She was sitting on a tank. Cam did not know much about armaments, but the caption told him this was a Soviet T-54 with a 100 mm gun.

All around her were uniformed soldiers of the North Vietnamese army. She seemed to be telling them something amusing, and her face was alight with animation and humor. They were smiling and laughing the way people anywhere in the world did around a Hollywood celebrity.

She was on a peace mission, according to the accompanying article. She had learned that Vietnamese people did not wish to be at war with the United States. “There’s a fucking surprise,” Cam said sarcastically. All they wanted was to be left alone, Evie said.

The picture was a public relations triumph for the antiwar movement. Half the girls in America wanted to be Evie Williams, half the boys wanted to marry her, and they all admired her courage in going to North Vietnam. Worse yet, the Communists were doing her no harm. They were talking to her and telling her that they wanted to be friends with the American people.

How could the wicked president drop bombs on these nice folks?

It made Cam want to puke.

But the White House was not taking this lying down.

Cam was working the phones, calling sympathetic journalists. There were not too many of those: the liberal media hated Nixon, and a part of the conservative media found him too moderate. But there were enough supporters, Cam thought, to start a backlash, if only they would play along.

Cam had in front of him a list of points to make, and he chose from the list depending on whom he was talking to. “How many American boys do you think have been killed by that tank?” he asked a writer for a talk show.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” the man replied.

The correct answer was probably none, since North Vietnamese tanks generally did not meet American forces, but engaged the South Vietnamese army. However, that was not the point. “It’s a question liberals ought to be asked on your show,” Cam said.

“You’re right, it’s a good question.”

Speaking to a columnist for a right-wing tabloid he asked: “Did you know that Evie Williams is British?”

“Her mother is American,” the journalist pointed out.

“Her mother hates America so much that she left in 1936 and has never lived here since.”

“Good point!”

Speaking to a liberal journalist who often attacked Nixon, Cam said: “Even you have to admit she’s naïve, to let herself be used like this by the North Vietnamese for anti-American propaganda. Or do you take her peace mission seriously?”

The results were spectacular. Next day began a backlash against Evie Williams that was larger in scale than her original triumph. She became public enemy number one, replacing Eldridge Cleaver, the serial rapist and Black Panther leader. Letters vilifying her poured into the White House—and not all of them were whipped up by local Republican Parties around the country. She became a hate figure to the people who had voted for Nixon, people who clung to the simple belief that you were either for America or against it.