‘Hanoi Jane’ photo puts Kerry in spot

While many Americans know her as an Oscar-winning actress and one-time queen of the aerobics video craze, some Republicans are hoping voters...

While many Americans know her as an Oscar-winning actress and one-time queen of the aerobics video craze, some Republicans are hoping voters will also remember Jane Fonda for a more controversial association: ‘‘Hanoi Jane’’.

A 1970 photograph of Fonda taken with US Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry has surfaced on the Internet and TV news programmes, fuelling speculation that the GOP may try to make Kerry’s own anti-Vietnam record an election issue by linking him with Fonda. The photo, taken at an anti-war rally in Pennsylvania at which both Kerry and Fonda delivered speeches critical of America’s military escalation in Vietnam, was published on Wednesday in the Washington Times newspaper and then flashed on television.

The snapshot, which shows Kerry sitting behind Fonda, is among several being circulated among Vietnam veterans. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and war hero, received numerous medals for his service as a Navy patrol boat commander. But the eventual Massachusetts senator, then a disgruntled 27-year-old serviceman, returned home to become a lead voice in the protest group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

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Fonda’s visit to Hanoi in 1972 to meet with the North Vietnamese officials —and to criticise the American government over Hanoi radio—earned her the lasting scorn of the many Vietnam veterans, who dubbed her with the moniker ‘‘Hanoi Jane’’. The daughter of venerable actor Henry Fonda went on to star in such films as Coming Home and The China Syndrome.

She was a pioneer in the personal fitness craze of the 1990s, with her line of exercise videos, and married, then later divorced, billionaire Ted Turner. But many Vietnam veterans remember her for only one searing image: Dressing in Viet Cong combat fatigues and mugging for TV cameras as a Communist sympathiser. —(LAT-WP)

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