HANOI JANE
aka Jane Fonda

Barbara Walters, host of the mid-day ABC program, "The View," eight years ago honored Jane Fonda as one of the top "100 women of the last Century." Many Vietnam vets are still angry about it.

Former Air Force Pilot Jerry Driscoll was a prisoner in North Vietnam when Fonda was hosted the North Vietnamese.

He doesn't see how the actress/activist could make any list of "outstanding people" because of, " her irresponsible antics."

He's been leading a protest against Walters and ABC for the past six years.

Fonda was given "royal treatment" during her trip to North Vietnam, according to Snopes.com. She posed for pictures peering into the sights of an anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and made 10 radio broadcasts denouncing our military and political leaders as "war criminals."

She met with eight American Prisoners of War at a carefully arranged "press conference."

The POW's said they were not in support of the war, as ordered by their captors.

Snopes said Fonda either didn't notice or didn't care that "the POW's were delivering lines under duress." They were obviously in very bad physical condition.

She was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp known as the Hanoi Hilton.

Fonda later denied American prisoners appeared to be badly treated and insisted it was the Americans who were torturing prisoners.

She also told the country what the prisoners said after they came home was, "laughable, and Americans should not hail them as 'heroes' because they were hypocrites and liars."

Fonda did not give the North Vietnamese tangible military assistance according to Snopes, and did not divulge any military secrets, nor did she give them money or material.

But she clearly gave "aid and comfort to the enemy."

The Web site points out that Ikuku Toguri, known as "Tokyo Rose" did much the same thing: she provided propaganda and support during WW II and was given a jail sentence."

The President of NAM-POW's, Mike McGrath, agreed Fonda's visit did not bring on more torture for American prisoners, but scolded the actress's actions.

"Fonda did enough bad things to assure her a correct place in the garbage dumps of history. We don't want to be party to false stories which could be used as an excuse that her real actions didn't really happen either!"

(A story that hit the Internet alleging Fonda denounced the prisoners and refused to take their social security numbers so their families would know they were still alive is not true.)

Former prisoner, Michael Benge, who was a Senior Agro-forestry officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in South Vietnam, was held captive for five years. He was offered an opportunity to meet Fonda, and said he would.

In a 1999 letter released before Fonda made Walters' list, "The Celebration of 100 years of great women," Benge said he wanted to " tell her about the real treatment we POW's received and how different it was from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese."

He has confirmed he spent three days kneeling on a rocky floor with a steel bar on his outstretched hands. Whenever his arms dipped he was struck with a bamboo cane.

His letter was published by the Advocacy and Intelligence network for POW's and MIA's, and titled, "Shame on Jane!"

His account of his treatment has been confirmed by intelligence officials who said his description was, "consistent with Vietnamese policy and conduct about people that did not cooperate."

Fonda's actions during the Vietnam War has brought her contempt because she was as "a 34-year-old adult and should bear full responsibility for her actions," Snopes said, " her inclusion in ABC's 'A celebration: 100 years of great women,' only fanned the flames of anger."

Fonda went to North Vietnam, "to show support for the North Vietnamese cause,"

Snopes continued, "she lauded the North Vietnamese military, she denounced American soldiers as 'war criminals' and urged them to\stop fighting.

She lobbied to cut off all American economic aid to the South Vietnamese government (even after the Paris Peace Accords had ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam), she publicly thanked the Soviets for providing assistance to the North Vietnamese, and she branded tortured American POW's as liars possessed of overactive imaginations."

Fonda accused prisoners of "killing babies" and claimed the North Vietnamese were, "liberators her behavior engendered widespread contempt among servicemen and their families," the web site concluded.

The actress' placement on a list of "100 Years of Great Women" has fanned the flames of anger within many who felt she has never properly atoned for her behavior.

"Fonda went there as an active show of support for the North Vietnamese cause. The similarities between Fonda and Tokyo Rose are astounding," Snopes concluded Twenty years later Fonda did meet with Vietnam Veterans to apologize for her actions, saying they were "thoughtless and careless."

"She made the statement because the vets were disrupting a film she was making in New England," Snopes reported. "Most of the vets didn't believe her saying she did so for her own self interest."

"I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me on an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers.It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could have done. It was just thoughtless," she has proclaimed a number of times since the start of this century.

One Vietnam Vet who will not accept her apology is Michael Smith. The 54-year-old former soldier went to a book store where Fonda was signing autographs on a book about her life with a mouth full of chewing tobacco. He left a sizeable chunk of it on her dress.

Most Vietnam vets would like to see Walter's list revised without Fonda's name. So far, Walters has not publicly discussed the issue.