There is nothing for it but to apologise. I got it wrong. I did not check my facts as well I should have and I relayed an urban myth as fact. The incident I related (Opinion 22 November, reproduced below) with Jane Fonda, Colonel Carrigan and the beatings was an urban myth replicated by e-mail.
Jane Fonda did go to Hanoi, she did appear in North Vietnamese uniform supporting the North Vietnamese cause and she did later call PoWs liars for claiming they had been tortured. But the specific incident of the beatings did not happen.
My problem was that I received the e-mail from a very reputable source, and later from another reputable source, it is being circulated very widely amongst US military personnel, it accorded with information I already had, it was mixed in with information which was true and I was affronted by Jane Fonda being regarded as one of the 100 great women of the century, as I still am.
I did not consider carefully enough the information provided back to me when I looked into the story: they were not quite the confirmations I thought they were.
So, I should not have relayed that particular story, and I apologise to Age readers for doing so. Those who want the full details can go to http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/hanoi.htm.
It is, of course, a classic example of how we get bitten by urban myths, particularly spread by e-mail. The printed word has a feel of authority to it, magnified if it comes via someone who is reputable, magnified even more if you receive it from other, equally reputable, people.
And rather than the things you are automatically inclined not to believe, it is the things which naturally accord with your prejudices -- in fact things which engage your emotions -- which you are most inclined to get wrong.
But, as I certainly well know from other issues, just because something is repeated a lot, doesn't make it true.
Oh well, I am told contrition is good for the soul.
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