Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, Capitol Hill Antiwar Lobbyists
In 1974, after years of grinding war in Vietnam had exhausted most of the antiwar movement, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda came up with a new strategy: an educational and lobbying push targeting Congress to stop funding the war machine.
Indochina Peace Campaign organizers hanging out in Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda’s backyard in Santa Monica, California, in 1974. (Courtesy of Paul Ryder)
Fifty years ago, New Leftist Tom Hayden and actress and activist Jane Fonda infiltrated the Capitol. Congressman Clair Burgener (R-UT) was enraged: “A course in ‘American imperialism’ taught by Miss Fonda and Mr Hayden for employees of this Congress is more than I can accept.”
Burgener delivered this statement on the House floor on March 18, soon after discovering that his colleagues’ advisors were attending Hayden’s 1974 lectures on the Vietnam War inside a subcommittee room at the Capitol. Dozens of mostly young staffers gathered in the Rayburn House Office Building for six classes over three weeks led by Hayden.
A Freedom Rider who was one of the first Americans to visit Hanoi, Hayden was known to many as the principal author of the Port Huron Statement and as one of the defendants of the Chicago 7 trial in 1969. In 1974, he found a way to gain influence inside the Capitol with the help of one of the most famous actresses and activists in the world.
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