Joan Baez and Jane Fonda

Both Joan Baez and Jane Fonda are to some extent public figures in their art because they are public figures outside it: Ms. Baez for her marches against the H-bomb and the war, her marriage to a draft resister, and her songs about all of these things; Ms. Fonda for her marriage to Roger Vadim and the movies she made with him, her trip to North Vietnam and tour of the GI coffee houses, and finally for her more recent movies, which have given an impulsive energy to the women she portrays. They have enemies in common, and we might expect to see them often on the same side. But Joan Baez’s letter denouncing the “relocation” and “reeducation” policies of Vietnam brought a shocked reply from Jane Fonda, who was d...