Unprecedented access to Jane Fonda's extensive FBI files, along with interviews from former POWs she met in Hanoi in 1972, provides a unique perspective on her life and activism. This book delves into her controversial public image and the complex narratives surrounding her actions during the Vietnam War era, supported by contemporary press reports that shed light on her experiences and the societal reactions to them.
Jane Fonda’s Words of Politics and Passion collects Fonda’s most stirring public statements from 1970 through 2005, in speeches, interviews, and articles from over thirty years of tireless campaigning against war and militarism and on behalf of women’s rights, women’s health, feminism, and the environment. Historian Mary Hershberger “has unearthed a treasure trove,” according to Ms. magazine. “Whether discussing peace, feminism or girls’ empowerment, [Fonda] is thoughtful, courageous and always committed to the betterment of others.”In 1970, at the height of an award-winning acting career, Jane Fonda took a sharp turn into politics. She would go on to play an influential role in the anti–Vietnam War movement and in nearly every subsequent movement for social justice in the United States.Hershberger has culled Fonda’s words from a range of little-known and previously inaccessible sources, including the declassified FBI files obtained by Fonda herself in a federal lawsuit, and from antiwar movement archives that have never been made available to a general public.