F*ck the Army!: How Soldiers and Civilians Staged the GI Movement to End the Vietnam War by Lindsay Goss

Author:Lindsay Goss [Goss, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Drama, HIS036000 HISTORY / United States / General, Literary Criticism, American
ISBN: 9781479821860
Google: x8zXEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1479821861
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2024-06-18T08:59:53.089933+00:00

The publicity poster for the 1972 release of FTA!

Courtesy of Displaced Films.

Although some have claimed that Fonda was responsible for the film’s original disappearance, substantial evidence exists to the contrary. It seems likely that these accusations stem from Fonda’s objections to an earlier film that would have used footage from the first performances at the Haymarket Coffeehouse in Fayetteville. A GI newspaper covering the show’s opening notes that a camera crew was on-site, and a Rolling Stone article covering the show’s stop in Monterey refers to a “film of the Cabaret’s Fort Bragg appearance,” scheduled for release later in 1971. Additionally, USSF correspondence following the Fayetteville debut discusses plans for a film.4 In fact, this proposed film would become the cause of several layers of controversy, first, when Paul Lauter, of the USSF, attempted to secure Fonda’s permission to screen it at fundraisers for that organization. Fonda refused, apparently unhappy with the quality of the recording and insisted instead that the group would make a new film during its Asia tour. The dispute seems to have been driven, at least in part, by a disagreement over the purpose of the film: it seems that while Lauter and others in the USSF had been thinking of the film as a way for more GIs to see the show, Fonda (and likely others in the FTA, including Parker) were interested in a broader audience, of GIs and civilians. Though this film would indeed be made, the relationship between the USSF and the FTA had effectively dissolved by the time the performers left for Hawaii (even as the USSF had organized the Lincoln Center fundraiser immediately prior to their departure), and so the USSF was uninvolved in its production or distribution.5 The existence of the initial film would become the source or cause of the rumors that Fonda had prevented the release of what was actually the second film.

In fact, it seems far more likely that the swift disappearance of FTA! was the result of government intervention. According to Parker, speaking with David Zeiger around the time of FTA!’s rerelease in 2010, the film disappeared after Sam Arkoff, head of AIP, received a call from the White House. Writes Zeiger:

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