BARELY SEEN FOOTAGE, a story hardly ever told before, and it's not the one McCain made famous...
This is the story of 21 year old Vivian Rothstein's participation in a 1967 peace delegation to North Vietnam led by Tom Hayden - which met with American POWs being held in Hanoi.
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As soldiers held at Hoa Lo Prison returned from Vietnam in 1973, Americans became riveted by POW coming-home stories. The press circulated legends of heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military information. News leaks suggested that others had denounced the war in return for favorable treatment.
But what really went on behind the walls of Hoa Lo Prison? The truth is that the press covered up something quite critical: That U.S. troop opposition to the war was so genuine, and so vast, it even emerged from within the walls of the prisoner of war camp that came to be known as “The Hanoi Hilton.”
Journalists also failed to uncover the existence of a divide between lionized pro-war “hardliners” and anti-war “dissidents” in Hoa Lo. "Dissenting POWs" recovers this history, revealing the suppressed story of the factionalism in Hoa Lo, revealing the class and racial backgrounds of the dissenters, and addressing the points of connection between many of the POWs and those that they were sent to fight. It is a story that has never been told before.
Find out more about their book here: [ Ссылка ]...
***MR Conversations: DISSENTING POWS***
A month after the release of the book (and as Palestine was bombarded by Israel in May, 2021), coauthors Tom Wilber & Jerry Lembcke, had a conversation with two invited guests: Vivian Rothstein & David Zeiger.
*Tom Wilber spent years in the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam, investigating U.S. detainees held there from 1964 until 1973. His research is the source for the 2015 Hà Nội National Film Festival award-winning documentary, "The Flower Pot Story," produced by Ngọc Dũng.
*Jerry Lembcke was drafted in 1968 and served as a Chaplain’s Assistant in Vietnam. He is the author of eight books including "The Spitting Image," "CNN’s Tailwind Tail," and "Hanoi Jane." He is presently Associate Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at Holy Cross College and Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.
*David Zeiger is Director of "Sir! No Sir!," the film that told the story of active-duty G.I. resistance against the Vietnam War, and a former staff member of the Oleo Strut GI Coffeehouse near Ft. Hood, Texas, 1970-72.
*Vivian Rothstein is the former Deputy Director of the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy and has been a life-long activist and organizer. ***Thank you to Vivian Rothstein for sharing her footage of the 1967 peace delegation to Vietnam in which she took part, organized by Tom Hayden***
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