lied in saying the contrary?

Mona,

can you stick to a point. The basic issue appears to be that you cannot believe that Americans were involved in war crimes. That clearly is not the case, and it is not wrong to accuse them of being involved in war crimes if they were.

If some where accused of crimes, and they weren't, then so be it. It is the nature of the games that you make accusations based on evidence, and that evidence may be subsequently shown to be wrong. It appears that Kerry has apologised for errors he many have made, but the basic point still stands, Americans were in there fighting a war. War is a brutal and bloody business, and is often associated with crimes such as rape and torture. It is the nature of the beast. You don't unleash a war lightly. Apart from all that, the issue of causing the deaths of over 2,000,000 Vietnamese is not to be lightly brushed over.

As I said before, if you had the 3,000 victims of 9/11 passing by you, at the rate of 1 per second, that would take 50 minutes. The victims of the Vietnam war would take twenty three days.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

I have no doubt that the South Vietnamese tortured prisoners. But your own source says few Americans were invlovled; Fonda SAID that we were toruring POWs in **American** POW camps.This seems like a trivial distinction. The US and South Vietnam were allies, with the US the dominant partner. If it makes you feel better, let us agree that our South Vietnamese allies routinely tortured Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners. That in no way rebuts anything in my posts -- which I assume is what your are responding to when you quote them -- because what I wrote was:

She charged that North Vietnamese POWs, in contrast, were systematically tortured.

Fonda charged that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured, and she was correct.

But for those of us who lived through that period of history, it was well-known that torture of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese was routine.

If you feel a need to draw a distinction between being tortured by US interrogators, and being tortured by South Vietnamese interrogators who were supported by the US, go ahead. To me, torture is torture. My point is that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners were routinely tortured -- something many Americans naively believed was impossible and tried to deny -- and Jane Fonda helped bring that shocking truth to light.

And how cute that your spource lays all blame for any torture at the feet of the Evil Americans and their CIA.Really? Where does my spource say that?

It's true the US was complicit in the actions of the South Vietnamese in torturing the prisoners, and Valentine does lay that out. The existence of the Phoenix Program was well-documented (much to the embarrassment of the US government when the documents were leaked and the program came to light); I don't think there's any serious source that disputes its existence. Nothing cute about it.

But nowhere does Valentine say that all the blame goes to the Americans, or that all evil in the world is the fault of Americans. I would say that Ve, Chau, and the Saigon Secret Police come off looking pretty bad in the quoted excerpt.

Your characterization of this as blame it all on the Americans seems like a convenient way to ignore the facts and play victim. But Valentine is simply laying out the facts. Any conclusion that all evil in the world is due to the Americans is of your own creation. It's not in the text I quoted.

[peptoabysmal]

Kerry never apologized either for his own supposed "war crimes" or for falsely accusing thousands of veterans of war crimes in a blanket statement to Congress. This doesn't mean there weren't any war crimes committed in Vietnam. There were many documented cases on both sides. The difference was that Americans were tried in court for their crimes while North Vietnamese were celebrated for theirs.

Much of Kerry's 1971 testimony is a lie. Plain and simple. Lies. Lies that he told to the detrement of his fellow soldiers. Lies that have haunted Vietnam vets for three decades.

Kerry was never in Cambodia on a secret mission.

Steven Pitkin has recanted his testimony.
4. During my service in Vietnam, I neither witnessed nor participated in any American war crimes or atrocities against civilians, nor was I ever aware of any such actions. I did witness the results of Vietcong atrocities against Vietnamese civilians, including the murder of tribal leaders.
AFFIDAVIT OF STEVEN J. PITKIN (http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/staticpages/index.php?page=PitkinAff)

How many of the "winter soldiers" were coerced into giving false statements by John Kerry?

A combat veteran who testified to war crimes during the 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" has filed an affidavit claiming John Kerry and other leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War coerced him into making false claims.

Vet: Kerry coerced me to testify of atrocities (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40333)

Maybe that's why the current military has more trust in George Bush than in John Kerry?

Although Mr Kerry scored for his military record, with 40% seeing the experience as an important qualification for president, the troops were far less forgiving about his efforts to stop the Vietnam war following his return from duty, with 76% voicing disapproval.


Military are rallying behind Bush, says survey (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1328741,00.html)

I don't agree with everything Bush has done, nor do I think he is perfect. Far from it. I much prefer Bush to that lying sack of dog excrement, John Kerry.

[crimresearch]

Having seen or heard a thing many times does not add to its credibility. What matters is having seen or heard it from a source that knows what it is talking about and not simply repeating something it is heard.


With all due respect, are you 1inChrist's sock puppet?

Are you saying that photographs, medical documentation and other evidence (re the treatment of US POWS ) don't count no matter how many times they are referenced, but the word of a source that 'knows what it is talking about', i.e. Jane Fonda, is 'what matters'?
And you deflect criticism of that source's reliability as irrelevant because they apologized for being 'mistaken' or because other people lie too?

And are you making fun of other people's typos while you post howlers of your own?

[Mona]

Originally posted by Nova Land
Having seen or heard a thing many times does not add to its credibility. What matters is having seen or heard it from a source that knows what it is talking about and not simply repeating something it is heard.

Assigning credibility to something simply because it has been repeated a lot is precisely how urban legends have become so prevalent.Great! That makes it easy for you to find and refer to, so that when -- as now -- you are in a position when you want to share the information in it, you should easily be able to go through it, select out the items listed there that you find particularly to be particularly convincing, and lay them before the rest of us.

So: which items in the compendium did you check out and find to be convincing? If you want to say all, I'll accept that -- provided you agree that you will accept the discrediting of any item I find there as sufficient reason to dismiss them all. (If you feel all items there are equally credible and equally strong, there's no need for me to go through them all. One should suffice.)You misunderstand me. You are perfectly free to cite any New York Times article which you have read. If you have not read it, however, then it is dishonest to say that The New York Times is the source of your information -- because it's not. Your actual source is whoever told you that the New York Times said it.

You are apparently young and trusting. I, on the other hand, have read too many massively-footnoted books where the footnotes did not back up the claims made in the text. And I've seen too many cases where decent people wrote leaflets and articles passing on the lies in those books, confident in what they wrote because the author had provided footnotes. (Footnotes which they, in turn, copied without checking, thus not only spreading the lie but becoming liars themselves.)

All I'm asking is for you to be honest about the source of something. Don't try to make something sound more authoritative than it is. If Drat Mudge makes a claim and cites the New York Times as his source, then what you honestly know is that Drat Mudge says that the New York Times says... -- and that's what you should say.


Make an issue of my source; show it has been discredited. (I stand on my source as a whole, NYT footnotes and all.) Or, answer the points therein. I leave it to our readers to decide why you choose as you do. (I would add I have never asked a person posting an article to investigate all of the footnotes, and believe that is an unreasonable burden. But maybe I have not been around the 'net enough.)

But I love that you think I am young. Do continue with that.

[Nova Land]

aargh! Somehow a partial post got posted (and double-posted at that). I'll put this apology here, and try to reconstruct the post below. Sorry.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by Mona
So now, what makes you imply that the fact-claims in my source -- claims you do not bother to address -- are not valid? I implied nothing of the sort. What I plainly said was that your source did not meet the minimum threshhold to merit reading, lacking some clarifying blurb. For example:

#1: not so good
This evidence comes from FreeHosting/RandomBozo.com (http://www.randombozo.com).

#2: a-ok
This evidence comes from FreeHosting/RandomBozo.com (http://www.randombozo.com). The site includes comprehensive footntes with links to mainstream sources.

#3: wishing for the moon
This evidence comes from FreeHosting/RandomBozo.com (http://www.randombozo.com). The apparently unbiased site includes comprehensive footntes with links to mainstream sources.

Edit to add: These examples are all within RandomBozo context, obviously.

[Nova Land]

me, earlier in this thread:

Having seen or heard a thing many times does not add to its credibility. What matters is having seen or heard it from a source that knows what it is talking about and not simply repeating something it is heard.Sorry. This is a pretty basic Skepticism 101 principle, so I assumed most people posting here would be familiar with it. Never assume!Originally posted by crimresearch

Are you saying that photographs, medical documentation and other evidence (re the treatment of US POWS ) don't count...No. What I'm saying is closer to: Primary sources are good evidence; hearsay is bad evidence.

(Please note that no photographs or medical documentation has been posted in this thread. If someone does wish to post this, I'll be glad to consider it.) ...no matter how many times they are referenced...Yes. Repetition alone does not make bad evidence good or good evidence stronger.

For example, if Joe Blow posts a story on his web site, and 100 bloggers pick it up and repeat it, the 100 repetitions do nothing to make the story more credible. Either Blow's story was good or it wasn't; the fact that 100 people echoed it did nothing to change that.

In contrast, if ABC sends a reporter to cover a press conference, and the reporter quotes Bush as saying something, and CBS sends a reporter who quotes Bush as saying the same thing, and 98 other news outlets also send reporters who quote Bush as saying that, it does improve the credibility. This is not 100 sources echoing 1 source, it is 100 sources independently confirming the same story. That is tremendously more credible.

Mona said that she put credence in what she saw on a certain site because she had seen the things said there said in numerous other places. If the other places were simply echoing, then that adds nothing to the credibility of items she saw. That's what I was pointing out.... but the word of a source that 'knows what it is talking about', i.e. Jane Fonda, is 'what matters'?The insertion of Jane Fonda is yours, not mine. Like anyone else, Jane Fonda would be a good source for things she is knowledgeable about and a poor source for things she is not knowledgeable about.

The sources I indicated I felt were credible included John Hubbell, Douglas Valentine, and Frederick Kiley. I wrote about Jane Fonda, but don't recall linking to her or citing her as a source, so I'm not sure where you got that misimpression.

But apart from that, yes, as far as evidence goes a source that has relevant experience of the matter and knows what it is talking about, rather than simply echoing things it has heard, is what matters. Even credible sources can be (and often are) mistaken about things, so it is important to analyze and weigh the evidence after it has been assembled. But before we can analyze and weigh, we need evidence that has weight. Hearsay has none.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Mona

I leave it to our readers to decide why you choose as you do.It's largely because I have very slow dial up internet access. It often takes a minute or two for links I click on to load, during which time any other window I try to load also goes excessively slowly. Therefore I pick and choose which links to click, based on such things as (a) who posts it, (b) whether they give an excerpt or summary of the relevant bits, to show me that what they are linking to is worth the time, and (c) and whether the address looks to be good or garbage.

There are some posters who have established a lot of credibility with me. When they post a link, it is generally to a site with worthwhile information from a reputable source. They are also usually good at providing the relevant content in their post itself; the link is provided so that I can verify what they are saying and so that I can get more details if I am interested in doing so. I haven't read many of your posts or threads, so you haven't established that kind of credibility with me yet. Sorry, but I don't have unlimited time.

If you truly believe that there is something at the site you have linked to that is worth other people spending time reading, why don't you take the time to select a few of the key points and quote them?(I would add I have never asked a person posting an article to investigate all of the footnotes...Nor have I. The only footnotes you need to check out are those you are offering as evidence.

Let's say you read at Drat Mudge's website a story that Senator Madeupname lied under oath on the Senate floor 1276 times, and Mudge cites the New York Times for May 5, 1999, as his source for this. If you want to say, "According to Drat Mudge, Senator Madeupname lied 1276 times", then I have no problem. You read Mudge, so you are fully qualified to say that.

If, on the other hand, you want to say, "According to the New York Times, Senator Mudge lied 1276 times", then to be honest you need to actually look up that New York Times article and verify that that is what it actually says and this is not some clever manipulation of the facts on Mudge's part.

There may be two dozen other footnotes on the Mudge site that day. There would be no need for you to check on any of them; just the Times item. See? It's not so burdensome!

If you want to pass along the Times citation but don't have the time or access to do this, that's fine. In that case, just state when passing along the Times citation that you personally have no knowledge of what it says and are simply passing along what Mudge claims. It will sound less authoritative when you put it that way, of course, but that's because it is.

PS: It will now take about a minute, after I press the Preview button, for the screen to come up with my preview, and another minute -- sometimes longer -- for this to post after I press the Submit Reply button. Does that make it clearer why I can't click on every link?

[SRW]

Originally posted by DavidJames
Could you be more specific? How many of his claims were lies and can you list them along with the reasoning for believing they were lies?

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Quotes


We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people, and morale became so low among the officers on those 'swift boats' that we were called back to Saigon for special instructions from Gen. Abrams. He told us we were doing the right thing. He said our efforts would help win the war in the long run. That's when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam.

-- John Kerry in the Washington Star, June 6, 1971

----------

I served with these guys. I went on missions with them, and these men served honorably. Up and down the chain of command there was no acquiescence to atrocities. It was not condoned, it did not happen, and it was not reported to me verbally or in writing by any of these men including Lt.(jg) Kerry.

-- Captain George Elliott, USN (retired)

----------

In my specific, personal experience in both coastal and river patrols over a 12-month period, I never once saw or heard anything remotely resembling the atrocities described by Senator Kerry. If I had, it would have been my obligation to report them in writing to a higher authority, and I would certainly have done that. If Senator Kerry actually witnessed or participated in these atrocities or, as he described them, "war crimes," he was obligated to report them. That he did not until later when it suited his political purposes strikes me as opportunism of the worst kind. That he would malign my service and that of his fellow sailors with no regard for the truth makes him totally unqualified to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

-- Jeffrey Wainscott

----------

I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of his judgment, truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust -- all absolute tenets of command. His biography, "Tour of Duty," by Douglas Brinkley, is replete with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact, contradictions and slanderous lies. His contempt for the military and authority is evident by even a most casual review of this biography. He arrived in-country with a strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a self-serving determination to build a foundation for his political future. He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard for specific tactical assignments. He was a "loose cannon." In an abbreviated tour of four months and 12 days, and with his specious medals secure, Lt.(jg) Kerry bugged out and began his infamous betrayal of all United States forces in the Vietnam War. That included our soldiers, our marines, our sailors, our coast guardsmen, our airmen, and our POWs. His leadership within the so-called Vietnam Veterans Against the War and testimony before Congress in 1971 charging us with unspeakable atrocities remain an undocumented but nevertheless meticulous stain on the men and women who honorably stayed the course. Senator Kerry is not fit for command.

-- Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, USN (retired)

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW
-- Captain George Elliott, USN (retired) Disregard George Elliott -- he's a documented liar (http://www.skepticalcommunity.mu.nu/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2203&sid=de32a4ec4b4116263a8ee12af8940632).

[DavidJames]

Originally posted by SRW
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Quotes


We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people, and morale became so low among the officers on those 'swift boats' that we were called back to Saigon for special instructions from Gen. Abrams. He told us we were doing the right thing. He said our efforts would help win the war in the long run. That's when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam.

-- John Kerry in the Washington Star, June 6, 1971

----------

I served with these guys. I went on missions with them, and these men served honorably. Up and down the chain of command there was no acquiescence to atrocities. It was not condoned, it did not happen, and it was not reported to me verbally or in writing by any of these men including Lt.(jg) Kerry.

-- Captain George Elliott, USN (retired)I was expecting something along the lines of Kerry claiming something specfic happened, that he did or witnessed, and someone else who was there refuting it.

Theis is pretty vague stuff from Kerry and complete denial from Elliott. No atrocities? none, ever, sounds a little like a guy with his head in the sand. Is it surprising that the men didn't come back telling their superiors they just came back from participating in an "atrocity", or an officer denying it? Did Calley report My Lai?

Does anyone know how often Elliott accompanied Kerry on the missions? How many sailors who served directly with Kerry have come out with statements like these? If I saw this kind of evidence I would seriously give it consideration.

edit to add - Thanks varwoche, I'm sure SRW, like Bush, doesn't like "flip-floppers" and Elliott is one of the best. I'm going out on a limb and guessing SRW and friends will accept Elliots bad comments about Kerry and ignore the good.

[SRW]

Originally posted by DavidJames
I was expecting something along the lines of Kerry claiming something specfic happened, that he did or witnessed, and someone else who was there refuting it.



Kerry did say something specific happened, do you have any one who will back up Kerry? That he has specific orders to fire on villages? He said it I provided testimony that this practice was not policy as Kerry claimed. Where are the orders, the instructions he received to fire on villages. If it was a crime where is his report to his superiors? Please provide me with this evidence that he is telling the truth.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW
Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, USN (retired) This slimeball has also been discredited. Read the blather above, then this: Hoffmann acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally. article (http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may04/227671.asp?format=print)

[DavidJames]

Originally posted by SRW
Kerry did say something specific happened, do you have any one who will back up Kerry? That he has specific orders to fire on villages? He said it I provided testimony that this practice was not policy as Kerry claimed. Where are the orders, the instructions he received to fire on villages. If it was a crime where is his report to his superiors? Please provide me with this evidence that he is telling the truth. I never made any claims that Kerry was telling the truth. I never said I believed Kerry. I don't know what happened, do you? You claimed he was lying so you need to back your claims. If you are unable to provide evidence, just say so, but don't try and wiggle out by trying to twist this around.

[SRW]

Originally posted by DavidJames
I never made any claims that Kerry was telling the truth. I never said I believed Kerry. I don't know what happened, do you? You claimed he was lying so you need to back your claims. If you are unable to provide evidence, just say so, but don't try and wiggle out by trying to twist this around.

I did provide evidence which you rejected out of hand. If you do not believe the testimony of others that he is lying then I guess you are just willing to believe anything his says.

Prove my sources wrong or prove Kerry is telling the truth. In other words tell me why you are supporting this man who
lies?

Just as Nova Land is unable to produce Kerry's apology I guess you are unable to show his truthfulness.

Why is it that no one who supports Kerry is willing to support him? It's attack Bush and bob and weave any direct questions on Kerry. This speaks volumes.

[crimresearch]

"...The insertion of Jane Fonda is yours, not mine. Like anyone else, Jane Fonda would be a good source for things she is knowledgeable about and a poor source for things she is not knowledgeable about

Ahhh, my bad..when this thread started by mentioning Jane Fonda in the title, and quoted her as saying no Americans held as POWs were tortured, and defended her veracity, I must have somehow hallucinated that someone else did that...
:rolleyes:

[SRW]

Originally posted by varwoche
This slimeball has also been discredited. Read the blather above, then this: article (http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may04/227671.asp?format=print)
So how does this discredit him? A commanded usually gets his info on his personal second hand.

Do you consider all veterans slime balls or only he ones who dislike Kerry?

What evidence do you have that this person is not telling the truth about Kerry?

Would you call someone giving political aid to the enemy while solders are fighting a war a Slime ball?

As a veteran I really want to know why I should vote for Kerry.

[SRW]

Originally posted by varwoche
Disregard George Elliott -- he's a documented liar (http://www.skepticalcommunity.mu.nu/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2203&sid=de32a4ec4b4116263a8ee12af8940632).

Oh by all means disregard anyone who has ever told a lie. So that takes all politicians out of the running who is left?

Kerry Lied about being in Cambodia so we can now disregard any other statements he has ever made. Good Point.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW
I did provide evidence which you rejected out of hand. If I may interject... I provided evidence that two of the people you cited are discredited liars.

(No stand taken on original points of contention.)

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW So how does this discredit him? A commanded usually gets his info on his personal second hand. Hmm. Which 2nd hand account? Perhaps the account of the person presumably most qualified to evaluate Kerry -- George Elliott -- Kerry's direct superior and Hoffman's direct subordinate. Emphasis added. In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed. He constantly reviewed tactics and lessons learned in river operations and applied his experience at every opportunity. On one occasion while in tactical command of a three boat operation his units were taken under fire from ambush. LTJG Kerry rapidly assessed the situation and ordered his units to turn directly into the ambush. This decision resulted in routing the attackers with several enemy KIA.

LTJG Kerry emerges as the acknowledged leader in his peer group. His bearing and appearance are above reproach. He has of his own volition learned the Vietnamese language and is instrumental in the successful Vietnamese training program.
Do you consider all veterans slime balls or only he ones who dislike Kerry? Wow, that's pithy. Just the liars. And you too I suppose, seeing as that's where you seem to want to take the conversation and I hate to dissappoint.
As a veteran I really want to know why I should vote for Kerry. Because he wasn't DUI? (I'm just trying to talk your language; Bush's DUI is irrelevent so far as I'm concerned.)

[Nova Land]

Before responding directly to some of the posts that have accumulated, I'd like to post links to a couple of relevant stories

According to Salon (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/12/blade/), The Toledo Blade did a (Pulitzer Prize-winning) series of stories last year detailing an investigation of war crimes in Vietnam. I'm curious how many people posting in this thread were aware of this story? I wasn't.

[NOTE: You will need either to be a subscriber to Salon, or to watch an ad, in order to read the full story at the link. I recommend doing so.](Nov. 12, 2003) | The Vietnam War was full of dark chapters, but last month the Toledo Blade uncovered one of the bleakest. The family-owned newspaper published a four-part series detailing how, in 1967, an elite Army paratrooper unit named Tiger Force went on a seven-month killing spree in South Vietnam, targeting unarmed farmers, women and children. The paper also uncovered for the first time that a secret four-year Army investigation had concluded that 18 members of Tiger Force had committed war crimes, but no charges were ever brought. Instead, the investigation was simply filed away in 1975, during Donald Rumsfeld's first run as secretary of defense.

The series, "Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths," stands as a sterling piece of investigative journalism... Yet, to date, the remarkable effort has received relatively little pickup in the mainstream American press...

Some major metro dailies, such as the Miami Herald, Boston Globe and Washington Post, have run truncated wire stories about the Tiger Force series...

Noticeably absent, though, has been the New York Times, which, according to an electronic search, has never even referenced the Blade series or its historic findings in its print pages.(I hope those here who are concerned with media bias will add the ignoring of this story to their list of examples. While the stories of the Tiger Cages and other war crimes committed during the war by our side (i.e. the side on which the US and the South Vietnamese fought) received sufficient coverage that Mona really should recall it, I can't blame her or the others here who profess ignorance of these atrocities for being unaware of the Tiger Force war crimes. The story the Blade cataloged over four days and 15 pages in October is a gruesome one. It detailed the deadly 1967 rampage of Tiger Force. Trained to spy on and ambush the enemy in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, members instead torched villages, executed prisoners, and slaughtered hundreds of unarmed civilians.

As their commanders turned a blind eye, Tiger Force troops dropped grenades into underground bunkers where women and children were hiding, creating mass graves. They shot unarmed civilians who often begged for their lives. They tortured and shot prisoners, severing ears and scalps for souvenirs.

In a interview with the newspaper, a former Tiger Force sergeant recalled the mind-set: "We were living day to day. We didn't expect to live. Nobody out there with any brains expected to live. So you did any goddamn thing you felt like doing -- especially to stay alive. The way to live is to kill because you don't have to worry about anybody who's dead."

Eventually the Army investigated the platoon, and concluded that 18 members of Tiger Force had committed war crimes, including murder and assault. In the early and mid-'70s, the case reached the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Nixon and Ford administrations. But in the end, no one was prosecuted and the case was buried in the archives for three decades. Until the Blade got a tip.

The newspaper spent eight months researching the story, going through thousands of Army documents, and traveling to California, Virginia and Washington state to track down Tiger Force members who recounted graphic killing tales. Blade reporters and photographers also traveled to South Vietnam to interview local eyewitnesses.

[Nova Land]

In the previous post, I quoted Salon's description of the Toledo Blade stories. Here is a page with links to 25 of the Toledo Blade stories related to the Tiger Force atrocities (http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRTIGERFORCE/).

I have not had time to read them all. I wasn't looking for stories about atrocities when I found this. I'll post what I was looking for farther down this thread. First, though, here is a passage of interest from February 29, 2004.

"Yes, there were atrocities. No one is disputing that." (http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040229/SRTIGERFORCE/102290004) Just one day after the end of the Winter Soldier Hearings, on a Kentucky army base, a sergeant told Army investigators about a rumor of a member of an elite paratrooper unit who had beheaded a Vietnamese baby four years earlier. That statement would launch the longest war crimes investigation of the Vietnam War, substantiate the longest-known series of atrocities by a battle unit in Vietnam, and lead to a case that would be concealed from the public for 36 years.

The case was revealed in an October series in The Blade - Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths - which documented how an Army platoon called Tiger Force went on a seven-month rampage in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1967, killing scores of unarmed men, women, and children.

In response to the revelations about Tiger Force war crimes, the man who helped create the unit, retired Col. David Hackworth, told the New York Times late last year that "Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go." The decorated veteran of Korea and Vietnam, best-selling author, and controversial columnist told the newspaper that "there were hundreds of My Lais."

That opinion is sharply contested by retired Col. William Eckhardt, who prosecuted Lt. William Calley for his part in the My Lai Massacre in 1968. "Yes, there were atrocities. No one is disputing that," Dr. Eckhardt said. "But the vast majority of men in Vietnam knew the difference between civilians and enemy soldiers."

In fact, according to interviews and records the majority of soldiers at My Lai refused to take part in the slaughter of more than 500 villagers.

What little numbers are available suggest a small percentage of soldiers were known to have committed war crimes. The Army - the branch with the most troops in Vietnam - launched 242 war crimes investigations, substantiating a third of the charges, according to records in the National Archives. It led to 21 convictions of charges ranging from beating prisoners to murdering civilians.

Then there are the unreported war crimes. Just how many is anybody’s guess.

"It really depends on who you talk to," said Steve Maxner, the associate director of the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University. "There are some people who strongly believe that atrocities were committed, if not on a daily basis, then it might as well have been. And there are others who believe Americans conducted themselves in a dignified way."

George Herring has studied the Vietnam War for years, but the University of Kentucky history professor has no easy answers either. For sure, most troops were far from combat. At least four-fifths of U.S. troops in Vietnam served as support troops, and even some of the combat troops served in areas of South Vietnam where ethnic groups were allies of U.S. forces, or where the fighting between U.S. troops and communist forces followed more traditional battlefield rules. But the odds were significantly higher for those combat troops who served in civilian areas with a heavy Viet Cong presence.

U.S. troops often went on "search and destroy" missions - such as the Tiger Force in the northern provinces and the Swifts in the southern delta - where they frequently had to endure booby traps and ambushes, and where their commanders instituted free-fire zones to try to clear areas of the "enemy." It was guerrilla warfare, and atrocities followed. "Guerrilla warfare lends itself to this sort of thing," Dr. Herring said. But, that said, he’s still not sure just how widespread atrocities were.I think that's fairly clear. But I'll spell it out anyway: The fact that there were atrocities and war crimes committed by our side of the Vietnam conflict is not in dispute. Nor is it in serious dispute that these were widespread. The only question serious historians have is exactly how widespread.

Kerry and the Winter Soldier hearings helped bring attention to the fact that these crimes were being committed -- something the US public vehemently did not want to believe. In a different thread I linked to information about William Calley -- the only person, as I recall, convicted in connection with My Lai, and he was let off (LET OFF!) after serving some time under house arrest.

Some of you seem to feel that Kerry overstated the extent of war crimes in which our side was complicit. My reading of the transcript does not lead me to agree.

Kerry's main sin, in my opinion, was to use the inflammatory term war crimes injudiciously. Technically, he was correct to use it. Actions were being done by people on our side, which were crimes. The problem is that throwing around the term "war crimes" lumps together the atrocities that term brings to mind (lets call them war felonies) such as My Lai, with the lesser offenses (lets call them war misdemeanors). Kerry used an attention-grabbing and inflammatory way of getting the point across that our side was doing bad things -- which is what people often do when they feel their cause is sufficiently urgent. (There are even people on this forum who occasionally use that kind of overblown rhetoric, and this is just a discussion forum.)

In order to consider Kerry's words dishonest, one needs to use a very different standard than is being used to judge the honesty of other people whose words have been called into question (such as, to give recent examples, George Bush and Dick Cheney). Just as Bush's carefully chosen words in certain statements were literally true, so were Kerry's. Bush's words were deceptive; Kerry's were insensitive.

Kerry used the kind of rhetoric which has become common among some right-wing pundits today, and which was common among many (on both sides of the war issue) back in the '60s, but which many of us (then and now) consider over-the-top. Kerry came to realize that, and he has apologized for it.

Which is the point I was looking for when I stumbled across the Blade stories. More on that next post.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by SRW

Just as Nova Land is unable to produce Kerry's apology...If you will note the time stamp on this post, it is close to 6:00 a.m. (Central Time, which is where I live.) I have limited daytime on-line access; the time when I am most able to post (and Google) is 11 PM to 7 AM. Every so often, I like to sleep, so it is often a day or two (or longer!) before I have time to get back to something here.

Which I think is good. Skepticism is helped by careful consideration (of what others have said and what one is saying) more than rushed immediacy. I'm as much into immediate gratification as the next person, but patience is not necessarily a vice.

I did not have links or photocopies at hand when I first brought up that Kerry had apologized because I didn't realize anyone was unaware of that. I now see that the web is filled with blogs and anti-Kerry sites making that claim (that Kerry never apologized) -- so many, in fact, that it complicated finding sites to back up my memory.

Let me quote myself, from earlier in this thread, before going farther, to refresh people's memory:Jane Fonda apologized for her insensitivity and poor choice of words. I don't believe she has apologized for bringing public attention to US misdeeds in Vietnam. At least I hope not, because she was right to do so. But she was wrong in some of the inflammatory and overwrought ways she expressed herself -- just as Ann Coulter and many others of her ilk are today.

John Kerry, likewise, apologized for the way in which he expressed his opposition to the war in the early 1970s. He, too, used inflammatory and overwrought rhetoric at times to make his point and many years ago admitted this was a mistake. I am surprised you were not aware of this. I'm pretty sure it dates back at least to the 1980s. If you like, I can try to look it up for you.My recollection is that Kerry lost the first time he ran for public office, learned a lesson from that, and the next time he ran for office was careful to make an apology for the language he had used in 1971. I'm not sure if that was in his 1982 run or his 1984 run. That, I am not able to locate on-line, so it will have to wait until I can get to a library that has Massachusetts papers on microfilm.

However, one reason I was so confident about his having apologized is because I've heard him do it several times this year. That's why I was so astonished that anyone was seriously doubting he had apologized. I assumed that once I jogged your memory you'd recollect it yourself. Obviously not.

I suspect the reason you haven't heard his apology is because -- even though I expressed clearly that the apology he made is for the way he expressed his point, not for the point itself -- you are listening for a different apology. Not hearing it, the ones he has made may be flying by you unnoted.

Here are some comments he made in the course of being interviewed by the Toledo Blade in the February 29 2004 story I already linked to. (http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040229/SRTIGERFORCE/102290004)Senator Kerry said last week that he never meant to blame the soldiers. "I have stood up and consistently defended the soldiers as innocent victims of civilian policy at higher levels," he told The Blade.

He has few regrets over what he said in 1971. "I think that occasionally there was language that might have been a little hot here and there," he said. "But by and large, the facts I laid out and the basic criticism of the war has been documented by countless people."That may be too subtle for some people to see. Likewise, this one [a Knight-Ritter story from March 7, 2004 -- here's a link to the Miami Herald (http://www.philly.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8125721.htm), though you may need to register to read it] -- probably isn't explicit enough:Kerry ... has defended his antiwar activities by saying he was indicting American leaders, not soldiers.

... Like many other Vietnam veterans, Kerry spoke more in anguish than in anger. Many grew disillusioned and angry because, as Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, "they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn't really care, that doesn't really care.''

Kerry's opponents highlight the beginning of his testimony, when he gave details of the VVAW's Winter Soldier investigation ... where 150 veterans discussed atrocities they said they had committed or witnessed in Vietnam.

''They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war,'' Kerry testified.

Those words are at the heart of the outrage that many veterans feel toward Kerry, even though it's clear in the testimony that Kerry is relaying what other veterans said they had done and seen.

Kerry stands by what he heard in Detroit, calling it ''highly documented and very disturbing''... ''I did in my heart what I thought was correct to help people understand what was going on,'' Kerry said. "I honor completely everybody's service. I always honored the service of people over there. I never insinuated that everybody fell into one pot. I was looking forward to telling the truth about some of the things that were happening.''

Kerry's Senate testimony -- and much of his antiwar focus -- was directed at leaders he said had ''deserted their troops'' and at the treatment of returning veterans.After Kerry got the nomination, however, he began saying this more often and more explicitly. Here is a transcript of his April 18 Meet The Press appearance (courtesy of a blogger at CivicDialogues.org) (http://civicdialogues.org/comments.php?id=825_0_1_0_C) SEN. KERRY: ... You know, I thought a lot, for a long time, about that period of time, the things we said, and I think the word [atrocities] is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. I mean, if you wanted to ask me have you ever made mistakes in your life, sure. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive.

... It was, I think, a reflection of the kind of times we found ourselves in and I don't like it when I hear it today. I don't like it, but I want you to notice that at the end, I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame, and my great regret is, I hope no soldier--I mean, I think some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that, because I love them. But the words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top. And I think that there were breaches of the Geneva Conventions. There were policies in place that were not acceptable according to the laws of warfare, and everybody knows that. I mean, books have chronicled that, so I'm not going to walk away from that. But I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, when you testified before the Senate, you talked about some of the hearings you had observed at the winter soldiers meeting and you said that people had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and on and on. A lot of those stories have been discredited, and in hindsight was your testimony...

SEN. KERRY: Actually, a lot of them have been documented.

MR. RUSSERT: So you stand by that?

SEN. KERRY: A lot of those stories have been documented. Have some been discredited? Sure, they have, Tim. The problem is that's not where the focus should have been. And, you know, when you're angry about something and you're young, you know, you're perfectly capable of not--I mean, if I had the kind of experience and time behind me that I have today, I'd have framed some of that differently. Needless to say, I'm proud that I stood up. I don't want anybody to think twice about it. I'm proud that I took the position that I took to oppose it. I think we saved lives, and I'm proud that I stood up at a time when it was important to stand up, but I'm not going to quibble, you know, 35 years later that I might not have phrased things more artfully at times.Kerry (like me) sometimes uses more words than people can handle, but that looks to me like a pretty clear apology for the way he expressed himself. Let me excerpt it out to make it easier for people to quote in response:

I think the word [atrocities] is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. [I made a mistake in how I expressed myself]. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive... I don't like it when I hear it today.

I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame... Some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that.

The words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top...

I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way.

If I had the kind of experience and time behind me that I have today, I'd have framed some of that differently.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by crimresearch

Ahhh, my bad..when this thread started by mentioning Jane Fonda in the title, and quoted her as saying no Americans held as POWs were tortured, and defended her veracity, I must have somehow hallucinated that someone else did that... Jane Fonda is the subject of this thread (or, more exactly, the false stories that have proliferated about her over the years are the subject.)

Jane Fonda is discussed, and some of her words quoted, in the course of discussing those stories. I did not, however, use Fonda as a source in discussing these stories.

If you read my posts, you will notice that sources I refer to to support my points are John Hubbell, Douglas Valentine, and Frederick Kiley. These are the sources you need to refute, discredit, or show do not support what I have asserted, if you disagree with my assertions.

[SRW]

Originally posted by varwoche

Wow, that's pithy. Just the liars. And you too I suppose, seeing as that's where you seem to want to take the conversation and I hate to dissappoint.



Who was the first to coin the term "Slime ball" in this thread? And now you want to attack me personally I gather for stealing your pithy phrase. So I have my answer anyone who does not see the world from your prospective is a slime ball.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW
Who was the first to coin the term "Slime ball" in this thread? And now you want to attack me personally I gather for stealing your pithy phrase. So I have my answer anyone who does not see the world from your prospective is a slime ball. Give it a rest SRW. My "insult" was a sarcastic reply to a moronic and insulting question that you posed to me, so cut the obviscation.

There's a certain attraction that dolts have to flagposts that never ceases to amaze. (This time you would be correct; this is an insult.)

[csense]

Originally posted by Nova Land

Some of you seem to feel that Kerry overstated the extent of war crimes in which our side was complicit.


Some of us feel that Kerry went before the Senate with fabricated and exagerated testimony. You however could clear that up by providing documented evidence that any of the specific so called atrocities witnessed by these vets at Winter Soldier were true.

After all, even Kerry says, as per your link that "a lot of them have been documented"

So, document them for me.

Take your time, I'll be here reading.

[SRW]

Originally posted by varwoche
Give it a rest SRW. My "insult" was a sarcastic reply to a moronic and insulting question that you posed to me, so cut the obviscation.

There's a certain attraction that dolts have to flagposts that never ceases to amaze. (This time you would be correct; this is an insult.)

You must be a scream at parties, such sardonic wit. Next time you run across a veteran be sure to call him a lying slime ball and have good laugh together. Really, we all appreciate it, go your local VFW and try it out.

[SRW]

Originally posted by Nova Land
If you will note the time stamp on this post, it is close to 6:00 a.m. (Central Time, which is where I live.) I have limited daytime on-line access; the time when I am most able to post (and Google) is 11 PM to 7 AM. Every so often, I like to sleep, so it is often a day or two (or longer!) before I have time to get back to something here.

Which I think is good. Skepticism is helped by careful consideration (of what others have said and what one is saying) more than rushed immediacy. I'm as much into immediate gratification as the next person, but patience is not necessarily a vice.

I did not have links or photocopies at hand when I first brought up that Kerry had apologized because I didn't realize anyone was unaware of that. I now see that the web is filled with blogs and anti-Kerry sites making that claim (that Kerry never apologized) -- so many, in fact, that it complicated finding sites to back up my memory.

Let me quote myself, from earlier in this thread, before going farther, to refresh people's memory:My recollection is that Kerry lost the first time he ran for public office, learned a lesson from that, and the next time he ran for office was careful to make an apology for the language he had used in 1971. I'm not sure if that was in his 1982 run or his 1984 run. That, I am not able to locate on-line, so it will have to wait until I can get to a library that has Massachusetts papers on microfilm.

However, one reason I was so confident about his having apologized is because I've heard him do it several times this year. That's why I was so astonished that anyone was seriously doubting he had apologized. I assumed that once I jogged your memory you'd recollect it yourself. Obviously not.

I suspect the reason you haven't heard his apology is because -- even though I expressed clearly that the apology he made is for the way he expressed his point, not for the point itself -- you are listening for a different apology. Not hearing it, the ones he has made may be flying by you unnoted.

Here are some comments he made in the course of being interviewed by the Toledo Blade in the February 29 2004 story I already linked to. (http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040229/SRTIGERFORCE/102290004)That may be too subtle for some people to see. Likewise, this one [a Knight-Ritter story from March 7, 2004 -- here's a link to the Miami Herald (http://www.philly.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8125721.htm), though you may need to register to read it] -- probably isn't explicit enough:After Kerry got the nomination, however, he began saying this more often and more explicitly. Here is a transcript of his April 18 Meet The Press appearance (courtesy of a blogger at CivicDialogues.org) (http://civicdialogues.org/comments.php?id=825_0_1_0_C)Kerry (like me) sometimes uses more words than people can handle, but that looks to me like a pretty clear apology for the way he expressed himself. Let me excerpt it out to make it easier for people to quote in response:

I think the word [atrocities] is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. [I made a mistake in how I expressed myself]. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive... I don't like it when I hear it today.

I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame... Some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that.

The words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top...

I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way.

If I had the kind of experience and time behind me that I have today, I'd have framed some of that differently.

I did happen to see that specific exchange on Meet the Press, which you quote. And as far as apologies go, it is pretty weak. I know Kerry likes to say 1000 words then only two or three are needed, however no matter how you parse that I do not see how it would satisfy anyone who disagreed with his stance.

If you read or listen to his testify or speeches at the time he casts a large net, that catches just about everyone who served in that war.

Why he could simply not state: I apologize to any soldier who served honorably, for possibly causing you to be treated unfairly as a war criminal.

You may also note that he never admits that any of the Winter Soldier testimony is incorrect, only that some of is has been verified. But does he apologize for making false statements to Congress? Nope, not by a long shot.

[Nova Land]

I will be away from the forum today (and may sleep rather than post tonight). An opportunity has come to go into Cookeville without having to bicycle in (it's a 3 hour ride), so I'm hoping to drop by Tech and see if they have the Hubbell, Kiley, and Valentine books, as well as a few other things I'm curious to check.

Meanwhile, here is some additional evidence supporting my assertion that while the North Vietnamese routinely tortured US POWs prior to 1969, they had stopped this in late 1969 -- 3 years before Fonda's visit.
From Hardball with Chris Matthews, September 9 2004 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5962170)

JIM WARNER, FORMER PRISONER OF WAR: Nobody had been tortured, to my knowledge, since September of ‘69, when Ho Chi Minh died. Warner is one of the people involved in the SwiftBoat efforts to smear Kerry. He claims that while he was a POW the North Vietnamese showed him a transcript of Kerry's testimony and tried to use it against him in interrogations. (It seems he is mistaken in that claim. He is the only POW to claim this happened, and numerous others, including including men imprisoned with him, deny any such thing ever happened.)

Jim Warner appears to be someone who hates John Kerry so much he is willing to invent an incident that never happened in order to attack him. He is clearly not some anti-war vet trying to paint a picture of North Vietnam as nicer than they were. Yet even Warner testifies that after 1969 the torture had stopped.

And, from the same Hardball transcript, here is the testimony of another former POW. Note that while he was imprisoned from 1965 to 1973, the years during which he was tortured were 1965 to 1969.
PHIL BUTLER, FORMER PRISONER OF WAR: I was captured on April the 20th of 1965 and released on February the 12th of 1973, just a little short of eight years. I‘m the eighth longest-held prisoner of war in Vietnam. And I was in Camp Unity, which was the camp that was mentioned earlier, I think, after the San The raid, from November the 20th of 1970 to May the 25th of 1972. During that time, I lived in room 2 of that camp with Ken Cordier. And next to me in room 3 were Paul Galante and Jim Warner for a while, and also, Bud Day and Robert Shoemaker were in room seven of that camp.

And I can assure you that in Camp Unity—there were several hundred of us there—during all that time period, from 1970 up through May of 1972, we absolutely never heard of John Kerry. And if John Kerry‘s name was used or mentioned in other camps, I can assure you that, certainly, in my opinion, John Kerry has absolutely no connection whatsoever either with anybody being tortured or with prolonging the war in any way, shape or form.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you generically, Phil, did you ever experience as a POW the kind of threats that Mr. Warner suffered, where they said to you, We‘re going to try some of you guys after this war is over, we‘re going to execute some of you guys after this war, and then show that kind of material, show that kind of propaganda, which for them was propaganda, testimony from Jane Fonda or anybody in the anti-war movement? Was anything like that ever done to you?

BUTLER: No. They never really used anybody in the anti-war movement to torture me. I was tortured numerous times between 1965 and 1969, for which I received Purple Hearts and—real Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars, and so on and so forth...

MATTHEWS: From the other POWs, sir, did you ever hear stories of them being told that testimony by people like John Kerry back home was threatening them or could be used against them in future war criminal trials?

BUTLER: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I did not know the name John Kerry until quite a while after I came home.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by SRW
I did happen to see that specific exchange on Meet the Press, which you quote. And as far as apologies go, it is pretty weak. I know Kerry likes to say 1000 words then only two or three are needed, however no matter how you parse that I do not see how it would satisfy anyone who disagreed with his stance.

If you read or listen to his testify or speeches at the time he casts a large net, that catches just about everyone who served in that war.

Why he could simply not state: I apologize to any soldier who served honorably, for possibly causing you to be treated unfairly as a war criminal.

You may also note that he never admits that any of the Winter Soldier testimony is incorrect, only that some of is has been verified. But does he apologize for making false statements to Congress? Nope, not by a long shot.

Once again, a part of the testimony was about the general slaughter of the Vietnamese people, which is part of the reason there was a large anti-war movement. To an extent, evey American fighting in Vietnam was guilty. They may not have wanted to be there, they may have been obeying lawful orders, but they were guilty. Part of this was, of course, a guilt equally shared by the people of the USA, and it's allies, and I include Australia in this, of course. However, it was the people like Kerry who saw first hand what was happening. Hence his activism to try to stop it.

The guilt, in general, however, comes from the top down. The whole idea that all you had to do was go in and kill enough Vietnamese to win a war was barbaric.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW
You must be a scream at parties, such sardonic wit. Thank you.

Back to the issue: It seems you are unappreciative that it was pointed out that two of your sources have been thoroughly discredited. Elliott and Hoffman are tangential to this thread, so I won't press their (considerable) slimeball-edness further, however you are certainly welcome to dispute the evidence I provided.

Or continue with your chest thumping routine. Your embarassing display, though intellectually challenged, may provide amusement for some.

[Mona]

Originally posted by varwoche
Disregard George Elliott -- he's a documented liar (http://www.skepticalcommunity.mu.nu/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2203&sid=de32a4ec4b4116263a8ee12af8940632).

Elliott is no liar. He was traduced byThe Boston Globe, which inaccurately claimed a backtrack by him, just as they did weeks later re: a forensic type expert they grossly misquoted to make it appear he was supporting Dan Rather's silly fabricated memos. The doc examiner made an online fuss and forced a partial retraction. Elliott continues to insist they lied about him, too, but has no power to compel a correction.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by Mona
Elliott is no liar. He was traduced byThe Boston Globe, which inaccurately claimed a backtrack by him, just as they did weeks later re: a forensic type expert they grossly misquoted to make it appear he was supporting Dan Rather's silly fabricated memos. The doc examiner made an online fuss and forced a partial retraction. Elliott continues to insist they lied about him, too, but has no power to compel a correction. So when Elliott spoke publicly in support of Kerry for senate, was he lying when he said that Kerry rocks? Kerry is fit for senate, but not fit for the presidency? Because he scammed medals? Did Elliott learn about the medal-scamming only recently? Which statements of Elliott's are we to take seriously? Maybe this one... I have no direct knowledge.
And by the way, what system of fair play is in effect when any and all damning facts are dismissed out of hand as lies? The press is lying! And how do you know? Because Elliott said so?

I'm very interested in any evidence you have that the Globe is wrong and that Elliott is right, other than Elliott's tortured word.

[SRW]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Once again, a part of the testimony was about the general slaughter of the Vietnamese people, which is part of the reason there was a large anti-war movement. To an extent, evey American fighting in Vietnam was guilty. They may not have wanted to be there, they may have been obeying lawful orders, but they were guilty. Part of this was, of course, a guilt equally shared by the people of the USA, and it's allies, and I include Australia in this, of course. However, it was the people like Kerry who saw first hand what was happening. Hence his activism to try to stop it.

The guilt, in general, however, comes from the top down. The whole idea that all you had to do was go in and kill enough Vietnamese to win a war was barbaric.

Although I agree that the war in Vietnam was a huge mistake on the part of the politicians who sent us , I do not see how that makes the Grunt on the ground "guilty". With out a doubt there were atrocities committed. War is an atrocious endeavor.

I have a neighbor who is a Vietnamese refuge, He feels that John Kerry betrayed him and his people. At the time Kerry and his band were attempting to end the war, the US was in the process of training the ARVIN to protect them selves, as the US military was pulling out. As a result of this the US pulled out prematurely allowing the South Vietnamies be slaughtered. That is what he believe and he was their. He has told me of plenty of atrocities committed by the North but says he never saw any committed by the US, that does not mean there were none just that he did not see any.

Wars are barbaric and both sides attempt to kill as many of the enemy as possible.

[SRW]

Originally posted by varwoche
Thank you.

Back to the issue: It seems you are unappreciative that it was pointed out that two of your sources have been thoroughly discredited. Elliott and Hoffman are tangential to this thread, so I won't press their (considerable) slimeball-edness further, however you are certainly welcome to dispute the evidence I provided.

Or continue with your chest thumping routine. Your embarassing display, though intellectually challenged, may provide amusement for some.

Your evidence has been previously refuted and regardles it has nothing to do with point I was making. If fact if your evidence is true it provides additonal evidence that Kerry is not to be trusted. It is after all well documented that he lied about his presence in Cambodia. If you discount Elliott and Hoffman for "lies" then you must do the same with Kerry.


Regardless, your insistence on making personal attacks only reflects poorly on you, and give me no incentive to continue any discourse with you as you apparently cannot be civil.

[Nova Land]

My trip to the library was moderately successful. Tech did not have the Hubbell book, so I'll have to wait on that until my next opportunity to pass through Knoxville. But they did have Valentine's Phoenix Program, Rochester's and Kiley's Honor Bound, and several others of interest, including

Voices From Captivity (http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/doyvoi.html)

and Captive Warriors (http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/1998/johnson.htm).

Time being limited, I did not have time to read any of these in its entirety, but I read large portions and made photocopies from which I will be typing up extracts to post later today.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by SRW
Your evidence has been previously refuted and regardles it has nothing to do with point I was making. If fact if your evidence is true it provides additonal evidence that Kerry is not to be trusted. It is after all well documented that he lied about his presence in Cambodia. If you discount Elliott and Hoffman for "lies" then you must do the same with Kerry.

Regardless, your insistence on making personal attacks only reflects poorly on you, and give me no incentive to continue any discourse with you as you apparently cannot be civil. Pardon me SRW but I'd like to correct the record.

1) The evidence has not been sucessfully refuted to my knowledge. True however, the evidence that Elliott is a liar is tangential to your argument. Still, it seemed worth noting.

2) As to me making personal attacks: What kind of rank hypocrite are you? I am (usually) exceedingly civil in the face of civility. I do dish back however. Make no mistake, my "insults" were reserved for public figures until you posted this insulting, intellectually dishonest question:
Do you consider all veterans slime balls or only he ones who dislike Kerry?

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Nova Land

... I will be typing up extracts to post later today. Apologies for my delay in getting back to this thread. I am a slow typist, especially when cats are sitting between me and the keyboard or me and the monitor (as they are wont to do). I have finished typing up notes and selected passages from Captive Warriors, Voices From Captivity, and The Phoenix Program, but still have notes and passages from Honor Bound to go. (I copied about 70 pages from these books, and 40 are from Honor Bound, so I still have a ways to go before I am ready to write up posts. What I should have written is: "I will be typing up extracts today to post later", but at the time I thought I would get done typing up extracts and be posting about them that evening. Ah, the optimism of <s>youth</s> maturity.)

A lot of this stuff is fascinating, so I am typing up a lot more then will be needed in this thread (to have for future reference). I will try to keep the amount I post into this thread down, so that people actually can read and follow it.

What I post on POWs will come mainly from sources that are hostile to the anti-war movement. There are several reasons for that. One is that a key question I am looking at is whether US POWs were tortured at the time Fonda visited, and I consider the best source of evidence on that question to be the POWs themselves in their first-person accounts of their treatment during captivity. They were there; they know what happened; and, fortunately for us, they wrote it down in numerous books soon after their repatriation. While I frequently disagree with the opinions expressed in these books, the facts in their narratives dealing with what happened to them during their captivity (and when) seem clear and consistent.

There are POWs who were sympathetic to the anti-war movement, but I see no need to quote from them on this question, since those who question my assertion regarding torture will probably find the words of those who disliked the anti-war movement more convincing than the words of those who were sympathetic to it. I do hope to look up and quote from some of the POW books sympathetic to the anti-war movement when I turn my attention to questions about the Winter Soldier hearings, but right now I am interested in the lies about Jane Fonda (which are the topic of this thread) more than the lies about John Kerry (which, while slightly off-topic, are of interest because they are closely related, and this is as good a place as any to discuss them. I'll turn my attention back to them once I get this material on the Jane Fonda questions posted).

[Nova Land]

Since it's been a while since I last was able to post here, let me start with a recap.

The main thing I'm interested in with this thread is the false stories that have been spread about Jane Fonda. That has led to several questions, some of which relate directly to Jane Fonda, some of which relate to the Vietnam War generally, and some of which relate to John Kerry.

1. Were any POWs tortured in order to make them meet with Jane Fonda?

2. Were US POWs being tortured at the time Jane Fonda met with prisoners in 1972? In the preceding year, or the year before that?

3. How accurate was Fonda's account of the conditions of US POWs at the time of her visit? Specifically:
(a) Had the prisoners she did meet with been tortured or brain-washed (and she was too blind to see it, or didn't want to see it)?
(b) Were the prisoners she did not meet with being tortured and brain-washed (and she was fooled by the display prisoners that the North Vietnamese trotted out)?

4. Was Fonda's correct in her charge that Vietcong and North Vietnamese prisoners were being tortured by our side?

5. Which of her other major remarks related to the Vietnam war and/or the treatment of POWs were correct and which were incorrect? (Yes, that's a pretty broad catch-all. We can sub-divide it if necessary.)

6. Was John Kerry's testimony to Congress truthful?

7. Was the testimony at the Winter Soldier hearings, on which Kerry's testimony was based, truthful? Specifically:
(a) Were the people who testified genuine vets?
(b) What allegations did they make? Were these correct, and have they been documented?

8. Was Kerry's testimony used against the POWs in Vietnam? DId it cause harm them to be tortured or otherwise abused? Has this haunted some of them for decades?

9. Did Kerry apologize for any harm caused by his testimony to Congress? Was it a real apology?

I hope that is a clear and fair restatement of the major points of contention in this thread. I'm going to focus mainly on the Jane Fonda questions for now, but I will (eventually) get to the Kerry ones as well. (It will be a while until I get to the Kerry / Winter Soldier questions, though, since I'll be away, with minimal computer access, from November 10 to 30. But I think some of these things are being argued in other threads so there's no need to rush in getting to them in this thread. There's not much point arguing the same thing in multiple threads at once.)

I'll end this post here, so as not to clutter the list up with too other points. That should make it easier for people to quote and quibble with the list of questions, in case I've let out some key question, and should make it easier to refer back to this list later.

[Nova Land]

I'd like to say a few words about the sources I'll be using.

(NOTE: This post is a rehash of some pretty basic Skepticism 101 stuff. Most of you probably already know this stuff by heart, and may prefer to skip down a post or two. But it's good to keep in mind that some of the visitors browsing these threads -- and even occasional participants -- may not be familiar with the skeptical principles we take for granted. I think it's useful every so often to review basic skeptical principles in these threads, for the benefit of new people and visitors, and this seems like a fitting thread to do that in. So skip ahead if you like. I'll catch up with you in a few minutes.)

One reason an unjustified belief in the paranormal is so rampant in modern society is that many people do not adhere to skeptical standards of evidence. If someone asserts something boldly enough, or if something gets repeated often enough, some people believe there must be something to it. Hence there are many people who believe claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, or the healing power of crystals, or the mystical properties of pyramids, simply because they've heard claims about these things repeated over and over. This happens unfortunately often in the realm of politics as well. The phony Jane Fonda stories which are the subject of this thread are a good example of this -- as is the phony John Kerry story which Luke contributed near the bottom of page 1 of this thread. In brief, this happens because people repeat as true a thing they've been told by someone else who's repeating what they've been told, by someone else who's repeating what they've been told...

Just because certain assertions are widely circulated is not a reason to give them credence. With skeptics, it's not how loudly something is asserted, nor how often an assertion is repeated, nor even how entertainingly something is asserted, that gives it weight. If a statement has no weight to begin with, then the fact it's repeated 100 times merely means it carries a weight of 100 x 0. Unless the person asserting something has some actual knowledge of the matter of which they speak, it's simply an interesting assertion. Skeptics look for sources where the person speaking (or writing) is not simply repeating what they've heard but is speaking from actual experience -- either people who were there for the events in question (i.e. primary sources), or people who obtained information directly from people who were there (i.e. secondary sources).

If one wants to provide evidence for something one has heard, it's not sufficient just to cite tertiary sources such as RandomBozo.com (to use Varwoche's nifty term for it). One might as well just cite oneself. "I've no actual knowledge of whether this is true, but I've heard it said," is at least honest. Quoting RandomBozo.com is simply a fancier way of saying it. "I've no actual knowledge of whether this is true and am just repeating what I've heard. To back me up, here is someone else who has no actual knowledge and is just repeating what they've heard."
People passing on what they heard at RandomBozo.com is how the phony Jane Fonda stories got spread in the first place.

This is not to say that tertiary sources are worthless. Skeptics often look at tertiary sources (weblogs, editorial columns, op-ed pieces, etc.) as part of our quest for information. These sources generally carry little or no weight on their own, but they can be useful for pointing us in the direction of the sources which lead them to the conclusions they've drawn. This can save a lot of time in figuring out where to look to confirm a claim. But unless and until we track the information in these tertiary sources back to a primary (or reputable secondary) source and confirm that the information in that source actually says what the tertiary source claims it does, all we have is speculation.

Experience is a good guide to which tertiary sources are usually reliable and track back to valid primary sources and which ones often don't. But even a generally reliable source can screw up, and even a generally unreliable one may get something right, so it's important -- if one is intrigued by a story in a tertiary source -- to track down the actual source of information before reaching too firm a conclusion or trying to sell others on one's conclusion. If people had done that with the phony Jane Fonda stories, these would not have gotten so widespread.

It's also important to keep in mind that just because a person is a credible source of information on a subject does not mean that their report of the facts on that subject is accurate. People often mis-observe; people often mis-remember; people often mis-speak; and people even sometimes willfully distort things. Therefore skeptics don't accept even primary sources blindly. We attempt to collect information from a variety of credible sources, and see if they are in substantial harmony. We expect some differences in the narratives, since each person is seeing the events from a slightly different vantage point, but if there are major discrepancies or contradictions that's a warning flag that at least one of the accounts is wrong and that caution is called for. In that case, we need to consider which accounts to give more weight to and which to give less weight to. How much weight each source carries depends on (a) how relevant their experience is to the matter at hand; (b) how reliable they seem as an observer of the thing they experienced; and (c) how reliable they are seem as a reporter of what they experienced.

One important thing to note is that skeptics generally try to obtain recitations of fact rather than statements of conclusion. The public at large often wants to cut to the chase and be told the conclusion; we want to be given the details that led the source to their conclusion, so that we can attempt to verify the details and so that we can see if the details lead us to the same conclusion.

The first few questions on the list I compiled (see previous post) have to do with the treatment of US POWs during the Vietnam War. In the case of whether POWs were tortured, the most obvious primary source of information would be accounts by the POWs of their experiences in captivity. Narratives of their daily experiences (especially ones written during captivity or shortly after release) should carry a good deal of weight, especially when several prisoners from the same camp have related separate accounts of their experiences which can be used to check each other.

There are many things these narratives would not be good primary sources for. For example, many of the POWs in the course of their narratives express their personal political opinions or their interpretations of historical matters. They have no special expertise on these things, and in several cases they got their facts demonstrably wrong. (I'll point a few of these out in a future post.) I'm not holding these guys up as experts on everything -- just as experts on the treatment they experienced while being held prisoner in North Vietnam.

In particular, one key question in this thread is what the treatment was of the POWs that Jane Fonda visited in 1972. In investigating that question, Jane Fonda would be a potentially useful source (since she saw the men) but not the best source, nor even a particularly good one (since she saw the men only briefly, and under controlled circumstances that allowed rather limited observation). The men she saw would, obviously, be much better sources of information about their own treatment. Furthermore, Jane Fonda would be a very poor source of information about the prisoners she did not meet with, for obvious reasons. Here, those prisoners would obviously be much better sources of information about the conditions of their captivity. That's why at no point in this thread have I tried to use Fonda herself as a source for evaluating her statements about the POWs.

The question could also come up (although no one has raised it specifically yet) about what Jane Fonda's motivations were for her various anti-war activities, what she was thinking and trying to accomplish. In that case the POW narratives would generally not be good sources, since most POWs never met her and the ones that did had very little contact with her. Just as she's not the best source for verifying what their condition was during the years of captivity, they're not the best source for fathoming her actions. (And political pundits who never met her, but hate her and know intuitively what she must have been thinking, would be extremely poor sources for anything other than entertainment.) The best sources would be people who knew her and worked with her, talked with her, spent time with her.

For each question a skeptic wrestles with, it's important to ponder, "Who would actually know something about this?" Rather than looking for sources that conform to our own ideological predilections, skeptics try to find the sources that are most likely to have useful knowledge on the matter at hand. For questions dealing with the treatment of POWs, I am drawing largely on sources whose personal and political opinions differ greatly from mine because I believe that these are the people most knowledgeable about these particular facts.

[Nova Land]

There are 3 books that I have mainly drawn from in regard to questions about the treatment of POWs: Voices From Captivity by Robert Doyle; Captive Warriors: A Vietnam POW's Story, by Sam Johnson with Jan Winebrenner; and Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick T. Kiley. There are several others I'd like to read when time and ability to get to a good library permit, especially John Hubbell's P.O.W: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973 (which I hope to look at when passing through Knoxville later this week.)

Voices From Captivity is a study of US POWs from the 1700s through modern times. While the book covers a lot of ground not related to Vietnam, the sections on Vietnam are well-done and provide a good overview.

Captive Warriors is much more personal, being Sam Johnson's account of his 8 years in captivity. Johnson was a hard-core anti-Communist before going to Vietnam, a hard-core resistor while imprisoned there, and has gone on to become a hard-core right-wing Congressman since returning to the US. While I disagree with his personal opinions on many things, I think he's written a good and honest account of what happened to him during his captivity.

Honor Bound is the longest (about 600 pages) and most thorough of these 3 books. The authors talked with a great many of the POWs and put together a narrative which covers the years of captivity in detail which integrates the many separate accounts such as Johnson's into a cohesive whole. This book has received a great deal of praise from the POW community as being a thorough and accurate recounting of their experiences.

All 3 of these sources (and the others I've looked at) are in agreement on some key points:

1. Although there were a few POWs prior to 1965, most of the early POWs were pilots who were shot down over North Vietnam following Lyndon Johnson's 1965 escalation of the war. (Later in the war, more ground troops began to be used and more of the POWs came from their ranks.)

2. From the beginning, the North Vietnamese considered the US pilots to be criminals rather than POWs, and thus did not feel they were covered by the Geneva Convention.

3. From 1966 until October 1969, US POWs were subjected to incredible amounts of mistreatment and abuse, including torture.

4. In October 1969 the treatment of POWs changed. Torture ceased; the diet improved; the prisoners were allowed to room together, communicate with each other, and gather together for limited assemblies (including, eventually, religious services). These changed conditions continued to be the policy until the eventual release of the POWs in 1973.

5. Between 1965 and 1973 a number of anti-war activists visited North Vietnam and some met with POWs. Jane Fonda made a trip to North Vietnam in 1972 and met with several POWs during that trip. No one was tortured to force them to meet with her, and no one was tortured as a result of her visit.

I am going to quote extensively from all three in the following posts. I think (hope!) I've gotten the material organized in reasonably readable order. This stuff is not available on-line as far as I know -- it's my re-typing, from photocopies, so there are probably numerous typos. For those who would like to read more, I especially recommend reading Honor Bound, chapter 8 (pp 141 - 165) "Tightening the Screws: The Beginnings of the Torture Era" (for vivid description of the torture endured by POWs prior to 1969), chapter 22 (pp a479 - 496) "1969: A Watershed Year in the North" (for a description of the change in treatment), and chapter 23 (pp 497 - 521) "The 'Good Guy Era': The Northern Prisons, 1970" (for detailed account of the changed conditions after 1969).

[Nova Land]

Voices from Captivity, pp 33 - 34, describes many of the books available that have been written by Vietnam POWs about their experiences. Many of these sound interesting and worth looking up, so I thought I'd share this listing before starting to quote the stuff about torture.The first POW narratives of the Vietnam War were published before the war ended. Jamen N Rowe's Five Years to Freedom (1971) is a classic military resistance and escape narrative. After he graduated from West Point, Rowe joined the Army's Special Forces and found himself advising South Vietnameese forces in the Mekong Delta. After an ambush and a futile firefight he was captured in 1963, survived, and escaped his captors December 31, 1968. In counterpoint to Rowe's book, George Smith's POW: Two Years with the Vietcong (1971) is an anti-war polemic and a partial-assimilation narrative. After his release by the National Liberation Front for political reasons, Smith joined the anti-war movement in the United States, testified at the Winter Soldier hearings, and dedicated his captivity narrative to his captors. As a result, Smith was detained by the army and threatened with a court-martial. In the end the United States Army gave Smith a general discharge for collaboration.Brief digression: There was question raised earlier in this thread about the authenticity of those testifying at the Winter Soldier hearings. From this, we know that at least one of the soldiers testifying, Smith, was a genuine Vietnam vet. The fact he was a genuine vet doesn't mean his testimony was truthful, of course. Even genuine vets are quite capable of giving mistaken or false testimony. But I thought this was worth making brief mention of in passing, since the charge has been made that those testifying were impostors.

So far I haven't come across evidence that any of those testifying at Winter Soldier were impostors (although I saw evidence that one of the men testifying inflated his rank). The charge that they were impostors seems to rest mainly on a secret government report which no one can produce and no one has seen. But I haven't really been looking into that question yet, since I'm more interested exploring the questions related to the false stories about Jane Fonda first.

I will be passing through Knoxville later this week and intend to photocopy a complete transcript of the Winter Soldier proceedings off microfilm then. I'll get to the question of whether the vets testifying at the Winter Soldier hearings were genuine, whether their testimony was accurate, and whether the things they talked about have been documented, eventually (probably early December).

Okay, back to Doyle's review of the literature:Beginning in 1973, many of the early post-war Vietnam POW narratives, written by military officers for the most part, featured themes of religious resistance. Examples of this type include Larry Chesley's Seven Years in Hanoi (1973), Ralph Gaither's With God in a POW Camp (1973), From the Shadows of Death by J N Helsop and D H Van Orden (1973), Jay Roger Jensen's Six Years In Hell (1974), Eugene B McDaniel's Before Honor (1975), Charles Plumb's I'm No Hero (1973), and Norman A McDaniel's Another Voice (1975). Jeremiah Denton's When Hell Was In Session (1976) synthesizes the religious and the resistance narrative so well that it formed the basis of a made-for-TV movie (same title) starring Hal Holbrook as Denton and Mako as his North Vietnamese Army interrogator. Only one narrative was written as an apology for religious pacifism, James A Daley's A Hero's Welcome: The Conscience of James Daley Versus the United States Army (1975). Daley became a Jehovah's Witness in captivity and joined the Peace Committee inside the Hanoi Hilton. Most POW accounts of Vietnam contain testimony akin to the Puritan and French Jesuit narratives of the 17th century, and the majority address resistance and survival in the style of the stoic captive hero. Azlin Grant, a former intelligence officer in Vietnam, took an oral-history approach in his POW study of nine non-careerist POWs in Survivors (1975), one of the first books to report on renegadism and the anti-war movement in captivity.

... Scott Blakeley's Prisoner at War: The Survival of Comannder Richard A Stratton (1978) tells the fascinating story of Commander Richard Stratton, USN, who broke in torture and wrote bogus war crimes confessions... James A Mulligan's struggle to resisst in The Hanoi Commitment (1981) agrees, at least in spirit, with Blakeley's study of Stratton's captivity philosophy; so too does James and Sybil Stockdale's In Love and War (1984), Everett Alvarez's Chained Eagle, Gerald Coffee's Beyond Survival (1989), and Larry Guarino's A POW's Story: 2801 Days in Hanoi (1990).

In every war there are committed escapers, POWs who refuse to accept the inevitability of captivity... John Dramesi wrote Code of Honor (1975) as a pure resistance narrative froma committed escaper's point of view. Perhaps foolishly, perhaps heroically, Dramesi and Edwin L Atterberry planned their escape meticulously, broke jail, and traveled several miles down the Red River before being discovered. His narrative criticized the existing policy advocating stoic resistance and seemingly in good faith accused his comrades in the Hanoi POW community of compromise in the face of the enemy.

[Nova Land]

Here are several passages about North Vietnam viewing captured US pilots as criminals.

Voices from Captivity, p 139: Colonel Fred V Cherry, USAF... was shot down in May 1965 and was shuffled between various prison camps near hanoi until his release on February 12, 1973. In Wallace Terry's Bloods (1984) Cherry narrates his remove and reflects on the length of time he would have to spend in captivity. He had little notion that it would last eight years: "Now they got me dressed the way they want me, and they are going to walk me three miles to this village. I didn't know my ankle ws broken, too. I was dusty, hot, sweaty, and naturally pissed off 'cause I was shot down. Didn't wanna be there. I'm thinkin' about two, three, four months. I'm not thinkin' 'bout years. I'm not even thinkin' six months." Cherry was brougth into the village and encountered violently angry civilians: "And this guy jumps on me, straddling my back. And he puts his automatic weapon right behind my ear with my nose pretty much in the dirt. And I said to myself, you know, this many might even shoot me." Then Cherry began to resist his captorsL "When we got to the vehicle, they had a cameraman there. And he wanted to take pictures of me walkin' toward him. I wouldn't do it. I'd frown up and fall on my knees and turn my back. Finally, they quit. They never took any pictures. And they got me in the jeep." Finally, Cherry was interrogated for the first time: "The first place they tried to interrogate me appeared to be a secondary school. And they put me in this hut. I did what I was supposed to do. Name, rank, serial number, date of birth. And I started talking about the Geneva Convention. And they said forget it. 'You a criminal'."

Voices from Captivity, p 169: Like the thousands of prisoners before them, POWs in Vietnam adjusted to the environment or died. Camp regulations were posted periodically by captors to make sure that the prisoners understood the nature of their status in the camp. According to John M McGrath's Prisoner Of War: Six Years in hanoi (1975) the camp regulations were weapons of terror used by their captors to justify inflicting punishment (torture) upon "the blackest criminals in the D.R.V.N."edited to add: John M. McGrath = Mike McGrath, who runs a web site for and about Vietnam POWs. He is no fan of Jane Fonda (describes her in language I probably shouldn't use here) but he is one of the people who has taken the initiative in exposing the lies about her and trying to get them stopped. I'll post links to his comments farther down this thread.

Switching books for a moment, here's the same point from Honor Bound, p 164: The American aviators had assumed that their stalwart sense of duty and superior conditioning, including survival school training, would prepare them to meet whatever test the enemy offered. Only when they realized that that training, and the Code of Conduct, had presumed at least minimal observance by the enemy of the protections guaranteed prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention were the sense of having betrayed their country and subsequent despondency relieved some. As more inmates were victimized and the extent of the extortion, and the "breaking", became more widely known, the conscience-stricken were reassured that they had not been singularly weak or derelict, and the self-recriminating soul-searching was replaced by a growing questioning of the worth and validity of the Code itself. As each of the men had his appointment with Pigeye, the Code increasingly seemed to be a noble but meaningless abstraction that paled into irrelevance before the harrowing reality of the ropes and stocks.

Gradually, then, as the prisoners were subjected to increasingly brutal persecution in 1965 and 1966, a more relaxed attitude toward the Code began to emerge and a more flexible standard of conduct became generally accepted. As Stockdale, who was instrumental in developing the guidelines, later observed: "As POWs who were treated not as POWs but as common criminal, we sailed uncharted waters.... The Code did not provide for our day to day existence; we wrote the laws we had to live by.... We set a line of resistance we thought was within the capability of each POW to hold, and we [the leaders] ruled that no man would cross that line without significant torture."

Voices From Captivity, p 255: Seaman Douglas Hegdahl was one of the few navy enlisted men in captivity in Hanoi. He was offered early release in 1969 but refused it in accordance with the provision of the Code of Conduct and the directives against early release issued by James Stockdale, the senior ranking officer in the "Hilton". Hegdahl's cellmate, Commander Richard Stratton, USN, ordered him to accept the early release for one specific reason. The American government and the families of the missing needed positive and irrefutable POW identification. Because the North Vietnamese refused to reveal any information to the Red Cross or anyone else, Hegdahl's information answered questions that loomed heavy in Washington concerning who was and who was not in confinement, not only in Hanoi but throughout the North vietnamese prison system. In captivity, Hegdahl received orders to memorize the names of all the known American prisoners by rhyming their names to "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." When he returned home, he brought the list with him, the first documented evidence of live Americans initially believed to be missing or killed in action.

Hegdahl's startling report confirmed fears that all was not well in Hanoi. John Chafee, then secretary of the navy, discovered that American prisoners in Hanoi were systematically beaten and that their wounds were left untreated. He learned that they suffered extended periods of solitary confinement and days of sitting on a stool until unconsciousness overtook them, that the Americans subsisted on pumpkin soup, pig fat, bread and water once a day, and that they were hanged from the ceilings in their cells (strappado) and dragged along the ground with broken legs. Chafee concluded that despite their signatory status, the North Vietnamese intentionally ignored the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of POWs.COMMENT: Yes, the North Vietnamese did indeed brush aside the Geneva convention in their treatment of US POWs from 1965 to 1969. I gather they had some notion that, since the US had not officially declared war, these were not officially prisoners of war and thus not entitled to the protections. This kind of legal hair-splitting is shameful. Any nation that tries to justify mistreatment of prisoners in its custody through such means deserves strong condemnation, and any government that tries to get away with it should be thrown out of power. Government officials who created, promoted, or were aware of such policies should be prosecuted; high government officials who claim to have been ignorant of such policies, if these happened in departments under their control, should be prosecuted for negligence.

[Nova Land]

Here are some passages about torture and other ill-treatment.

Voices from Captivity, p 169: When Howard Rutledge and other Americans in the "Hilton" were uncooperative, they were placed in a tomblike building in tiny individual cells, six feet by six feet. Each cell held two concrete bunks, one on each side, with barely enough room to walk between them. The bunks were about two feet wide and at the bottom of each, embedded in cement, was a set of iron stocks, what Pierre Boulle described as the "Justice Bar". A prisoner would put his feet in place, and another iron bar was forced down across the top with an iron pin to lock them...Voices from Captivity, pp 188 - 189: Robinson Risner, in his narrative, The Passing of the Night (1973), writes, "In my wildest imagination I had no idea American POWs would be treated as inhumanely and cruelly as we were... " Voices from Captivity, pp 208 - 209: In 1968, during and after the Tet Offensive, American POWs began to arrive in Hanoi from South Vietnam. As a group they were quite different from the host of pilots and airmen shot down, captured, and impirsoned in North Vietnam. the incoming arrivals consisted of army and marine enlisted soldiers and some officers who were captured in ground warfare. Some had been held in lonesome, solitary captivity, sometimes in bamboo "tiger" cages for months. Some had been able to form small POW communities; others were loners. Several men who either believed in the North Vietnamese cause from the start or adopted it as prisoners established a "Peace Committee" that held anti-war sentiments and expressed them openly. Incensed, some hard-resisting officer POWs attempted to file charges of collaboration against tmembers of the "Peace Committee" after repatriation, but each respective service ordered prosecutions to desist. After repatriation in 1973, the anti-war prisoners of the "Peace Committee" were released without charges. The government policy of not charging anyone with collaboration under the Uniform Code of Military Justice held until Robert Garwood left Vietnam in 1979.NOTE: I quoted this passage not just for the references to torture, but also for of the mention of anti-war prisoners and the "Peace Committee" (which is the label attached to anti-war POWs by the hard-line pro-war POWs). Hold that in mind; it'll tie in with stuff quite a few posts farther down the line.

Voices from Captivity, p 225: Air Force Captain Lance Sijan was shot down on Novermber 9, 1967, and captured by North Vietnamese soldiers after 46 days of evasion in the jungle. After a few days in a prison compound, Sijan escaped his captors, but within a few hours he was recaptured and beaten severely. As he lay nearly unconscious, he asked his cellmates about the chances of escaping again. Sick with pneumonia, Sijan began digging into the earthen floor, intent on escaping. Finally, Sijan, the escaper who could not be contained, died in captivity on January 22, 1968.In odd contrast, here is an exception where escaping POWs were not brutalized after their recapture:Navy Lieutenant (jg) George Coker and Air Force Captain George McKnight escaped from the "Dirty Bird Annex" on September 14, 1967. They jimmied the locks, escaped, and jumped into the Red River for an eight-mile swim downstream to the South China Sea. To their chagrin, they were discovered by a startled old Vietnamese woman who called the local militia. According to James Stockdale, In Love and War (1984), they were not ill-treated upon recapture.Why these two were not beaten or tortured for their escape attempt is unclear, but it is clearly the exception to the rule. Between 1966 and 1969, POWs who broke prison rules were subjected to horrendous punishments, and escape attempts were considered one of the most serious serious violations of the rules.

continuing on pp 225 - 226:After Lieutenant Colonel John Dramesi, USAF, was shot down in his F-105, he thought about escape from the moment of capture. After entering the North Vietnamese prison system, he formed a partnership with Edwin Atterberry, and together, they planned their esape and struck out for freedom. Before their escape from the "Zoo", one of the outlying camps in the North Vietnamese system, the two men stole clothing that would hide their identities while they travelled the Red River to the sea. Like that of Coker and McKnight earlier, the Dramesi-Atterberry attempt failed. In contrast to Coker and mcKnight's relatively benign treatment upon recapture, the North Vietnamese killed Edwin Atterberry in a torture session. John Dramesi's Code of Honor reflects on the ethos of escape and is dedicated to Atterberry.Voices from Captivity, p 253: The Americans were not the first to suffer an extended punitive captivity in Indochina. The French Indochina War ended officially on July 21, 1954, after more than 8 years of hostilities. Upon capture, POWs handed over their clothes, shoes, and all personal possessions including their watches, jewelry and phots. They received one pair of prison pants and a shirt and made their own sandals. In captivity, the Viet Minh forced prisoners to build their own camps, No fences held the French because escape was virtually impossible. Those who tried to escape were mostly officers, because French military regulations stipulated that it is the duty of every officer to escape. The natives received cash payments for recapturing fugitive escaped prisoners. When recaptured, prisoners were either shot or put into "re-education" camps.

[Nova Land]

This one's gruesome enough that I'm giving it a post of its own.

Voices From Captivity, pp 256 - 257: In 1966 and 1967... the rescue of prisoners became a major objective. Under the aegis of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), the Joint Prisoner Recovery Center in Saigon repeatedly attempted to recover American and allied prisoners in enemy hands. Several enemy prison camps were overrun, but the Vietcong followed a policy of moving their prisoners frequently and had standing orders to kill their prisoners if any chance existed at all for raiders to free them... There follows a description of one such raid, from David Beville of the Marine Force Reconnaissance Team: ]We were about 20 miles into Laos when we hit that camp, [and] I still think they knew we were coming. they [guards and live prisoners] were gone, maybe two or three days. No fires... They had been gone maybe 3 days. [When] we went in, there was nobody there, except some dead Americans they had tortured. One [American] really sticks in my mind, the black guy, [the Vietcong] castrated him... We saw a guy hanged upside down, dead, by his ankles. He was nude... [with] blood running out of his nose, stiff for a long time. We had figured that's when they had left the camp. Evidently he was wounded and must have bgeen shot... They had taken knives [to] the black guy [before] he was shot. He had a stomach wound but wasn't dead all the way, and they just started cutting, making deep cuts on him. Long cuts on his face, all over him. Yeah, live persons when they get deep cuts turn white. He evidently was alive. I remember the lieutenant was really pissed about the guy hanging upside down, because you know the blood rushes to your head, and it just swelled the guy's head up.

Beville wanted to cut the man down, but his fellow raider yelled, "No, don't touch him." Experienced raiders knew that the Vietcong booby-trapped bodies from time to time. Beville recalls that in addition to the prisoner hanging by his feet, there were two other dead American prisoners in the camp. Each prisoner had wounds, most probably received from combat before capture. Beville concludes that they were incapacitated from the wounds and killed because their captors soucl not move them to another camp quickly without help...

Beville's memories of the dead South Vietnamese prisoners are particularly ghastly. "There were [South] Vietnamese [POWs ] there too. Evidently the Americans and Vietnamese were kept away from one another. You could see that some of them were shot in the back of their heads, some [through the] side. I'd say maybe four or five [bodies]. One [South vietnamese POW lay] without his head; the rest were all shot." Finding the aftermath of murders in Vietcong prison camps was common if the raiders arrived before the evidence could be hidden. Some raids, like Beville's, went into Laos, off limits to regular combat forces and forever bound to secrecy. However, raiding and rescue missions like Beville's were commonplace in South Vietnam during the war.
The main reason for quoting this is, again, to note the brutality POWs suffered during the years 1966 to 1969.

Please note in passing, though, the reference to a raid into Laos, in 1967, "forever bound to secrecy". Going into Laos, like going into Cambodia, was illegal at the time. I recall anti-war groups charging that such illegal activities were taking place, but the policy of the government was to deny this. Four years later, anti-war veterans spoke out. Here is evidence they were telling the truth.

I am amazed anyone today still wishes to deny that US soldiers were sent illegally into Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War, but if people truly don't remember or never knew that this happened I'll be glad to return to this point later (and provide additional evidence) after dealing with the questions about Jane Fonda and POWs.

[Nova Land]

I think it's established that US POWs that US POWs suffered significant amounts of abuse and torture during the years 1966 through 1969. Most of you were probably already aware of that. Now we come to the part that apparently some of you were not familiar with: that conditions changed dramatically starting in October 1969. I'll start with this preview bit, from Sam Johnson's Captive Warriors: A Vietnam POW's Story, p 216. In the spring of 1969, Ed Atterberry and John Dramesi had escaped over the wall of the Zoo. Their escape plan was well thought out, including makeshift costumes that would allow them to blend in with the Vietnamese once they made it into the streets of the city One rainy night, while the guards were preoccupied with staying dry, they slipped out of the Zoo undetected and made their way toward freedom. A search party found them at first ligth, no more than about five or six miles from the prison, hiding behind a wall of bushes. They hadn't realized that the Zoo sat right in the middle of a division-size military unit. Their plan had been doomed to failure from the beginning.

Back at the Zoo, both Dramesi and Atterbury were isolated and tortured brutally for more than a month. Dramesi survived. Atterberry did not.This is the last incident of torture which Johnson records. Toward the end of 1969, he becomes aware of a change:We whispered and tapped in the shower and in our cells; we signaled anyone in sight at any time -- we were consumed with the need to get word out: The Vietnamese policy has changed! They won't punish you anymore! Refuse to do anything they ask you to do!

Slowly, over a period of days, fear lessened its grip on the camp. In a kind of semaphore, messages were flashed across the yard from oen cellblock to another...

The last two weeks of 1969 passed quickly. Christmas came and went with little acknowledgement, except for the carols that played on the radio and the acute attacks of homesickness that always accompanied that season. The new decade, 1970 began with little fanfare...

[Nova Land]

On pp 228 - 229, Johnson narrates events from the early days of the new policy."Sam," [Jerry Denton] whispered during siesta when the cellblock was empty of guards. "Cat told me you are going to be allowed to visit with Mulligan and me. Try to act surprised when the come to get you or they'll know we've been communicating and they'll call off the visit."

I could hardly contain my excitement... Finally, one morning after breakfast, a guard opened my cell door and said, "Dress up. You're going to visit your friend Denton."

My hands shook as I pulled on my long pants for the walk down the hall to the next room. I had to force myself not to run to Denton and Mulligan's cell. When the door opened, two pairs of skinny arms grabbed me and pulled me into the cell. We hugged and pounded each other on bony backs, and my whole body shook with sobs I had tried to hold back...

When I was allowed to eat my noon meal in the cell with Denton and Mulligan, I thought I would cry again with joy. I intended to eat every bite, but we talked so much that we hardly ate at all...

"Here," Mulligan offered, holding up a pipe. "It came in a package from home. I'll show you how to smoke it..." When the guard returned to take me back to my cell before the evening meal, Mulligan pushed the pipe and a little pounch of tobacco into my hands. "Take it back to the cell with you," he said. "I've got another one for myself."

[Nova Land]

Captive Warriors, p. 244: Things continue well. Then there are mysterious sounds of construction for many days. One day, unexpectedly, the prisoners are taken out of their cells and very thoroughly searched. Johnson fears that something bad is in the offing, but actually it is something very good:When the search was finally over a guard led us out of Vegas, through Heartbreak Hotel, and across a courtyard in the western section of Hoa Lo to a part of the prison I had never been in before. It was an odd-shaped, four-sided compound, built around a courtyard with eight large rooms opening off of it. Eight-foot bamboo fences stood in front of each large room, encircling a small yard that held a concrete washing trough fed by a thin round pipe.

The sounds of construction we had heard days before must have been these hastily constructed bamboo walls going up. I gather that the Vietnamese were still concerned about prisoners seeing each other when they went outside. How foolish that seemed to me when they opened a door on room Seven and I found myself surrounded by dozens of American POWs!

I walked in and stared, incredulous, at the oddly build facility. In the center of the room, surrounded by a five-foot-wide walkway, was a raised, sloping
concrete platform, about two feet high. Nearly fifty men; had already laid their bedrolls out on it, head to head in long rows. I supposed that the design was intended to keep us above ground level when the heavy rains came in the spring.

In one corner of the room was a latrine. This was a first for us. No more rusty buckets to be carried daily to a community sewage dump! It was primitive and crude, but we had some small sense of privacy...

It was a new day for American POWs in North vietnam. No longer separated and isolated in tiny cubles like wild and dangerous animals, we were being allowed to live together in large groups. I drew a deep breath and discerned the faint sweet smell of freedom mingling with the familiar prison odors of urine, human sweat, and mildew.

I looked around the room and saw that I was with my closest friends... After all the years and all the horrors we had shared, some of us had never seen each other face to face.

I moved about the room with all the others, hugging and shaking hands and studying the faces of men I had heard and spoken with on the wall, in the showers, and through crude notes written with mud-ink on coarse brown toilet paper. All around me I could hear the sound of conversation, not whispered and cautious, but loud and free. Some guys sat down together in small groups on the concrete platform, and others continued to mill about the room, finding old buddies and talking and slapping one another ont he back. Emotions ran like an out-fo-control roller coaster. AT one moment I was laughing, at the next I was wiping away tears.

..."Hey, it's still practically Christmas," Jerry Denton said... "Why don't we have a church service?"

It was nearly 10:00 PM. The move to "Camp Unity", as it came to be called, had taken hours, but the POWs in Room Seven were not ready for sleeping. Denton's idea met with instant approval.They sing carols and share some Bible verses. Then:The final "amen" was still on our lips when about ten guards pushed open the door and rushed in.

"No authorize! No authorize! Be quiet!"

Rifles jabbed between us to push us apart. A guard shoved Coker and Risner back into the crowd.

"Not allowed!" an officer barked, and ordered us all to be quiet and disband. Mumbling protests, we broke up and turned in for the night...There's more, but this is a good point to take a short break. Don't go away. This is a great story.

[Nova Land]

pp 246 - 248:Most of the men in Room Seven were in favor of continuing the church services, so with Risner in command we made plans for the coming Sunday...

Sunday arrived. Risner and Coker spoke on Bible passages, the choir sang, and the service closed with a benediction. The guards watched from the window, and as soon as the service ended, they again rushed in and ordered us to break up. Week after week, we planned our services and worshipped together, and the guards continued to harass us each Sunday, barging in and stomping about, pushing us apart and shouting, "Be quiet! No authorize!"From brutal torture to ineffectual harassment. A new period had begun.Then one Sunday in February, they interrupted the service and dragged Robbie Risner and two others out of the room. They locked him down in leg stocks and threatened to come back the next week and haul out more men if we persisted in gathering for worship.

We would not be intimidated. We had come so far since the early days of leg irons, rope torture, and total deprivation and beatings...

The next week, services began as usual. We opened with prayer, sand, and listened to a message by Rutledge. Before the benediction could begin, guards rushed in with rifles and clubs, grabbed twenty men... shoved them out of Room Seven and trudged them across the courtyard. The men remaining in the room begin singing loudly -- first "Battle Hymn of the Republic", then "God Bless America" and "The Star-Spangled Banner".We were singing the last phrase of "The Star-Spangled Banner" when guards in full combat garb flooded into the compound with tear gas canisters, rifles, gas masks, and helments, ready to quell a riot that didnt' exist. They ran toward each room, shouting and screeching in panic.

"No authorize! No authorize! No singing! Down! Get down! No window!"

I dropped down from my place on the windowsill. It was almost comical to see the confusion and fear in the eyes of the guards as they swarmed in the courtyard, circling us as if we armed and dangerous. Our singing had terrified them!...

The guards milled about in the courtyard, confused and disgruntled, tightly gripping their rifles. For days, guards in combat readness stood stationed around Camp Unity, as if expecting our violent overthrown of the prison at any minute. Cat sent words that all the POWs in Room Seven would be punished as the insigators of the "riot".

"No wash," he pronounced crisply on the camp radio. We would not be allowed to go outside to the trough to wash for one day.Not long after, Cat capitulates.The next day, Cat's voice announced over the camp radio, "Camp authorize church service on Sunday for fifteen minutes. Can have choir and sing, but for fifteen minutes -- no more!"

This is your hand, Lord, I thought. I bowed my head and prayed silently, We're prisoners in a hostile land, raising a ruckus and pushing for our demands -- they could take us all out and shoot us if they wanted to. But You've intervened again. Thank you, Lord.

[Nova Land]

Here is Doyle's telling of the same incident [Voices From Captivity, p 191]: Toward the end, the North Vietnamese relented on the prohibition against communication and began permitting the Americans to gather for group meetings. Some meetings were religious services, common in captivities during past wars but not common in North Vietnam. From 1970 on, the North Vietnamese allowed prisoners to wander around the compound and talk in quiet conversations...Religious services were initially a sticking point. These had been largely forbidden during 1966 - 1969, and even after the change in treatment the North Vietnamese were still inclined to try to restrict these. Here's an interesting story about how the POWs organized a protest against these restrictions and managed to get them lifted. (This passage follows immediately the section quoted above). As James B Stockdale points out, a single American standing before a group leading a prayer or singing a hymn was a "provocative act". For the hard resisters, Stockdale notes, group meetings presented perfect opportunities for expanded resistance.

We staged the provocative act in Building 7 on a Sunday in mid-February 1971, about six weeks after we had been put together. On that afternoon, we quietly assembled for religious services. Even those among us who would normally never have gone to church gladly took seats up front in the interest of unity. The prayer was led, and the trio assembled, and then in burst the waiting Vietnamese guards, rifles drawn. Those churchmen who had addressed the group were quickly dragged off to solitary confinement in Heartbreak Hotel next door.

That triggered what became known as 'the church riot of 1971". Building 7 burst into a standing, shouting rendition of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' that could be heard over much of downtown Hanoi. Each of the big cellblock buildings around the circle picked up after us in turn, and then they all vied for militancy and loudness in a one-after-another rendition of American patriotic songs.

The next day ... leg irons ... Hanoi officials and citizens who had heard the ruckus the day before ... were shown 'the iron fist of righteous Vietnamese vengeance'. To us, the whole exercise was in the category of a lark.[NOTE: I reproduced the above passage in its entirety; the ellipses are from Doyle's editing of the passage, not something I have omitted.]

While leg irons are not fun, they are not torture. It is stunning to read the accounts of the brutal treatment inflicted on POWs in 1966 to 1969 for the smallest infractions, and then to read how in 1971 the POWs could stage (as "a lark") this kind of protest with no one beaten or tortured as a result. This is more comparable to the treatment a protestor in a US prison at the time would have received for this kind of rule infraction rather than the kind of treatment the POWs were subjected barely 2 years previously.

The story is even better in Johnson's telling. Cat's threat that the prisoners would be punished, followed by his announcement over the radio "No wash!", is a great example of how much things had changed.

[Nova Land]

Here's another POW confirming that things changed dramatically in October 1969. This is from Spike Nasmyth, 2355 Days , p 96 - 97: October 18, 1969. All of our questions are answered. The food ration is doubled, the cigarette ration becomes a real ration, something you can count on, and guards no longer have the authority to do anything they want. They have to get permission. Now we can tell a guard to get f*cked, and he has to get permission from an officer before he belts us.
____

Rabbit Sent a guard for me. "The camp commander allows you to write a letter to your family

"You're kidding."

Rabbit gave me a 6-line form. "Write only on lines, and write nice or it won't go. We will even give you a stamp."

Something's up! The war must be over!

I wrote the following letter, which was received by my family on December 23, 1969.,,

Back in my cell, I start doing some deep thinking. Why are things getting so much better, so fast?...

Who cares what the reason is? The change is going to save a lot of people from dying, from just plain starving to death.

The Christmas meal is great, turkey soup (real soup), candy, a glass of beer, and a cup of coffee. Most men are receiving mail from home, and more than half have received at least one package. We know from the Voice of Vietnam that there has been no bombing in North Vietnam for a year.

There must be something going on. Damn, maybe I'll be home by summer.The war went on for another 4 years, but the improved treatment continued.

NOTE: I haven't read this book, just glanced at it quickly while it was at hand, but I enjoyed the above passage so I copied it.

[Nova Land]

Honor Bound, p 479: For the veteran PWs jailed in the north, the more than 300 downed US airmen who entered captivity before or duing the middle years and lived to return home in 1973, 1969 was the pivotal year of their experience. At the start of that last year of the torture era, although they faced varying degrees of abuse and suffering depending on their specific confinement location, none but the most determined optimists among them could yet see light at the end of the tunnel. But in a year of momentous happenings ... 1969 proved to be a turning point for the war and for the fortunes of the American prisoners. By year's end a series of developments in Washington and in Paris and, most significantly, the death of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, substantially improved both the PWs treatment and their prospects...Honor Bound, pp 489 - 492: Without access to North vietnamese archives, the historian can not know for sure why exactly the treatment of the American prisoners in the Northern jails improved so markedly beginning in the fall of 1969. Who or what was responsible for the transformation, whether it was the product of a sudden decision or an ongoing reappraisal ... remains a matter of considerable speculation, among the former PWs as well as analysts who have tried to explain the phenomenon.

What is known is that there were many forces at work during the period, both internal and external, that would have made a reversal of the enemy's prisoner policy understandable. Those factors already mentioned -- Vietnamese concerns over the deteriorating condition of many of the hostages, the death of Atterberry and destruction of Cobeil from beatings, the steady consciousness-raising of the PW issue both in the US and abroad since the Hanoi March of 1966, the boost given the awareness effort by the launching of the "Go Public" campaign by the Nixon administration earlier in 1969, the impact of the Frishman-Hegdahl press conference in early September, the death of Ho that same day -- all no doubt figured prominently in Hanoi's reassessment. Larry Chesley would later single out an International Red Cross conference in Istanbul in September as a key, and others would point broadly to the influence of the extended bombing pause and progress of the talks in Paris, but the Red Cross had a frustrating lack of success in swaying the North vietnamese previously and the winds of war and peace seemed no less fickle this season than the last.

What probably occurred was a conjunction of circumstances and events all of which contributed in some degree to wahat Stockdale had characterized as a "crossroads". When he briefed the JOint Chiefs of Staff in 1973, Guarino offered the opinion that 70 percent of the change was the result of public pressure, while also crediting the prisoners' own resistance in discouraging further use of the PWs for propaganda purposes. Hubbell cited "two major factors: the death of Ho Chi Minh; and, by the time of the dictator's demise, the enormous and growing concern in the US over the fate of those American fighting men who had fallen into Hanoi's hands." On the latter point, had the PWs been released in the summer of 1969 as part of a war settlement, Operation Homecoming would have presented a far more somber scene, the American people likely to have been outraged at the pitiable procession of returnees staggering or being carried out of the repatriation aircraft.

Certainly, even if the policy shift had been evolving, Ho's passing was a milestone event and an opportunity for a more thoroughgoing break with the past. Hervey Stockman suggested that the leader's death may have unlocked the stalemate in Paris as well as paralysis within the North Vietnamese government. "Suddenly, almost without any advanced notice," Stockman observed, the atmosphere changed. "What bearing his death had on the change in the prisons' climates which became so apparent in October 1969 is unknown, but the coincidence is worth noting." Stockman may have exaggerated the instantaneousness as well as the depth of the change, but the relevance of the connection is enescapable. "The speed with which Ho's political heirs moved to improve life for the prisoners seemed to indicate some degree of understanding that the old regime's policies had been counterproductive," Hubbell wrote. alvarez remembered officials wearing black arm bands as "mournful music filtered out of the squawk boxes... but none of us got over-excited." The mere "absence of Ho" occasioned no expectation of a quick breakthrough," Alvarez recalled. Still, soon there was "a lot less brutality -- and larger bowls of rice."

The pace and extent of improvement varied from camp to camp but the conclusion reached in a 1974 Air Force debriefing summary was essentially correct in stating that "the era of heavy torture and poor treatment was replaced with an environment of lighter punishment, better food, and generally iomproved living conditions." By year's end most prisoners were getting a third meal daily, extra blankets and clothing, and double the usual allotment of cigarettes. The third meal was a "breakfast" of toasted bread, sometimes sugared, with a half cup of milk added later on. Gradually, canned meat and fish were also introduced, as was a more flavorful soup, thickened with a flouring agent and served with noodles and more vegetables. Although Ken Coskey would say that he and roommates Carl Crumpler and Byron Fuller "decided that the kitchen did not know what was going on in Paris", other veterans who thought they had learned to gauge the political climate by the quality and amount of their rations, felt the diet upgrade was one of the first and surest signs of a significant turnaround.

Reinforcing that impression was a general relaxation of regulations. The Vietnamese reduced the bowing requirement to a nod of the head, within a year dropping it altogether. They continued to prohibit communication but transgressors encountered looser monitoring and lesser penalties. PWs who had been in solitary or isolation for months or years suddenly received cellmates. Risner's long sequestration ended in late November when Colonel Larson, himself confined alone at the Plantation for 18 months in an unventilated cell, joined him in a room at Hoa Lo. Stockdale emerged from Calcutta in the fall and, after another spell at the Mint, was placed in thuderbird, where he was celled with an American for the firt time in over 2 years. As the pressure to tape and write propaganda eased, the prisoners gained more outdoor exercise time and other privileges without having to make concessions in return.

[Nova Land]

Honor Bound, p 492: The summer's unbroken overcast seemed to be lifting almost everywhere that fall. At Son Tay workers unboarded windows and tore down walls to give the prisoners more ventilation and space. Rob Doremus remembered that "somehow things just changed. There was nothing we could put our finger on at first but there were little signs of something in the air." Jim Warner, who had had a particularly difficult stretch, was told by a Vietnamese officer claiming to be a general that a new order was being installed. At Plantation, Ted Guy's flogging abruptly ceased the day Ho died, and John McCain, to his amazement, found guards removing the transom over his door nightly to let in the breeze. Dramesi was still in solitary at the Hilton when he heard the somber music and a 21-gun salute signaling Ho's burial. By November he was released from his irons periodically to shower, wash clothes, sun and exercise. In early December a guard took off the irons for good and escorted him over to Vegas, where he joined fellow escape artists Coker and McKnight (just transferred from Alcatraz) in the Mint's three maximum-security cells. Eyeing the tiny compartment, Dramesis thought he "was going from bad to worse", but the reality was that he -- and his mates -- had come a remarkably long way in a few months.pp 492- 493: Nowhere were the PWs breathing easier than at the Zoo, which had taken the brunt of the summer violence and where Ho's passing had produced and edgy uncertainty as to whether treatment would improve or regress. "It was a dicey prospect," Guarino worried, "and we knew we'd just have to sweat it out." By 18 October "all of our questions are answered", Nasmuth noted in his post-captivity journal. "The food ration is doubled, the cigarette ration becomes a real ration, something you can count on, and guards no longer have the authority to do anything they want... Now we can tell a guard to get f*cked, and he has to get permission from an officer before he belts us." At the Pool Hall, Jim Kasler was moved into a larger cell with Ray Vohden and Jim Bell. To Red McDaniel's surpirse at the Pigsty, the captors dismantled the wall dividing the cellblock and a solicitous Rabbit asked what could be done "to make the camp more presentable." p. 493: Day had been one of the last of the Zoo "heavies" to undergo torture. The policy reversal came within a month or so of his near-fatal "crucifixion", and the rapid decompression jolted him. Still in irons, he did a double take as he spotted a clump of moss roses planted in the bath area on his way there to wash the blood stains out of his clothes. Handed a package from home by Rabbit, he trembled: "For a moment, I thought that my brain had become disconnected from my ears." A new, clean blue blanket hanging on the Poll Hall clothesline "looked unreal", as must have seemed the "strange item", a foot-high round wicker basket (dubbed a "cobra" or "Easter" basket by the PWs), that arrived in October and soon became a fixture in the cells throughout the prison system. Brightly colored, lined with cloth, and with a layer of rice straw for insulation, the lidded object with a small jug inside was a tea caddy of sorts, designed to keep their drinking water hot during the winter.p 495 - 496: Veteran PWs at the Zoo judged the Christmas Day 1969 dinner -- served from a porch table piled high with turkey, beef, rolls, candy, and beer -- the best meal they had eaten in captivity. a major inter-camp move on 10 December in which 11 prisoners were transferred from Son Tay to sites nearer Hanoi may have been at least in part an effort by the Captor to enable Catholic prisoners to attend Christmas mass at services in the city. (Ten of the elelven transfers were Catholic, and the men who took their place, trucked in from Vegas and Plantation, were all Protestants except for one the Vietnamese did not know was Catholic.) While previous holidays had brought similar privileges and indulgences, and while even these favors were accompanied by the propaganda trappings of posters and cameras and "gook VIPs" making the rounds, the atmosphere this time seemed distinctly different -- less heavy-handed, less transparently phony and more genuinely humane.p 493 - 494: "Night had turned to day!" Denton exclaimed, recalling his sense of joy at what had transpired at Alcatraz following Ho's funeral, which took place only a few blocks from the downtown prison. For some time after the solemn proceedings, grief-stricken guards at the facility appeared dazed and red-eyed from crying. When the mourning subsided, Denton said, "our jailers had changed along with our circumstances." Free to step outside his cell without shackles or a guard's rifle poking him, Johnson ventured across the Alcatraz courtyard "with long, luxurious strides". He "stood and stretched for a moment, and then began walking and swinging my arms, exulting in the sense of freedom." For a day at least they shaved with water that attendants had heated and ladled into a basin for them. Then came bread for breakfast, blankets and tea baskets, and, most welcome of all, only perfunctory warnings when caught communicating. The improvements came too late to save Ron Storz, who was left behind when on 9 December the Vietnamese moved the Alcatraz group back to Vegas. Nonetheless, the closing of the dungeon-like prisons and return of its hardline occupants to the mainstream PW community was a fitting symbol of the passing of the old regime and end to the Extortion Era.

[Nova Land]

Prisons are not pleasant places to be. Although the situation had improved dramatically, there were still plenty of unpleasant moments between the end of 1969 and the POWs repatriation in 1973. But the conduct of the North Vietnamese between 1966 and 1969 was well below any acceptable standard of behavior for treating POWs; indeed, it was as bad as the barbaric treatment exhibited by our side to Vietcong and North Vietnamese POWs. Following 1969, North Vietnamese treatment of POWs improved to the point that it was in line with the way US state and federal prisons were run at the time. Stockdale sums up the situation well: "All we had to do was act like normal prisoners and take a little crap once in a while."

In Honor Bound, Rochester and Kiley label the years 1966 through 1969 as "The Torture Era" and "The Extortion Era". They label the years 1970 to 1973 "The Good Guy Era". The most serious of these incidents is that one prisoner was beaten for cheering a bombing raid (and another was beaten and put in solitary for reasons not specified on the pages I have at hand). Other problems included: physical accomodations at one newly-constructed prison were darker and damper than the previous one; prisoners had no control over the radio programming piped in, and had to suffer through a mix of leftist propaganda, classical music, and country-western music; not all the movies shown were to the prisoners' liking. The incident in which the POWs and their captors came closest to a confrontation, according to Rochester and Kiley, was when some prisoners were taken unwillingly on a museum trip, went limp, and had to be carried around by their guards (who did the carrying in the same fashion as a number of US police and prison guards did over in the US during that time period, i.e. with some gratuitous kicking and pummeling thrown in.)

Honor Bound, p 554: By 1972 physical abuse had become rare, though Winn was beaten and thrown in the punishment cell Calcutta for 6 weeks. Besides Angus's rough interrogation, in April Navy Lt. Michael Christian, a spirited resister with a "record of conflict" with the enemy, was beaten severely after cheering a bombing raid over Hanoi that may have hit too close for the jailers' comfort. Stockdale's observation that "all we had to do was act like normal prisoners and take a little crap... once in a while" was essentially correct, but Bud Day reminded that there was a "delicate balance to maintain", the goal being to "avoid any hard confrontations... without giving the enemy anything or accepting any unnecessary humiliation." The wail of air raid sirens outside their windows underscored their vulnerability even as the spring-time bombardment, the first over the capital since March 1968, gave many satisfaction.The possibility of a vengeful populace storming the city prison or mass executions in the event of a US rescue attempt prompted a group of inmates to form a "disaster control" committee.Honor Bound, p 555: All the transfers to Dogpatch were junior officers, most of them 02s and 03s. Upon their arrival they found a dozen stone and concrete bomb-resistant buildings surrounded on the east by a brick wall and on the west side by a karst ridge and barbed wire. The compound has heavily camouflaged, the roofs of the buildings painted black and strewn with bushes and vines. although recently constructed, the detention facilities were, by most accounts, colder, damper and darker than Hoa Lo. With narrow slits for windows and thick walls and ceilings, the cellblocks, each containing from 8 to 20 prisoners, were miasmal. Chesley later wrote that "this camp had just about all the qualities of a dungeon except that it was not underground." Plumb remembered that with no electricity and the sun going behind the mountains by late afternoon, they spent 14 hours in the dark each day. Nasmyth declared that compared with Dogpatch, "the Hanoi Hilton was like a [i]real Hilton."Honor Bound, pp 566 - 567: through 1972 and into early 1973 the captor immersed prisoners at all the camps in a heavy schedule of propaganda movies, tours of Hanoi that spotlighted destruction inflicted by the recent bombing, and time in reading rooms that featured the latest leftist tracts and clipped newspaper articles of US anti-war activities. The movies, some of them cultural films from China and Russia (including a Soviet version of Othello), reading materials, and music piped over camp speakers (ranging from Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Cash to Beethoven and Brahms) were the most eclectic the PWs had experienced and mixed genuine entertainment with both subtle and not so subtle indoctrination. "Pro-Communist Americans began to rain on Hanoi," Day wrote, referring to the peace missions to Southeast Asia of Jane Fonda, Ramsey clark, and other war critics during the summer and fall of 1972. The Vietnamese played tapes of Fonda's and Clark's interviews over PA systems again and again along with planks from the platform of Democratic presidentail candidate George McGovern. Day recalled, "We were drowned with rhetoric, persuasion, and distortion.... Several POWs became quite emotional about the possibility of a Democratic victory, and threats of emigrating to Australia, England or Canada began to mount. The POW consensus was that we wanted to go home, but not at that price." Johnson was "amazed" that their handlers were still trying to brainwash them: "They continued to operate as though we were going to suddenly say, 'Okay, you're right. Democracy is bad, communism is good'."

...

the closest the two sides came to a confrontation during this period occurred in late September [1972] when Colonels Flynn, Winn and Gaddis and 3 of the other top seniors in Blue -- Denton, Mulligan and Rutledge -- were rounded up for a visit to the War Museum. For weeks officials had been escorting small groups of the PWs, some of them in civilian dress, to the exhibition hall to view pictures of bomb damage and to be photographed taking the guided tour. To counter the propaganda stunt, the prisoners employed a tactic that peace demonstrators had used to advantage, a version of the sit-down strike whereby they forced their handlers to bodily drag them on and off buses and through the exhibits in full view of dignitaries and cameramen. When it came the seniors' turn, they resisted to the point that dozens of guards were needed to haul them onto the bus and drag them around the building. By the time they returned to Hoa Lo they had been kicked, pummeled, and put in handcuffs but had succeeded in causing the organizers such embarrassment that, Stockdale noted, "for all practical purposes that wiped out their museum trip program."

[Nova Land]

Now for some posts relating to visits by anti-war activists.

From Voices from Captivity, pp 253- 255. [NOTE: the italicized chunks are where Doyle is giving extended quotes from Smith.] In The Vietnam War there were only 766 known American POWs, 629 of whom survived and returned to American control. Special Forces Sergeant George Smith was captured in November 1963. After being held for 2 years, he was released by the Vietcong in November 1965. According to Smith, the Vietcong released him in direct response to anti-war activities in the United States.

They [the Vietcong] stated that they realized that the American people were basically peace-loving people and did not condone the actions that the United States Government was taking in South Vietnam, so they were returning tow of their sons to them... At Phnom Penh... they set up a press conference for us. International reporters were there. And someone asked a question of what I intended to do when I got back to the US. I told him that I was going to tell the true story of Vietnam as I could see it, from my experiences. That the US had no business in Vietnam, that it wasn't in the best interest of the American people, and that therefore we should all get out immediately.

After Sergeant Smith, the Vietcong released more prisoners for purposes of political propaganda. Early in November 1967, a broadcast by the North Vietnamese government in Hanoi announced that three captured American army sergeants were being released after showing "sincere repentance over the crimes they had committed against the Vietnamese people" and "in response to the American Negro's struggle for peace in the United States." News of the pending release of the 3 GIs -- Sergeants James E Jackson, Jr, and Edward Johnson (both African Americans) and Daniel Lee Pitzer -- set off immediate speculation by government officials about possible or probably POW cooperation and collaboration. To forestall the effect of any anti-war statements by the released men, an eager American official in Saigon spread the word that the prisoners had been "brain-washed." He made the charge before he or any other American official had had any contact with the freed POWs to hear their side of the story or to ascertain their mental condition. Following contact, Robert J McCloskey, the State Delpartment's press officer, hastened to acquit the sergeants of the brain-washing stigma. "On the basis of our talks with these men, it seems clear... that the men withstood their long ordeal with great courage and intelligence." Meanwhile they returned to light duty at Fort Bragg, NC. After a period of convalescence, one member of the trio, James Jackson, narrated his 18-month ordeal to Ebony managing editor Hans J Massaquoi:

One thing that was constantly slapped in my face was the race situation in the US. It was initially used to win me over without applying any of the other more drastic methods they had. They tried the nice way first. They definitely tried to make me feel that my race would put me in line for special privileges; but I could readily see that they were only making promises. All I had to do was look around me and see what miserable shape the other Negro prisoners were in. First of all, they wanted to know why the American Negro wanted to come to Vietnam; why did he allow himself to be sent to Vietnam? They would ask me whether it is true that Negroes in America don't go to school, whether all Negroes are poor. Some wanted to know whetehr there were any Negro officers in the US Army. You'd be surprised at how many people I ran into over there who told me that there were not Negro officers in the US Army. These were people who were supposed to be well-informed.

They even went so far as to remind me that black leaders -- like Malcolm X -- were being assassinated back home. They told me that Negroes were getting machine-gunned in the streets of American and that Newark and all those places had blown up. In addition to all this, they had me listen to Radio Hanoi and another clandestine guerrilla radio station in the south. So I heard constant news about all the "black revolutions" happening in the US. I knew that there was unrest and I knew that there was trouble, but as far as Negroes being machine-gunned in the streets and my family being in terrible trouble back home was concerened, all this I knew wasn't true. The whole thing was blown so far out of proportion as it was presented to me, I just had to write it off as being untrue.

Sergeant Jackson explained his response to his release:

It was a bigger surprise to me than anybody else, I think. At first I didn't believe it. I got the first word that I would be one of 3 prisoners to be released from a representative of the National Liberation Front. He mentioned to me that this American peace committee had been instrumental in our release. Some of the more prominent members of that committee were Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Dr Spock, Floyd McKissick, Joan Baez, and Tom Hayden. Why I was chosen instead of some other prisoner, I still don't know.NOTE: Daniel Lee Pitzer is the veteran who took part in the Winter Soldier hearings and now claims he was pressured to do so. That's another confirmed genuine vet. Again, the fact he's a genuine vet does not mean his testimony was truthful.

Many people have forgotten (or were never aware) that Martin Luther King was part of the anti-war movement. His involvement with the "American peace committee" that was involved in obtaining the prisoners' release should be noted, and is typical of his humanitarian concerns. The reason why some anti-war activists have attempted to visit POWs during times of war (Vietnam is not the first nor the only time anti-war activists have done this) is because the same reasons that lead to opposition to war lead to opposition to torture and the mistreatment of prisoners. Attempting to visit prisoners and to appeal for their humane treatment (or release) is a way of bringing outside attention to the prisons and the treatment the prisoners are receiving. In order to convey the impression that they are treating their prisoners humanely, countries sometimes have to make genuine improvements in their treatment of the prisoners. It doesn't work if the country doesn't give a damn about outside opinion, but in many cases countries do. North Vietnam, fighting a war against a much bigger, much stronger foreign power, knew that favorable foreign opinion was vital to their cause. Whether that was a factor in the dramatic changes they made in their treatment of POWs is not known, but that is why people like King were involved in it.

The passage mentions "an American peace committee". I don't remember which peace group that was, and will try to look it up when I get a chance.

[Nova Land]

Voices from Captivity, pp 192-193: Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, an anti-war activist from Toronto, Canada, visited Hanoi early in 1967. As an integral part of his visit, he insisted that the North Vietnamese officials include interviews with American POWs as part of his itinerary. Reflecting on the totality of his visit, he wrote, "I shall always remember what happened there." Not knowing what to expect, Feinberg was startled when a "clean-shaven, clean-cut, plump man, close to 35, in blue dungarees, leather or chamois jacket, canvas shoes" entered the meeting room. Even more startling, the prisoner bowed from the waist "with more than a hint of elaborate deference." According to Rabbi Feinberg:

"We had never seen a deep bow from the waist. Suddenly a newpaper clipping someone had sent me in Toronto whisked before my eyes. It said POWs purposefully perform the bow ... in the presence of visiting journalists to substantiate allegations of humiliating sadisim, or of brain-washing in case they make statements injurious to the United States ..."

Rabbi Feinberg knew that bowing was foreign to westerners and seemingly accepted the propaganda that POWs bowed as deception to cover injurious anti-war statements. He had no idea, however, that North Vietnamese prison policy forced the Americans to bow under the threat of torture. In the past, the Japanese army had initiated POW bowing, forcing officers to bow to any Japanese soldier regardless of rank... In effect, this nameless POW used the deep bow not only as a form of forced respect, but also as a form of passive resistance to tell Feinberg that what he was about to see and hear was a smokescreen.

In the interview, Rabbi Feinberg asked the prisoner, whom he does not name in his book, what, if anything, he could do. Responding to the kindly Feinberg, the prisoner exercised his second option to resist; he asked Rabbi Feinberg for a King James Version of the Bible... Feinberg was moved at the request and at the POW's religious fervor. In his religious and moral fervor to help end the war by participating in the peace movement, he could not have known that 1966 - 1969 was the most brutal period of American incarceration in North Vietnam, nor could he have known that the North Vietnamese would never have permitted an American POW to read a Bible. By asking Rabbi Feinberg for help, the POW bypassed the North Vietnamese refusal to fill out Red Cross prisoner cards in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Convention. Consequently, in many cases, visits like Rabbi Feinberg's with direct promises to contact spouses, served in a roundabout way to confirm the fact that a missing soldier was alive in captivity, a vital piece of information...Doyle appears to me to go out of his way in this passage to downplay or discredit the positive role that anti-war activists such as Feinberg played ("He had no idea... He could not have known..."), and only grudgingly acknowledges one of the ways (helping confirm a prisoner is alive) in which visits such as Feinbergs have been helpful. Although it's not relevant to this particular thread, I would like to learn more about Rabbi Feinberg and will see what I can find when time permits (i.e. 2005, probably).

The bit about how Bibles were forbidden in 1967 is worth noting, since after 1969 Bible-reading and religious exercises were permitted.

[Nova Land]

Captive Warriors, p 264: That summer, the voice of Jane Fonda hung in the air over Camp Unity. Our camp guards and the commander were overjoyed to have a celebrity of her status come over and align herself with their "humane cause". I'll never forget seeing a picture of her seated on an anti-aircraft gun, much like the one that had shot my plane out of the air and given seven years of my life to the North Vietnamese prison system. I stood in front of her photograph in a quiz room and stared in disbelief until the twisting in my gut made me turn away.

Jane Fonda's visit met with approval by some of the POWs, however. The number of turncoats among us had dwindled as several, like Bill, had come back to our side, but there were still a few in Camp Unity who would not "come home". Two senior officers, a marine lieutenant colonel and a navy commander, had not only convinced themselves that their collaboration was all right, but they had also led some of the junior officers into betrayal. They had decided it was okay to cooperate with the requests of the North Vietnamese, and they gladly met with peace delegates, like Jane Fonda....Johnson is extremely hostile to Jane Fonda, and to anti-war activists in general. He also has a pretty low opinion of POWs who held anti-war views. I have some additional interesting passages from him expressing his opinions on anti-war activists, Communism, and related matters, which I'd like to go into at more length later. However, what's at issue at the moment is not his personal opinion of Jane Fonda and her politics, but whether the vets who met with Jane Fonda did so voluntarily or because they had been tortured. Johnson's testimony here is that they did so voluntarily.

[Nova Land]

Honor Bound, p 567: The propaganda mill was busiest at the Zoo, where the new [prisoners] were barely settled in before political officers exploited their lack of experience and organization (and, old-timers would argue, fuzzier convictions about the war and their resistance obligations) to extract statements and "show" the prisoners to visiting delegations. The Vietnamese may have wrung juicier material from the Peace Committee at Plantation but it was at the refurbished Zoo where they now concentrated the public relations campaign, staging big events such as celebrity interviews and touring outsiders in a program reminiscent of the old Plantation in the middle years. By fall 1972, a fresh coat of paint had given the camp's buildings an extra sheen, just in time to welcome Clark and a parade of international observers. In September an early release, the first in the North since 1969, sent Mark Gartley and two of the "new guys" -- Air Force Maj. Edward Elias and Navy Lt. Norris Charles -- home with peace activists Cora Weiss, David Dellinger, Richard Falk, and Rev. William Sloane Coffin.

Why Gartley, Elias, and Charles were chosen from among many who by now were "going with the flow" is not clear. Charles was black; Gartley had been a member of the "Outer Seven" at Unity; all three were obviously hand-picked and cultivated prior to the release. Veterans like Day and Guarino fell on them with the same scorn they heaped on the Plantation early releases years before, taking special swipes at Gartley, whose mother accompanied the peace delegation. (So did Charles's wife.)The first generation of POWs (the pilots shot down between 1966 and 1968) were generally staunch right-wingers, militantly anti-communist, who strongly supported the war. From 1968 on there was a growing number of POWs who were regular soldiers. Many of them were much less enthusiastic about the war, and the anti-war POWs were labelled the "Peace Committee".

This passage again indicates that, in the later years of the war, POWs who met with anti-war activists did so voluntarily and that there was no need to coerce anti-war statements out of them because these were their sentiments.

NOTE: I have seen passages which claim that earlier in the war some POWs were tortured to force them to meet with anti-war activists. I haven't yet seen any verifying details, such as the names of the POWs involved, but this may be possible. If so, that may be one of the sources of confusion that has led to the creation and spread of the false stories about Jane Fonda. But clearly the stories about Jane Fonda are false. The evidence shows both that torture had stopped more than 2 years prior to her visit and that the POWs she talked with met with her voluntarily.

[Nova Land]

Voices from Captivity, p 208: During the Vietnam War, it became common practice for American anti-war activists to visit Hanoi. David Dellinger, Susan Sontag, Mary McCarthy, Oriana Fallaci, Cora Weiss, and Jane Fonda are only a few names in a long list of anti-war visitors who crossed the Pacific to Hanoi. Visiting with American prisoners became a high priority, and the North Vietnamese seized these events for propaganda purposes. Although most American flight officers in captivity had little desire to speak with these people, some did. These officers, members of the "Peace Committee" for the most part, looked relatively healthy in captivity and would willingly give anti-war statements to the visitors. Upon repatriation, many of these men left the service and continued their anti-war activities. This tends to confirm that soldiers were not tortured to force them to meet with Jane Fonda (although the passage does not discuss her case specifically).

This is a weaker confirmation of that fact than Johnson's testimony, however, since it speaks in vague generalities. While Johnson doesn't name names, he does give enough detail to indicate he was speaking of specific POWs. Doyle fails to do that in this passage.

[Nova Land]

Okay, that's all I'm going to post for the moment. I'm going to take a break. I've got some more stuff to add, but I'd like to take a little time to review what-all I have posted so far before adding more.

There's a lot to read in what I've posted, so I hope those interested in continuing this discussion will take time to look it over in leisure. There's no need to rush with this topic (and I certainly don't intend to -- although I did intend to get this stuff posted several days sooner. Would you believe the computer ate my homework?).

[Nova Land]

I didn't mean to be away from this thread for quite so long. But I needed to be away for most of November, and then didn't want to re-start until I was sure I'd be able to post regularly and keep up. Now looks like a good time.

One of the last things I did before taking off in November was post a list of what I thought were the key questions that had been raised (and were still to be resolved) in this thread. Since it has been close to 3 months, I'll re-post that list now (and even a link to where in this thread it is (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870676733#1870676733), since it's quite a few posts back).1. Were any POWs tortured in order to make them meet with Jane Fonda?

2. Were US POWs being tortured at the time Jane Fonda met with prisoners in 1972? In the preceding year, or the year before that?

3. How accurate was Fonda's account of the conditions of US POWs at the time of her visit? Specifically:
(a) Had the prisoners she did meet with been tortured or brain-washed (and she was too blind to see it, or didn't want to see it)?
(b) Were the prisoners she did not meet with being tortured and brain-washed (and she was fooled by the display prisoners that the North Vietnamese trotted out)?

4. Was Fonda's correct in her charge that Vietcong and North Vietnamese prisoners were being tortured by our side?

5. Which of her other major remarks related to the Vietnam war and/or the treatment of POWs were correct and which were incorrect? (Yes, that's a pretty broad catch-all. We can sub-divide it if necessary.)

6. Was John Kerry's testimony to Congress truthful?

7. Was the testimony at the Winter Soldier hearings, on which Kerry's testimony was based, truthful? Specifically:
(a) Were the people who testified genuine vets?
(b) What allegations did they make? Were these correct, and have they been documented?

8. Was Kerry's testimony used against the POWs in Vietnam? DId it cause harm them to be tortured or otherwise abused? Has this haunted some of them for decades?

9. Did Kerry apologize for any harm caused by his testimony to Congress? Was it a real apology?In some ways I think the long gap in this thread is a good thing. I'm fond of slow-moving threads.

While I was away in November I was able to stop by UTK to take more notes and make more copies of some relevant materials. One thing I did was make a complete copy of the Winter Soldier testimony to be able to read and refer to it. I would encourage others who have strong feelings on questions relating to this material (such as whether the people testifying were genuine vets and whether many of the charges made have or have not been documented) to look it up and read it before making too many assumptions about what was and wasn't said. I still haven't had time to read it all myself, but what I have read so far is fascinating. One good source, readily available in many libraries, is Congressional Record, April 6 1971, pp 9947 to 1055. (Bonus: you can at the same time read a number of other Vietnam-related items inserted earlier on that same day, including some the congresspeople involved would probably prefer never surface again.)

I don't expect to get to the subject of the Winter Soldier hearing for a while, since there are other subjects ahead of that in the list of questions raised in this thread, so should still be time for those interested in arguing the matter to look up what it is they are arguing about.

Based on the material I posted back on November 9th (and similar material, buried in my notes somewhere), I am prepared to answer the first 3 questions on the list. I think 3 months is long enough that anyone interested in this topic has probably read and had time to digest the material I posted back then. But just in case there's anyone new reading this thread, or in case people interested in arguing this need to refresh their memories, I'll wait until tonight before proceeding.

[Shinytop]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Once again, a part of the testimony was about the general slaughter of the Vietnamese people, which is part of the reason there was a large anti-war movement. To an extent, evey American fighting in Vietnam was guilty. They may not have wanted to be there, they may have been obeying lawful orders, but they were guilty. Part of this was, of course, a guilt equally shared by the people of the USA, and it's allies, and I include Australia in this, of course. However, it was the people like Kerry who saw first hand what was happening. Hence his activism to try to stop it.

The guilt, in general, however, comes from the top down. The whole idea that all you had to do was go in and kill enough Vietnamese to win a war was barbaric.

You incredible pompous ass. The unbelievable gall it takes to assign guilt to millions of Americans who did no harm to the VN people is beyond belief. I thought many of your previous posts were a bit egotistical but until now I just thought it was ego, now I know it is exteme ignorance.

I served for two years in Vietnam and know I am guilty of nothing. I do not need nor accept your approval or condemnation of anything I did of which you have no knowledge. Give your ego a rest.

[Nova Land]

Here are my answers to the first 3 questions in the list.

1. Were any POWs tortured in order to make them meet with Jane Fonda? No.

In the early years of US involvement, most of the captured pilots were fairly hard-core in their support of the war, their hatred of Communism, and their determination to be pains-in-the-ass to their captors. They followed a code which included refusing any offers of early release, refusing special visits, etc. (although they made a few exceptions). During those years, POWs were tortured for many reasons.

By 1972, however, things had changed. One of the many changes was that the POWs now included a fair number who held anti-war views and who (according to Sam Johnson, a staunch pro-war POW, quoted a few posts up the page) gladly met with visiting peace activists such as Jane Fonda.

Is there anyone here who cares to argue this point, or can we mark it settled?

2. Were US POWs being tortured at the time Jane Fonda met with prisoners in 1972? No.

In the preceding year (1971)? No.

Or the year before that (1970)? No.

The POW accounts are consistent on this. 1969 was the watershed year when things changed. Prior to that, the North Vietnamese regarded their US captives as criminals rather than POWs and treated them barbarically. But in the autumn of 1969 that changed, and North Vietnamese treatment of prisoners began to conform to Geneva Convention standards. The last incident of torture I was able to locate in any of the sources I looked in was that of recaptured escapees Ed Atterberry and John Dramesi, in 1969.

Does anyone care to dispute this, or can we mark this one as settled too?

3. How accurate was Fonda's account of the conditions of US POWs at the time of her visit? Specifically:

(a) Had the prisoners she met with been tortured or brain-washed (and she was too blind to see it, or didn't want to see it)? No, the prisoners she met with had not been tortured or brain-washed. By all accounts I can find, they met with her willingly and they were being reasonably well-treated (for prisoners) at the time.

(b) Were the prisoners she did not meet with being tortured and brain-washed (and she was fooled by the display prisoners that the North Vietnamese trotted out)? No. As noted above, torture had ceased about 3 years prior to her visit. And a year later, when the POWs were released and returned to the US, they were -- as news coverage at the time showed, and the POWs themselves stated -- in good physical condition.

If the POWs had been released 4 years earlier, it would have been a very different story. But they weren't. They came home in early 1973 in generally good health to a heroes' welcome. Those who, 35 years later, believe otherwise should look this up for themselves. There was extensive newspaper and magazine coverage at the time, which is easily accessible at many libraries.

I already quoted a number of POW accounts. One article I did not quote from, because I didn't have it at hand then, was John McCain's lengthy post-release account, "Inside Story: How the POWs Fought Back", from the May 14, 1973 US News & World Report [pp 46-52, 110-115]. I'd like to quote from it now, because it speaks directly to the question at hand. Aside from bad situations now and then, 1971 and 1972 was a sort of coasting period. The reason why you see our men in such good condition today is that the food and everything generally improved. For example, in late '69 I was down to 105, 110 pounds, boils all over me, suffering dysentery. We started getting packages with vitamins in them -- about one package a year. We were able to exercise quite a bit in our rooms and managed to get back in a lot better health.

My health has improved radically. In fact, I think I'm in better physical shape than I was when I got shot down. I can do about 45 push-ups and a couple hundred sit-ups. Another beautiful thing about exercise: it makes you tired and you can sleep, and when you're asleep you're not there, you know. I used to try to exercise all the time.So: does anyone care to dispute that Jane Fonda's statements made at the time of her visit to North Vietnam in 1972 were substantially correct?

I bolded the phrase made at the time of her visit to North Vietnam in 1972 in order to distinguish these from her comments made at the time of the the POWs release in 1973. In these (as I noted earlier in the thread) she was in error. She mistakenly assumed that the condition and treatment of the prisoners when she saw them was the same as the condition and treatment of POWs several years earlier. It wasn't. There had been torture of US POWs until late 1969, and when POWs following their release began recounting this she mistakenly thought that they were lying or exaggerating. They weren't, she realized she was wrong, and she apologized.

I think those 3 questions are enough to start with. Earlier in this thread, some people seemed to disagree with the statement that torture had ended by the time of Fonda's visit. Do people still disagree, and if so based on what?

There's no need to rush in replying. In a week or so, if there's no significant discussion continuing on the first 3 questions, I'll move on to the next two:

4. Was Fonda's correct in her charge that Vietcong and North Vietnamese prisoners were being tortured by our side?

5. Which of her other major remarks related to the Vietnam war and/or the treatment of POWs were correct and which were incorrect?

I deliberately worded question 5 very broadly, so that if there is anything else related to Fonda to argue about that I've neglected to include it can be included under that and gotten out of the way prior to tackling questions 6 through 9 about John Kerry.

[The Fool]

Originally posted by Shinytop
I served for two years in Vietnam and know I am guilty of nothing.

That is a very confident statement. I was there too but I'm not sure I could be that definite....

Did you dutifully hand your prisoners over to the ARVN like we did? Did you know what was going to happen to them, like we did?

[SRW]

Originally posted by Nova Land
Here are my answers to the first 3 questions in the list.

1. Were any POWs tortured in order to make them meet with Jane Fonda? No.

In the early years of US involvement, most of the captured pilots were fairly hard-core in their support of the war, their hatred of Communism, and their determination to be pains-in-the-ass to their captors. They followed a code which included refusing any offers of early release, refusing special visits, etc. (although they made a few exceptions). During those years, POWs were tortured for many reasons.

By 1972, however, things had changed. One of the many changes was that the POWs now included a fair number who held anti-war views and who (according to Sam Johnson, a staunch pro-war POW, quoted a few posts up the page) gladly met with visiting peace activists such as Jane Fonda.

Is there anyone here who cares to argue this point, or can we mark it settled?

2. Were US POWs being tortured at the time Jane Fonda met with prisoners in 1972? No.

In the preceding year (1971)? No.

Or the year before that (1970)? No.

The POW accounts are consistent on this. 1969 was the watershed year when things changed. Prior to that, the North Vietnamese regarded their US captives as criminals rather than POWs and treated them barbarically. But in the autumn of 1969 that changed, and North Vietnamese treatment of prisoners began to conform to Geneva Convention standards. The last incident of torture I was able to locate in any of the sources I looked in was that of recaptured escapees Ed Atterberry and John Dramesi, in 1969.

Does anyone care to dispute this, or can we mark this one as settled too?

3. How accurate was Fonda's account of the conditions of US POWs at the time of her visit? Specifically:

(a) Had the prisoners she met with been tortured or brain-washed (and she was too blind to see it, or didn't want to see it)? No, the prisoners she met with had not been tortured or brain-washed. By all accounts I can find, they met with her willingly and they were being reasonably well-treated (for prisoners) at the time.

(b) Were the prisoners she did not meet with being tortured and brain-washed (and she was fooled by the display prisoners that the North Vietnamese trotted out)? No. As noted above, torture had ceased about 3 years prior to her visit. And a year later, when the POWs were released and returned to the US, they were -- as news coverage at the time showed, and the POWs themselves stated -- in good physical condition.

If the POWs had been released 4 years earlier, it would have been a very different story. But they weren't. They came home in early 1973 in generally good health to a heroes' welcome. Those who, 35 years later, believe otherwise should look this up for themselves. There was extensive newspaper and magazine coverage at the time, which is easily accessible at many libraries.

I already quoted a number of POW accounts. One article I did not quote from, because I didn't have it at hand then, was John McCain's lengthy post-release account, "Inside Story: How the POWs Fought Back", from the May 14, 1973 US News & World Report [pp 46-52, 110-115]. I'd like to quote from it now, because it speaks directly to the question at hand. So: does anyone care to dispute that Jane Fonda's statements made at the time of her visit to North Vietnam in 1972 were substantially correct?

I bolded the phrase made at the time of her visit to North Vietnam in 1972 in order to distinguish these from her comments made at the time of the the POWs release in 1973. In these (as I noted earlier in the thread) she was in error. She mistakenly assumed that the condition and treatment of the prisoners when she saw them was the same as the condition and treatment of POWs several years earlier. It wasn't. There had been torture of US POWs until late 1969, and when POWs following their release began recounting this she mistakenly thought that they were lying or exaggerating. They weren't, she realized she was wrong, and she apologized.

I think those 3 questions are enough to start with. Earlier in this thread, some people seemed to disagree with the statement that torture had ended by the time of Fonda's visit. Do people still disagree, and if so based on what?

There's no need to rush in replying. In a week or so, if there's no significant discussion continuing on the first 3 questions, I'll move on to the next two:

4. Was Fonda's correct in her charge that Vietcong and North Vietnamese prisoners were being tortured by our side?

5. Which of her other major remarks related to the Vietnam war and/or the treatment of POWs were correct and which were incorrect?

I deliberately worded question 5 very broadly, so that if there is anything else related to Fonda to argue about that I've neglected to include it can be included under that and gotten out of the way prior to tackling questions 6 through 9 about John Kerry.

I went back and re-read this thread. The challenge to your
OP and latter posts were mainly this quote from Snopes posted by Mona;

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to your own research do you not agree that Fonda was wrong when she said " The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest".

She was not talking about the ones she met rather all the prisoners who returned.

Based on the above quote do you not agree that Jane Fonda was ill informed about the true nature of how the POWs had been treated throughout the war?


Your questions are interesting, more importantly, you have pointed out that the North Vietnamese as a matter of course brutalized prisoners during the war. Have any of the North Vietnamees ever been tried for war crimes? If not why not?

[Shinytop]

Originally posted by The Fool
That is a very confident statement. I was there too but I'm not sure I could be that definite....

Did you dutifully hand your prisoners over to the ARVN like we did? Did you know what was going to happen to them, like we did?

Yup it was confident.

And no to your first question which covers the second. And I was not infantry. And I will not play 20 questions about my tours until somebody thinks they have caught me. I did not commit any atrocities and I have nothing on my conscience. I am not guilty of a damn thing unless you want to count spending a dollar when I had no p.

[Shinytop]

I think it incumbent on me to add another thought to this thread. Commanders in the military are taught they are responsible for the lives of their men. They are, of course, taught responsibility for the laws of war, the Geneva Convention and the laws of the military and the USA.

That said, I will have to say that if I had possession of a prisoner and I knew that hitting him would get him to give me knowledge that would save the lives of my men it would be very difficult not to cross that line. While not defending every act of torture or prisoner mistreatment I must add that I understand it and will not claim that if placed in similar circumstances I would not do the same.

As a citizen I will always expect my military to follow the laws of the land and treaties. As a parent I would hope my children's commander would hold his life very dear in making decisions. As a former commander of troops I will say there is not much I would not have done to insure the safety of my men.

[The Fool]

Originally posted by Shinytop
Yup it was confident.

And no to your first question which covers the second. And I was not infantry. And I will not play 20 questions about my tours until somebody thinks they have caught me. I did not commit any atrocities and I have nothing on my conscience. I am not guilty of a damn thing unless you want to count spending a dollar when I had no p.

So you were not in the places where the atrocities occured? Fair enough....I can accept the I was not there statement but I have trouble with the "ensure the safety of my men" catchbag for rationalising unacceptable behavior as there is rarely, in the real world, the sort of direct link you imagine between the atrocity performed and your mens improved safety.

Information beaten from prisoners in the field is very similar in quality to information freely provided by prisoners......mostly garbage.

we usually insisted that the ARVN took them somewhere else before they shot them. Unfortunately, I can't say I was looking in another direction at the time.

I am guilty of not shoving my rifle down the throat of the first ARVN "intelligence" officer I saw who's interrogation techniques generally ended with a 9mm to the back of the head.....but it was none of my business, not my fault, I had other things to do, I'm not responsible, Ive done nothing wrong, I was only following orders.......

[Shinytop]

I did not rationalize, I did not justify. I posted my thoughts and my feelings. At no time did I say it was right. And I even said if I knew the knowledge would save lives. But that was ignored. I pretty much post my thoughts and do not need them interpreted. If you have any questions you can always ask. I may answer.

I have often posted against the abuse of prisoners and have not changed my mind. I also am intelligent enough to know the answers are not all simple and are not as clear when you are facing the enemy and care about the soldiers entrusted to your care.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by SRW

... do you not agree that Jane Fonda was ill informed about the true nature of how the POWs had been treated throughout the war?Yes, which is why I separated that (her comments on the treatment throughout the war, which she made in 1973 after their release) from her comments on their treatment in 1972 which she made at the time of her visit. The point she was making -- on which she was correct -- was that in 1972 (the present time for her) our side was torturing POWs and the other side wasn't.

This is an important thing for citizens to do -- to be aware when their own government is doing wrong, and to call them to account for it. Therefore, I think what Jane Fonda did in 1972 was praiseworthy, even though she made mistakes at the time (such as engaging in the ill-conceived photo session) and a year later (the statements you are referring to).

I am not trying to evade discussion of her 1973 statements, simply separate that from discussion of her 1972 statements, so that discussion of one does not become a diversion from the other. I suggest focusing first on her actions and statements in 1972, when the POWs were still in captivity. Those are the statements and actions people generally claim to be outraged about, since they occurred while we were actively engaged in the war and allegedly caused some POWs to be tortured and killed.

Once the POWs were back here, in 1973, her words and actions had the potential to hurt their feelings, but not to get them tortured or killed. So trying to say that Fonda was responsible for mistreatment of our POWs during wartime, but using statements from after they were freed and back in this country, is a confusion that should be avoided.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by SRW

... you have pointed out that the North Vietnamese as a matter of course brutalized prisoners during the war. Have any of the North Vietnamees ever been tried for war crimes? If not why not? You raise a very good question. I'll give you a quick response now, and then add it to the question queue as question # 10 (so as not to get diverted from the questions already under consideration).

(a) Under what would they be charged? The North Vietnamese believed that the US pilots they captured were criminals -- murderers and terrorists -- not POWs. (I believe the current phrase is "illegal combatants".)

The US had not officially declared war, and was maintaining the fiction that we were there as advisers, so technically the North Vietnamese may have been correct. But whether they were legally correct or not, their actions were a moral abomination. There is a moral responsibility of those who live in such a country to hold the people who committed these acts, and the government officials who crafted or condoned the policies that allowed these acts, responsible for their actions.

(b) I am not familiar with the specific fates of the North Vietnamese prison officials who engaged in torture, although from the accounts written by the POWs it is possible to glean some details about this. Following the North Vietnamese reversal of their torture policy in 1969, these men fell from grace and were demoted to lower and more demeaning tasks in the prison system. It is quite possible that some of them suffered punishments almost as severe and draconian as our government imposed on William Calley, who was forced to endure 2 years of house arrest before receiving a presidential pardon.

As to the fates of the government officials who condoned the torture policy, again I am unaware of their fates. I certainly hope they were tried and punished, but I fear they were not.

So. Question 10: (a) Should those who engage in the torture and mistreatment of "illegal combatants" be charged with war crimes?

(b) Were those who engaged in the torture of prisoners during the Vietnam War charged and prosecuted (either under international law, or by their own nation's laws)? If so, what consequences did they suffer?

(c) Were those in government who condoned or were responsible for these offenses ever brought to account? If so, what consequences did they suffer?

It will probably be a while before we get through the other questions, so if you would prefer to discuss this sooner I'd be happy to spin it off into a different thread so we can start discussing it immediately without it becoming a diversion from a discussion about Jane Fonda's (and then John Kerry's) actions.

[Nova Land]

1. Were any POWs tortured in order to make them meet with Jane Fonda? NoGoing once. Going twice... Doesn't anyone want to argue this point before I bring down the gavel on question # 1?

If no one else does, then I'll come back in a day or two and play devil's advocate, because I think what the Snopes article has to say regarding Fonda's 1972 visit needs closer scrutiny.

[Nova Land]

Back on page 1, Mona cited (and quoted 2 paragraphs from) a Snopes article, "Hanoi'd with Jane" (http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp). Snopes has a generally good reputation, so I assumed it was factual and didn't read it as carefully or question it as closely as I should have. Having read more about this issue since then, I am no longer willing to give the Snopes article a pass. And since no one else is bringing it up now in relation to Jane Fonda's 1972 actions and statements, I will.

The overall matter that Snopes is dealing with in this article is: Claim: Jane Fonda betrayed U.S. POWs during the Viet Nam War. According to Snopes, Status: Multiple -- meaning some parts stand up and some parts don't.

Snopes does a fairly good job of exposing some of the false parts of this claim. What I failed to notice before was that some of the parts Snopes examined and supposedly found to be true don't actually stand up to scrutiny. Here's the key paragraph:The most prominent example of a clash between private citizen protest and governmental military policy in recent history occurred in July 1972, when actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a two-week tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts. Aside from visiting villages, hospitals, schools, and factories, Fonda also posed for pictures in which she was shown applauding North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners, was photographed peering into the sights of an NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and made ten propagandistic Tokyo Rose-like radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals." She also spoke with eight American POWs at a carefully arranged "press conference," POWS who had been tortured by their North Vietnamese captors to force them to meet with Fonda, deny they had been tortured, and decry the American war effort. Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress or find it unusual the she was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp (commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton") itself. She merely went home and told the world that "[the POWs] assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done." She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American prison-of-war camps.

Let's go through that point-by-point.
... in July 1972 ... actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a two-week tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts.True. Aside from visiting villages, hospitals, schools, and factories, Fonda also posed for pictures in which she was shown applauding North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners, was photographed peering into the sights of an NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher...True..... and made ten propagandistic Tokyo Rose-like radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals."Never having heard the actual broadcasts (of either Fonda or TR), I'll reserve judgment on the Tokyo Rose characterization, but apart from that I believe this is substantially True..

Note that, according to this, Fonda denounced political and military leaders -- not the soldiers who were fighting the war. Again, I have not heard the actual broadcasts or read transcripts, but believe this is true. Does anyone wish to dispute that? We don't necessarily have to go into this now, but it is an issue which will be coming up later in this thread so it's worth at least noting.

This relates to the Winter Soldier hearings and John Kerry's testimony to congress. It has been charged that Kerry and others were attacking US soldiers with their statements about the war. Kerry and others have maintained their charges were aimed at the government officials in charge of making US policy and the military higher-ups in charge of carrying out that policy.

Jane Fonda was a key figure in organizing the Winter Soldier hearings. This statement at Snopes appears to provide support to the claim that it was the military leaders, not the soldiers in the field, that the Winter Soldier hearings targetted. She also spoke with eight American POWs at a carefully arranged "press conference," POWS who had been tortured by their North Vietnamese captors to force them to meet with Fonda, deny they had been tortured, and decry the American war effort.False! I'm not sure what Snopes is basing this on, but all the evidence I've been able to find indicates this is not so. According to all the POW accounts I've read, the prisoners who met with Jane Fonda did so voluntarily and were not coerced (let alone tortured) to do so. Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress...False! She didn't notice it because it wasn't true. ... or find it unusual the she was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp (commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton") itself.Spin! I wouldn't call this a lie exactly, but it does seem to be more spin than straightforward factual statement. No, the North Vietnamese did not give a visiting US actress unrestricted access to their prisons, nor was Fonda likely to have expected such. (No previous visiting delegation had been given that kind of access.) She was permitted to meet with a small group of prisoners who had expressed willingness to meet with her, and she was permitted to take with her letters from the POWs to deliver to loved ones back in the US. These are considerable concessions from the North Vietnamese to grant. If Snopes (or others) wish to read excessive naivete, or something more sinister, into Fonda's not expecting more from the North Vietnamese, they should quote Fonda directly rather than engage in this kind of insinuation. She merely went home and told the world that "[the POWs] assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done."True.

It is true that this is what she reported, it is true that this is what the prisoners told her, and it true that this is a correct statement of their condition. She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American prison-of-war camps.True again. This is indeed what she charged, and she was correct in that charge. We'll be getting to that soon, in question # 4.

Digression: One quibble some have made with this is that the torture was generally done by South Vietnamese interrogators and prison officials rather than American ones.

At the time Fonda made this statement, many people made little distinction between the actions of US troops and the actions of South Vietnamese troops. Both were part of the same side -- our side. The US and the South Vietnamese, combined, made up one side of the war, and it was common to refer to this as the American side rather the South Vietnamese side, since the South Vietnamese were widely seen by people such as Fonda to be more puppets than partners.

In referring to American prisoner-of-war camps, Fonda was referring to the camps where Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners were held by our side. The issue we'll be coming to in question # 4 is whether these prisoners were, indeed, tortured. The evidence I've seen is that Fonda was right.

End of digresssion.

The next paragraph of the Snopes article relates to her 1973, post-release statements about the POWs. I'd prefer to hold off on analyzing that yet, so as not to get distracted from a careful analysis of the 1972 statements.

There is one last section of the Snopes relating to 1972 which needs to be put onto the examining table. [Example Snopes offers of a widely-circulated story about Fonda:] "When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I would like to tell her about the real treatment we POWs were receiving, which was far different from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Jane Fonda, as 'humane and lenient.' Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstretched arms with a piece of steel re-bar placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane every time my arms dipped."

...

[Snopes analysis of this story:] The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true... That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs. I was unable to find any mention of this incident outside of undated and unverified accounts on the internet. According to Snopes, the article was published "in April" by the "Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs". I don't think that's sufficient to carry much weight. I located this account at several sites on-line, but could not find any evidence that it had been checked out and verified. I could find no record of when Benge first told this story; the on-line posting of the story at the AIN site seems to be the first time.

What I would like to see is statements from the 1970s in which Benge or his fellow prisoners told this story. And I can't find any. Since there are numerous published accounts by POWs, and incidents of mistreatment are an important part of these accounts, the lack of its inclusion in any of these is a good indication it never happened.

Since this story contradicts what is in the POW journals from the time, and since the first recorded telling seems to have occurred about 25 to 30 years after the fact, it appears to be an after-the-fact fabrication. I think Snopes got snowed. Since Snopes got so much wrong in the other paragraph, I am not willing to accept an unverified account simply on Snopes' say-so. I want to see what documentation they can offer for this story other than an anecdote told decades after the fact. If anyone wants to defend Snopes on this, please dig up that documentation and present it here.

I do not have easy access to good libraries, and I have read only a small fraction of the available material, so it is quite possible there is documentation and I simply have not found it. If so, I would like to know about it. These questions about Jane Fonda are ones I very much would like to know the answers to.

[crimresearch]

So basically, Nova Land wasn't there, and doesn't know what happened, and doesn't care to dig up anything supporting his assertions, but if Snopes and others investigate and evaluate something that he disagrees with it must be 'False'.

Never mind the testimony of those who were there, or the fact that the subject of the story, Fonda went on to scam millions of women with a dangerous health fraud...she's unimpeachable, and everyone else is lying.

OK, gotcha.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by crimresearch

So basically, Nova Land ... doesn't care to dig up anything supporting his assertions...I'm not sure how you get that. Please re-read the thread. I did a what I consider a good amount of digging, and posted what I consider ample evidence to support the point that torture by the North Vietnamese ceased in 1969. Fonda's visit took place in 1972, and the evidence indicates the POWs who met with her did so voluntarily.

The sources I cited were people who were there -- the POWs themselves. Furthermore, I went to pains to cite the pro-war POWs rather than anti-war ones. The latter might have reason to shade the facts to put Fonda in a better light; the hawks I cited did not.

What I was not able to find was anything to support the Snopes claims. And it is not for lack of trying. I'm interested in truth, not in proving a pre-determined point.

If you are able to do better at finding support for the Snopes claims that I question, be my guest. That, after all, is why I called attention to it rather than accepting the lack of argument with my conclusions and moving on. The point is not to win a debate, but to arrive at better understanding.... but if Snopes and others investigate and evaluate something that he disagrees with it must be 'False'.
Ah, but that's the problem. It appears to me that Snopes did not investigate, at least not adequately. What is the evidence you see (on their site or elsewhere) to support the allegation any POWs were tortured to make them meet with Fonda?

Again, if you (or others) care to investigate, as I have, and post your evidence, as I have, perhaps we can arrive at a better understanding of what did and did not happen. Let me know, and I'll wait on moving on to other questions.Never mind the testimony of those who were there...Quite the contrary. That is the testimony which I have cited, and which supports the conclusions I've posted.... the subject of the story, Fonda went on to scam millions of women with a dangerous health fraudTotally irrelevant to the subject under discussion in this thread -- as irrelevant as Arnold Schwarzenegger's similar activities years ago are to questions about him.

If Fonda's exercise videos and related enterprises concern you, feel free to start a thread in which to discuss them. But I remain baffled what possible relevance they have to the question of whether the men Fonda visited in 1972 were tortured to make them agree to see her. That is a simple matter of historical record, and the historical record appears to say they weren't.

[Nova Land]

It appears no one wishes to offer any serious disagreement with the answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 that I have put forward:

1. No POWs were tortured to make them meet with Jane Fonda.
2. The North Vietnamese policy of treating US prisoners as criminals and subjecting them to torture ended in 1969, several years prior to Fonda's visit.
3. Fonda's 1972 report of the condition of the prisoners with whom she met was correct: they were not being tortured, they were not being brainwashed, and they were in decent physical condition.

Just in case anyone who has not spoken up does wish to dispute these, or in case anyone would like to offer a serious defense of the Snopes article, I'll leave these questions open for one more day. If someone is interested in continuing discussion of these questions but needs more time to look up evidence, please let me know (either in this thread or by PM). Otherwise on Monday I'll move on to questions 4 and 5.4. Was Fonda correct in her charge that Vietcong and North Vietnamese prisoners were being tortured by our side?

5. Which of her other major remarks related to the Vietnam war and/or the treatment of POWs were correct and which were incorrect?My inclination is to start in on question 5 first, specifically her 1973 comments which SRW referred to a few posts back, and discuss that before going into the question of whether North Vietnamese POWs were tortured. However, I am open to discussing these in either order (or simultaneously if it doesn't get too confusing).

[Nova Land]

Since no one is offering any serious disagreement with the answers to questions, 1, 2, and 3, and no one is offering any serious defense of the Snopes article, I'm going to bang down the gavel on these as far as this thread goes.

That doesn't mean we can't re-open these questions, if someone down the line has some new evidence or new arguments to bring up. But if that happens I'll open a new thread specifically to discuss the particular question being revisited rather than respond in this thread, so as not to get diverted from the current questions.

The last time I was able to visit a good library was 3 months ago. At the time I copied much of Newsweek's 1973 coverage of the return of the POWs and Jane Fonda's comments concerning them. (I thought I had also copied the Time magazine coverage, but don't see that in the stack now so either I didn't or else I've misplaced it.)

I had intended to start excerpting relevant passages from some of these articles today, but as usual am running late, so I'll probably start doing that late tomorrow night. I will try to post a few items at a time, rather than posting a lot of stuff at once the way I had to do in November. (I need to re-read a lot of this stuff myself, so that should help keep down how much I post at a time.)

For those interested in taking active part in the discussion, I recommend looking up the news coverage of the POW's return from the magazine or newspaper of your choice. Newsweek had fairly extensive coverage and is readily available in many libraries, so it's a good place to look. Some of the dates for which I have copies include: February 5, 19, and 26, March 5 and 12, April 2, 9, and 16, May 14, and June 11. Of these, February 26 ("Home At Last!") seems the most extensive. I also highly recommend the John McCain article in US News & World Report (May 14, 1973: "Inside Story: How the POWs Fought Back") as a good source to read and refer to.

[Nova Land]

My apologies for my delay in returning to this thread. I meant to get back to this sooner, but as usual am running late.

Last Thursday a friend gave me a ride to Cookeville so we could attend a presentation on chip mills and clear-cutting, and while there I was able to spend an hour in the Tennessee Tech library -- long enough to glance quickly through the bound volume of Time and confirm that the reason I don't have copies of their coverage at hand is that I haven't gone through those issues yet. I will be going to The Big City (Knoxville) for the next few days, and while there I plan to spend a couple nights at UTK so will make notes and copies from Time then.

While at Tech I also glanced quickly through The Nation and National Review, and was surprised to find relatively little in them, either about the POWs' release or about Jane Fonda's remarks. I'll go through both of those more fully and carefully while at UTK too.

The March 19 1973 issue of Time in particular has an interesting item. No time to quote it now, but I will definitely be using it.

My plan is to start quoting from the Newsweek coverage of the prisoners' release, going through my copies and notes chronologically by source (rather than trying to switch back and forth between different sources). I'll try to excerpt this material with little or no comment from me at first, so that those reading this thread can have a chance to peruse these excerpts (and, if interested, look up the originals) without feeling a need to dispute any assertions I make while presenting it. It will probably take 4 or 5 several installments, several days apart, to get these excerpts posted.

I've got notes typed up and ready to post from the first few Newsweek issues that covered the story, so will start posting those now and will be back in about a week with installment two.

[Nova Land]

Coverage of the POW release story seems to begin in early February, 1973. For the next couple months, there would be continuing coverage in the US media, with stories in Newsweek almost every week.

Here is one of the first bits of coverage, a Newsweek story from the Feb. 5 1973 issue (p 21): "POW's: Excerpts from a Briefing." This story is minor, but gives an idea of some of the expectations about the condition the POW's would be in and the preparations that were being made for their release.When the medical evacuation planes carrying the homeward-bound POW's touch down at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, the returnees will find themselves on the edge of a new world that may prove nearly as bewildering as the prison camps they left behind. The families of the ex-POW's will inherit the trauma of the prison years as well. To soften the shock for both, the Pentagon has briefed more than 2,000 POW relatives on prison-camp life -- and on what to expect when their men come home. Below, excerpts from a briefing:I'm going to paraphrase most of these in order to convey the gist without quoting the whole thing. Anything I've quoted is in bold.

1. Don't ask, "How was it?"

2. Being a captive is extremely traumatic. You are cut off from everything familiar.

3. The key question for the captive is survival. "Every single act -- whether or not to eat a particular piece of food, whether he walks barefoot over a sharp stick, whether or not he complies with something that's asked of him to prevent getting a beating that might result in an infection -- every single act is evaluated in terms of whether or not it's going to enable him to live through."

4. In order not to dwell on their captivity, POW's find ways to kill time and fill in the minutes.

5. "Thoughts of the family, and the thlought about what he's going to do when he gets out, work for a couple of years -- or they work if a man knows when he is going to get out... If he's not certain, he gets tired of thinking of home. It becomes too depressing."

6. The POW's are going to be afraid and bewildered when they change from captivity to freedom. "And let's face it, no matter how this man has behaved, no matter who he is, he is frightened that he is going to have fingers pointed at him... He's expecting people to point at him the way we did to a number of Korean returnees -- extremely unfairly."

7. "He wants to move slowly... He's going to be upset if too many decisons are thrust at him right away... Such questions as 'Should mother come and live with us?' or 'Should we send Johnny to such and such a school?' are just overwhelmingly complex for him. He's still living in... the prison world -- and it's going to take him a bit to come out of it."

8. They would just as soon not approach their family with a prison pallor, a funny-looking haircut and a rash and a couple fo teeth that need to be repaired. They would much rather approach their family with perhaps another 5 or 10 pounds of weight on their bones and looking more like the tiger they were when the left."

9. Don't rush him, and don't be upset if he's reluctant to get too close too soon.

10. "Relax. Don't get hung up about all the do's and don'ts. He's going to adapt to all the new things he's finding here -- and to you."

[Nova Land]

Newsweek, Feb 19, 1973, pp 19 - 20: "They're Coming Home At Last". The POW's were not yet home, so this story again focused on the details of the preparation for their return. The POW return was planned by the Pentagon with all the attention to detail of a full-scale invasion. For weeks, nearly 2,000 doctors, nurses and administrative personnel assigned to "OPeration HOmecoming" have been mobilizing at Clark to make the prisoners' "re-entry" to the US as smooth as possible. Even the airport welcome in the Philippines was meticulously planned, including a few practice runs at rolling out the red carpet. On doctors' orders, the arriving medevac planes were to be greeted with a minimum of ceremony -- in order to reduce the emotional trauma...The basic plan was to hold the men at a hospital in the Phillipines for 3 days while putting them through various medical tests and debriefings. each POW would be allowed one 15-minute phone call to their wife or parents, but no other contact with the outside world for the 3 day period. Then, assuming all went well, they would be flown back to the US and reunited with their familiies.

There is a companion story on page 20, "The POW's Right-Hand Men":There may never have been anything like an "escort officer" in the history of the US armed forces. But then Ameica has never faced anything quite like the war in Indochina -- where some POWs have been held captive considerably longer than any other American serviceman in previous wars. Carefully screened and thoroughly briefed, the 354 escort officers assigned to Operation HOmecoming will serve as a buffer between past trauma and future shock... After meeting the returnee at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, the escort officer will accompany his man every step of the way home as a sort of combination valet-confidant-public relations man.

The assignment won't be easy. Some American POW's last glimpsed the real world six, seven, even eight years ago...

Some of the escorts are old friends of the man they are to bring home from Vietnam; others, wh have never met the POW they will accompany, were selected because their age, rank, family status and hobbies were similar to his. Once chosen, the escorts were briefed by chaplains and doctors, intelligence specialists and even former prisoners. And they were given a long list of dos and don'ts. The escort, for example, is to sak one question, and only one -- "What do you know about the guys lest behind?" -- in order to help gather information about the more than 1300 men still officially listed as missing in action. But beyond taht, the escort is there to listen. "We tell them not to get into arguments, not to use military jargon, not to push him," said one officer, "And above all, we tell them not to ask what it was like up there." In the event that the returnee raises the subject of collaboration wit the enemy, the escort officer is under stirct orders to change the subject.

Many of the escorts have spent their time in recent weeks boning up on the POW's life and reading about the experiences of other prisoners of war. Marine Maj. John Buchanan, who has known his assigned POW for nearly fifteen years, has not only studied a detailed dossier of his man's career but talked with ex-POWs to get information about the prisoner's life in captivity. "I've tried to study every location where he may have been," Buchanan said. "I've tried to understand at least a little bit of what he's been through."Brief comment: From this, it sounds as if the US had a fairly good idea of the conditions under which the POWs had been held, and there did not seem to be a great deal of concern over their physical condition. This fits in well with the material I previously posted, that from late 1969 on the physical conditions of captivity had improved dramatically. We were expecting the return of men in reasonably good physical shape, but had concerns about their mental well-being after being captives for so long.

[Nova Land]

Now we get to the actual release of the POW's, with Newsweek, February 26, 1973. This issue features 9 pages of coverage, starting on page 16 with the story: "Home At Last!"They were home at last. The first American prisoners of war released under the vietnam peace agreement walked into a new world to the cheers of their countrymen and the joyous greetings of their families. They had not only survived an ordeal that defied the imagination, but they emerged from their years of torment with a strength and a spirit that surpassed event he wildest expectations of their families, the military and the nation. throughout the land, their homecoming touched off a surge of national pride and a burst of uninhibited emotion. the prisoners' return and their courageous bearing seemed to give America a new sense of hope -- hope that these impressive men who had become the symbols of American sacrifice in Indochina might help the country heal the lingering wounds of war.

"We want very much to get on with the business of peace and reconstruction ehre," said Secretary of State William Rogers in Washington, his eyes brimming and his voice breaking. "I can't think of a better start than to watch these returning POW's. If that doesn't make America proud, then I don't know what will. A picture on the page shows six of the POW's getting off the plane at Clark AFB. The caption reads: "POW's arrive at Clark: for the nation, a rare moment of unity and joy.")The country's official welcome for the returnees was to have been a low-key affair. As the Pentagon planned it, the men were to be whisked into virtual isolation, cusioned against the shocks of "re-entry" and the questioning of an eager press corp. But there was no holding back the nation's enthusiasm for greeting the POW's -- or the men's eagerness to rejoin their families. By the end of the week, days ahead of schedule, all 143 returnees in the first group had been flown to the States -- and the homecoming headquarters at Clark AFB in the Philippines had already rolled out the red carpet for a new batch of 20 prisoners to be released ahead of schedule by Hanoi as a goodwill gesture.

After months and in most cases years of enforced deprivation, the POW's reveled in human contact and sought maximum exposure to the sights and sounds of real life. They wanted to hug and touch and laugh...[b/Brief comment: so things went considerably better than planned.
[b]This was one of the few sobering notes in a week of nearly unrestrained euphoria. Amid all the cheers and tears of joy, it was almost possible for a moment to forget the 45,943 other Americans who had lost their lives in Vietnam and 1,334 more who are still listed as missing and unaccounted for.And one last bit from this page: The POW's emerged from captivity in remarkably good mental and physical shape, but they still faced the delicate process of getting to know their families all over again and relearning normal life. For the time being, they were far too thakful for freedom to dwell on its difficulties...

[Nova Land]

On page 19 there is a photo caption (presumably for a picture on p 18, which I apparently did not copy -- I tend to copy text rather than pictures): The other side: Communist POW's in Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, squat patiently in the sun before their release. Without displaying any signs of emotion, they carry their maimed comrades to waiting transport planes.I'll look up this picture while at UTK and write down a description of what it shows.

[Nova Land]

From page 19, these next couple passages are minor but add to the picture of the condition the POW's were in upon their release, as well as adding to the picture of the jubilant celebration their release occasioned: ... For some ex-prisoners, the process of readjustment to the outside world began at the moment they met the air crews. "I told one guy that Miami won the Super Bowl," said a pilot, "and he said, 'What's the Super Bowl?"

Once on board, the returning men adapted quickly to their newfound freedom. "I had 40 tigers on board," said one flight officer. "There was hugging of nurses and a tremendous elation on their faces," added another. "Tears in some eyes, yes, but they were certainly tears of happiness."[/b]Three jets landed at Clark AFB. As the whine of the jet's turbines died away, a 39-foot red carpet was rolled up to the plane and a 4-man honor guard marched into place. The plane's door opened. A gaunt, pale figure, with tousled salt-and-pepper hair stood at the top of the ramp. [This was Jeremiah Denton, the highest-ranking POW on the flight, who had been a prisoner for nearly 8 years.]

For the most part, Denton's fellow passengers, and those on the two planes that followed, were among the first Americans captured the North Vietnamese. Of the group, 98 had spent more than 6 years in Communist prisons and two of them -- Navy Lt. Comdr. Everett Alvarez, the first pilot captured in the north, and Lt. Comdr Robert Shumaker -- had been held more than 8 years. But while the POWs looked uniformly pale and most had lost weight, they maintained a correct miliatry bearing -- and flashes of individuality. One man, Navy Lt. Comdr. Edward Davis, even brought an unauthorized friend back from Hanoi -- a wriggling, tan puppy named Ma Co given to him by a prison guard two months ago. Rules or no rules, the military let him keep the dog.

That was not the only rule that was hedged. Despite the offical ban on boisterous celebration, crowds at the base seized every opportunity to cheer the returnees -- and the POWs loved it. As the men were bused to the base hospital, scores of people ran alongside clutching at the prisoners outstretched hands, and women tossed bouquets of roses and the sweet-smelling sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines.

[Nova Land]

From pp 19-20, here is something about the POW's who were held not by the North Vietnamese but by the Viet Cong -- and about the POW's held by our side:For another group of POW's returning from Viet Cong captivity, however, there was one last tormenting ordeal before the dream came true. The 27 returnees from the south -- 19 soldiers and 8 civilians -- were marched into the broiling sun in a clearing on a rubber plantation near Loc Ninh only to learn that Viet Cong officials refused to free them until a group of Communist prisoners was released by the South Vietnamese. Even at that, most of the prisoners stayed in good spirits... For 11 hours, the haggling went on...

The agonizing delay was caused in part the Communist prisoners themselves, who at first balked at boarding the American helicopters provided to ferry them to Loc Ninh -- principally out of fear that they were being tricked and would be pushed out of the choppers to their death. "I don't blame them," said one US official, "given the nature of this war." Indeed, given the treatment of Vietnamese prisoners of war on both sides, the suspicions were understandable.

The Communist prisoners were on the whole in pitiful condition. Many were maimed, hobbling on home-made crutches with multiple wounds or missing limbs. Yet when repatriation came, the Communists were as jubilant as the Americans. A group of prisoners being returned to the north ripped off their maroon POW pajamas minutes after being released and, clad only in shorts, ran singing and cheering into the arms of their waiting comrades.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Nova Land
From pp 19-20, here is something about the POW's who were held not by the North Vietnamese but by the Viet Cong -- and about the POW's held by our side:

Nova, if there is one person who it is safe to ignore, it is Crimresearch.

[Nova Land]

Continuing the story on page 20 of the US POW's who had been held by the Viet Cong:It was night before the choppers bearing the Communist captives landed at Loc Ninh and the American returnees were finally freed. Minutes later the twinkling red lights of the 6 helicopters came into view at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport, and the crowd broke into loud cheers as a lean, young American on a stretcher, Capt. David Baker, was carried off the first aircraft. "He was a bit shaky," explained a US spokesman. "He got so excited that he passed out. He said it was so wonderful to see us." Another roar went up from the crowd when a tall, stooped man climbed out -- Douglas Ramsey, a career State Department officer captured more than 7 years ago. Dressed in floppy pajamas and plastic sandals -- and in some cases wearing bead necklaces or peace symbols around their necks -- the men moved quickly to waiting planes for the transfer flight to the Philippines.I think it is important to note the differences between the POW's held by the Viet Cong and the ones held by the North Vietnamese -- a very different captivity experience, and very different physical condition upon release, but also a very different kind of prisoner. I touched on this somewhat in the material I posted in relation to the first 3 questions, and here it is again. The prisoners held by the North Vietnamese (especially the ones captured early in the war) tended to be pilots who were gung ho pro-war hawks. The prisoners held by the Viet Cong tended to be foot soldiers, many of whom had very different feelings about the war.
... Despite the long delay, an anxious crowd waited at Clark as their plane landed and the ranking officer, Maj. Raymond Schrump, stepped to the ground. If the men from North Vietnam looked somewhat pale and haggard, Schrump and his fellow prisoners looked as if they had emerged from a medieval dungeon. Their faces were drawn, their bodies emaciated after years of being marched through the jungles, often to escape US bombing raids. "These were men," said one official, "who had come back from oblivion." Many walked away from the airplane looking dazed and bewildered. In contrast to the prisoners returning from North vietnam, none of the military men freed in the south saluted the officers and flags that greeted them. Indeed, only the stretcher-bound Baker seemed exhilarated, energetically waving his arms as he was carried off the airplane...

Once inside the hospital, however, all the returnees were euphoric. Their first group request, one hofspital official chuckled afterward, was for a screening of X-rated movies...

[Nova Land]

From page 22, additional details of the condition of US POW's upon release: For all of the hijinks and excursions, there were serious -- and in some cases unpleasant -- matters to attend to at Clark. For some of the men there was bad news waiting -- in one case, a prisoner's wife died while he was in captivity, several other wives had divorced their husbands... "There were tears", said one, "but they absorbed the blows and they walked out on their onw. The resiliencey of these guys is incredible."

That resiliency was obvious to all who saw the prisoners. Nonetheless, many were suffering from illnesses and injuries -- 29 were listed as sick or wounded. Some had to be carried on stretchers and even some of the ambulatory POW's had apparent disabilities: severe limps, withered arms and broken limbs. A few managed only dazed or bewildered stares. One hospital official said that some 15 to 20 of the pilots had suffered permanent eye damage due to vitamin deficiencies and will probably have to be grounded. But other doctors maintained that fully 99% of the returnees' physical afflictions can be treated successfully and, in general, doctors were surpirsed at how healthy the men were. Dr. John Ord, the hospital commander, praised the diets -- and especially the dental hygiene -- that the men had in North Vietnamese prisons. When asked about their treatment by the Communists, he said, "There care must have been quite good."

The returnees were generally in such good physical condition, in fact, that within 48 hours the first planeload of twenty men was en route to the US -- and reunions with their families. (Two others... left even earlier on a special flight to rush to the bedsides of their aliling mothers.)

[Nova Land]

From page 24, optimistic expectations:Former POW's, not only from Vietnam but from previous wars, have a history of chronic illnesses caused by years of substandard medical treatment; statistically they have a shortened life expectancy as well. Other studies show they are prone to automobile accidents and tend to suffer bouts of depression...

But if their performance so far is any indication, the returnees from Vietname may well prove the exception to past rules. Clearly, they believe so. "There will be minor adjustment problems", Risner acknowledged, but as far as the mental capabilities of the men that I have lived with, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Their minds are still alert and their bodies are in good condition.

And the prisoners' heartiness seemed matched by a rare exhilaration in the spirit of the land they returned to. It was impossible to tell whether... their arrival might somehow help to heal the wounds laid open by Vietnam. But the fact was that last week's homecoming was one of the few events in the war's long history in which Americans could join together -- in unity and joy.

[Nova Land]

On page 21 of this same issue (February 26, 1973 Newsweek) there is a separate but related story: Life in a POW Camp: The Well-Tended Grapevine This is a story about the community the POW's set up within the prison camps.... [F]or the most part the prisoners managed to cope on the strength of trust, daraing and imagination. An elaborate grapevine eventually grew up linking most of the camps. Prisoners tended this intricate communication system by feigning illnesses to get medical transfers from one camp to another and even by incurring disciplinary transfers for baiting their captors. Wing veterans exhaustively debriefed all new prisoners on their arrival in teh camps, and their reports on changing military policies, political trends, and new life-styles back home were sent out through the grapevine...

Formal lectures as well as bull sessions were also a staple in many of the prison camps. In somce camps, POW linguists taught daily classes in Spanish, French and German, and other experts offered lessons in mathematics, public speaking, singing, electronics and even thermodynamics. In addition to the academic exercises, some camps offered work in vegetable gardens, and most able-bodied POW's undertook substantial physical fitness programs. Basketball, volleyball and Ping Pong took some of the gloom away in one camp, and the POW's in another established a standard routine of 30 pushups in the morning and evening as well as a cycle of isometric exercises. "We didn't want to shock anybody too much", shrugged one POW in the Philippines. "We were thin but we were healthy. We wanted to come home in good shape."

For the most part they did. But their colleagues held by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam did not fare as well. When they were not being shuttled from place to place to avoid attacks and US B-52 raids, the prisoners in the south were often kept in leg irons. One of the captives had not held a conversation with anyone for 5 years. The prisoners' two meals a day consisted of rice, vegetables and occasional slivers of chicken, monkey and dog meat. One POW dropped from 160 pounds to 107 pounds on this fare. Although penicillin was available and the prisoners were treated fro malaria, they were left to their own devices for lesser medical problems: the standard treatment for an aching tooth was to let the gum swell until an abscess formed and then to lance it with a nail.

Thanks to the discipline of the wing and to generally helathier conditions in the North Vietnamese camps, the POW's who returned from Hanoi seemed far less ravaged by their ordeal than their comrades captured by the Viet Cong. But the worst stories of prison-camp life remained to be told: the men who came home first were ordered not to discuss the cruelties and humiliations they had suffered until the last of the POW's were safely out of enemy hands...So it would be good to reserve judgment on what the condition of US POWs was until after reading the later coverage following the release of all the prisoners. I'll be back in about a week for installment two, which should get us into Jane Fonda's comments about the returning POWs.

[RandFan]

Nova,

I'm smart enough to know that Hollywood is more interested in artistic license, entertainment and the bottom line than the truth. That being said, can you comment on the movie Hanoi Hilton?

I found the movie quite disturbing and I understood by an interview that it was accurate. I don't remember who was interviewed and I can't support the claim at this time.

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by RandFan

... can you comment on the movie Hanoi Hilton?

I found the movie quite disturbing and I understood by an interview that it was accurate. I don't remember who was interviewed and I can't support the claim at this time. I can't comment as I've never seen the movie (and don't even know if it is a documentary or fiction). I'm at a library at the moment with very limited computer time, so can't look it up now, but will look it up when I get home.

I will be visiting a used book store with a good video section this weekend, and will look there for Hanoi Hilton.

[Nova Land]

Apologies for the longer-than-intended gap in this thread. I was able to visit Knoxville earlier this month and copied the relevant coverage from Time, as well as going through The Nation (and glancing at, but not having time to go through, National Review).

One thing that is interesting is how little either The Nation (on the left) and National Review (on the right) had to say about either the POW release or about Jane Fonda's remarks. More about that once I finish summarizing the Newsweek and Time coverage. I will try to return to excerpting the Newsweek coverage late tonight, and to post a few bits at a time rather than large amounts.

Many thanks to RandFan for mentioning that Jane Fonda is going to be on 60 Minutes this week (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54705). CBS is one of the stations I can sort of tune in when the weather is right, so I'm looking forward to listening to that. Maybe some of the material they cover on the program will even be relevant to some of the questions here!

[Nova Land]

One year ago I wrote:Apologies for the longer-than-intended gap in this thread.The gap I was referring to at that time was a month; current gap has been considerably longer.

Once I catch up on a few other threads I plan to return to this topic, although I will probably start a new thread to do so rather than continue in this one. However, there is one thing that I feel it is important to include in this thread before beginning another one. I'll get to that at the end of this post.

First, though, here is something I wrote back in May of last year but never got around to posting:
originally not posted by Nova Land in May 2005:

Apologies for my much-longer-than-intended delay in continuing this thread. I knew I would be traveling for a couple of weeks in April, but had thought (a) I would have time to post regularly before leaving on the trip, (b) I would be able to post at least a little during the trip, and (c) I would be able to resume regular posting as soon as I got back home. I was wrong on all three counts.

On the plus side, during the trip I was able to stop off at a good library and look a little more up. In addition to the Newsweek, Time, and NY Times coverage of Fonda's trip to VIetnam and of her comments on the POW release, and miscellaneous items from other periodicals of the time about this, I now also have the transcripts of all her radio broadcasts from Hanoi (and selected pages from the House Internal Security Committee hearings discussing her trip and broadcasts). I also was able to stop off at a book store and read / take notes on Fonda's book My Life So Far.

I did not read the entire book, skipping over much of the material about her personal life except where it related to her political views and activities. But I did read a couple hundred pages of it. I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the book was relevant to the topic of this thread. I was also pleasantly surprised that the book is quite well-written. I did not buy a copy, but I do recommend it.

In order to read all the relevant parts in the time I had available, I took very limited notes. Therefore I am not able to quote passages, and for now can only summarize my recollection of what it said on key points...
And back in May I probably could have. Now I will need to look up the book again and refresh my memory before attempting to describe its contents. (On the plus side, though, the book should be available by now in a library where I can make photocopies, so when I do begin quoting from it I can have something more reliable than memory and scrawled notes to refer to.)

The main reason for this post is that I have finally located a copy of John Hubbell's book POW: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964 - 1973, which I mentioned on page 1 of this thread. I discovered it in a branch library in Knoxville while I was visiting there in January, but did not have time to read it then. I had hoped to get back to Knoxville in February, but wasn't able to return there until late March.

I have not had time to read the entire book yet, but I have read several hundred pages (starting toward the back because that is the part most relevant to the issue at hand).

In some ways the book is a disappointment. I will detail its various shortcomings later. Complaints aside, however, this is an interesting book with many details I was pleased to find. I copied about 60 pages, and hope to finish reading the book on my next visit to Knoxville.

There are a number of items in the Hubbell book I hope to quote at some point, likely in the new thread I mentioned earlier. But there is one thing I want to make sure is included in this thread, because it contradicts a point I made earlier. Since this post is already fairly long, I'm going to end this here and devote a separate post to the Hubbell item (so that it doesn't get overlooked amidst the verbiage of this post).

[Nova Land]

Early in this thread, John Hubbell's book P.O.W: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973 is used as a source for a key fact in the Nation article by Tom Hayden which I quoted. I wrote at the time that I had not read Hubbell's book yet myself but would try to locate it and would report when I did whether it confirmed or contradicted that fact. I have now located that book, and while there is much in that book to confirm Hayden's basic assertion there is also material in Hubbell's book which contradicts it. Specifically, on page 566 Hubbell writes:

"The start that was made in October, 1969, toward better treatment for most of Hanoi's prisoners was a long time catching up with some. At the Plantation, torture remained much in vogue through early 1972."
Since this thread is fairly long and people may have forgotten what was written previously, I'm going to quote and link to the relevant posts. To try to make things easier to follow, when I quote people other than myself it will be colored blue and when I quote myself it will simply be in bold.

On page 1 of this thread (post # 27 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=788854&postcount=27)), in discussing the Snopes page on Jane Fonda, I wrote:

US POWs were indeed frequently subject to torture at North Vietnamese hands prior to 1969. Fonda's visit, however, occurred in 1972. Torture of US POWs in Vietnam by the time of Fonda's visit had become as rare or rarer than torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq today.
As support for this statement, I quoted again from the Nation article used in the opening post:

Research by John Hubbell, as well as 1973 interviews with POWs, shows that Vietnamese behavior meeting any recognized definition of torture had ceased by 1969, three years before the Fonda visit.
Regarding this passage from Hayden's article, I wrote:

"Because this is an important point, I'm going to link to a couple of additional resources.

P.O.W: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973, by John Hubbell

Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973, by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick T. Kiley

I do not have either of these books at hand, but believe from their descriptions that these are good sources for information about the treatment of US POWs and will support the point I am making.
On page 2 of the thread, Mona takes me to task for a claim which I did not make: that no torture of US POWs occurred after 1969. Here is my response (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=789335&postcount=49), from post # 50:

I don't say no torture occurred after 1969, because that is highly unlikely. What I do say -- and I chose my wording fairly carefully -- is that it had become "as rare or rarer than torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq today".

Getting torture down to zero in time of war is difficult, even in the best of countries. (And as someone born in the US, I do like to think that my country is among the best of countries, despite its many faults.) And yet, torture goes on in US prisons, torture goes on in POW camps run by the US, torture goes on in countries we support with the awareness (and, too often in the past, with the support) of the US government. Even so, I can see a significant distinction between US treatment of prisoners and treatment of prisoners in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Likewise, I can see a significant distinction between North Vietnamese treatment of prisoners of war before 1969 and after.

Prior to 1969, torture was routinely practiced by the North Vietnamese. After 1969, it was an aberration. Hubbell is a credible source, and that appears to be what he affirms.

I use the word "appears" because I have not been able to check the cited book for myself yet. I thought I said that clearly in my post, but if it wasn't clear then I'll repeat it now. I do not live near a good library, so it is often several weeks or longer between opportunities to look these things up. I find The Nation to be generally reliable in stating the contents of sources it cites, but I intend to look this up on my next opportunity and will be glad to post to confirm (or deny) that the book supports this point.
I have read a good amount relating to the treatment of POWs in Vietnam in the 2 years since I wrote that post, and from that I believe that my statement ("After 1969, torture was an aberration") is indeed correct. I came to that conclusion before finding the Hubbell book, based on accounts in numerous other books. Having now read about half of the Hubbell book, I agree with Hayden that there are numerous details in it which support that conclusion. But to simply state, as Hayden does, that "Research by John Hubbell, as well as 1973 interviews with POWs, shows that Vietnamese behavior meeting any recognized definition of torture had ceased by 1969..." is to unfairly oversimplify matters. Hubbell's statement that "torture remained in vogue through early 1972" is clearly in disagreement with Hayden's (and my) conclusion that torture by the North Vietnamese had essentially ended by the end of 1969, and I believe it is deceptive to cite Hubbell in the way Hayden did without mentioning that.

Hubbell is the only source I have found so far which asserts that any significant torture continued past 1969. (Refer to the bottom half of page 3 of this thread for examples of what some other books I have checked had to say on this.) Because of the way in which Hubbell wrote his book, it is difficult to determine how much weight to assign to Hubbell's words. I will elaborate on the problems with the Hubbell book another time, and will also go into several incidents detailed in the book which I hope will help to illuminate the topic of this thread.

[Mephisto]

Very interesting thread, Nova.

I've yet to read it in its entirety, but I'm impressed with the depth of your knowledge.

As a veteran myself, I've always stood up against other veterans who seemed to categorically hate Jane Fonda "because they're supposed to." I point out that free speech is one of the things American soldiers fight for. I don't agree with Skinheads, Nazis, or Fred Phelps, but I support their right to makes fools of themselves.

Don't hate Jane Fonda for going to N. Vietnam, hate her for her aerobic videos. ;)