Joe asked Why do these women engender such intense anger?

Because they are smart, have thought the issues through, and have taken unpopular stances because they let their consciences guide them. More power to them. You might also want to add Vanessa Redgrave to your list. She has been speaking out for the rights of the Palestinians for a long time. I heard an interview with Maude Adams once, who said she'd been warned about bringing up this topic with Redgrave. Despite her better judgement, when they were together on an occasion, she did ask, and was presented with a very organized but rather long discussion of the Palestinian issue. Adams was rather patronizing in her story, said she thanked Redgrave and let the matter rest. Too bad. Redgrave was right, and should have been listened to a long time ago.

The emotional tide that accompanied Jane's trip to Hanoi is a huge knee-jerk reaction by people unwilling to give her the right to speak her mind. What is it about beautiful, smart, and talented women that makes them such a target when they speak from the head and the heart simultaneously? If she weren't a U.S. Citizen politicians might have managed to have her deported (a la Emma Goldman, who promoted birth control in the early twentieth century. Margaret Sanger did the same work, and also had difficulties because her promotion of birth control was so unpopular, but like Fonda, was born here so had to be left in a certain amount of peace).

I think, personally, that when a high-profile celebrity like Fonda steps forward, she puts to question the fundamental issues in a way that grass-roots protests were unable to. And those who were fighting in Vietnam were forced to ask themselves "is she right?" and then to defend their own positions. Sometimes people who are in ambiguous positions to begin with are the ones who fight the harder to suppress opposition, in order to salve their own conscience, to make it feel right that they're doing what they're doing. Freud probably has some good terms to describe this. Or Foucault.

Hindsight doesn't make those pro-war advocates and the soldiers fighting it feel any better, but perhaps coupled with time, it at least allows people to see what Jane was getting at.

SRS