Scott Simon's 1986 Interview With Jane Fonda
— Transcribed by Jasper Garrison —

Scott Simon: ...And now, classes for those of us who want a new chassis...

Jane Fonda: (on exercise tape) Are you ready for your prime-time workout? Now lift up your head tall, inhale through your mouth (sound of Jane inhaling)... and exhale (Jane exhaling...Music). Inhale again as you lift your arms over head with your palms facing down...

Scott Simon: (In studio) Does your prominence in exercise and personal physical care, do you think, affect the credibility you have in certain roles?

Jane Fonda: (In studio) Do you think so?

Scott Simon: Well, I don't know. I mean I've...ah...(nervous laugh).

Jane Fonda: I don't either (friendly laugh)

Jane and Scott chortle together.

Scott Simon: (Ha, ha, ha. That's fair enough).

Jane Fonda: (Jazz saxophone playing an up-beat tune on exercise tape) ...and breath let me hear you! Whoo... huh, huh, huh!

Scott Simon: Jane Fonda is a film star, a star—peace activist, and the vanguard of the exercise and fitness movement in the United States. She's won academy awards for her roles in films, Klute and Coming Home, an Emmy as best dramatic actress or The Doll Maker. And she famously co-stared with her father, the late Henry Fonda, and Katherine Hepburn in the motion picture, On Golden Pond. But in the 1980s Miss Fonda may be even better known for her exercise books, records and video tapes. Jane Fonda's new workout is her fourth and latest book, record and video tape, offering exercise instruction and diet advice. Miss Fonda came into our New York Studios the other day to tell us that she hadn't always been so interested in personal fitness. As a young actress in New York, years before her opposition to the war in Vietnam and her marriage to activist and California Assemblyman, Tom Hayden, Miss Fonda was on a yogurt, cigarette and diet pill regimen, to attain, she says, the cadavorously slender form American women are encouraged to strive for.

Jane Fonda: The reason, in fact, that I wrote my first book...was I felt that if I could...sort of tell the truth about the horrendous things that I have done in my life in an attempt to conform to someone's idea of thinness... um...that I might be able to help other young women.

Scott Simon: Was any of your increasing concern related to your politics?

Jane Fonda: ...Ah...No.

Scott Simon: Not at all?

Jane Fonda: (uncertainly) No.

Scott Simon: `Cause I sort of see an affiliation, I think.

Jane Fonda: Explain.

Scott Simon: Well...that...As you become more concerned about politics and more concerned about society, you become more concerned about people as instruments of change. And...a sedentary lifestyle that you described is probably not consistent with change, because people aren't able to extend themselves; they aren't able to be their best possible selves.

Jane Fonda: Oh, that sounds wonderful (laugh).

Scott Simon: (Nervous laugh) Well, I...is it...

Jane Fonda: It's like sometimes when you read a review of a film you've done, and, you know, an extremely intelligent reviewer will see all sorts of wonderful meanings in it that you didn't intend. I mean, maybe...you did—unconsciously. I don't know. I've never thought about it that way but...um...it sounds good.

Jane and Scott laugh together:

Scott Simon: Oh well. I was hoping that I struck something there but, maybe not, you know. Ah...

Jane Fonda: Only to the extent that I needed a lot of energy to do some of the things that I was doing, you know. When, for example, throughout the time that I made the China Syndrome and I was with my husband on a national tour, talking about the dangers of nuclear energy. We would do four, five cities a day for mo—you know, several months on end. That takes a tremendous amount of energy and mental alertness—You cannot do that if you're having some sort of physical activity that reduces your stress and if you're eating improperly. If you're bingeing and purging you just can't do that. So it became absolutely critical to the more important parts of my life that I be on my toes.

Music from On Golden Pond. Katherine Hepburn in character: What's the matter darling?

Jane Fonda in character: (exhales deeply) Mother, do you know, (on the verge of tears) I've been answering to Norman all my life. Makes me so mad, even when I'm 3,000 miles away and I don't even see him. (sobbing) I'm still answering to him.

Katherine Hepburn in character: Chelsea. You have a great big chip on your shoulder which is very unattractive.

Scott Simon: You have a story about...during the making of On Golden Pond and...I guess the moment came when, you could almost see it coming in the script, when your character was supposed to dive into the pond. And you, you'd originally planned on having a stunt double do that, right?

Jane Fonda: Eh, yeah. I hate cold water and I don't like diving because I burst my eardrums when I was little. And I had no intention of doing a back-flip into a cold lake in northern New Hampshire at the end of September. But Katherine Hepburn, who, uh, you know is, is and always has been very athletic and a superb diver, sort of threw the gauntlet at my feet before we started shooting. She said,(very good and very funny impression of Katherine Hepbun) "Are you going to do a back flip."

Scott Simon snickers.

Jane Fonda: And I didn't dare say, "No, I'm gonna have a stunt double do it." So I said, yes (laughs with Scott joining in), and proceeded to have to learn how to do a back flip. Finally the day came when I could actually do several back flips in a row with relative grace. But, when I finally did them I remember crawling up on the shore and there she was, arms folded across her chest. And she said, "How you feel?" And I said, "I feel great." And she said, "That's right." She said there's nothing more important in life than overcoming fear. And people who never learn how to do that grow up soggy. You've gotta teach your children to overcome fear or they'll grow up soggy." And I've thought about that ever since.

Scott Simon: Uh huh. You call Miss Hepburn the least soggy person you know.

Jane Fonda: That's right.

Scott Simon: That's in the book (laughs).

Jane Fonda: That's right (joins in laugh with Scott.) You read my first book.

Back flip scene from On Golden Pond with dialogue between Henry and Jane.

Scott Simon: Do you think that there is still a certain segment of public opinion in this country which fixes you forever, ah... in the role of opposition to the war in Vietnam and, in a sense, will not judge you on anything since then?

Hanoi Jane: I am proud of the fact that for the rest of my life I will be associated with the movement that opposed the war in Vietnam. I regret that some of my actions in an attempt to oppose the war in Vietnam, increased the pain and sadness of parents and loved ones who had sons over there. And I regret that. I didn't always do the right thing in attempting to end the war. But it was a wrong war and I'm proud that I tried to stop it.

Scott Simon. Uh huh. Remember the film Raging Bull [transcriber's note: sounds like a Freudian slip to me]...

Jane Fonda: Yes I do.

Scott Simon: Remember how Robert DeNero put on, something like 80 pounds and literally willed himself to look like a tub of lard after having been in superb condition to play young Jake LaMotta. I'm wondering what eh...Would you consider doing that for a role?

Jane: I don't know about 80 pounds. That...that from a heath point of view at my age, that could really be a serious thing. I've never asked Robert DeNero if he'd ever do it again. I, ah, put on twenty pounds for a role in The Doll Maker without even trying. Took it off very safely and very gradually, uh—and enjoyed every minute of it, I might add. Putting it on, that is (Ha, ha).

Scott Simon: Putting it on? What did you eat, hot fudge Sundays our something.

Jane: No, I was living down in the mountains of Tennessee and, to do research I was living with a family in Arkansas and, you know, I would chop their wood and milk their cows and churn their butter. And then they taught me to make biscuits and opossum and I, I got into those biscuits. I really learned how to make good shelf biscuits and cornbread. And you know, you churn the butter. You sure gotta taste it. And by the time I was though, boy, I had hips that belonged to somebody else. It was great, but I—I wouldn't do...I'm almost 48 years old. To put on that kind of weight at my age, it gets harder and harder to take off.

"I didn't notice any opossum recipes in this book. Did we (Jane laughs) skip... Did we miss any good ones...

Jane: I promise you (Scott Simon Chuckles), my next book, I'll have opossum recipe (she and Scott laugh together).

Scott Simon: Did—I just had to ask. Di—did, in fact, the people you were living with, would they run down to their neighbors and say, "Come on up to the house, Jane Fonda is chopping our firewood?"

No. The deal was...um. I met them through Dolly Parton, several years before I ended up going down there. And the deal was. I'll come if you'll let me help you work your land any you don't tell anyone I'm there. It' was, It was something. I would go to church with them—I remember one Sunday, the first Sunday that I went to their church. And there, you know, the preacher was a farmer with overalls, and we're gathered around the wood burning stove. It was cold. It was March. And he looks at me and he says, "(deep Southern accent) Anybody ever tell you you look like Jane Fonda." And I thought, oh my Lord. What's he gonna say next? (Scott Simon chuckles) I hope doesn't say anything bad. And, by gosh, he said, "(Same Southern accent) I don't know what you think, but I like her!" And (Scott Simon laughs) they never knew.

Scott Simon: Jane Fonda. Her latest book is, Jane Fonda's New Workout, which is also an exercise record and video tape and her next film is The Morning After, with Jeff Brides, which is set to be released next Christmas. This is NPR...

The following stuff is strictly for the record. That means you don't have to read it all to say you read the book. But if any questions arise that were not documented in the main body of text, as to what happened when, and who knew about it, you'll find the answers here.

These documents pertain to my proposed NPR commentary on the Gulf. The first is the one I sent to "All Things Considered" on tape. The second, I submitted in writing. The third is a letter explaining the difference and proposing a change in policy for all ATC commentaries and commentators. To get the full sense of them, remember, they were written when Saddam was actively engaged in genocide and our troops had been ordered not to intervene for fear of — in George Bush's words — "another Vietnam."

I can't use the letters I received from well-intentioned people at NPR to beat them up with by showing you exactly what they said. I can only assure you that they clearly wanted me to know they cared about me. However, they saw me as a man without a coherent, timely, news-worthy concern which they hadn't consistently addressed in timely, news-worthy fashion. NPR associate producer, Margaret Low Smith said as much in response to my first letter of January, `93, in which I included a copy of my proposed commentary on Iraq. The `88 rejection letter for The Invisible Warrior, from Clarity Press, paints a picture of an oreo which the senior staff of NPR must tacitly agree with. It is the only picture of hawkish, black, Vietnam vets which is compatible with the peace movement's lessons of Vietnam.

BOOK PROPOSAL
August 14, 1988

The Invisible Warrior: A hawkish black veteran's uncensored perspective on the Vietnam War

byJasper Garrison

18031 Pennington
Detroit Mi 48221
Phone (313) 323-8634

My March, `84 letter to David Lawrence concludes my correspondence with three Detroit Free Press editors dating back to the `82 publication of, When Wars Turn Stomachs, by Linda Wortheimer's friend, Patricia O'Brien. My answer to that article, "When Peace Turns Stomachs," is on the next page along with the Wright cartoon. The hand-written message at the top was for Noah Adams, to go with my July, `85 letter to him (The original was hand written in blue ink and didn't reproduce well). At the time, I had no knowledge of Ms. O'Brien's close association with influential members of the NPR news team. I was simply trying to show how the press in general, treated opinions like mine on the subject in question, and to show the people responsible for NPR news what they were doing to stifle credible dissent.

Bill Buzemberg, erroneously referred to as R. Buzemberg in both of my `93 letters to Ms. Smith, is the "Bill" I addressed my December `85 letter to. I do not believe he was NPR's vice-president in charge of news at the time, so I don't know what he could have done then about the network's programming of Vietnam related issues. I do know that he has that power now, and nothing has changed. The unspoken starting point and finish line for any National Public Radio discussion of "war and peace" is still that the peace movement's lessons of Vietnam were right, and World War Two's lessons of Munich need not be discussed.

The last seven letters were intended to influence the Gulf War debate and to keep our media from helping Saddam use the bodies of dead Americans to win his war. The five-paragraph letter of February 5, with the salutation left open was addressed to five NPR staffers. The two-paragraph letter was sent to one. All got attached copies of Time Travel, The Dummy And The Dove, a six page letter to Alex Chadwick and all the letters to others where their names appeared on the bottom. They also got reprints of a Free Press article on black politicians and soldiers in the Gulf, with a picture of its young, black, author, Vanessa Gallman. She argued the importance of having black American fighting men seen as positive forces for change and characterized Vietnam vets as exceptions to the honorable historical rule.

Instead of ending this with the "very last revision" to the "very last final notes" I made to keep up with what was happening in the world, I decided that making a "current" update was as futile as trying to point to, "now." Besides, the truth doesn't change with changing events, it merely gives a new list of names and places which apply to the same old principles. So, I'll just draw on a couple of paragraphs from my 1989 notes, make a few comments on whatever I hear on the news as I'm typing, and let it go at that....

December 28, 1989: No fortune was ever made by a journalist in Indochina trying to find out what the patterns of communist atrocities prior to the American withdrawal added up to. Those who stuck with the line that "the enemy was us," and did the best job of documenting what was wrong with us, our allies and our war against the communists, got the highest rewards. Their war coverage helped to make them rich and famous.

In the November, 1989 issue of National Geographic, you can see what became of a Vietnamese assistant to the American press. You might have read about him in Time or Newsweek following the fall of Saigon. What happened to him, at a time when most of Hanoi's top field officers were living in poverty, may give you some idea of the value Hanoi put on his contribution to their war effort.

"Saigon, Four Years After," by Peter T White: "...Then there's Pham Xuan An, who during the war made himself useful to numerous American journalists. He was always so cheerful, so reliable. After 1975 it turned out that Mr. An had been a senior Vietcong agent. Now he lives in a spacious villa and breeds German Shepherds."

July 22, 1994: Yesterday, a White House spokesman announced that an American invasion of Haiti was not imminent and may not be needed to restore democracy because Clinton's policy of sanctions was working. I heard that not-so-surprising news on NPR's, "Morning Edition." Today, I heard on, "All Things Considered," Bill Clinton was going to take the lead in doing something about the Rwandan refugee crises in Zaire.

A two-year-old policy of allowing illegally ensconced cutthroats to kill and torture the opposition until they can be ousted without bloodshed, is working? America is going to take the lead after the victims of genocide turned the tables on the perpetrators? If those news items tell you about yesterday and today, they should also tell you about tomorrow. This is the tomorrow I feared would come when our news and entertainment media persuaded us to abandon Indochina to the communists in the name of peace.

Perhaps you thought the killing fields of Cambodia and Laos, and the Vietnamese boat people tragedy taught the world something about genocide. It did. It taught us to give peace a chance. Instead of sending in a strike force like the 82nd Airborne Division or the United States Marines, before a killing field scenario can begin, we have learned to wait for it to play itself out. We have learned to wait for correspondents willing to wade through the bodies of dead and dying civilians who escaped the killing fields, to report on heroic work of peace groups like, Doctors Without Borders, tending to them.

Come on, now; isn't that like trying to see what can be done about a bullet after it leaves the barrel of a gun? What will it take for the Bobs to admit they were wrong to ignore warriors only they could see through our letters, before the killing in Rwanda began? The killing we railed against in Haiti started long before then. It went on for years before so much as a threat of military force was made against the mass murderers in charge. And need I say another word about Somalia, Bosnia or Iraq? I said it all in, The Authorities, before Doctors Without Borders had any heroics to perform in those places; before NPR reporters had any prizes to win by being there.

None of us who sees a connection to genocide rooted in the peace movement's lessons of Vietnam is likely to be seen on the new Mr. Hanoi Jane's CNN. You won't hear any of us on NPR arguing for the creation of an international strike force to stop it, and the early use of the best the world has to offer until one can be formed. You don't have to be an American to be an American Army soldier or a United States Marine. Many aren't and many more can be recruited to fight.