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About the time people started thinking too much about it because they have an agenda and a complete lack of understanding of what was written. Some time ago it was understood that a disarmed population is easy to control. That any event could be manipulated to further the anti-gun agenda by using emotion to drive said agenda.Gun Facts | Second Amendment, Origins and Court RulingsJustification clause: “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State,”Rights clause: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”The justification clause does not modify, restrict, or deny the rights clause. 1For a full discussion of how the Second Amendment was created and revised, see “Origin of the Second Amendment” at the bottom of this page.Myth: The Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment is not an individual rightFact: In D.C. v Heller the Supreme Court (2008) firmly established the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, as they had in Cruikshank and Dred Scott.Fact: In McDonald v Chicago (2010) the Supreme Court concluded the right is incorporated against the states via the 14th Amendment.Fact: Of 300 decisions of the federal and state courts that have taken a position on the meaning of the Second Amendment or the state analogs to it, only 10 have claimed that the right to keep and bear arms is not an individual right. Many of the other decisions struck down gun control laws because they conflicted with the Second Amendment, such as State v. Nunn (Ga. 1846). 2Myth: The Second Amendment is a collective right, not an individual rightFact: St. George Tucker, any early legal commentator and authority of the original meaning of the constitution wrote in Blackstone’s Commentaries “… nor will the constitution permit any prohibition of arms to the people.” 3Fact: The Second Amendment was listed in a Supreme Court ruling as an individual right. 4Fact: The Supreme Court specifically reaffirmed that the right to keep and bear arms did not belong to the government. 5Fact: In 22 of the 27 instances where the Supreme Court mentions the Second Amendment, they quote the rights clause and not the justification clause.Fact: Courts disagree. “We find that the history of the Second Amendment reinforces the plain meaning of its text, namely that it protects individual Americans in their right to keep and bear arms whether or not they are a member of a select militia or performing active military service or training” and “We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment” 6Fact: Citizens disagree. 62% believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right, while a mere 28% believe it protects the power of the states to form militias. 7Fact: There are 23 state constitutions with RKBA clauses adopted between the Revolution and 1845, and 20 of them are explicitly individual in nature, only three have “for the common defense….” or other “collective rights” clauses. 8Fact: James Madison, considered to be the author of the Bill of Rights, wrote that the Bill of Rights was “calculated to secure the personal rights of the people”. He never excluded the Second Amendment from this statement.Fact: Patrick Henry commented on the Swiss militia model (still in use today) noting that they maintain their independence without “a mighty and splendid President” or a standing army. 9Fact: “The congress of the United States possesses no power to regulate, or interfere with the domestic concerns, or police of any state: it belongs not to them to establish any rules respecting the rights of property; nor will the constitution permit any prohibition of arms to the people; or of peaceable assemblies by them, for any purposes whatsoever, and in any number, whenever they may see occasion.” 10Fact: Tench Coxe, in Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution said: “As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”Myth: The Heller Decision created new lawFact: In the Dred Scott case of 1856, the Supreme Court listed the protected rights of citizens and explicitly listed the right to keep and bear arms, and gave this right equal weight to the other freedoms enumerated in the constitution.Fact: In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), the Supreme Court ruled:An individual right to arms predated the constitution.The Second Amendment was a prohibition against Congress from disarming citizens.Myth: The Second Amendment was established to control slavesFact: The basis of the Second Amendment arose from the British disarming Americans in the time leading up to the revolution. The first state to declare a civilian right to arms (1776) was Pennsylvania, a non-slave state. Vermont (1777) and Massachusetts (1780) did so as well, and all this occurred before the Second Amendment was drafted. When slaves were emancipated, the Freedmen Bureau Act provided emancipated slaves “the constitutional right to bear arms.”Myth: The “militia” clause is to arm the National GuardFact: “Militia” is a Latin abstract noun, meaning “military service”, not an “armed group”, and that is the way the Latin-literate Founders used it. To the Romans, “military service” included law enforcement and disaster response. Today “militia” might be more meaningfully translated as “defense service”, associated with a “defense duty”, which attaches to individuals as much as to groups of them, organized or otherwise. When we are alone, we are all militias of one. In the broadest sense, militia is the exercise of civic virtue. 11Fact: The Dick Act of 1903 designated the National Guard as the “organized militia” and that all other citizens were the “unorganized militia” – thus the National Guard is only part of the militia, and the whole militia is composed of the population at large. Before 1903, the National Guard had no federal definition as part of the militia at all.Fact: The first half of the Second Amendment is called the “justification clause”. Justification clauses appear in many state constitutions, and cover liberties including right to trial, freedom of the press, free speech, and more. Denying gun rights based on the justification clause means we would have to deny free speech rights on the same basis. 12Fact: The origin of the phrase “a well regulated militia” comes from a 1698 treatise “A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias” by Andrew Fletcher, in which the term “well regulated” was equated with “well-behaved” or “disciplined”. 13Fact: “We have found no historical evidence that the Second Amendment was intended to convey militia power to the states, limit the federal government’s power to maintain a standing army, or applies only to members of a select militia while on active duty. All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans.” 14Fact: “The plain meaning of the right of the people to keep arms is that it is an individual, rather than a collective, right and is not limited to keeping arms while engaged in active military service or as a member of a select militia such as the National Guard …” 15Fact: Most of the 13 original states (and many colonies/territories that became states after ratification of the Constitution and before or shortly after ratification of the Bill of Rights) had their own constitutions, and it is from these that the original Bill of Rights was distilled. The state constitutions of that time had many “right to keep and bear arms” clauses that clearly guaranteed an individual right. Some examples include:Connecticut: Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.Kentucky: … the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.Pennsylvania: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state; … The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.Rhode Island: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.Vermont: … the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State.Myth: The Second Amendment allows Congress to regulate ownership of guns for militia purposesFact: The phrase “well regulated” was common in the constitutional era, and described things that were in proper order or function. It was not a writ of authority. Borrowing from the Oxford English Dictionary, these examples, both before and after composition of the Second Amendment, show the usage:1709: “If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations.”1714: “The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world.”1812: “The equation of time … is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial.”1848: “A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor.”1862: “It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding.”1894: “The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city.”Myth: U.S. v. Cruikshank denied an individual right to bear armsFact: The court ruled that both the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and the 1st Amendment right to assembly were “preexisting rights”, and that it was incumbent upon the states to enforce that right. Specifically, the court ruled:The right was not created by the amendment; neither was its continuance guaranteed, except as against congressional interference. For their protection in its enjoyment, therefore, the people must look to the States. …Myth: U.S. v. Miller said that the Second Amendment is not an individual rightFact: The Miller case specifically held that specific types of guns might be protected by the Second Amendment. It depended on whether a gun had militia use, and the court wanted evidence presented confirming that citizens have a right to military style weapons. Since no evidence was taken at the trial level in lower courts, they remanded the case for a new trial. Specifically, the court said:“The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. “A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.” And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.”“In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.”Fact: Even the US government agreed. Here are some sentences from the brief filed by the government in the appeal to the Supreme Court:“The Second Amendment does not grant to the people the right to keep and bear arms, but merely recognizes the prior existence of that right and prohibits its infringement by Congress.”“The ‘arms’ referred to in the Second Amendment are, moreover, those which ordinarily are used for military or public defense purposes …”“The Second Amendment does not confer upon the people the right to keep and bear arms; it is one of the provisions of the Constitution which, recognizing the prior existence of a certain right, declares that it shall not be infringed by Congress. Thus, the right to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the Constitution and therefore is not dependent upon that instrument for its source.”Fact: The Federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals holds that the Miller case protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. “Although an individual’s right to bear arms is constitutionally protected, see United States v. Miller …” 16Fact: Federal courts reject the myth. “We conclude that Miller does not support the [government’s] collective rights or sophisticated collective rights approach to the Second Amendment.” 17They continue, “There is no evidence in the text of the Second Amendment, or any other part of the Constitution, that the words ‘we the people’ have a different connotation within the Second Amendment than when employed elsewhere …”.Summary of various court decisions concerning gun rightsDecisions that explicitly recognized that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to purchase, possess or carry firearms, and that it limits the authority of both federal and state governments:Parker vs. D.C., Fed (2007), confirmed an individual right to keep arms and overturned a handgun ban (this case later became the Heller case)U.S. vs. Emerson, 5 Fed (1999), confirmed an individual right requiring compelling government interest for regulationNunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 250, 251 (1846), struck down a ban on the sale of small, easily concealed handguns as violating the Second AmendmentState v. Chandler, 5 http://La.An. 489, 490, 491 (1850), upheld a ban on concealed carry, but acknowledged that open carry was protected by the Second AmendmentSmith v. State, 11 http://La.An. 633, 634 (1856), upheld a ban on concealed carry, but recognized as protected by Second Amendment – “arms there spoken of are such as are borne by a people in war, or at least carried openly”State v. Jumel, 13 http://La.An. 399, 400 (1858), upheld a ban on concealed carry, but acknowledged a Second Amendment right to carry openly.Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, 401, 402 (1859), upheld an enhanced penalty for manslaughter with a Bowie knife, but acknowledged that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to possess arms for collective overthrow of the governmentIn Re Brickey, 8 Ida. 597, 70 Pac. 609, 101 http://Am.St.Rep. 215, 216 (1902), struck down a ban on open carry of a revolver in Lewiston, Idaho as violating both Second Amendment and Idaho Constitutional guaranteeState v. Hart, 66 Ida. 217, 157 P.2d 72 (1945), upheld a ban on concealed carry as long as open carry was allowed based on both Second Amendment and Idaho Constitutional guaranteeState v. Nickerson, 126 Mont. 157, 166 (1952), striking down a conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, acknowledging a right to carry based on Second Amendment and Montana Constitutional guaranteeU.S. v. Hutzell, 8 Iowa, 99-3719, (2000) (cite in dictum that “an individual’s right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected, see United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178-79 (1939).Decisions that recognized the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess or carry firearms, but only limiting the Federal government’s authority:U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 552 (1876) (limiting use of the Enforcement Act of 1870 so that Klansmen could not be punished for mass murder and disarming of freedmen).State v. Workman, 35 http://W.Va. 367, 373 (1891) (upholding a ban on carry of various concealable arms).State v. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222 (1921) (overturning a ban on open carry of pistols based on North Carolina Const., but acknowledging Second Amendment protected individual right from federal laws).Decisions in which the Second Amendment was argued or raised as a limitation on state laws, and in which the court ruled that it only limited the Federal government, tacitly acknowledging that the right was individual in nature:Andrews v. State, 3 Heisk. (50 Tenn.) 165, 172, 173 (1871).Fife v. State, 31 Ark. 455, 25 Am.Rep. 556, 557, 558 (1876); State v. Hill, 53 Ga. 472, 473, 474 (1874).Dunne v. People, 94 Ill. 120, 140, 141 (1879); Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 265, 266 (1886) (upholding a ban on armed bodies marching through the streets).People v. Persce, 204 N.Y. 397, 403 (1912); In re Rameriz, 193 Cal. 633, 636, 226 P. 914 (1924) (upholding a ban on resident aliens possessing handguns).Decisions in which the Second Amendment was implied to guarantee an individual right, though unclear as to whether it limited only the Federal government or states as well, because the type of arm in question wasn’t protected:English v. State, 35 Tex. 473, 476, 477 (1872).State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455, 458, 459 (1875) (upholding a ban on carrying of handguns, Bowie knives, sword-canes, spears, and brass knuckles).People v. Liss, 406 Ill. 419, 94 N.E.2d 320, 322, 323 (1950) (overturning a conviction for carrying a concealed handgun and acknowledging that the right in the Second Amendment was individual).Guida v. Dier, 84 Misc.2d 110, 375 N.Y.S.2d 827, 828 (1975) (denying that “concealable hand weapons” were protected by the Second Amendment, but acknowledging that an individual right protects other firearms).Decisions in which the Second Amendment has been classed with other individual rights, with no indication that it was not an individual right:Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281, 282, 17 S.Ct. 826, 829 (1897); U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 1060, 1061 (1990).Decisions that could have been very much shorter if the court had simply denied that the Second Amendment protected AN INDIVIDUAL right:U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) (the Supreme Court upholding the National Firearms Act of 1934, after district judge released defendants on the grounds that it violated Second Amendment).Origin of the Second AmendmentBefore the United States Constitution or Bill of Rights existed, most of the thirteen original states had clauses in their constitutions protecting the right to keep and bear arms. When the time came for Congress to draft the Bill of Rights, states submitted clauses from their constitutions that they thought should be added to the Federal Bill of Rights.Three predominant arms clauses existed at that time (many states had word-for-word copies from other state constitutions and the redundant versions are not mentioned herein).Pennsylvania (1776): That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination, to, and governed by, the civil power. (Simplified in 1790 to read “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”)Vermont (1777): That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State – and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.Massachusetts (1780): The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.North Carolina (1776): That the people have a right to bear arms, for the defence of the State; and, as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.We can see in these state constitution clauses the conjoined purposes as viewed by the people at the time that the 2nd Amendment was drafted.Calls for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms from State Ratification ConventionsFive states that ratified the Constitution sent demands for a Bill of Rights to Congress. All of these demands included a right to keep and bear arms. The relevant parts of these written demands are:New Hampshire: Twelfth[:] Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.Virginia: … Seventeenth, That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power.New York: … That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, including the body of the People capable of bearing Arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State; That the Militia should not be subject to Martial Law except in time of War, Rebellion or Insurrection. That Standing Armies in time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, and ought not to be kept up, except in Cases of necessity; and that at all times, the Military should be under strict Subordination to the civil Power.North Carolina: Almost identical to Virginia’s demand, but with, “the body of the people, trained to arms,” instead of, “the body of the people trained to arms.”Rhode Island: Almost identical to Virginia’s demand, but with, “the body of the people capable of bearing arms,” instead of, “the body of the people trained to arms,” and with a, “militia shall not be subject to martial law,” proviso as in New York’s.Second Amendment drafting, proposals, and editingJames Madison had the duty of drafting the Bill of Rights from proposed amendments submitted by the states, and most coming from state constitutions. The Bill of Rights went through several revisions. The initial version of the 2nd Amendment read as follows:The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.The second drafting of the 2nd Amendment saw a rearrangement of the justification and rights clauses, but no change in the intents and purposes therein:A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.Notice that in the original draft, Madison used the phrase “free country” as the object of what is protected by the militia. In subsequent drafts, the word “state” was substituted. This is important because the concept of “state” and “country” are interchangeable, whereas “states” (plural) and “country” are not. Throughout the rest of the Constitution, when the states and their powers were defined, the plural was always used but in the 2nd Amendment it was not. Clearly, the intent of militia protection defined in the 2nd Amendment was to protect a form of government, not define the power of the several states.Four further revisions removed objectionable concepts (such as the “conscientious objector” clause). On September 9, 1789, a member of the Senate proposed adding “for the common defense” onto the draft of the Second Amendment. In other words, the proposed wording of the amendment would have read:A well regulated militia being the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear arms for the common defense, shall not be infringed.The proposed change was voted down. This is instructive because some believe that the current wording of the amendment exists specifically for collective/common/mutual defense, and has no bearing on individual self defense. However, the Senate considered adding this restriction and rejected it.It is clear from these origins and first drafts, and from contemporary commentaries on the clause, that the original intent was to secure an individual right. The commentaries of St. George Tucker (The American Blackstone) and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, both of whom were federal jurists and chronologically close to the authoring of the amendment, bear this out.Arms clauses of states that joined shortly after the Second Amendment was ratifiedAlso worth review are arms clauses in the constitutions of states that joined the Union shortly after ratification of the Bill of Rights. These demonstrate the contemporary understanding of the amendment and the rights of the people:Kentucky (1792): That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.Tennessee (1796): That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence.Kentucky (1799): That the rights of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.Ohio (1802): That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State; and as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they shall not be kept up, and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to the civil power.Indiana (1816): That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State, and that the military shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power.Mississippi (1817): Every citizen has a right to bear arms, in defence of himself and the State.Connecticut (1818): Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.Maine (1819): Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence; and this right shall never be questioned.Alabama (1819): That every citizen has a right to bear arms in defence of himself and the state.Missouri (1820): That the people have the right peaceably to assemble for their common good, and to apply to those vested with the powers of government for redress of grievances by petition or remonstrance; and that their right to bear arms in defence of themselves and of the State cannot be questioned.Notes:Eugene Volokh, Prof. Law, UCLAFor the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Clayton Cramer, Praeger Press, 1994Blackstone’s Commentaries, St. George Tucker, Vol 1. Note D. Part 6. Restraints on Powers of Congress (1803)Dred Scott, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, U.S. v. Cruikshank and othersUnited States v. MillerU.S. v. Emerson, 5th court of Appeals decision, November 2, 2001, No. 99-10331Associated Television News Survey, August 1999, 1,007 likely votersFor the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Clayton Cramer, Praeger Press, 1994, cited as an authority in USA v. Emerson (N.D. Texas 1999)Where Kids and Guns Do Mix, Stephen P. Halbrook, Wall Street Journal, June 2000Blackstone’s Commentaries, St. George Tucker, Volume 1, Appendix Note D., 1803 – Tucker’s comments provide a number of insights into the consensus for interpretation of the Constitution that prevailed shortly after its ratification, after the debates had settled down and the Constitution was put into practice.Militia, The Constitution SocietyEugene Volokh, Prof. Law, UCLA, Testimony of Eugene Volokh on the Second Amendment, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Sept. 23, 1998.This document was widely published during the colonial and revolutionary periods, and was the basis for state and federal ‘bills of rights’U.S. v. Emerson, 5th court of Appeals decision, November 2, 2001, No. 99-10331U.S. v. Emerson, 5th court of Appeals decision, November 2, 2001, No. 99-10331U.S. v. Hutzel, 8 Iowa, No. 99-3719U.S. v. Emerson, 5th court of Appeals decision, November 2, 2001, No. 99-10331

This is a very long answer. They are the words of Jane Fonda. If you really want to know the truth from her perspective, and not the bitter sentiments of something that was a non-issue when she did it, then please read on.Keep in mind that when she went, the war was winding down. 25 k US troops were left. 70% of Americans were against the war. Our best and brightest young people were being slaughtered, and for what? Average age was something like 22, and the average infantryman was even younger. One soldier was call “grandpa” because he turned 21 while serving in Vietnam and was the oldest person in his unit.Our kids dying, calling out for their mothers as they bleeding to death in country 7000 miles away, that most people had never heard of, to “save the world for democracy”, and to keep the “domino effect” from allowing the evil commies taking over the world.I encourage you, if you believe she is the worst person alive, an absolute traitor, then have the courage to read what she has to say, and see… just see….Included are also comments from soldiers and people who were there.From Jane Fonda’s Blog; The Truth About My Trip To Hanoi - Jane FondaJANE FONDATHE TRUTH ABOUT MY TRIP TO HANOIJuly 22, 2011I grew up during World War II. My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the Grapes of Wrath, his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day. I remember saying goodbye to my father the night he left to join the Navy. He didn’t have to. He was older than other servicemen and had a family to support but he wanted to be a part of the fight against fascism, not just make movies about it. I admired this about him. I grew up with a deep belief that wherever our troops fought, they were on the side of the angels.For the first 8 years of the Vietnam War I lived in France. I was married to the French film director, Roger Vadim and had my first child. The French had been defeated in their own war against Vietnam a decade before our country went to war there, so when I heard, over and over, French people criticizing our country for our Vietnam War I hated it. I viewed it as sour grapes. I refused to believe we could be doing anything wrong there.It wasn’t until I began to meet American servicemen who had been in Vietnam and had come to Paris as resisters that I realized I needed to learn more. I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them—active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular—to try and end the war. I drove around the country visiting military bases, spending time in the G.I. Coffee houses that had sprung up outside many bases –places where G.I.s could gather. I met with Army psychiatrists who were concerned about the type of training our men were receiving…quite different, they said, from the trainings during WWII and Korea. The doctors felt this training was having a damaging effect on the psyches of the young men, effects they might not recover from. I raised money and hired a former Green Beret, Donald Duncan, to open and run the G.I. Office in Washington D.C. to try and get legal and congressional help for soldiers who were being denied their rights under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I talked for hours with U.S. pilots about their training, and what they were told about Vietnam. I met with the wives of servicemen. I visited V.A. hospitals. Later in 1978, wanting to share with other Americans some of what I had learned about the experiences of returning soldiers and their families, I made the movie Coming Home. I was the one who would be asked to speak at large anti-war rallies to tell people that the men in uniform were not the enemy, that they did not start the war, that they were, in growing numbers our allies. I knew as much about military law as any layperson. I knew more than most civilians about the realities on the ground for men in combat. I lived and breathed this stuff for two years before I went to North Vietnam. I cared deeply for the men and boys who had been put in harms way. I wanted to stop the killing and bring our servicemen home. I was infuriated as I learned just how much our soldiers were being lied to about why we were fighting in Vietnam and I was anguished each time I would be with a young man who was traumatized by his experiences. Some boys shook constantly and were unable to speak above a whisper.It is unconscionable that extremist groups circulate letters which accuse me of horrific things, saying that I am a traitor, that POWs in Hanoi were tied up and in chains and marched passed me while I spat at them and called them ‘baby killers. These letters also say that when the POWs were brought into the room for a meeting I had with them, we shook hands and they passed me tiny slips of paper on which they had written their social security numbers. Supposedly, this was so that I could bring back proof to the U.S. military that they were alive. The story goes on to say that I handed these slips of paper over to the North Vietnamese guards and, as a result, at least one of the men was tortured to death. That these stories could be given credence shows how little people know of the realities in North Vietnam prisons at the time. The U.S. government and the POW families didn’t need me to tell them who the prisoners were. They had all their names. Moreover, according to even the most hardcore senior officers, torture stopped late in 1969, two and a half years before I got there. And, most importantly, I would never say such things to our servicemen, whom I respect, whether or not I agree with the mission they have been sent to perform, which is not of their choosing.But these lies have circulated for almost forty years, continually reopening the wound of the Vietnam War and causing pain to families of American servicemen. The lies distort the truth of why I went to North Vietnam and they perpetuate the myth that being anti-war means being anti-soldier.Little known is the fact that almost 300 Americans—journalists, diplomats, peace activists, professors, religious leaders and Vietnam Veterans themselves—had been traveling to North Vietnam over a number of years in an effort to try and find ways to end the war (By the way, those trips generated little if any media attention.) I brought with me to Hanoi a thick package of letters from families of POWs. Since 1969, mail for the POWs had been brought in and out of North Vietnam every month by American visitors. The Committee of Liaison With Families coordinated this effort. I took the letters to the POWs and brought a packet of letters from them back to their families.The Photo of Me on the Gun Site.There is one thing that happened while in North Vietnam that I will regret to my dying day— I allowed myself to be photographed on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. I want to, once again, explain how that came about. I have talked about this numerous times on national television and in my memoirs, My Life So Far, but clearly, it needs to be repeated.It happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit. It was not unusual for Americans who visited North Vietnam to be taken to see Vietnamese military installations and when they did, they were always required to wear a helmet like the kind I was told to wear during the numerous air raids I had experienced. When we arrived at the site of the anti-aircraft installation (somewhere on the outskirts of Hanoi), there was a group of about a dozen young soldiers in uniform who greeted me. There were also many photographers (and perhaps journalists) gathered about, many more than I had seen all in one place in Hanoi. This should have been a red flag.The translator told me that the soldiers wanted to sing me a song. He translated as they sung. It was a song about the day ‘Uncle Ho’ declared their country’s independence in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh Square. I heard these words: “All men are created equal; they are given certain rights; among these are life, Liberty and Happiness.” These are the words Ho pronounced at the historic ceremony. I began to cry and clap. These young men should not be our enemy. They celebrate the same words Americans do.The soldiers asked me to sing for them in return. As it turned out I was prepared for just such a moment: before leaving the United States, I memorized a song called Day Ma Di, written by anti-war South Vietnamese students. I knew I was slaughtering it, but everyone seemed delighted that I was making the attempt. I finished. Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me, overcome on this, my last day, with all that I had experienced during my 2 week visit. What happened next was something I have turned over and over in my mind countless times. Here is my best, honest recollection of what happened: someone (I don’t remember who) led me towards the gun, and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. The cameras flashed. I got up, and as I started to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what had just happened hit me. “Oh my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes.” I pleaded with him, “You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.” I was assured it would be taken care of. I didn’t know what else to do. (I didn’t know yet that among the photographers there were some Japanese.)It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. But if they did I can’t blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it. Had I brought a politically more experienced traveling companion with me they would have kept me from taking that terrible seat. I would have known two minutes before sitting down what I didn’t realize until two minutes afterwards; a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever. The gun was inactive, there were no planes overhead, I simply wasn’t thinking about what I was doing, only about what I was feeling, innocent of what the photo implies. But the photo exists, delivering its message regardless of what I was doing or feeling. I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm. It is certainly painful for me that I, who had spent so much time talking to soldiers, trying to help soldiers and veterans, helping the anti-war movement to not blame the soldiers, now would be seen as being against our soldiers!So Why I Did I Go?On May 8th, 1972, President Nixon had ordered underwater, explosive mines to be placed in Haiphong Harbor, something that had been rejected by previous administrations. Later that same month, reports began to come in from European scientists and diplomats that the dikes of the Red River Delta in North Vietnam were being targeted by U.S. planes. The Swedish ambassador to Vietnam reported to an American delegation in Hanoi that he had at first believed the bombing was accidental, but now, having seen the dikes with his own eyes, he was convinced it was deliberate.I might have missed the significance of these reports had Tom Hayden, whom I was dating, not shown me what the recently released Pentagon Papers had to say on the subject: in 1966, Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton, searching for some new means to bring Hanoi to its knees, had proposed destroying North Vietnam’s system of dams and dikes, which, he said, “If handled right- might…offer promise…such destruction does not kill or drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after a time to widespread starvation (more than a million?) unless food is provided—which we could offer to do at the conference table.”[1] President Johnson, to his credit, had not acted upon this option.Now, six years later, Richard Nixon appeared to have given orders to target the dikes—whether to actually destroy them[2] or to demonstrate the threat of destruction, no one knew.It is important to understand that the Red River is the largest river in North Vietnam. Like Holland, its delta is below sea level. Over centuries, the Vietnamese people have constructed –by hand!– an intricate network of earthen dikes and dams to hold back the sea, a network two thousand five hundred miles long! The stability of these dikes becomes especially critical as monsoon season approaches, and requires an all-out effort on the part of citizens to repair any damage from burrowing animals or from normal wear and tear. Now it was June, but this was no ‘normal wear and tear’ they were facing. The Red River would begin to rise in July and August. Should there be flooding, the mining of Haiphong Harbor would prevent any food from being imported; the bombing showed no signs of letting up; and there was little press coverage of the impending disaster should the dikes be weakened by the bombing and give way. Something drastic had to be done.The Nixon Administration and its US Ambassador to the United Nations, George Bush (the father), would vehemently deny what was happening, but the following are excerpts from the April-May 1972 transcripts of conversations between President Nixon and top administration officials.April 25th 1972Nixon: “We’ve got to be thinking in terms of an all-out bombing attack [of North Vietnam}…Now, by all-out bombing attack, I am thinking about things that go far beyond…I’m thinking of the dikes, I’m thinking of the railroad, I’m thinking, of course, of the docks.”Kissinger: “I agree with you.”President Nixon: “And I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?”Kissinger: “About two hundred thousand people.”President Nixon: “No, no, no…I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?Kissinger: “That, I think, would just be too much.”President Nixon: “The nuclear bomb, does that bother you?…I just want to think big, Henry, for Christsakes.”May 4, 1972.[3]John B. Connally (Secretary of the Treasury):…”bomb for seriousness, not just as a signal. Railroads, ports, power stations, communication lines…and don’t worry about killing civilians. Go ahead and kill ’em….People think you are [killing civilians] now. So go ahead and give ’em some.”Richard Nixon: “That’s right.”[Later in same conversation]Richard Nixon: “We need to win the goddamned war…and…what that fella [?] said about taking out the goddamned dikes, all right, we’ll take out the goddamned dikes….If Henry’s for that, I’m for it all the way.”The administration wanted the American public to believe Nixon was winding down the war because he was bringing our ground troops home. (At the time I went to Hanoi, there were only approximately 25,000 troops left in South Vietnam from a high of 540,000 in early 1969) In fact, the war was escalating…from the air. And, as I said, monsoon season was approaching. Something drastic had to be done.That May, I received an invitation from the North Vietnamese in Paris to make the trip to Hanoi. Many had gone before me but perhaps it would take a different sort of celebrity to get people’s attention. Heightened public attention was what was needed to confront the impending crisis with the dikes. I would take a camera and bring back photographic evidence (if such was to be found) of the bomb damage of the dikes we’d been hearing about.I arranged the trip’s logistics through the Vietnamese delegation at the Paris Peace talks, bought myself a round trip ticket and stopped in New York to pick up letters for the POWs.Frankly, the trip felt like a call to service. It was a humanitarian mission, not a political trip. My goal was to expose and try to halt the bombing of the dikes. (The bombing of the dikes ended a month after my return from Hanoi)The only problem was that I went alone. Had I been with a more experienced, clear-headed, traveling companion, I would not have allowed myself to get into a situation where I was photographed on an anti-aircraft gun.The SpinMy trip to North Vietnam never became a big story in the Summer/Fall of 1972–nothing on television, one small article in the New York Times. The majority of the American public, Congress, and the media were opposed to the war by then and they didn’t seem to take much notice of my trip. After all, as I said, almost three hundred Americans had gone to Hanoi before me. There had been more than eighty broadcasts by Americans over Radio Hanoi before I made mine. I had decided to do the broadcasts because I was so horrified by the bombing of civilian targets and I wanted to speak to U.S. pilots as I had done on so many occasions during my visits to U.S. military bases and at G.I. Coffee houses. I never asked pilots to desert. I wanted to tell them what I was seeing as an American on the ground there. The Nixon Justice Department poured over the transcripts of my broadcasts trying to find a way to put me on trial for treason but they could find none. A. William Olson, a representative of the Justice Department, [4] said after studying the transcripts, that I had asked the military “to do nothing other than to think.”But from the Nixon Administration’s point of view, something had to be done. If the government couldn’t prosecute me in court because, in reality, I had broken no laws, then the pro-war advocates would make sure I was prosecuted in the court of public opinion.The myth making about my being responsible for POW torture began seven months after I returned from North Vietnam, and several months after the war had ended, and the U.S. POWs had returned home. “Operation Homecoming,” in February 1973, was planned by the Pentagon and orchestrated by the White House. It was unprecedented in its lavishness. I was outraged that there had been no homecoming celebrations for the 10s of 1000s of men who had done combat. But from 1969 until their release in 1973, Nixon had made sure that the central issue of the war for many Americans was about the torture of American POWs (the very same years when the torture had stopped!). He had to seize the opportunity to create something that resembled victory. It was as close as he would come, and the POWs were the perfect vehicles to deflect the nation’s attention away from what our government had done in Vietnam, how they had broken faith with our servicemen.I became a target the government could use, to suggest that some POWs who had met with me while I was in Hanoi had been tortured into pretending they were anti-war. The same thing was done to try and frame former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, whose trip to North Vietnam followed mine.According to Seymour Hersh, author and journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre and, later, the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal, when American families of POWs became alarmed at the news that there was torture in North Vietnam prisons, they received letters from the Pentagon saying: “We are certain that you will not become unduly concerned over the [torture] briefing if you keep in mind the purpose for which it was tailored.”[5]But, according to what the POWs wrote in their books, conditions in the POW camps improved in the four years preceding their release—that is, from 1969 until 1973. Upon their release, Newsweek magazine wrote, “the [torture] stories seemed incongruent with the men telling them – a trim, trig [note: this is actually the word used in the article] lot who, given a few pounds more flesh, might have stepped right out of a recruiting poster.”[6]Once the POWs were home, the Pentagon and White House handpicked a group of the highest ranking POWs–senior officers, to travel the national media circuit, some of them telling of torture. A handwritten note from President Nixon to H.R. Haldeman says that “the POW’s need to have the worst quotes of R. Clark and Fonda” to use in their TV appearances, but this information shouldn’t come from the White House.[7] These media stories were allowed to become the official narrative, the universal “POW Story,” giving the impression that all the men had been subjected to systematic torture—right up to the end–and that torture was the policy of the North Vietnamese government. The POWs who said there was no torture in their camps were never allowed access to the media.Not that any torture is justified or that anyone who had been tortured should have been prevented from telling about it. But the Nixon White House orchestrated a distorted picture of what actually occurred.In my anger at the torture story that was being allowed to spread, at how the entire situation was being manipulated, I made a mistake I deeply regret. I said that the POWs claiming torture were liars, hypocrites, and pawns.I said, “I’m quite sure that there were incidents of torture…but the pilots who are saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that’s a lie.”[8]What I didn’t know at the time was that although there had been no torture after 1969, before then there had been systematic torture of some POWS. One of the more hawkish of them, James Stockdale, wrote in his book, In Love and War, that no more than ten percent of the pilots received at least ninety percent of the punishment.[9] John Hubbell, in P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, agreed, and affirmed the fact that torture stopped in 1969.[10]When the POWs came home, some who had been there longest told the press how they clogged up prison toilets and sewers, refused to come when ordered, or follow prison rules. One of the most famous, Jeremiah Denton, said, “We forced them [the guards] to be brutal to us.”[11] I relay this not to minimize the hardships that the POWs endured, nor to excuse it– but to attempt belatedly to restore a greater depth of insight into the entire POW experience with their captors.Still, whether any torture was administered to certain, more recalcitrant POWs and not to others is unacceptable. Even though only a small percent of prisoners were tortured by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, it wasn’t right. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s standards, torturing prisoners to get information is justified. It isn’t. Not ever. All nations must adhere to the Geneva Convention’s rules of warfare.As anyone who knew or worked with me in those years knows that my heart has always been with the soldiers. I should have been clearer that my anger back then was at the Nixon Administration. It was the administration, in its cynical determination to keep hostilities between the U.S. and Vietnam alive and to distract people from the administration’s mistakes, who tried to use the POWs as pawns.Addressing The Internet liesBy the end of the Nineties, even more grotesque torture lies began to be circulated about me over the Internet—the ones that continue to this day.Let me quote a former POW, Captain Mike McGrath (USN Retired), president of the POW-NAM Organization. In a letter to Roger Friedman, at the time a columnist for Fox411, on Friday, January 12, 2001 (he gave Friedman permission to make the letter public) McGrath wrote:Yes, the Carrigan/Driscoll/strips of paper story is an Internet hoax. It has been around since Nov 1999 or so. To the best of my knowledge none of this ever happened. This is a hoax story placed on the Internet by unknown Fonda haters. No one knows who initiated the story. I have spoken with all the parties named: Carrigan, Driscoll, et al. They all state that this particular story is a hoax and wish to disassociate their names from the false story. They never made the statements attributed to them.In his letter, McGrath also said to Friedman that by the time I went to Hanoi in 1972, treatment of the POWs was starting to improve and that I “did not bring torture or abuse to the POWs,” but that one man [Hoffman], the “senior ranking man in a room full of new guys,” was tortured (“hung by his broken arm”) to make him come to the meeting with me. McGrath wrote:Why one man (name withheld by request) was picked out for torture of his broken arm is unknown…The answer is, it never happened!Will what I have written here stop the myths from continuing to be spread on the Internet and in mass mailings to conservative Republicans? I don’t know. Some people seem to need to hate and I make a convenient lightning rod. I think the lies and distortions serve some right-wing purpose—fundraising? Demonizing me so as to scare others from becoming out-spoken anti-war activists? Who knows? But at least here, on my blog (and in my memoirs), there is a place where people who are genuinely interested in the truth can find it.[1] PP Vol. 1V, p. 43 (Italics in the original)[2] As Hitler had done to the Netherlands during World War II. German High Commissioner Seyss-Inquart was condemned to death at Nuremberg for opening the dikes in Holland.[3] Oval Office Conversation No. 719-22, May 4, 1972; Nixon White House Tapes; National Archives at College Park, College Park MD[4] Hearings before the Committee on Internal Security, House of Representatives, 92 Congress, Second Session, Sept. 10 & 25th, 1972 (Washington: Government Printing Office): 7552[5] Hersh, The P.O.W. Issue: A National Issue is Born, Dayton (Ohio) Journal-Herald, 13-18 Feb 1971[6] Newsweek, 4/16/73[7] Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, White House Special Files: Staff Mamber & Office Files: H.R. Haldeman: Box 47: Folder: H. Notes Jan-Feb-Mar 1973 National Archives[8] NYT, 7 April 1973,11[9] In Love and War, p.447[10] P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, John G. Hubbell, 91,430[11] New York Times, 30 April 1973.To show your support:– Repost Jane’s blog on your own website.– Share Jane’s post to your Facebook pages, and on Twitter.– Click here and sign this pledge to let Jane know you stand with her.Share This PostPREVIOUS ARTICLEA SENSE OF COMMUNITYNEXT ARTICLEFORGIVENESS355 CommentsWilliam Brighenti January 15, 2015, 4:36 pmAs Jefferson said and wrote, a democracy requires an informed citizenry. Individuals are not absolved simply out of ignorance. Should we absolve all of the Nazis who believed the propaganda of Hitler and were lied to? Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex upon leaving office. Today that smae military industrial complex is alive and well, profiting from our professional army in the middle east. I opposed the Vietnam War back in the 1960s; and I oppose our country killing civilians in the middle east today. We are all responsible for allowing these endless wars, and we cannot absolve ourselves by claiming simply that we were lied to. It didn’t work at Nuremberg, nor should it here and now.jim davis October 28, 2015, 9:16 amYou can always count on American’s to do the right thing after they try everything else.- W. ChurchillI think the next election will determine America’s fate.As Jefferson said and wrote, a democracy requires an informed citizenry.Robert K Owen May 20, 2015, 9:57 amDear Ms. Fonda – I have read your account with interest, and I am glad that I have found it. You visited our barracks when I was at Fort Ord in 1972. I was at Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade…assigned as Admin Asst (Company Clerk) to the Company Commander. I always wondered how it was that you came to our Company. I felt our CO was relatively progressive, and that may have played a part. I don’t now recall much of what you said to us, specifically…just the general jist of your message. But, I do recall you counseled us to “always question why” and “think for ourselves”…something along those lines. That was a part of your talk that managed to stick with me. That was good advice, not only for those times, but for all times. Thanks for that!A significant part of my job there was helping some of the kids through the process of discharge or designation due to their inability to adapt to the military environment or desire for conscientious objection status. That was very interesting to me. I did not serve in Vietnam. I received orders for assignment there, but my First Sergeant raised a fuss with HQ about needing me here, so they rescinded. I was lucky.After service, I worked my way through college, with help from the GI Bill…and on to a 31-year career in Finance with Quest Diagnostics. I retired in 2014. I have also been a singer/songwriter/musician since my teenage years. Two years ago, a colleague and I formed a Chapter of Soldier Songs and Voices, here in Portland, Oregon. We are helping to establish community for vets by providing guitar lessons and writing workshops, free of charge. My inspiration for this came from a news article I saw about Roger Waters (songwriter/musician in Pink Floyd), who was doing something similar in New York City. This endeavor has been both challenging and rewarding for me. It has been a good way for me to give back.Over the years, I have always been able to separate (in my mind) the service in the military from the politics of war. Looking back, your visit to us in 1972 helped me begin to establish that mindset. Thank you.Robert OwenJane May 22, 2015, 2:46 pmRobert, I remember vividly my visit to Ft Ord. It was very important to me. I totally agree with you about the importance of separating the servicemen (and now women) from the politics of war. Everyone in the Peace Movement that I knew felt the same way. I think it’s the hawks, beginning with the Regan administration, that started the myth of the Peace Movement blaming the soldiers. Thank you for writing. xChris Pilgrim May 28, 2015, 8:45 amMs. Fonda, you make me proud to be an American! I had to “school” someone today on how your actions in Vietnam were from love and concern, not malice. I am grateful for people like you who aren’t afraid to stand up for what they feel is right and important. Those who fight for truth have paved the way for equality and,as a gay man, I couldn’t be more appreciative. We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” -William FaulknerChels October 1, 2015, 7:53 amDear JaneMy name is Chelsie, I’m in my early 20s, and a University student from Melbourne, Australia. Having never studied the Vietnam War in depth (until now) I had no idea of your significance in the antiwar movement. In my Vietnam War class at Uni, we are to write an essay on an area of the war of our choosing. I have chosen to write about you and the misunderstanding and depth of feeling against you which still continues today. From all of my reading and research so far, all I really have to say is: “Thank you for standing up for humanity, thank you for sharing the truth, you are an absolute inspiration!”Kindest regards, all the way from Melbourne, AustraliaChelsiejim davis October 28, 2015, 8:59 amJane, I can relate to your statement about unknown people receiving attention when they went to N. Vietnam.I’m an unknown author who wrote a book, The Rise And Fall of America’s Middle Class (why it happened and what you can do to restore prosperity). It’s about middle class history from 1900 to the present and the major events and legislation that caused it to rise (the New Deal 1933 to 1981) and fall (the Raw Deal 1982 to present) The book has facts and statistics from official government sources showing every single long term economic indicator has gone down since 1982. Examples: Performance charts that show minimum wage raises are directly linked to lower unemployment rates and greater GDP growth rates.I need your help to get the word out about this book. I’m sure you want to read this 124 page book before promoting it. [email protected] you in advance,Jim Davisjim davis October 28, 2015, 9:04 amPS, I place so much importance on the next election I am willing to give a free copy to anyone upon request.Jim Davis.jim davis October 29, 2015, 7:32 amJane, is a chapter in my book.The Letter That Changed AmericaBy the late ’60s many people began to believe the liberal movement had taken the nation to far to the left. I was one of them. A survey revealed nearly 40 percent of college students favored socialism. Most people thought the unions went too far trying to get legislation passed that would have made strikers eligible for welfare and food stamps, which enraged corporate America and most of the public. Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe At Any Speed” ignited the consumer movement forcing automobile manufactures to add safety features. (It is not well known but some auto executives advocated safety features but could not compete if they produced them and urged legislation setting standards) President Nixon supported the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) and the Clean Air Act. After a river in Cleveland, Ohio caught on fire, and burned out of control for days, he created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) The Poor People’s Campaign set up a six-week encampment on the National Mall in Washington. Nixon proposed a guaranteed annual income and declared, “I am a Keynesian.” One business leader publicly declared “they want to roll up the business community and put it in a trash can.” Meanwhile a bewildered business community just sat there taking hit after hit everyday, in the media, fearing bad publicity if they responded.They did respond, however, by using one of the most successful strategy’s ever in history. A single letter written to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, and a Supreme Court decision set in motion the dynamics that brought on the conservative movement and enabled corporate America’s takeover of the political process. In 1971 a distinguished corporate lawyer, who was a member of 11 corporate boards, wrote a 14-page confidential letter to his friend, Eugene Sydnor, the director of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce titled, “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System” which became known as the “Powell Memorandum.” Mr. Powell specialized in corporate mergers and takeovers, served on the board of Phillip Morris, represented the tobacco industry in several cases and was a former president of the American Bar Association. Mr. Powell was famous in legal circles for structuring sentences when arguing in court and applied that skill composing his letter (I think he was a natural born bullshit artIst). Just read the following “quotations”!The Powell Memo outlined ”a bold policy of how big business could control key elements of American society in a manor the public wouldn’t notice.” Mr. Powell noted “criticism was coming from all respectable elements of society; from the campus, the pulpit, the media, artist, scientists, and politicians.” Powell, a Democrat, advised the Chamber and corporate America to “become heavily involved in molding public opinion, politics, and law” and outlined a “blueprint on how tobecome far more politically active in order to defend free enterprise against socialist, communists, or fascist trends.” Powell advocated “constant surveillance of textbook, newsprint,49television content and a purge of left wing elements.” As a result conservatives began purchasing publishing companies, newspapers, radio, and TV stations and staff them with conservative personnel and commentators in order to achieve that goal. Powell told conservatives they “had to confront liberalism everywhere and in any way possible.” He told them they “would have to build a new group of organizations and needed a scale of financing only available through a joint effort.”Powell said that conservatives would have to “put aside political differences, ego, and competing differences in order to achieve common goal’s including less government, lower taxes, and deregulation, by challenging the left agenda everywhere by any means possible”Although Powell isn’t known to have played a role in implementing his proposals, his brilliantly crafted memo galvanized nervous business leaders, and working through the Chamber, they began implementing his ideas with a vengeance. Business leaders and conservatives organized a new generation of think tanks, media monitors, legal groups, and networking organizations all dedicated to “the values of free enterprise, individual freedoms, and limited government.” That effort was well under way when the first one was incorporated as the Heritage Foundation. The Manhattan Institute, Cato Institute, Citizens for A Sound Economy and Accuracy In Academia, are some of the better-known ones that followed later.One goal was to “convince the public that corporate interests are in the public interest and that labor, health, safety, and the environment are special interests.” Another goal was to “influence legislation, government policy and the legal system”Today if Rush Limbaugh wants something on vouchers it’s immediately in his hands. If Bill O’Reilly needs a guest to talk about death taxes (estate taxes) he has one from one of these think tanks. More than 400 million dollars a year fund their think tank operations. In 2009 Heritage Foundation’s budget alone was $80,378,250 and listed assets of $164,819,678. People in the know estimate 36,000 conservatives have been trained on values, leadership, use of the media, and agenda development at the conservative Leadership Institute in Virginia. Insiders affectionately call its graduates, and mainstream media outlets the “Conservative Media Machine.” About 2,000 of the graduates are core leaders who make between $75,000 and $200,000 and all of them are monitored by other professionals for performance. You see them regularly on TV, including Public Broadcasting Stations (PBS) commenting and making recommendations. The founder of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquest, is one of the core leaders. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell attended the Leadership Institute. The Conservative Media Machine operated at full speed to get George Bush reelected in 2004. They operated through a network of right leaning TV and radio channels including, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel which provides GOP presidential candidates a free 24/7 campaign infomercial. The Christian Church community has created an electronic media giant as a result of aid and advice provided by conservatives and is considered part of the Conservative Media Machine as well.Powell encouraged “corporations and trade organizations to create their own citizen organizations with names that would mask their corporate sponsorship and true purpose.” The National Wetlands Coalition, whose logo had a duck flying over a swamp, was sponsored by oil and gas companies to ease restrictions on wetlands for developing oil and business ventures while advocating “responsible” EPA policies. The Consumer Alert organization fought government regulations of product safety and at the same time advocated “responsible” consumer protection legislation in media adds. Keep America Beautiful, sponsored by the bottling industry, promoted anti litter campaigns but successfully fought recycling legislation they deemed unfavorable and urged the public to write Congress. (You old timers remember when a deposit was required for soda glass bottles that had to be returned to get your deposit back.) Hundreds of them have been set up over the years and they were extremely effective at masking their true purpose and some even solicited donations from an unwary public. Recently the airwaves were flooded with the safe, environmental friendly process known as fracking. The public airwaves were void of scientist and activist wishing to present their side. An activist with “what the frack is going on” printed on his forehead was removed from a public hearing when police noticed it as he objected to and questioned why “no liability clauses” were written in leases. His name was Jim Davis. The police were considerate to me and one even expressed admiration for my cause. He didn’t “approve of my (news worthy) method” — even though it worked!Powell advised the Chamber to “establish a roster of eminent, highly qualified social science and economic scholars, and invite them to speak at conservative-sponsored public and media events.”51“It should include several well known names whose reputation would be widely respected even when disagreed with.” Scholars like Milton Friedman are an example of those who were invited to speak at these conservative sponsored media events, and conventions, and suddenly found them selves gaining fame and winning awards. Friedman won a Noble Prize in 1976 and he became an economic adviser to President Reagan. Although off topic, it is worth noting Friedman advocated abolishing medical licenses. Quackery voodoo medicine and quackery voodoo economics!Powell advised the chamber to “recruit a staff of scholars to evaluate social science textbooks, especially in economics, political science, and sociology, whose long term objective is restoring balance essential to long term academic freedom.” Today’s children, as noted on page 3, are being taught that to think differently poses a threat to democracy! These scholars also provided incentives to independent scholars and authors, who believed in the free enterprise system, to induce more publishing. Additionally they provided incentives (bribes) to neutral authors to support conservative views. He advised the chamber to “establish a staff of speakers, thoroughly familiar with the media and with speaking skills, to speak on college campuses, at public, and media events in order to mold public opinion.” Within a couple of years an army of skilled speakers were on the college speaking circuit and by 1977 the number of college students advocating socialism had dropped significantly.Powell recommended the “business community create a business funded legal center to promote business interests in the nations courts.” In 1973 the Pacific Legal Foundation, PLF, was formed in Sacramento California. It was the first of a number of so called “public interest” law firms dedicated to promoting business interests, fight so called frivolous lawsuits, and encourage frivolous lawsuit legislation. Because some suits were indeed frivolous, they were successful in tort reform making it harder for legitimate lawsuits to be filed against Big Business as was its real goal. Tort reform is still going on. The PLF specialized in defending business interests against clean air and water legislation, the closing of federal wilderness areas to oil and gas exploration, worker rights, and corporate taxation.The Powell Memo recommended “Business Roundtables be set up with CEOs of competing businesses as members putting aside personal differences with the goal of finding common ground and aggressively launching campaigns to gain political acceptance and promote common interests.” The first one was organized in 1973. Prior to that in 1972, it became common to read articles, and see commentators on TV about union wages and benefits being equal to those offered by non union firms, praising unions, but raising the question if they were still needed. Between 1972 and 1975 many dues paying union members took notice and using “what have you done for me lately mentality” voted to decertify many unions. The articles didn’t mention union wages and benefit’s “set the standard” non union firms “must” offer in order to hire and retain a good quality workforce. I well remember seeing these articles and even though I was not a fan of unions at that time, I wondered52if something was up.BUST THE UNIONSThe first Business Roundtable was set up in 1973 and consisted of 40 of the top 50 Fortune 500 Corporations CEOs. The first Business Roundtable meeting agenda was set to list priorities and included several think tank advisers who provided information and made recommendations. This is some of the information they supplied. In 1971 union PAC money made up 50 percent of all PAC money, only 175 firms had registered lobbyist in Washington, plus only 40 Fortune 500 companies had public affairs offices in Washington. By 1979, 80 percent of them had public affairs offices in Washington, full of lobbyists. The CEOs were provided statistics about the big increase of lobbyist and assured them more PAC funds were forthcoming and were confident this additional source would overwhelm union lobbying and contributions to politicians. By 1979 union PAC money was less than 25 percent of the total and more than 2000 firms had lobbyists in D.C.! The CEOs were reminded about the union news articles and predicted dues paying union members would continue succumbing to “what have you done for me lately mentality” speeding up a trend of desertification. That helps explains the sharp percentage drop in membership from 1972 onward.From the time the National Labor Relations Act legalized unions, during the Great Depression, making them a powerful force, the business community was committed to their destruction and the Business Roundtable made it a priority. In order to increase profits using cheap foreign labor was the tool they decided to use and using PAC money to amend foreign trade policies was the strategy. Small policy changes had already been made in foreign steel and auto import quotas and since the auto and steel worker unions were the biggest and highest paid, easing restrictions on auto and steel imports was given priority. Within months foreign steel and high-quality Japanese autos were taking big shares of the market and the race to the bottom for the U. S. economy had begun. By the late 70s the big industrial cities in the Northeast were struggling to overcome the adverse effects of foreign trade policy changes. Many steel companies, appliance makers, auto production facilities, and support industries closed their doors for good and cities lost tax revenue as people moved seeking work else where. Most of them moved to “right to work” states in the south. I was one of them and felt sorry for the poor workers I met! It didn’t take long for the term “Rust Belt” to be coined and excessive union wages were blamed. Powell’s recommendations began paying off handsomely by the 1980s in coordination of President Reagan’s “hands off business” philosophy.Many scholars credit Mr. Powell for inspiring the most brilliant strategy in history. The juggernaut he inspired more than 40 years ago is still growing and gaining influence today. Mr. Powell delivered his pernicious, brilliantly crafted memo to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 23, 1971. A few months later, on Jan 17, 1972, its author, Lewis J. Powell Jr. was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court53Associate Justice. As a Justice, Powell wrote the opinion for the following case.FIRST NATIONAL BANK of BOSTON vs. BELLOTTIThink the now-infamous “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” ruling in 2010 was the Supreme Court’s first foray into big-money politics? Think again!In 1978 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that corporations had a First Amendment right to make contributions in order to influence the political process. Justice Powell wrote the opinion that “a Massachusetts statute outlawing spending corporate funds to influence public opinion and voting opinions was a violation of free speech.” Because of this decision Congressmen from both parties now had access to huge amounts of special interest corporate campaign funds, if and only if, they supportedand voted the “right” way. If politicians stood by their principles and didn’t go along they were easy targets for a primary challenger. What do you think they did and what do you think you would do? Most of them, as most people would, went along. For members of Congress and the Senate, they were at the mercy of the special interest groups who would contribute campaign funds to the politicians who supported their views. The politicians could either go along or risk being outspent by an opponent and the survivors went along. This decision had a big influence on the Citizens United case decades later.By the ’90s numerous Business Roundtables had been organized with 2300 members. Politicians, commentators and prominent, well respected business leaders began campaigning for the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. They bombarded the public with assurances, through editorials, news releases, radio and TV commentaries that NAFTA would protect and provide them with more high paying jobs, stop immigration from Mexico, and raise environmental standards. It had the exact opposite effect. Most Favored Nation Status for China soon followed. The public was led to believe globalization was a natural unstoppable phenomenon.Increased lobbying of Congress, encouraged by the Powell Memorandum, and the Supreme Court’s First National Bank of Boston v. Bellot decision set in motion the dynamics that would dominate the political process from that time on. From that time on members of Congress realized, from the day they took the oath of office, they had to raise a huge amount of money to finance their next campaign in a few years and corporations could legally contribute if they liked your record. In the early ’70s people were shocked when the first Congressional campaign exceeded $100,000. That figure is in the millions today. The power of Big Business lobbying quickly overwhelmed the unions’ efforts to lobby against legislation that favored special interests.The lobbying of unions had a huge positive impact on the middle class and is the most unknown and misunderstood benefit of good strong unions. Union members were all members of the middle class and statistics prove non union middle class families benefited as well. Since no other middle class lobbying organizations had the clout unions once had, what we have is a middle class, and a54nation, in decline. From the mid-70s onward not one single piece of legislation has been passed without changes to satisfy business interests. President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act is a prime example because of insurance lobbying against the “public option provision.” Although off topic, I consider the 30-year FHA home loan to be the “public option home loan” enticing conventional mortgage lenders to keep offering affordable long term 30 year loans.Lobbyist activities led to amending the Glass-Steagall Act, which outlawed the risky activities that got us into the Great Depression. These practices that became once again legal set in motion the dynamics that led to the financial crash of 2008. (Did I mention it’s a good example of good vs bad legislation?) The Glass-Steagall Act was a law that favored the individual because it protected his savings against loss! I think it favored the banking industry by default as well. The banksters who lost nothing, due to the bailout, may not agree!It rattled my head and blew my mind when I read the Powell Memo because I immediately understood why so many ordinary people, and small business people, vote against their own interests. I know the results had a great impact on me, the way I thought and voted.The Powell Memo gives credence to Winston Churchill’s quote, “the truth is incontrovertible, malice may distort it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” This 14-page letter caused more change to America than anything in my lifetime, but remains unknown to most. If the information in this chapter was common knowledge I’m sure it would play a role in future politics!jim davis October 29, 2015, 10:13 pmThis is a chapter in my book The Rise and Fall of Americas Middle ClassLog in to replySheryl Linard November 20, 2015, 7:50 pmMs Fonda, Unfortunately the media can and do twist, turn, spin and portray anyone in a bad light to get a sensational story, whether it’s true or not doesn’t seem to matter! You can only tell the truth but there will always be people who won’t believe you but that’s their issue. You have explained an apologizied many times over and for some peopke , it will never be good enough.. I do applaud you for taking the time again to explain yout Hanoi trip and what actually happened vs. the media’s spin on it. Hopefully this will put to rest once and for all the rumors and innuendos that have haunted you for so many years!! By the way, I think you are a terrific actress and I enjoy your movies!Log in to replySheryl Linard November 20, 2015, 8:03 pmMs Fonda, Unfortunately the media can and do twist, turn, spin and portray anyone in a bad light to get a sensational story, whether it’s true or not doesn’t seem to matter! You can only tell the truth and there will always be people who won’t believe you but that’s their issue. You have explained an apologizied many times over and for some people , it will never be good enough.. I do applaud you for taking the time again to explain your Hanoi trip and what actually happened vs. the media’s spin on it. Hopefully this will put to rest once and for all the rumors and innuendos that have haunted you for so many years!! By the way, I think you are a terrific actress and I enjoy your movies!Jane November 29, 2015, 3:21 pmThanks Sheryl. I saw “Bridge of Spies” last night. A most fine film, by the way. In it, Tom Hanks says to Mark Rylance, “It doesn’t matter what people think. You know what you did.” That really struck me though, In my case, I would add “…You know what you did, and why.”Jim Childress December 14, 2015, 4:11 pmI’m glad I found this because I always believed you had no regrets about your visit to Hanoi. The regrets you’ve expressed are a comfort, but incomplete.I’m a Vietnam Veteran (69-70).You had the means to protest without going over there. You could’ve obtained pictures from Hanoi of bombed out dykes from your friends at the embassy.You made a mistake, I get that… I can forgive that given the opportunity.If you had just said forty years ago, “I understand your pain and I’m sorry that I went to Hanoi. I made a mistake, please forgive me.” No excuses… We’d be over this by now. But you still think you were justified.You could’ve been writing *why* you did it now after we’d gotten over it and we might all be slapping our foreheads and patting you on the back now…You f*cked up… twice.I don’t hate you even though I feel I have suffered because of your actions and the actions of protesters encouraged by your actions. It’s perception and perception can become the truth.Heckled, spit on, labeled as baby killers…I was one month past my 19th birthday…How would you feel about Jane Fonda if you served in Vietnam? Put it on and wear it around awhile before you answer that. That’s where you need real closure, with Vietnam Vets and their families. Nobody else *really* cares about your visit, don’t fool yourself…I haven’t read all your comments here but I doubt any of them were Vietnam Veterans. Most of them probably weren’t even born then.I’m afraid you’ve let this go on to long without an apology to those who fought and died in Vietnam. Many say our sacrifice was not in vain because it stopped the spread of Communism to other Asian countries in the region.There’s no excuse for going to Hanoi, laughing and singing with our enemies while we held our dying buddies.JimJane December 16, 2015, 2:07 pmDEAR JIM, I have apologized many many times both on national TV and privately to veterans.I do not regret going to Hanoi along with the many hundreds of Americans…including Vietnam Veterans, journalists, diplomats,…who went before me. I regret sitting on the gun.Jim Childress December 16, 2015, 3:27 pmThanks for your reply.Log in to replyDaniel Gleason January 17, 2016, 12:25 pmForgiveness is far overdue, but what can you do but what you’ve already done, which is apologize and explain. There are some hateful, chauvinistic Americans who just want somebody to hate on while they wave the flag and say “My country is always right,” or “My country, right or wrong–or else. People with half a brain should have already resolved all this. I was against the Vietnam War and resented that those who were for it said I was un-American because of my opposition. I loved my country and wanted to right it. I think you did, as well. All I can say is go in peace.Jane February 2, 2016, 12:29 pmThanks, Daniel. I’m with you!Daniel Gleason January 17, 2016, 12:32 pmJim, people protest in their own way and it doesn’t mean they don’t love their country. Vietnam vets were treated despicably when they returned from their service, but many who protested the war were simply trying to end it and save more American young men from dying in a civil war we should not have been involved in. If you watch the documentary “Fog of War,” which won an Oscar in 2003, you will hear former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara say that the “Domino Theory” proved to be wrong. Vietnam fell and there was no domino effect. That was the bill of goods that we were sold to go over there and risk our lives and die. My vehemence is directed toward LBJ, Nixon and the Pentagon that lied to keep the military/industrial complex spinning in greased and bloody grooves and so officers could get their field promotions.SW SImpson January 30, 2016, 6:02 pmWithout going into great detail, and having read some of the apologies and reasons behind some actions taken during the Vietnam War… I have to say that my father was a navigator on B-52’s during the Vietnam War. I was about 4 years old and understood that my dad may not come home. While my dad was gone, several terrible things happened to my family and when my dad returned, I no longer would have anything to do with him. I think in my little child’s mind I must have thought that had my dad been there that none of those things would have happened to me. It wasn’t until I was about 18 and had moved out of the house that I started to have a real relationship with my dad. He is 85 now and an amazing man and we are great friends… I am so happy and proud to be able to say that now. What I am getting to is that when my dad and I were first starting to communicate and become friends in my early 20’s, I heard an audio recording of what Jane Fonda had said… “I am speaking to those of you in B-52 bombers. This is an illegal war… war criminals… death penalty…” I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I literally doubled over and almost vomited. It broke my heart. That little boy of 4 years old needed his daddy, and here is this person saying that my dad should be executed. Jane, you need to know that broke my heart! It took years to sort that out in my head, to let go of the hurt and anger…. Seeing Jane at a rally standing up for the families of servicemen and women during the awful Iraq war was just the thing I had been hoping to see. To read a little bit about how Jane feels about those things now, has really helped. I am happy to say that I was able to enjoy Monster-in-Law with a dying friend, and that I absolutely LOVE “Frankie and Gracie”. I think this blog page is wonderful… to read about the past and to be able to say something that had hurt me so deeply for so long. Its so much better when we all understand and like one another. Thank you Jane.Jane February 2, 2016, 12:15 pmDear SW, what a beautiful thing to write. I am so grateful and so very sorry for the hurt I caused you as a boy. So so sorry. Thank you for your forgiveness. xHenry March 15, 2016, 10:43 pmAs a Vietnam veteran and retired military of 23 years, I would like to hear more about your years with the communist group Students For a Democratic Society and your connections with Bill Ayers and the violent Weather Underground. Are you holding any seminars on that subject ??Jane March 26, 2016, 4:15 pmDear Henry, I’m sorry you feel as you do but to answer your questions: Never met Bill Ayers. Wish I had. I’ve been told he’s a very smart professor. Never was a member of SDS though I married one of the founders who co-authored The Port Huron statement, SDS’s founding document. It’s a brilliant essay on what real democracy would mean. You should read it. SDS didn’t become violent till later. Never did believe in armed struggled. I’m more of a Gandhian non-violent type. Though I understand why Black Americans who have been enslaved, lynched, shot, imprisoned and denied equal education and jobs would consider taking up arms as the Black Panthers did. I’m glad you survived the war and hope you’re doing well. JaneV May 17, 2016, 1:44 pmMs. Fonda,I don’t know much about you, save for mostly common things; your career, father, and the story of your visit to Vietnam. And to be blunt, I never cared. Until I started seeing a veteran. And saw what he has gone through. I have never been pro-war, but never really spoke up about things. I keep my head down and raise my family. Strangely enough, that is what brings me here today.A few days ago my teenaged daughter and I were discussing her future plans. She hopes to become a doctor and because we are well under what is considered “low-income” we have been trying to consider all options. At the moment those options seem to include enlisting in the Armed Forces. Somehow the conversation turned, and I brought up the story about you. I cannot recall where I heard it, or how long ago. But I do remember being shocked and disgusted at the thought that someone could be so vile. My daughter had the same reaction.But she did something I didn’t do. She asked me “Why?” Why would someone do that? I honestly answered that I didn’t know, and I encouraged her to look it up on her own. And because I try to lead by example, I did so myself. I Googled you, tacked “Hanoi” on the end of your name, clicked a few different links.I will say this: I wasn’t there, or even alive, when you visited Vietnam. So I personally cannot attest to the validity of either side. But I do not agree with the captions I saw on those pictures that labeled you as “adoring” or “searching for a target” or otherwise. You didn’t give off that kind of impression to me. I also do not think that someone with as prolific career as yourself would have been as successful if there had been truth to the stories.When I get home tonight, I am going to talk with my daughter. I am going to tell her what I have learned. I will encourage her to do her own search and her own reading, so that she can form her own conclusions here. She is smart enough to weigh facts and use common sense.Thank you, for taking the time to pen your own version of things, so that those who wish to educate themselves can do so. And thank you for the support you have shown to our troops over the years. Now that I have personal experience with what type of hardships they endure after Serving, I am a lot more conscious of their struggles.I just thought I would let you know that not all younger people believe everything they hear or see online.Be well,-VJane May 27, 2016, 3:19 pmThank you, V. This email means the world to me. I’m glad you read my Hanoi post. Thnaks. xAndrew P House June 8, 2016, 12:11 amI apologize if this question has already been answered….and it likely has, but I wanted to ask you directly. I’m going to put my personal politics aside & just ask what I want to ask. What you did during the Vietnam War to an average citizen would have been considered high treason & the person would have been sentenced to death. Because of your celebrity status you were given a pass. How does that make you feel? I know WHY you did what you did, but as a US citizen you have to realize had you not been who you are, you’d have been tried & convicted for high treason. What are your thoughts on it?Jane June 10, 2016, 6:31 pmAndrew, thanks for your question. If I’d done what some accuse me of, I agree that I should have been tried as a traitor but I didn’t. Believe me, the Nixon Administration searched for things I could be tried for. They had the Justice Department et al searching for things to pin on me but they could find none. They poured over the actual transcripts of my radio broadcasts from Hanoi—the actual words I said, not how my words were translated into Vietnamese–and found there was nothing treasonous. And trust me, if there had been anything treasonous, the Nixon administration wouldn’t have cared what kind of celebrity I was, they would have strung me up. Read my blog “What REally Happened in Hanoi”…I think that’s the title. It’s in my archived blogs. The head of the POW/MIA organization at the time of my trip said I had not done what I was accused of doing to the POWs. It’s amazing to me that despite the falsehoods said abut me, they continue to circulate.Andrew P House July 2, 2016, 1:23 amThank you for your reply. I’m quite busy so I haven’t checked in some time. I do thank you for your reply. I have read what you suggested, and you are right. I didn’t want to admit it, but after going through various resources, I have found nothing to dispute what you have said. I grew up with many Vietnam veterans that have a bit of a hatred for you. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. I’m sure you’re used to that type of negative backlash. My resources are far reaching & I’ve found nothing at all to validate the claims I’ve heard for many years. Aside from the media. Media outlets are not valid to me.I am sorry if I came across as a bit brash in my last post. That wasn’t my intention. Thank you for taking the time to respond. It means a lot. 🙂Rod McLaughlin November 29, 2016, 7:36 am1. No American has ever been executed for treason2. “Celebrity status” doesn’t give you a pass – it makes the authorities more determined to make an example of you. Less famous Americans who went to Hanoi were ignored.Jenna June 16, 2016, 8:03 pmHi Jane,I am a big fan of your show Grace and Frankie, I have one episode left of Season 2! In high school I took a course titled Lessons of the Vietnam War and my teacher told us the story about you turning in the social security numbers to the North Vietnamese Guards. At the time I was outraged. When I got home I told my dad what I had learned in class that day and he did not believe the story that my teacher had taught and told me that it wasn’t true. At the time I was still hesitant because I did not know why my teacher would make up such a story so I looked it up and found out that it was all a lie. I recently thought about this incident from years ago and read this article. I appreciate your story and I am glad that you clarified the whole situation. I hope that teacher is no longer telling his students that story as fact.Jane June 18, 2016, 4:52 pmThank you Jenna. xx JaneChristopher A Howard July 22, 2016, 4:35 amDear Miss Fonda,Somewhere I lost the plot. You courageously went to North Vietnam where you voiced the feelings and expressed the views of millions of people, not just Americans that the war in South East Asia was wrong, wrong wrong (as most wars are) and it had to stop. In 1973 the US left. That wasn’t a bad result. And 43 years later you are still being tried in the court of public opinion. That, too, is wrong, wrong wrong. Maybe you found that the NV’s were just people, capable of cruelty and humanity, that they could sing and laugh and dance and cry and everything else that makes us human. This probably wasn’t a popular view in some quarters, especially unpopular with war profiteers and their supporters.The real deal behind all the negative stuff being levelled against you stems from the fact that you exposed a colossal lie and people sent their sons out there who died for really nothing and that must be hard to take.Allow me to wish you good luck and success in your pursuits and endeavours.Christopher A HowardJane July 28, 2016, 5:50 pmChristopher, thank you. xxRandy July 23, 2016, 10:09 pmHello Jane,I very much enjoyed reading your side of the story concerning this still controversial topic.Even before I stumbled across your blog I had always believed there was much more that “anti Fonda” folks were leaving out!I thoroughly admire your candidness in every interview I’ve seen on various talk shows, and I always speak up for you when I hear such ignorant remarks even to this day (amazing) in regards to the Vietnam war.I personally know that I’m a good judge of character, and I admire and respect you for being such an open person.In closing, just wanted to say I would’ve loved to have met you when you lived here in Atlanta! I’ve heard only great things from those who have.Much love,RandyRod McLaughlin November 27, 2016, 4:20 pmThanks for this page. I’ve always wondered why Jane Fonda had to apologise for anything.“Oh my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes.”Well, first of all, it’s ridiculous to think North Vietnam would recruit a famous movie star as an anti-aircraft gunner. But more importantly, what’s wrong with shooting down bombers? – any bombers, in any country, which are bombing civilians. North Vietnam committed terrible war crimes – but shooting down B-52s was not one of them.Log in to replyJay Chellew December 19, 2016, 12:17 pmHi JaneFinding this is like opening the best Christmas present ever. You’ve written such a detailed and compelling account giving me and all of your long-time supporters such a wonderful gift. I just turned 70 years old and served in the Army from 1966-1969 with the majority of my time spent in Alaska working in a NIKE missile unit. I’m a Cold War Veteran which surprisingly most generations that followed mine are not aware of. They seem to be knowledgeable of Vietnam but know little or nothing about the decades of facing the menace of the Soviet Union. My wife Jane and I have been admirers and true supporters of you going back as far as I can remember. From the strong roles you’ve played on the big screen to your activism and dedication to others and their causes has truly affected us in a deep and positive way. I just don’t know how this ongoing controversy started let alone how long it has lasted. Just last week I received and email from my ex-sister in law dredging up the same old stories. I’ve had my battles over the years with family, friends, co-workers, and a few Army buddies and gave the information I had while encouraging them to do their own research. It’s truly mind boggling!! My support for you in this matter has never wavered and the more people have thrown it in my face the stronger I get. Both Jane and I have always been aware of all you have done for Veterans and the Military community before and after this incident and we’ve read and researched as much as we could get our hands over the years. Thank you so much for the post. I think it’s important for everyone to be aware of the full and true story. Our best to you always.Much Love and RespectJay and Jane ChellewLog in to replySteve February 6, 2017, 12:04 pmDear Jane,I have had a deep abiding respect for you for over 4 decades. I have been inspired by your humanitarianism and activism over the years. I remember vividly participating at an anti-war, Vietnam rally in San Diego, CA with you. As I recall, you came with Tom Hayden, and Peter Boyle, both who are now deceased. Fortunately, I was never sent to Viet Nam. I received school deferments and then a high lottery number, 296.I was brainwashed about the VietNam war from age 16 until 19 years of age. I was led to believe by my conditioning that the U.S. government was there to protect the world from the spread of communism, and that North Vietnam was the aggressor. It was in the late 60s or early 70s that I heard Senator Frank Church, at a local college here in San Diego, explain that the U.S. government was in violation of the Geneva Accords and that the U.S. government was fighting an illegal and immoral war.I can attest to that the anti-war, VietNam demonstration I attended with you in San Diego was very peaceful and respectful toward our veterans. who were fighting and dying on behalf of the U.S. government as well as those who returned back to the U.S.. I recall a day prior to the demonstration I saw a friend at a local store and told him about the demonstration. The owner of the store overheard me and began screaming at me at the top of his lungs, telling me to, “Get the fuck out of his store.” These were highly charged times and Nixon had further divided the country into two groups, and he used fascist rhetoric to silence his adversaries. Thank God for you and the like, who inspired us to march in peace with you.Thank you so much for writing your open letter here about your experiences in the VietNam era as well as being a true champion of peace, women rights, human rights over the years. I hope you become one of the iconic center points to rally against the most dangerous and corrupt man to be in the White House since the founding of our constitution. We need your loving voice more than ever.Only love for you Jane… only love!!!! SteveLog in to replyJane February 7, 2017, 5:32 pmThank you Steve. I’m doing my best. Working and supporting manyy groups and we’re all figuring our the most effective way forward right now. We know that grassroots organizing and getting people elected to local and statewide office is critical. xxxLog in to replySteve February 9, 2017, 11:23 amJane: Please let us know when the next major “freedom march” will happen in the Los Angeles area. Things are getting more and more crazier in the country, and sadly there appears to be no end in sight. Love, SteveLog in to replyJane February 9, 2017, 5:51 pmSteve, see my reply to Eileen.Log in to replySteve February 10, 2017, 6:29 amJane: I searched for Eileen on this page and found no reply from you to her. I live in San Diego but I have friends that live in the Los Angeles area. I sent an email message this morning to San Diego Free Press because I am unable to find any scheduled protest meetings here in San Diego as well. The Indivisible movement is becoming a grass roots efforts nationwide but i was unable to find any planned protests as well. Love, Persist, Resist…. SteveLog in to replyJane February 14, 2017, 1:23 pmSteve, I’m in DC right now but will try to find out if I can if something’s happening in San DiegoLog in to replyDragos Turcu March 11, 2017, 2:01 amDear Mr. Fonda,I completely agree with your upbringing in the fantastic shadow of your father (you made a real Oscar worthy separation / coming of age recital in “On the golden pond” movie and I commend you for that as well. However as someone who lived in a communist country (Romania until 1989) for 18 years I must tell you that the coin will always have two faces.Please see the side that still hurts me: Soviet influence on the peace movement - WikipediaAnd another thing that I don’t understand is the fact that all these progressive / liberal outlets like Amnesty International, Peace Movement etc are always putting a muffle on the suffering behind the Iron Curtain.If you have the curiosity to search Ion Ioanid (Ion Ioanid - Wikipedia) – “Give us each day our daily prison” memories book you will understand why. Unfortunately those facts are not in line with the leftist agenda. At least try to be sincere with yourself. Seeing what is happening now in the world i think Stalin and Lenin are laughing their a**es off in the after world.And indeed they don’t need weapons to fight their wars anymore.Let me know your thoughts about this.Best wishes,Dragos TurcuLog in to replyJane March 22, 2017, 2:19 pmDragos, I have made a film in Russia, when it was the USSR and I agree with you about the wrong doings, the emprisonments, the anti-semitism, the censorship, etc. I was there frequently when Gorbachov was President. I believe that much of the former repressiveness of the USSR has returned under Putin. I have to say, however, that for a very long time, Russia has had little to no influence over any American progressive movements.Log in to replySteve June 1, 2017, 7:39 pmIt is not until Memorial Day 2017 when I learned in detail about Ms. Fonda’s action of historic importance. The fact that this blog started in 2011 and remains active in 2017 speaks for the timeless relevance of her action over 40 years ago.In each of this great nation’s highest controversies, there is always a leading man or woman. Did Jane Fonda go too far in her anti-war efforts? If so, did Edward Snowden go too far? Did our founding fathers went too far? I don’t know.However, I do know that today our nation remains at multiple wars with some other human beings in some foreign lands. Ms. Fonda’s Vietnam experience will remain relevant until the nation returns to peace with the rest of the world.Log in to replyWilliam H. Harris, Jr. March 20, 2018, 12:52 pmI was taken in years ago by the false narrative promoted regarding your trip to Hanoi in1972. I ask for your forgiveness for all the years I have “hated” you for the things I thought you had done in your trip to North Vietnam. I understand now that you simply had a conviction different from mine about the war in Vietnam.My Vietnam story is real simple. I was a Distinguished MIlitary Graduate in 1967 from Arizona State University intending to make a carer of the U.S. Army. I served with the 101st Airborne in 1968 and 1969 as a Captain and Flight Lead in a gunship unit. It was only after being away from Vietnam and out of the service after 4 years that I realized why I had served. I served because men deserve to be properly led in combat. They also deserve officers in command who will bring as many of them back as they took into action… particularly the infantry. I believe I did both. All my flying in Vietnam was done in the 3 most northern provinces of South Vietnam primarily in the Ashua Valley.I married my college sweetheart 51 years ago and have 3 grown sons and 2 grandchildren. I have always lived a Christian creed and admitted when I have fallen off that path. So… for over 45 years I have held a smoldering hatred for your actions in 1972. I humbly repent and ask your forgiveness.With highest regards, respect and Blessings,William H. Harris, Jr.Log in to replyJane March 22, 2018, 12:01 pmDear Mr. Harris, I am very grateful for your words and what they represent. More mov ed and grateful than you can know. Thankn you for that and for your service. Sincerely, JaneLog in to replyJackie April 23, 2018, 7:05 pmI made an account to leave this comment. It will be kind, fairly short…and full of emotion and seriousness. Jane…I may be only 26 but I believe you could potentially teach a lot of my age group an important life lesson from your experience.The reality is…everything you did was considered okay in your particular group and setting. People would spit on soliders in uniform, and many believed we didn’t need to go. Like today, group-think is strong. You were a political figure, a woman, and beautiful.Without even touching on politics, specific issues…I believe this is so relevant to today in the most simple of ways! From sucking on bottles to achieve “Kylie Lips” to destroying towns in the name of African Americans.I like to believe Americans in general are good at heart. Some are evil, like all of humanity (we all hold a bit of subjective “bad”…considering it is legal if caught in a shipwreck to kick off a child from your float in the event ou would both sink) but I think some GOODHEARTED people get caught up in the praise, cheers, and love from others they lose sight of what they are doing. This can go as extreme as Hitler and his influence on everyone (with doing 10x good and then flooding the world with bad) or as simple as “Oh thats sooo gay”Anyways I am cutting this short. But my age group and the younger need it.Think of what you’d do differently without changing your views and passions! I bet you could have done it better…had you took a step back. Rarely does the villian know he’s a villian.He usually thinks he’s a hero. XXXXXXYou still have a chance to be a hero. And not to be rude…but instead of writing a book about yourself maybe try to create a collaboration of many different perspectives on psychological topicsLog in to replyJane May 2, 2018, 6:11 pmJackie, can you tell me more? I’m not 100% sure I follow your meaning. I want to. Of course there are things I wish I could do over: I wish I’d been a better parent. I wish I hadn’t sat on that gun site in North Vietnam. It could paralyze me if I let it. But I believe, instead, it’s better to learn from our mistakes and try to do better, moving forward with positivity. But this may not be what you’re getting at at all. Tell me more also about this book idea. xxLog in to replyMike Davis October 4, 2018, 12:44 pmMs. Fonda: As a Vietnam veteran, ‘69-‘70, I have always appreciated your views and your position on the Vietnam War. As a card carrying member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War while in Vietnam, I have understood your thoughts on the war and respected your traveling to Honoi in an attempt to end the war. I was even ostracized for my agreeing with you at the time by my fellow brothers in Vietnam, but wouldn’t have changed my thoughts at the time and even now. I am 72 years old now and am grateful to you for using your celebrity to represent us. Than you. I’ve always been a true fan and your entire body of work over the years. ❤️✌️Log in to replyMike Davis October 8, 2018, 10:52 amDear Ms. Fonda: As a Vietnam veteran, I have always respected your views and your reasoning for your trip to Hanoi. Unlike many other Vietnam veterans, I never looked at your trip in a disrespectful manner. I knew why you went, simply to try and stop the atrocities and carnage of that war. I spent a year and a half in Vietnam, I extended 6 months for an early out. I saw the war first hand, ‘69-‘70. I was a card carrying member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at the time, and don’t regret it to this day, I am 72 now. I would like to “thank you” for all of your activism and using your celebrity to accomplish many of the things you have done to make this a better world. With much love ❤️ and respect.Jane October 9, 2018, 4:13 pmAppreciate this from you so much, Mike. xxx JaneMike Davis October 8, 2018, 11:04 amP.S. – I also wanted to thank for trip to Standing Rock in November of 2017 and for serving Thanksgiving dinners to all that were there. I was there the first week of November and then again with other veterans to protest the pipeline installation. All before Thanksgiving, so I just miss seeing you while you there. Plus, just missed buying a VIP ticket to see you in Milwaukee on November 3rd, 2018, they were already “sold out” for those tickets. Thank you again for all of your activism on behalf of all of us. Hope to see and meet you at some future event. Respectfully yours. ❤️Jane October 9, 2018, 4:11 pmThanks, Mike. xxxLog in to replyOlivia Kenny January 26, 2020, 7:09 amDear Jane,My name is Olivia and I’m currently an undergrad history student in the U.K. I’m writing my dissertation on your life with a particular focus on your anti-war activism. I’m unsure whether you will see this comment but I would love to take the time to let you know that I’m incredibly in awe of your strength in the face of adversity and for using your platform for good.Your constant support for underrepresented groups and voices in society is incredibly inspiring for young women such as myself, and it’s an honour to be writing about you for my university work. I’m avidly following Fire Drill Fridays here from England, and I can’t wait to see the impact it has over in the U.S.Once again, thank you for being such a great inspiration and for your work which has not only enriched my final-year of University study but my outlook on my own life and the impact I can have on the world and the people around me.-Olivia Kenny.There is so much more. We all owe it to ourselves to open our minds, open our hearts, to forgive, and to seek to know the truth, so that we can prevent future generations, and ourselves, from making the same mistakes…or worse.

Here’s an excellent and footnoted discussion on the idea of martial law. If you read through the whole thing, you will see that the courts’ view of the legality of martial law is reflected by what the state of the union was at the time. But let it speak for itself. If you’d rather read it online at the source, it is Martial Law and Constitutional Limitations“Two theories of martial law are reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court. The first, which stems from the Petition of Right, 1628, provides that the common law knows no such thing as martial law;223 that is to say, martial law is not established by official authority of any sort, but arises from the nature of things, being the law of paramount necessity, leaving the civil courts to be the final judges of necessity.224 By the second theory, martial law can be validly and constitutionally established by supreme political authority in wartime. In the early years of the Supreme Court, the American judiciary embraced the latter theory as it held in Luther v. Borden225 that state declarations of martial law were conclusive and therefore not subject to judicial review.226 In this case, the Court found that the Rhode Island legislature had been within its rights in resorting to the rights and usages of war in combating insurrection in that state. The decision in the Prize Cases,227 although not dealing directly with the subject of martial law, gave national scope to the same general principle in 1863.The Civil War being safely over, however, a divided Court, in the elaborately argued Milligan case,228 reverting to the older doctrine, pronounced President Lincoln’s action void, following his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in September, 1863, in ordering the trial by military commission of persons held in custody as “spies” and “abettors of the enemy.” The salient passage of the Court’s opinion bearing on this point is the following: “If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theater of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war.”229 Four Justices, speaking by Chief Justice Chase, while holding Milligan’s trial to have been void because it violated the Act of March 3, 1863, governing the custody and trial of persons who had been deprived of the habeas corpus privilege, declared their belief that Congress could have authorized Milligan’s trial. The Chief Justice wrote: “Congress has the power not only to raise and support and govern armies but to declare war. It has, therefore, the power to provide by law for carrying on war. This power necessarily extends to all legislation essential to the prosecution of war with vigor and success, except such as interferes with the command of the forces and the conduct of campaigns. That power and duty belong to the President as commander-in-chief. Both these powers are derived from the Constitution, but neither is defined by that instrument. Their extent must be determined by their nature, and by the principles of our institutions. . . .”“We by no means assert that Congress can establish and apply the laws of war where no war has been declared or exists.”“Where peace exists the laws of peace must prevail. What we do maintain is, that when the nation is involved in war, and some portions of the country are invaded, and all are exposed to invasion, it is within the power of Congress to determine in what states or districts such great and imminent public danger exists as justifies the authorization of military tribunals for the trial of crimes and offences against the discipline or security of the army or against the public safety.”230 In short, only Congress can authorize the substitution of military tribunals for civil tribunals for the trial of offenses; and Congress can do so only in wartime.Early in the 20th century, however, the Court appeared to retreat from its stand in Milligan insofar as it held in Moyer v. Peabody231 that “the Governor’s declaration that a state of insurrection existed is conclusive of that fact. . . . [T]he plaintiff ’s position is that he has been deprived of his liberty without due process of law. But it is familiar that what is due process of law depends on circumstances. . . . So long as such arrests are made in good faith and in honest belief that they are needed in order to head the insurrection off, the Governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action after he is out of office on the ground that he had not reasonable ground for his belief.”232 The “good faith” test of Moyer, however, was superseded by the “direct relation” test of Sterling v. Constantin,233 where the Court made it very clear that “[i]t does not follow . . . that every sort of action the Governor may take, no matter how justified by the exigency or subversive of private right and the jurisdiction of the courts, otherwise available, is conclusively supported by mere executive fiat. . . . What are the allowable limits of military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are judicial questions.”234Martial Law in Hawaii.The question of the constitutional status of martial law was raised again in World War II by the proclamation of Governor Poindexter of Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, suspending the writ of habeas corpus and conferring on the local commanding General of the Army all his own powers as governor and also “all of the powers normally exercised by the judicial officers . . . of this territory . . . during the present emergency and until the danger of invasion is removed.” Two days later the Governor’s action was approved by President Roosevelt. The regime which the proclamation set up continued with certain abatements until October 24, 1944.By section 67 of the Organic Act of April 30, 1900,235 the Territorial Governor was authorized “in case of rebellion or invasion, or imminent danger thereof, when the public safety requires it, [to] suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or place the Territory, or any part thereof, under martial law until communication can be had with the President and his decision thereon made known.” By section 5 of the Organic Act, “the Constitution . . . shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory as elsewhere in the United States.” In a brace of cases which reached it in February 1945, but which it contrived to postpone deciding till February 1946,236 the Court, speaking by Justice Black, held that the term “martial law” as employed in the Organic Act, “while intended to authorize the military to act vigorously for the maintenance of an orderly civil government and for the defense of the Islands against actual or threatened rebellion or invasion, was not intended to authorize the supplanting of courts by military tribunals.”237The Court relied on the majority opinion in Ex parte Milligan. Chief Justice Stone concurred in the result. “I assume also,” he said, “that there could be circumstances in which the public safety requires, and the Constitution permits, substitution of trials by military tribunals for trials in the civil courts,”238 but added that the military authorities themselves had failed to show justifying facts in this instance. Justice Burton, speaking for himself and Justice Frankfurter, dissented. He stressed the importance of Hawaii as a military outpost and its constant exposure to the danger of fresh invasion. He warned that “courts must guard themselves with special care against judging past military action too closely by the inapplicable standards of judicial, or even military, hindsight.”239Articles of War: The Nazi Saboteurs.In 1942 eight youths, seven Germans and one an American, all of whom had received training in sabotage in Berlin, were brought to this country aboard two German submarines and put ashore, one group on the Florida coast, the other on Long Island, with the idea that they would proceed forthwith to practice their art on American factories, military equipment, and installations. Making their way inland, the saboteurs were soon picked up by the FBI, some in New York, others in Chicago, and turned over to the Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia. On July 2, the President appointed a military commission to try them for violation of the laws of war, to wit: for not wearing fixed emblems to indicate their combatant status. In the midst of the trial, the accused petitioned the Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for leave to bring habeas corpus proceedings. Their argument embraced the contentions: (1) that the offense charged against them was not known to the laws of the United States; (2) that it was not one arising in the land and naval forces; and (3) that the tribunal trying them had not been constituted in accordance with the requirements of the Articles of War.The first argument the Court met as follows: The act of Congress in providing for the trial before military tribunals of offenses against the law of war is sufficiently definite, although Congress has not undertaken to codify or mark the precise boundaries of the law of war, or to enumerate or define by statute all the acts which that law condemns. “. . . [T]hose who during time of war pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into . . . [that of the United States], discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, have the status of unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission.”240 The second argument it disposed of by showing that petitioners’ case was of a kind that was never deemed to be within the terms of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, citing in confirmation of this position the trial of Major Andre.241 The third contention the Court overruled by declining to draw the line between the powers of Congress and the President in the premises,242 thereby, in effect, attributing to the President the right to amend the Articles of War in a case of the kind before the Court ad libitum.The decision might well have rested on the ground that the Constitution is without restrictive force in wartime in a situation of this sort. The saboteurs were invaders; their penetration of the boundary of the country, projected from units of a hostile fleet, was essentially a military operation, their capture was a continuation of that operation. Punishment of the saboteurs was therefore within the President’s purely martial powers as Commander in Chief. Moreover, seven of the petitioners were enemy aliens, and so, strictly speaking, without constitutional status. Even had they been civilians properly domiciled in the United States at the outbreak of the war, they would have been subject under the statutes to restraint and other disciplinary action by the President without appeals to the courts. In any event, the Court rejected the jurisdictional challenge by one of the saboteurs on the basis of his claim to U.S. citizenship, finding U.S. citizenship wholly irrelevant to the determination of whether a wartime captive is an “enemy belligerent” within the meaning of the law of war.243Articles of War: World War II Crimes.As a matter of fact, in General Yamashita’s case,244 which was brought after the termination of hostilities for alleged “war crimes,” the Court abandoned its restrictive conception altogether. In the words of Justice Rutledge’s dissenting opinion in this case: “The difference between the Court’s view of this proceeding and my own comes down in the end to the view, on the one hand, that there is no law restrictive upon these proceedings other than whatever rules and regulations may be prescribed for their government by the executive authority or the military and, on the other hand, that the provisions of the Articles of War, of the Geneva Convention and the Fifth Amendment apply.”245 And the adherence of the United States to the Charter of London in August 1945, under which the Nazi leaders were brought to trial, is explicable by the same theory. These individuals were charged with the crime of instigating aggressive war, which at the time of its commission was not a crime either under international law or under the laws of the prosecuting governments. It must be presumed that the President is not in his capacity as Supreme Commander bound by the prohibition in the Constitution of ex post facto laws, nor does international law forbid ex post facto laws.246Articles of War: Response to the Attacks of September 11, 2001.In response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Congress passed the “Authorization for Use of Military Force,”247 which provided that the President may use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks [or] harbored such organizations or persons.” During a military action in Afghanistan pursuant to this authorization, a United States citizen, Yaser Hamdi, was taken prisoner. The Executive Branch argued that it had plenary authority under Article II to hold such an “enemy combatant” for the duration of hostilities, and to deny him meaningful recourse to the federal courts. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Court agreed that the President was authorized to detain a United States citizen seized in Afghanistan, although a majority of the Court appeared to reject the notion that such power was inherent in the Presidency, relying instead on statutory grounds.248 However, the Court did find that the government may not detain the petitioner indefinitely for purposes of interrogation, and must afford him the opportunity to offer evidence that he is not an enemy combatant.249In Rasul v. Bush,250 the Court rejected an Executive Branch argument that foreign prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay were outside of federal court jurisdiction. The Court distinguished earlier case law arising during World War II that denied habeas corpus petitions from German citizens who had been captured and tried overseas by United States military tribunals.251 In Rasul, the Court noted that the Guantanamo petitioners were not citizens of a country at war with the United States,252 had not been afforded any form of tribunal, and were being held in a territory over which the United States exercised exclusive jurisdiction and control.253 In addition, the Court found that statutory grounds existed for the extension of habeas corpus to these prisoners.254In response to Rasul, Congress amended the habeas statute to eliminate all federal habeas jurisdiction over detainees, whether its basis was statutory or constitutional.255 This amendment was challenged in Boumediene v. Bush,256 as a violation of the Suspension Clause.257 Although the historical record did not contain significant common-law applications of the writ to foreign nationals who were apprehended and detained overseas, the Court did not find this conclusive in evaluating whether habeas applied in this case.258 Emphasizing a “functional” approach to the issue,259 the Court considered (1) the citizenship and status of the detainee and the adequacy of the process through which the status determination was made; (2) the nature of the sites where apprehension and detention took place; and (3) any practical obstacles inherent in resolving the prisoner’s entitlement to the writ. As in Rasul, the Court distinguished previous case law, noting that the instant detainees disputed their enemy status, that their ability to dispute their status had been limited, that they were held in a location (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) under the de facto jurisdiction of the United States, and that complying with the demands of habeas petitions would not interfere with the government’s military mission. Thus, the Court concluded that the Suspension Clause was in full effect regarding these detainees.Martial Law and Domestic Disorder.President Washing- ton himself took command of state militia called into federal service to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, but there were not too many occasions subsequently in which federal troops or state militia called into federal service were required.260 Since World War II, however, the President, by virtue of his own powers and the authority vested in him by Congress,261 has used federal troops on a number of occasions, five of them involving resistance to desegregation decrees in the South.262 In 1957, Governor Faubus employed the Arkansas National Guard to resist court-ordered desegregation in Little Rock, and President Eisenhower dispatched federal soldiers and brought the Guard under federal authority.263 In 1962, President Kennedy dispatched federal troops to Oxford, Mississippi, when federal marshals were unable to control with rioting that broke out upon the admission of an African American student to the University of Mississippi.264 In June and September of 1964, President Johnson sent troops into Alabama to enforce court decrees opening schools to blacks.265 And, in 1965, the President used federal troops and federalized local Guardsmen to protect participants in a civil rights march. The President justified his action on the ground that there was a substantial likelihood of domestic violence because state authorities were refusing to protect the marchers.266Footnotes223C. FAIRMAN, THE LAW OF MARTIAL RULE 20–22 (1930); A. DICEY, INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION 283, 290 (5th ed. 1923).224Id. at 539–44.22548 U.S. (7 How.) 1 (1849). See also Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 19, 32–33 (1827).22648 U.S. (7 How.) at 45.22767 U.S. (2 Bl.) 635 (1863).228Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866).22971 U.S. at 127.23071 U.S. at 139–40. In Ex parte Vallandigham, 68 U.S. (1 Wall.) 243 (1864), the Court had held, while war was still flagrant, that it had no power to review by certiorari the proceedings of a military commission ordered by a general officer of the Army, commanding a military department.231212 U.S. 78 (1909).232212 U.S. at 83–85.233287 U.S. 378 (1932). “The nature of the power also necessarily implies that there is a permitted range of honest judgment as to the measures to be taken in meeting force with force, in suppressing violence and restoring order, for without such liberty to make immediate decision, the power itself would be useless. Such measures, conceived in good faith, in the face of the emergency and directly related to the quelling of the disorder or the prevention of its continuance, fall within the discretion of the Executive in the exercise of his authority to maintain peace.” Id. at 399–400.234287 U.S. at 400–01. This holding has been ignored by states on numerous occasions. E.g., Allen v. Oklahoma City, 175 Okla. 421, 52 P.2d 1054 (1935); Hearon v. Calus, 178 S.C. 381, 183 S.E. 13 (1935); and Joyner v. Browning, 30 F. Supp. 512 (W.D. Tenn. 1939).23531 Stat. 141, 153 (1900).236Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U.S. 304 (1946).237327 U.S. at 324.238327 U.S. at 336.239327 U.S. at 343.240Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 29–30, 35 (1942).241317 U.S. at 41–42.242317 U.S. at 28–29.243Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 37–38 (1942) (“Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war.”). See also Colepaugh v. Looney, 235 F.2d 429, 432 (10th Cir. 1956), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 1014 (1957) (“[T]he petitioner’s citizenship in the United States does not . . . confer upon him any constitutional rights not accorded any other belligerent under the laws of war.”).244In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946).245327 U.S. at 81.246See Gross, The Criminality of Aggressive War, 41 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 205 (1947).247Pub. L. 107–40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001).248542 U.S. 507 (2004). There was no opinion of the Court. Justice O’Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Kennedy and Justice Breyer, avoided ruling on the Executive Branch argument that such detentions could be authorized by its Article II powers alone, and relied instead on the “Authorization for Use of Military Force” passed by Congress. Justice Thomas also found that the Executive Branch had the power to detain the petitioner, although his dissenting opinion found that such detentions were authorized by Article II. Justice Souter, joined by Justice Ginsberg, rejected the argument that the Congress had authorized such detentions, while Justice Scalia, joined with Justice Stevens, denied that such congressional authorization was possible without a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.249At a minimum, the petitioner must be given notice of the asserted factual basis for holding him, must be given a fair chance to rebut that evidence before a neutral decisionmaker, and must be allowed to consult an attorney. 542 U.S. at 533, 539.250542 U.S. 466 (2004).251Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 789 (1950).252The petitioners were Australians and Kuwaitis.253Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. at 467.254The Court found that 28 U.S.C. § 2241, which had previously been construed to require the presence of a petitioner in a district court’s jurisdiction, was now satisfied by the presence of a jailor-custodian. See Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court, 410 U.S. 484 (1973). Another “enemy combatant” case, this one involving an American citizen arrested on American soil, was remanded after the Court found that a federal court’s habeas jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 was limited to jurisdiction over the immediate custodian of a petitioner. Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004) (federal court’s jurisdiction over Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld not sufficient to satisfy presence requirement under 28 U.S.C. § 2241). In Munaf v. Geren, 128 S. Ct. 2207 (2008), the Court held that the federal habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241, applied to American citizens held by the Multinational Force—Iraq, an international coalition force operating in Iraq and composed of 26 different nations, including the United States. The Court concluded that the habeas statute extends to American citizens held overseas by American forces operating subject to an American chain of command, even when those forces are acting as part of a multinational coalition.255Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109–148, § 1005(e)(1) (providing that “no court . . . shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider . . . an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by . . . an alien detained . . . at Guantanamo Bay”). After the Court decided, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), that this language of the Detainee Treatment Act did not apply to detainees whose cases were pending at the time of enactment, the language was amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Pub. L. 109–366, to also apply to pending cases where a detainee had been determined to be an enemy combatant.256553 U.S. 723 (2008).257U.S. Const. Art. I, § 9, cl. 2 provides: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” In Boumediene, the government argued only that the Suspension Clause did not apply to the detainees; it did not argue that Congress had acted to suspend habeas.258“[G]iven the unique status of Guantanamo Bay and the particular dangers of terrorism in the modern age, the common-law courts simply may not have confronted cases with close parallels to this one. We decline, therefore, to infer too much, one way or the other, from the lack of historical evidence on this point.” 553 U.S. at 752.259553 U.S. at 764. “[Q]uestions of extraterritoriality turn on objective factors and practical concerns, not formalism.” Id.260United States Adjutant-General, Federal Aid in Domestic Disturbances 1787–1903, S. Doc. No. 209, 57th Congress, 2d sess. (1903); Pollitt, Presidential Use of Troops to Enforce Federal Laws: A Brief History, 36 N.C. L. REV. 117 (1958). United States Marshals were also used on approximately 30 occasions. United States Commission on Civil Rights, Law Enforcement: A Report on Equal Protection in the South (Washington: 1965), 155–159.26110 U.S.C. §§ 331–334, 3500, 8500, deriving from laws of 1795, 1 Stat. 424; 1861, 12 Stat. 281; and 1871, 17 Stat. 14.262The other instances were in domestic disturbances at the request of state governors.263Proc. No. 3204, 22 Fed. Reg. 7628 (1957); E.O. 10730, 22 Fed. Reg. 7628. See 41 Ops. Atty. Gen. 313 (1957); see also, Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958); Aaron v. McKinley, 173 F. Supp. 944 (E.D. Ark. 1959), aff’d sub nom Faubus v. Aaron, 361 U.S. 197 (1959); Faubus v. United States, 254 F.2d 797 (8th Cir. 1958), cert. denied, 358 U.S. 829 (1958).264Proc. No. 3497, 27 Fed. Reg. 9681 (1962); E.O. 11053, 27 Fed. Reg. 9693 (1962). See United States v. Barnett, 346 F.2d 99 (5th Cir. 1965).265Proc. 3542, 28 Fed. Reg. 5707 (1963); E.O. 11111, 28 Fed. Reg. 5709 (1963); Proc. No. 3554, 28 Fed. Reg. 9861; E.O. 11118, 28 Fed. Reg. 9863 (1963). See Alabama v. United States, 373 U.S. 545 (1963).266Proc. No. 3645, 30 Fed. Reg. 3739 (1965); E.O. 11207, 30 Fed. Reg. 2743 (1965). See Williams v. Wallace, 240 F. Supp. 100 (M.D. Ala. 1965).