SAIGON (LNS)—Bob Hope entertained the troops in Vietnam for his sixth consecutive Christmas, and took along the usual chorus line of women’s bodies for the men to gawk at. He also took with him Neil Armstrong, the moon-walker, for a round of repartee in which Armstrong played the straight man.
Hope: “Your first step on the moon was the second most dangerous of the year.”
Armstrong: “Who took the most dangerous?”
Hope: “The girl who married Tiny Tim.”
Well, some of the GIs laughed and some of them didn’t but something quite different happened when Hope tried to come on with his right-wing political cheer.
According to a report in Newsweek Magazine, Hope told the soldiers that President Nixon had asked him to “tell the boys that he had a solid plan for ending the war.” The GIs responded with such a barrage of boos that Hope cut the politics.