On March 23, 1961, Bob Bailey became the first American prisoner of war in Southeast Asia. A combat veteran of World War II and Korea, Bailey was assistant Army attache in Laos when communist Pathet Lao guerrillas shot down the unarmed C-47 transport plane in which he and seven companions were flying. The only survivor, and suffering from severe injuries, Bailey was captured. The rebels held him in a small, unlit cell – in solitary confinement – for seventeen months while his wife and young children waited. His release was a national event: President John F. Kennedy award him the Bronze Star, the first such honor since the Korean War. Overshadowed by events in Vietnam, of the more than six hundred Americans captured or unaccounted for in Laos, only fifteen escaped or were released.
“Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam
Jane Fonda’s visit to Hanoi in July 1972 and her pro-North Vietnamese, anti-American conduct, especially her pose with an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes and her propaganda broadcasts directed toward American troops, angered many Americans. In their eyes, she was guilty of treason, but she was never
