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Earlier this year the US war in Afghanistan surpassed in length, the war in Vietnam. It is now officially considered the longest war the US has ever been engaged in. Despite the recent change in leadership from General Stanley McChrystal to David Petraeus, there seems to be little movement in the direction of wrapping up the war effort. How the US war in Afghanistan will ultimately be viewed remains to be seen. However, examining post-Vietnam war rhetoric can be instructive. Among the most persistent of perceptions was the one of Hanoi Jane, the nickname given to Hollywood actress and antiwar activist Jane Fonda who visited Hanoi during the war and was used by the American right to explain US defeat in the war. “In blaming the antiwar movement for undermining the military’s resolve many found in the imaginary Hanoi Jane the personification of their stab-in-the-back theories.” Now, Jerry Lembcke, professor of sociology at the College of the Holy Cross has a new book called Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal. Lembcke’s earlier book was The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. In Hanoi Jane, Lembcke deconstructs the myth, conducting first hand research, to show how several years after the war’s end, Fonda was demonized as part of an organized propaganda effort to rewrite the history of the war.

GUEST: Jerry Lembcke, professor of sociology at the College of the Holy Cross, author of “Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal, and The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam