The publication of an old photo of Jane Fonda and John Kerry at an anti-Vietnam War rally is raising questions about the antiwar activities of the Democratic presidential front-runner.Kerry, a much decorated Vietnam War veteran, became an antiwar activist after he returned to the United States.
The photograph, taken on Labor Day 1970, shows Fonda at an antiwar rally in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Kerry, who at the time led a group called Vietnam Veterans Against The War, can be seen in background behind her.
Kerry's campaign confirmed that he was at the rally and spoke.
The conservative Internet site NewsMax.com published the three-decades-old photo Monday as President Bush was facing continuing questions about his attendance record for National Guard duty during the Vietnam era.
But aides stressed that Kerry and Fonda were only acquaintances, and the meeting took place two years before Fonda took a controversial trip behind enemy lines and posed for pictures on a North Vietnam army anti-aircraft gun which prompted her angry detractors to dub her "Hanoi Jane."
Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, told the Washington Times that Kerry's attendance at the rally with Fonda "symbolizes how two-faced he is, talking about his war reputation, which is questionable on the one hand, and then coming out against our veterans who were fighting over there on the other."
Kerry enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1966 and served as the officer of a swift boat that patrolled the Mekong Delta. He left Vietnam in 1969 after being wounded three times. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple hearts.
His campaign Web site says Kerry became an antiwar demonstrator because he believed that decisions "were being made to protect those in positions of authority in Washington at the expense of the soldiers carrying on the fighting in Vietnam."
In 1971, Kerry and other veterans threw their military decorations and dog tags onto the steps of the Capitol.
"This was an organization of men who risked their lives in Vietnam, who considered themselves totally patriotic," Fonda said of Kerry's antiwar group.
Fonda also dismissed attempts to link Kerry to her controversial antiwar past with the photograph as "a dirty black propaganda tactic."
