The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon 25 years ago this month, the end of a demoralizing conflict that left its mark on all aspects of our society. This special Post series examines the war’s lingering impact on New Yorkers.
Of all of America’s celebrity war protesters – from Dr. Benjamin Spock to Muhammad Ali – few paid a higher price than Eartha Kitt.
The popular, purring entertainer walked into the White House on Jan. 18, 1968, to attend a luncheon on juvenile delinquency held by the first lady, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, for 50 women.
When she walked out, Lady Bird was upset – reportedly in tears.
And for a decade, Kitt would find no work in America.
“I became a target for the CIA and Johnson’s administration,” Kitt said from her dressing room at the Virginia Theatre, where she is appearing in the new musical “The Wild Party.”
“I didn’t know what was going on. I only found out later, in 1974 from Jack Anderson and Seymour Hersh,” said Kitt.
What was going on, Kitt discovered, was her Beverly Hills home had been entered and searched, and her phone bugged.
“Things were moved,” remembered Kitt. “Every time I left the house, I could tell something had been disturbed. Or I’d be talking to a friend on the phone and I’d say: ‘Did you hear that strange noise?’ And he said: ‘Kitty, you’re on one of your voodoo trips again.’
“Nobody paid any attention.
“I still haven’t gotten over the shock. You give your honest opinion and you get slapped in the face. You think, ‘My government?!'”
Kitt’s problems started when she challenged Lady Bird, who was seeking solutions to tough problems, by saying youths would continue to misbehave (“smoke pot”) as long as troops were being “shot and maimed.”
President Johnson himself momentarily dropped by the luncheon, but was hastily sent packing when Kitt confronted him, too, demanding answers on Social Security issues.
“Youths are not rebelling for no reason at all, they are rebelling against something and we can’t camouflage what it is,” she told the women after LBJ had retreated, spoiling their meal of crabmeat bisque and breast of chicken.
Within three weeks, booked gigs mysteriously dried up, she said. Kitt was unaware the CIA was doing a check on her, something the agency later blamed on Kitt’s coming into contact with people overseas in whom the United States had “legitimate interest.”
Kitt, who had become more widely known by playing Catwoman on the campy “Batman” TV series, worked in Europe and Australia throughout the 1970s for cut-rate fees.
Finally, in 1979, she returned to America in the musical “Timbuktu.”
“It was the most marvelous reception anybody in the world could have received,” said Kitt. “Even before I opened my mouth, the whole audience stood up and yelled: ‘Eartha! Eartha! Eartha!'”
Kitt and Lady Bird, now 87, never spoke again. Kitt, 72, said she owed the first lady no apology.
“She should be apologizing to the children of the United States who are forced to fight a war they do not believe in,” was Kitt’s stance.
Today, people who still remember applaud her position.
“They stop me and say ‘Thank you for saving my son from the Vietnam War,'” Kitt related. “Oh, my God, that makes me feel good.”
Next: The story of two lost airmen