“Aid and Comfort”

Jane Fonda’s visit to Hanoi in July 1972 and her conduct, especially her pose with an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes and her propaganda broadcasts directed toward American troops, angered many Americans. In the eyes of the angered, she was guilty of treason, but she was never charged by the American legal system.  This work investigates Fonda’s activities in North Vietnam and argues that she could have been indicted for treason, that there would have been enough evidence to take the case to a jury, that she could have been convicted, and that a conviction probably would have been upheld on appeal. It also considers Fonda’s early life and the effect it had on her behavior and beliefs in her later years, her audience of American POWs who were forced by the Vietnamese to listen to her broadcasts condemning them as war criminals, her arrival in Vietnam and how it was viewed by American servicemen and civilians, the crime of treason throughout history, and the only Congressional inquiry into her actions, which resulted in the government’s decision to take no legal action against her. Texts of Fonda’s radio broadcasts to American servicemen comprise the appendix.

Henry Mark Holzer is professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School. He lives in Palm Desert, California.

The late Erika Holzer was a lawyer, novelist and essayist. She lived in Palm Desert, California.

Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer

Foreword by Col. George “Bud” Day

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 216
Bibliographic Info: photos, appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2006 [2002]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-2729-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0047-5
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments     vii
Foreword     x
Introduction     1

PART I: Prelude to North Vietnam
1 The Early Jane Fonda     11
2 The Anti-War Jane Fonda     20

PART II: In North Vietnam
3 Captive Audience: The American POWs     33
4 “Adhering to Their Enemies”     59
5 “Giving Them Aid and Comfort”     77

PART III: Treason
6 Constitutional Treason     95
7 World War II Treason Prosecutions     113
8 Jane Fonda and the Law of Treason     131

PART IV: Closure
9 The Government’s Capitulation     145
10 United States of America v. Jane Fonda     165
11 Conclusion     171

Appendix     173
Bibliography     199
Index     203

• “Invaluable”—History News Network
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• “Outstanding…well written, well researched…very logical…a great job…a very important book.”—Nelson DeMille, author of The General’s Daughter.