Fonda and McNamara kiss and make up

Jane Fonda has kissed and made up with former US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara - 33 years after she offended the American government by posing with North Vietnamese soldiers at the height of the Vietnam War.

Peace-loving Fonda caused a storm when she was photographed sitting on an enemy anti-aircraft gun in 1972 during the south east Asian conflict, which ran during the 1960s and 1970s presidencies of John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Fonda claims she received an apology for McNamara on Sunday when they met backstage at the Hay On Wye Literature Festival in Powys, Wales.

At the festival, Fonda told the audience: "I cannot imagine how hard it must be for someone who was an architect of the Vietnam War to get to a point where he could say: 'We made a mistake and we were wrong.'

"I have to acknowledge that, I have to say thank you to him. You would never find Henry Kissinger saying we were wrong and I am sorry."

In McNamara's books Argument Without End: In Search of Answers To The Vietnam Tragedy and In Retrospect, he expresses his regrets for his role in the war.