THE ACCIDENTAL ACTIVIST Sybil Stockdale

In 1965, Sybil Stockdale was a mild-mannered Navy wife in Southern California. But after her husband’s plane was shot down over Vietnam, she would become one of the most important and effective activists in American history. Her organization, The National League of Families, fought for nearly a decade to bring home nearly one thousand POWs who were being held by North Vietnam in conditions of extreme deprivation and torture. Throwing out their military handbooks’ useless advice on shrimp forks and hairstyles, these remarkable women used the powerful new medium of television to leverage their own position, became covert operatives who gathered more information on the POW camps than the entire U.S. military, and eventually defied the Government itself to bring their husbands home.

Our guest is historian and curator Heath Hardage Lee, author of the new book League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took On the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home and Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause. Heath was the 2017 Robert J. Dole Curatorial Fellow, and her exhibition entitled The League of Wives: Vietnam POW MIA Advocates & Allies about Vietnam POW MIA wives premiered at the Dole Institute of Politics in May of 2017. Reese Witherspoon and her production company have optioned The League of Wives for a feature film. Heath will be an executive producer and historical consultant for the project.

Music featured in this episode included Jeff Cuno, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, The US Naval Academy Band, Jeremy Dittus, Dan Lebowitz, Sir Cubworth and Everett Almond.

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