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The truth about Kerry--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 26, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Amazingly, John F. Kerry is portraying himself as a war hero.
The truth is that he gave aid and comfort to the enemy in the only war in which he ever participated.
And, worse yet, he is still giving aid and comfort to the enemy our nation faces today.
There are serious questions about Kerry's war record. He claims in recent interviews he enlisted in the Navy out of a sense of civic duty. Yet, in 1970, he told the Harvard Crimson he first appealed to the draft board to allow him to study in France for a year. Only after he was turned down did he enlist.
He served for a total of five months on that patrol boat he commanded, filming his own heroics every step of the way films we will no doubt be treated to this presidential campaign season. He was awarded three purple hearts for mere scratches and opted to cut his tour of duty short as a result of those injuries.
But, for the moment, let's concede he was a "war hero" in Vietnam.
Benedict Arnold, too, was a bigger war hero during the American Revolution. Yet his name today is synonymous with treason because of his despicable, traitorous actions after those heroics.
So it should be with John F. Kerry.
Kerry gave aid and comfort to the communist enemy in Vietnam even while U.S. prisoners were being held and tortured, even while young men were dying on the battlefields.
Here's part of what he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee April 22, 1971:
Several months ago, in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit -- the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country ...
He told the committee that what really threatened the U.S. was "not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing."
"The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped," he said.
Kerry had no evidence of war crimes when he made that speech. If he did, he should have reported them. Instead, he accused the U.S. of a vague but ugly campaign of genocide against the Vietnamese because they were "oriental." It was all a lie. He told the Harvard Crimson, after his Vietnam experience, that he was an internationalist and believed the U.S. military should only be dispatched into combat by the United Nations just what you want in a president of the United States.
Worse yet, Kerry is up to his old tricks again. But he is not just some angry young man today. He's the leading presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. And that makes it even more despicable that he is giving aid and comfort to an enemy far more insidious and dangerous to national security than the Vietnamese Communists.
Kerry voted unequivocally to authorize the war in Iraq. Then he decided he had been fooled and voted against authorizing the money needed to fight it. Now, as a presidential candidate he criticizes the war on a daily basis once again while brave men are still on the battlefield risking their lives.
He says he doesn't want to repeat the Vietnam experience, but that's exactly what he is doing pulling the rug out from under soldiers doing their duty in the war on terrorism and the liberation of Iraq, soldiers he himself voted to send there.
In 1971, he called on the Congress to stop the aid to our friends in Vietnam. He got his way and it led to a holocaust to the killing fields. Now he's trying to do the same thing in Iraq.
Somehow this nation managed to survive eight years with a draft dodger serving as commander in chief. Can we survive four or eight years under a president who has betrayed his own country twice for the political limelight?
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The truth about Kerry.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
John Forbes Kerry celebrated his 60th birthday three days ago.
Recently, he has lost some weight and developed an increasingly haggard appearance.
However, he still is articulate, with his graying dark hair immaculately groomed, even when riding his "Hog," his very own Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Kerry has catered to a craving for personal publicity since the days he pretended to throw away three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star he had been awarded while in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War
They weren't his; he borrowed others' medals to pitch.
But he still uses his service days as an excuse for his salty and profane language, recently spread out for the world to see in Rolling Stone. He often brags about his combat experience. But he avoids talking about the awards or his very obvious disrespect for Vietnam veterans and his support for communist Vietnam.
Sometimes Kerry recalls his days at Yale and Boston Law School, or the time he was a prosecuting attorney, a post that, with his service record, he parleyed into the Massachusetts' lieutenant governor's office. Two years was enough for him in that humble and inconspicuous job, and quick as a flash, he moved into the U.S. Senate.
For the past 19 years, Kerry has represented the Democrat voters of Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. Now, he wants to be president.
Post-war rebel
After requesting a discharge so that he could run for Congress -- from Massachusetts in 1970 -- Kerry dropped out of that race when he found that he was destined to be a loser.
Then, Kerry found a new cause that already had been active for three years, and which he today claims as his own. This former naval officer abandoned his oath of office, joined up with the hard-communist left and now claims to have founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or (VVAW). He did attend their conference in February 1971 with Jane Fonda -- Hanoi Jane, their most successful promoter and fund-raiser.
The VVAW made its debut in 1967, in New York City at an anti-Vietnam war protest that was also planning the disruption of the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention in Chicago. By the spring of 1970, it numbered several hundred members and the organization had gone national.
All without John Kerry, who remained in Boston.
Kerry later arrived in Washington for an encampment to protest the war, and to provide evidence against his country on Capitol Hill, dressed in his fatigues. Much of the speech Kerry gave to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee painted his fellow GIs as brutal sadists.
He picked up on the testimony of one Marine Sgt. Scott Camil, who said the U.S. military had raped, cut off ears, heads and limbs and participated in many other atrocities. He said that he found the accounts of torture "shocking and irrefutable."
In the last week of April 1971, some 250,000 protesters were in Washington for massive protests against the draft and the war. They were preparing for their attack on the U.S.government on May 4, when they hoped to shut down the capital. Kerry was everywhere, now promoting the pro-communist People's Peace Treaty, drawn up in East Germany and developed by Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis. The treaty advocated the communist line to withdraw all U.S.troops from Vietnam and then negotiate with Hanoi for the release of our GIs who had been taken prisoner.
But Kerry lost his support base, even then, by playing both sides. He attacked the May Day rioters as criminals for the looting, tire-slashing and window-breaking.
Kerry turned himself from a nonentity into a national icon. Since then, he has married twice, and his partner today is Teresa Heinz Kerry, the widow of Pennsylvania's late Sen. John Heinz. Teresa, despite this marriage in 1995, is a very bright and accomplished woman who, notwithstanding her 65 years, would, without the encumbrance of her present husband, have had a remarkable career.
But it is John Kerry who has had a more than remarkable career.
As long ago as June 1971, a reporter for the Marxist Liberated Guardian described how Kerry was raising money from Wall Street's liberal elite, led by Edgar Bronfman, president of Seagram's Distillers, who gave $5,000 of 1971 money. The writer, a true Marxist, bemoaned that the donors had previously supported the Vietnam War, and wrote: "Most of these financiers of political movements are only interested in 'future access to the White House.' Does Kerry want to be in the White House someday? And if he were, how would he answer their calls?"
The Democrats of the left have waited 32 years to find out what makes John Kerry tick. Now, they are finding out the truth.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
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Kerry Reenacted Vietnam Films?
July 28, 2004
Listen to Rush
(...discuss Kerry's re-enactment of his apparent service in Vietnam)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is a world exclusive on the Drudge Report, apparently. We know some of this is true. We know that John Kerry took an eight-millimeter camera -- he bought an eight-millimeter camera at a P.X. in -- Vietnam and filmed himself in "moments of valor." What we are learning now is that some of these moments of valor were reenacted. "A bombshell new book written by the man who took over John Kerry's swift boat charges that Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam portraying himself as the hero in these scenes. The footage is at the center of a growing controversy in Boston, because the official convention video introducing Kerry is directed by a Steven Spielberg protege, James Moll, and some of the eight-millimeter footage that Kerry took himself, reenacted footage, may end up," in the movie tomorrow night. Secrecy surrounds this movie but "the Drudge Report's learned that Moll was given hours of Kerry's homemade eight-millimeter films.
"A naval officer in the upcoming book Unfit for Command says, "Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing. Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero catching it all on film." This is from this guy's book. "Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman, even though he was in the Navy, walking resolutely through the jungle. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits," this man claims. "A joke circulated among swiftboat people that Kerry left Vietnam early, not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he'd recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns." Unfit for Command will be unleashed next month by Regnery publishers.
"The films shot by Kerry's own Super 8 millimeter hand-held movie camera have the grainy quality of home movies. The Boston Globe reported this in 1996 that the Kerry... and by the way, these home movies are legion. Journalists have been shown these home movies in Kerry's office, in his Senate office. You go in there and he will show you. He has shown journalists these home movies. "The Boston Globe reported eight years ago that the Kerry home movies reveal something indelible about the man who shot them." I'm just reading from the Boston Globe now, you people. "The Kerry home movies revealed something indelible about the man who shot them. The tall, thin, handsome naval officer seen striding through the reeds in flak jacket and helmet, hold aloft the captured B-40 rocket. The young man so unconscious of risk in the heat of battle, yet so focused on his future ambitions, that he would reenact the moment for film." Aha! So the Boston Globe in 1996 references reenactment.
"It is as if he had cast himself in the sequel to the experience of his hero, John F. Kennedy, on the PT-109," end quote from the Boston Globe. Thomas Vallely or Thomas Vallely, a fellow veteran one of Kerry's closest political advisors and friends says "John was thinking Camelot when he shot that film, absolutely." (Drudge) "New York Times bestselling author Lt. Col. Robert 'Buzz' Patterson in his new book Reckless Disregard, details one of the claimed Kerry reenactments for film: 'On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94 [the swift boat], Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew's gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film.'"
That is from Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson in his new book. I imagine what's going to happen now, now that this has come out, what's going to happen is that this director is going to go desperately searching through what he's put together to see if any of these reenactments actually are in the film and probably try to pull them out, would be my guess, or leave them in there, and everybody just deny this is what happened. Now alongside this, comes this from the American Spectator online today from their Prowler column: "Word circulating late Tuesday around the Fleet Center was that, hoping to emulate the dramatic entrance President Bill Clinton made to Staples Center in Los Angeles...Sen. John Kerry was planning a bofo entrance in Boston." It goes on to describe how Kerry was going to get on a water taxi, pretend it was a swift boat with his swift boat team, and navigate the dangerous waters of the Mekong Delta in the Boston Harbor and take Charlestown there, incurring perhaps enemy fire, but to reenact Kerry's time as a swift boat commander, and that just happened, and it was successful.
There was no enemy fire. We were watching this. We were doing play-by-play for those of you who didn't have TV. It was a successful mission. In fact, it didn't look to me like the Captain Kerry and his team were even dressed in military uniforms. I didn't see any arms and (program observer interruption) yeah, they renamed it "Charlietown." It's Charlestown where they went. I mean, you can see the natives were -- I mean, they loved Kerry this time. Holding up "Kerry for President" signs and "Bush is an Idiot." These kind of things out there. So it was a very successful mission today. Kerry and his old swift boat buddies commandeered a water taxi and not a shot was fired. Symbolism of how we're going to defeat Al-Qaeda, perhaps. Who knows what was contained in this brave and courageous mission. The only weapon that we saw was a microphone -- and again there was no enemy fire. Charlie was nowhere to be found. No "gooks." If there were "gooks," they were probably sent over to Manhattan somewhere, around Madison Square Garden, replaced by locals here who are very much in favor of the arrival of Captain Kerry.
Now, after this successful mission comes this little news. "According to a Kerry advance staffer, on the way back from Florida where Kerry spent part of Monday, the candidate saw a Brevard County sheriff's deputy who was part of his security motorcade crash his motorcycle." Now the source here is a Kerry advance staffer. "The motorcade containing Kerry continued on even after this motorcycle cop crashed. But according to the staffer, Kerry wanted to turn around. Kerry asked his handlers if there were news cameras around, and insisted if there were they had to go back to check on the officer so that they didn't look uncaring." Somebody said, "Yep, there are cameras," and Kerry said, "Well, we got to go back then, since there are cameras."
So the motorcade stopped, and in front of several cameras Kerry checked to see if Sergeant Eric Daddow of the Brevard County sheriff's office was ok, but the candidate didn't hang around to find out if the officer was badly injured. He was. Had a broken shoulder and serious scrapes all over his body from hitting the roadway. In any case, the photo-op was lost because of Kerry's decision to wear a sky-blue clean room suit while visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Kerry, according to the advance staffer, balked at wearing the suit, but when he saw his fellow senators Democrats Bill Nelson and Bob Graham as well as John Glenn getting into the suits, he couldn't avoid ending up in the now infamous photos" where he looks like a sperm swimming up a uterus. Of course the Kerry campaign has now said, "This is a dirty trick." They "didn't know there were going to be any cameras there," which is very strange, because in the pictures I've seen of Captain Kerry in the sperm suit, it looks like he's posing.
Doesn't it? It looks like he's got a nice smile on his face. I would be. If I'm dressed as a sperm swimming up a uterus, I'd be smiling there too. He's there, thumbs up, all this. How are things going, Senator? "Swimmingly well." Now they're charging it's a Rupert Murdoch dirty trick and that NASA leaked the photos to humiliate Captain Kerry! I mean, they posted them on their website. Come on. Can you believe it? Here's a guy trying to reenact a brave moment from his life acting afraid of NASA. These people, like any other government agency, have to get their funding. Of course this is a big deal. Presidential candidate comes to look at your astronaut school, and he dons the training gear of course you're going to post that, and they're turning this around and calling this a dirty trick.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Santa Ana, California. Hi, Mark. Welcome. Nice to have you with us.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Since 1998, dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Teresa Heinz Kerry, and just generally when the Democrats speak, can they just say that they are great without mocking or making other people feel bad? Because when they say, when anybody ever has said, "They earned it the old-fashioned way," it's a back slap to other people. I mean, it's a backhanded compliment for other people.
RUSH: Weeeell, you're talking about the medals, what she said about Kerry winning his Purple Hearts.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: That's part and parcel of a campaign. They're supposed to sit there and rip the other guy. The thing that -- I understand your sensitivity to this because they can't say anything good about themselves without running somebody down. It would be one thing if they could simply sit there and say, "My guy's a good guy, got three Purple Hearts," but the fact that they have to then go on and point out, even if they subtly imply it, they're trying to say Bush was a war dodger, because he went to the National Guard. They can't get off of that. It's very childish, this whole business of one-upmanship by trying to put somebody else down.
CALLER: Did Bush win medals?
RUSH: No.
CALLER: So it can't be against Bush. To me, the way I took it is, again, Democrats, not pro-military, are mocking the current military, because they won it the old the old-fashioned way. The current people, they're all screwed. There's no way to win an honorable medal. I mean, that's the way I took it.
RUSH: That's a stretch. I think it's clearly aimed at Bush, the fact he has no medals.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But there's also this. We know that Ter-AY-sa is defensive. She's demonstrated that this week. Now there's a story out there, and I've not made a big deal out of it, but others have. I've reported it, and I have read the quotes from the doctor that treated Kerry for the injury that gave him his third Purple Heart. It was nothing more than a scratch that a Band-Aid would fix. The story is, "Three Purple Hearts and you're outta of there." That was the rule. You get three Purple Hearts, get them out of there because you've done your duty. He had two Purple Hearts, and the story going around is he self-inflicted the third one with a minor, minor injury and he doctor saw it and he got a Purple Heart out of it and got out of Vietnam after six months. They know that story is out there. I think she's a little defensive about that. So they're trying to play up this Purple Heart business. I just find the whole thing amazing.
Here you have, of all things and people, the Democratic Party, trying to take the clock back 34 years to 1970 and turn this election into a referendum on how important the Vietnam War was because finally, after all these years, they think they've got a candidate who was a genuine war hero. You have to understand these people in the Democratic Party. They have chafed over the fact that they have this very pacifist image and they're very anti-military or soft on military action, and they haven't been able to produce anything. Dukakis was a classic example. He puts on a helmet, goes for a ride in a tank (video) and he becomes a national joke. That pretty much epitomized what the image the Democrats had when it comes to military and foreign policy issues. So. Here comes a war hero with three Purple Hearts, and think, "Finally. Tonight, tonight we've got one of our guys, a real war hero."
This is the party that tried to delegitimize the whole Vietnam conflict. Wasn't worth anything. Kerry himself did that. All of a sudden we're supposed to forget all that and go back and look at Vietnam as some heroic exercise -- which I think it was, but this is not the party that told us. This is the party that tried to demean those that fought that war. This is the party that tried to delegitimize that war. This is the party that didn't want any part of it and tried to redefine and shape American policy because of this war. They continue to do it today. Their attitude on the war in Iraq is just a replay of their attitude on the war in Vietnam. You go back and look at the things they said about Vietnam; they're saying the same things about Iraq. "We shouldn't do it. It's illegitimate. We're imperialistic." It's the same thing. It's no different. But yet they want to take a guy from that era and make him a war hero from a war they didn't even like!
So I think there's a little defensiveness here on the part of Teresa, but there's a slam at Bush, too. It is interesting to point out they just can't leave it when they say something nice about Kerry, or say something that's supposedly positive about him. They just can't leave it there, because it's not enough. They have to then go and try to delegitimize Bush at the same time. I think it's just, fundamentally, no class. If you had a group of friends and one friend started doing that to another, you wouldn't like it. You would think somebody is behaving with no class whatsoever. Well, this is no different other than people don't know Kerry personally. He may not be their friend, but it's still same operative philosophy here. It's just not a classy thing to do. I think that harping on it the way they are means that they're defensive about it, and the fact they have to keep reminding us means that people -- there's a reason they're doing this, folks.
You have to understand the role that focus groups and polling plays in the positioning and shaping of the candidate, much like this movie that they're trying to portray. It's all about Vietnam. Now if they haven't gotten the message that he was a Vietnam War hero out yet, and that's been one of their primary messages for the past -- what is this now? -- nine months then there's a problem. It's not sticking, and as I keep telling you, we get calls here from people, one last hour, wanted to just rip on Bush, a Kerry supporter, but we still don't get people calling us here telling us why they love Kerry. I don't think we've had one since this whole campaign got under way. Maybe one, but it's not more than that. We don't get people who can't wait for Kerry to be President because of X, Y, Z, A, B, C whatever , because of great things he's going to do for America. All we get from Kerry supporters is, "Bush sucks! Bush is a liar! Cheney!" or whatever, Halliburton. It's amazing. I think they're still defensive up there in Boston about their guy.
END TRANSCRIPT
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The Truth About Kerry's and Edwards' Special Interests
NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, Feb. 2, 2004
WASHINGTON Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards are fond of telling voters they are spurning special-interest money during their White House bids, but voters beware. Their boasts hardly tell the whole story.
Sen. Kerry, who says he hasn't taken a dime of political action committee money for his presidential campaign, in fact ran a tax-exempt political committee that collected nearly a half million dollars directly from companies and labor unions just before those types of donations were outlawed in late 2002, tax records show.
Many of the biggest donors to that effort came from companies with direct interests before Kerry's Senate committee, and the Massachusetts Democrat spent much of the money laying groundwork in early presidential primary states, the records show.
Sen. Edwards, who tells voters he rejects donations to his presidential campaign from Washington lobbyists, took one donation in 2002 directly from a lobbying firm. He also collected more than $80,000 from people who aren't formally registered as lobbyists but nonetheless work for some of Washington's powerhouse firms.
Edwards also has accepted more than $150,000 worth of flights aboard the corporate jets of special interests, a helpful perk for a candidate crisscrossing the country that also allows the corporate provider to bend the ear of a White House aspirant.
'Up to Their Necks'
"They are both in up to their necks with special interest money," said Charles Lewis, head of Center for Public Integrity, a Washington watchdog group that recently published "The Buying of the President 2004," which tracks the sources of political money for the presidential hopefuls.
"This rhetoric has a rather hollow ring to it. It is hypocritical. They are splitting hairs when they say either, 'I don't take lobbyists' money' or 'I don't take from PACs' when both have received millions from special interests anyway," Lewis said.
Edwards' campaign declined Sunday to discuss the 2002 donation from a lobbying firm. Edwards' presidential fund-raising report "confirms Senator Edwards' policy of never having taken a dime from Washington lobbyists. Senator Edwards is proud of having the strongest campaign finance reform proposals of all the presidential candidates," spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.
As his stock has risen after his surprise wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, Kerry has increasingly portrayed himself as free from special interests' money.
"I'm the only person in the United States Senate who has been elected four times who has voluntarily refused to ever take one dime of political action committee, special-interest money in my elections," Kerry said just last week.
Though technically correct, his boast omits the fact that he was one of the largest recipients of donations from individual lawyers and lobbyists among all senators and that he created a vehicle in 2002 to collect large checks directly from companies, labor unions and other special interests on the eve of his presidential bid.
Kerry collected more than $470,000 directly from companies and unions in 2002 for his Citizen Soldier Fund, and spent large amounts of it sowing goodwill in key primary states just before Congress banned the use of such "soft money" donations, according to records his group filed with the IRS.
Corporate 'Contributions'
More than $100,000 of those donations came from telecommunications and Internet companies that have had a direct interest in the work of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on which Kerry serves.
For instance, nearly every major cellular phone company donated to Kerry's committee, including AT&T Wireless ($7,500), Nextel ($5,000), Verizon Wireless ($5,000), T-Mobile ($5,000), and Cingular ($5,000). The head of Internet publishing giant International Data Group gave $50,000, and the chairman of the Google Web site chipped in $25,000.
Kerry turned those donations right around, distributing money for the fall 2002 elections to primary battleground states where his presidential campaign would eventually need help. He gave $40,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party, $39,650 to the New Hampshire Democratic Party, $20,000 to the Florida Democratic Party and $3,000 to the South Carolina Democratic Party.
As for Edwards ...
Edwards' claim that he hasn't accepted money from Washington lobbyists is technically true in that no person currently registered with Congress as a lobbyist has appeared yet on the donor rolls of his campaign.
But in 2002, Edwards created a tax-exempt political committee just like Kerry. The group, New American Optimists, reported in October 2002 a $3,333.50 donation from Ungaretti & Harris, a lobbying firm whose clients range from AirTran airlines to the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, according to its lobbying disclosure report to Congress.
That same committee collected hundreds of thousand of dollars from other special interests, ranging from $10,000 from AT&T to $550,000 from movie producer Steve Bing.
Furthermore, non-registered employees of Washington lobbying firms have given $82,000 directly to Edwards' campaign, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records conducted by Lewis' Center for Public Integrity.
That money includes $2,000 from Vernon Jordan, long regarded as one of Washington's pre-eminent power brokers, as well as donations from employees of such famous Washington lobbying firms as Hogan & Hartson, Patton Boggs, Arnold & Porter and Skadden Arps.
The North Carolina Democrat also has another special-interest venue. He has flown across the country in corporate-owned planes, taking $138,000 worth of flights with the Dallas-based Baron and Budd law firm and at least $19,000 in flights with the Archer Daniels Midland agricultural company, his campaign reports show.
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---------- http://swift4.he.net/~swift4/index.php
Senator John Kerry has made his 4-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his "band of brothers."
But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience -- our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.
We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.
For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, drug addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.
The following transcript is taken from ABC's special June 30, 1971 broadcast of "The Dick Cavett Show," during which former Navy Lieutenant John Kerry represented Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was opposed by fellow Navy veteran John O'Neill, representing Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.
Streaming video of the debate is now available from C-SPAN.
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MR. CAVETT: The fact is I don't have an opening monologue tonight because the subject of the show is quite serious, and I figured why make it more serious with one of my monologues, so I thought I would just start in. You know, I guess, who my two guests are tonight: John Kerry and John O'Neill, and they belong to Vietnam Veterans Against the War on the one hand and Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace on the other.
Both of them have been on my shows in the past. Not together, however. We did two shows a couple of weeks back on Vietnam veterans, and we picked a group of Vietnam veterans to talk about their various problems. This is a very touchy subject, as you know. The whole subject of this incites people to extreme feelings. We had an unprecedented amount of mail about those two shows. We really did. You always say unprecedented, but it was finally in this case. And all kinds of opinions, and just to show you a sampling of some of the reaction to that it has something to do with how we've done tonight's show.
These are excerpts from letters, but, "Congratulations on your thought provoking moving program with the Vietnam veterans. Excellent. A true public service."
Another one: "I'm writing in reference to June 11th show in which you had several Vietnam veterans as guests. I found the audience reaction to the young man from Anapolis disturbing as well as distracting. I did not agree with all he said, but I respect him for having the courage and conviction to express his own opinion as well as defend it. Perhaps he should have shouted out, interrupted more to be heard over the audience's unfavorable reactions, but it was obvious to me he did the best he could in view of the other mouths of competition."
"Congratulations on your recent conversations with the Vietnam vets. It was one of the most interesting programs I've heard on television, and very thoughtful."
"Dear Mr. Cavett, I'm a 51-year-old veteran of World War II Navy, and I'm one who thinks that Vietnam is a useless battleground."
There were other veterans who wrote in and said that it, of course, was not a useless battleground is not.
Another lady writes, "This war began as a political war and continues so today with our men not allowed to fight and not backed by the full power nuclear of the nation. The horror of this futile and therefore immoral effort was written in their words" meaning the men who were here "and on their faces these two nights. How more just it would have been to spotlight the real villains, McNamara, Gilpatrick, Rostow, et cetera, the whiz kids so aptly indicted by Lieutenant Kerry in testimony before the Fulbright committee."
In another part of the letter she says, "I was filled with incredible revulsion watching this charade. Not revolted by these four men who gave service to their country, but by your exploitation of their futile position. How does it feel to be a latter-day Madame Lafarge? How long will you sit there and knit while your country's head is on the block?"
"Your show against Vietnam soldiers is a perfect example of your workers' bias and also of your New York audience. I know what Mr. Agnew is talking about."
"I commend you, Mr. Cavett, on not intruding your personal views and allowing the veterans to speak for themselves."
Another one: "I can't imagine who you think you are. How dare you be so biased as to put four people against one in favor of your opinion of the war."
"Bravo. Thank you for showing both sides of the Vietnam picture from returned veterans, and thank you for balancing the program with the gung-ho sentiments of Sharp and O'Neill and the anti-war eloquence of Mueller" it's actually Muller "and Pickara" (phonetic spelling).
One more. "I dislike the war. I know no one who wants war likes it; however, I'm fed up with biased programs. You are so unfair. I believe you are warped. It appears that Mr. O'Neill has more guts than you will ever hope to have. It might be more fair and more American to have an equal balance of opinion in the future, or is that too democratic for you?"
"I do hope when you have your confrontation between Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Kerry that you won't have the entire studio filled with Mr. Kerry's followers."
Another one registered his support for the young man from Germany [unintelligible].
Well, this indicates, obviously I'm sorry everybody not everybody, but a lot of people decided to take a political reaction to the show. We did not pick the fellows on that show to represent whether they were for or against Agnew, for example, or that sort of thing, but to hear their experiences.
Tonight however we do have a kind of opposition, definitely. There's one of each, for the people who like to count the number of guests.
The way this came about was Mr. Bruce Kessler of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace challenged Mr. Kerry once in the newspapers about, oh, some weeks back, and I saw that and I offered them both time here. Mr. O'Neill has been picked as a spokesman for Mr. Kessler's group.
We have tried to be as absolutely fair as possible tonight because everybody is obviously uptight on that subject. The gentlemen will each have the same size chair, the same wattage and voltage of lighting, and a neutral makeup lady from Switzerland has been brought on.
So about the audience, both groups have asked for tickets and an absolutely equal number of tickets has been supplied to both groups and their followers, so the audience reaction is in the audience's hands.
I would caution them that 90 minutes is not all that long. It's really closer to 70 minutes of actual air time, and a lot of applause goes a little goes a long way, so I don't want to muzzle you, but be cautioned in that way.
When we come back, I will introduce the two gentlemen to you tonight. First, you're about to learn something that may save your next vacation. Watch.
[Commercial break]
If you have just joined us, my two guests tonight are, as I said before, they've been on the program separately in the past. They're both veterans. One of them, John Kerry, belongs to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and John O'Neill belongs to a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. Will you welcome them both, please.
This is John O'Neill and this is John Kerry, and I even think that we both asked you which profiles you favor equally.
We will actually start, because it was requested that we do this this may seem ludicrous with the flip of a coin because this is not going to follow the actual outlines of a debate, but I thought it might be well for each of you fellows to start out with some statement of what your organization wants and is, if you'd like to do that.
Do you want to call it in the air?
MR. O'NEILL: Heads.
MR. CAVETT: All right. It's an absolute it's a U.S. quarter, 1966. You got it.
MR. O'NEILL: I'll speak first.
MR. CAVETT: Okay.
MR. O'NEILL: Hopefully last, too.
I've come here today to speak for peace, a just and lasting peace, in Southeast Asia. There is no one in this country who likes war, least of all, those of us who fought in the Vietnam war. And it is in the spirit of ending that war in a rational manner that I would like to speak today. I think any rational man can see that the Vietnamization program of the president has done more to end this war than all the demonstrations and hate of the last 10 years in this country. When Mr. Kerry and I were in Vietnam there were 550,000 U.S. troops there. When Mr. Kerry marched down in April with his 900 embittered men to Washington, there were 284,000 troops there. When our own organization was formed in May, there were 245,000 troops there. Today there are 215,000, and by the time you see this show tonight, there will be 700 less.
When we were in Vietnam there were 87,000 marines in I-Corps. Today there are 900 in all of South Vietnam, and South Vietnam and I-Corps remain free. The unit we both served in in Vietnam, Coastal Division 11, the first naval combat unit in Vietnam, was one of the last naval combat units out of Vietnam last December. And the South Vietnamese who replaced us there are doing a fine job. They've won victories and they're suffered defeats as any army as any army does.
But the main story has been that the strength of the North Vietnamese in I-Corps and other areas of that country, including the Mekong Delta where we both served, has been broken.
I think there are three things we can all agree on. First, we all want to see a speedy end to American involvement in Vietnam. Second, we all realize that if we come home from Vietnam leaving our POWs rotting in North Vietnamese jails, that we will leave the heart and soul of this country there also.
Finally, we all want to see the South Vietnamese have the type of government that they themselves freely choose. I suggest that it's time for an end to hate and disruption in this country. I suggest it's time for trust in this country. The same kind of trust we will need when the war in Vietnam is over to live with ourselves here.
I'd like to turn to a second issue. Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on the war weariness and fears of the American people. This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," who was quoted in a prominent news magazine in May as saying, quote, "war crimes in Vietnam are the rule and not the exception," unquote. Who brought 50 veterans down to Washington to testify about alleged atrocities in April, the same 50 who after they had appeared on every major news network refused to provide any depositions or provide any details of any kind.
Never in the course of human events have so many been libeled by so few.
There were two and a half million of us who served there in Vietnam under the most severe restrictions in this nation's history. We have brought this war close to a close. We never engaged in mass bombing of population centers, as all nations did in World War II, and the reason we did not is because we are a moral people.
Fifty-five thousand Americans died there in Vietnam no matter what they thought about the war because they believed in this country, and those of us who survived came back to this country, by and large determined just to resume our normal lives after the disruption caused by war.
We encountered a variety of problems: unemployment, discrimination, other problems, and then we encountered the biggest problem of them all, the big lie by Mr. Kerry and his group, that we were either each individually war criminals or that we were collectively the executioners of a criminal policy.
You've seen that all before, guilt by association. If one or 50 or 150 veterans testify as to war crimes, then all two and a half million of us must be war criminals. That's the same as saying if one Jew or one black commits one murder in this country, then all the Jews and all of the blacks in this country must be murderers, and that is something that we must not stand for in this country.
We've all heard of Lieutenant Calley. He's accused of the murder of 102 civilians in Son Mai Lai, and the operations and the law will operate in his case.
This man has attempted the murder of the reputations of two and a half million of us, including the 55,000 dead in Vietnam, and he will never be brought to justice. We can only seek justice and equity from the American people. Every man kills the thing he loves. By each let this be told: The brave man does it with the sword; the coward with the word.
Thank you.
MR. CAVETT: Mr. Kerry, I expect you do have something to say to that. We have a message however from Calgon. Here is how a bath can smooth and soften your skin, leaving you radiant and refreshed with Calgon Bath Oil Beads.
[Commercial Break]
MR. CAVETT: Before that break and I must apologize for the fact that we do have to keep stopping. It's a commercial medium, and sometimes those things aren't going to mesh very well.
Now, John Kerry.
MR. KERRY: Wow. Well, there are so many things, really, to be said, and it's hard to find a place to start after a barrage like that.
I think, first of all, I'm somewhat surprised at the attitude of somebody who wore the same uniform as I did who served in the same military for the same kind, I hope, of patriotic reasons, and I really haven't come back to this country nor have Vietnam Veterans against the War come back to this country to try in any sense or in any form to show bitterness or to tear the country apart or to tear it down.
I think that what we're doing is we're trying in a sense to show where the country went wrong, and we believe that as veterans who took part in this war, we have nothing to gain by coming back here and talking about those things that have happened except to try and point the way to America, to try and say, "Here is where we went wrong and we've got to change." And I think that the attitude of the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace is really one sort of of my country, right or wrong, which is really on the intellectual level, I think, of saying my mother, drunk or sober.
And I think that just as when your mother is drunk, you take her and dry her out God forbid that she is you take your country, in the words of Senator Carl Schurz, who said, "My country, right or wrong. When right, keep it right; when wrong, put it right." And I think that that's what we veterans are trying to do.
On the question of Vietnamization, this is something which people can argue about for hours and hours. We've just heard it mentioned that it's succeeding, that the Marines have been withdrawing from the north. Well, just the other day Firebase Fuller was overrun and it took the United States to fly supplies in to take care of it. We hear that the Delta is pacified. Well, a few weeks ago the report came out that 54 naval bases and other bases, all the bases in the Delta, had been overrun in the first three months of 1971, and that the reason they were overrun was because in 22 cases sentries were asleep, in 22 cases there were quislings, people who gave up.
You can contest this question of Vietnamization right down the line. The question really is this: Is the United States of America determined to leave Vietnam, and if we are determined to leave Vietnam which I believe the president has shown some indications of because he has withdrawn troops. We don't deny that. What we say is the troops can be withdrawn faster. What we say is the killing can stop tomorrow, and it can stop if the president of the United States will set a date certain for the withdrawal for all United States combat and advisory troops from South Vietnam. And that's really the major issue.
Now, on the question of war crimes, it's really only with the utmost consideration that we post this question. I don't think that any man comes back to this country to say that he raped or to say that he burned a village or to say that he wantonly destroyed crops or something for pleasure. I think that he does it at the risk of certain kinds of punishment, at the risks of injuring his own character which he has to live with, at the risks of the loss of his family and friends as a result of it, and he does it because he believes intensely that people have got to be educated about the devastation of this war.
We thought we were a moral country, yes, but we are now engaged in the most rampant bombing in the history of mankind. Since President Nixon has assumed office, we have dropped some 2,700,000 tons of bombs on Laos. That is more than we dropped in the entire Pacific and Atlantic theaters in the entire course of World War II. And I think the question of morality really has to enter in here, so I'd say that Vietnam Veterans Against the War are really trying to approach this from a most constructive point of view.
MR. CAVETT: You are both, actually, there each allowed five minutes, and you took a little less. Have you finished your opening statement?
MR. KERRY: No, I'd like to discuss everything possible.
MR. CAVETT: Yeah, right, but now you can both talk.
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to comment on a number of things. Our attitude certainly isn't our country right or wrong. We were all 15 and 16 years old when we happened to get into the Vietnam war. What's so interesting about many of Mr. Kerry's backers including Clark Clifford, Roger Hillsman (phonetic spelling) and a number of others, is that they happen to be exactly the same people who sent us to Vietnam. We certainly, obviously, would never support this country if we felt it were wrong. We just feel we need a rational way out of Vietnam. As far as setting a date, that accomplishes nothing.
Finally, Mr. Kerry said that he didn't come here to show bitterness, he didn't feel bitter. He said in his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22nd, he said, "We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."
A second thing we object to with Mr. Kerry's organization is his attempt to represent himself as speaking for all veterans, which he clearly did in the same statement.
As far as the 54 bases overrun in the Delta, I can refer him to an article by John Paul Vann in U.S. News and World Report of June 1st which states that the number of incidents in that area is running about 20 per month compared to 120 per month two years ago.
I think that, clearly, the biggest question we're going to have to deal with is the moral question of war crimes. There's quite a difference between coming back to this country and putting on a sack and saying, confessing, "I committed war crimes" and running for the Congress of the United States from Massachusetts and saying, "Well, all three million of us committed war crimes," and I suggest that that's the question that Mr. Kerry and I should be talking about because that's precisely and exactly what he said.
MR. CAVETT: Well, let's talk about that. Did you see war crimes committed and
MR. KERRY: Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.
But we're not trying to find war criminals. That's not our purpose. It never has been. I have a letter here which I could read to you which we wrote to Washington D.C. in an effort to try and solve the problem of these war crimes, and we sent it to Senator Stennis, and we said, "On behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, we're writing to ask that the Senate Armed Services Committee immediately convene public hearings to examine the testimony presented by these veterans." May I go on?
Among the questions raised were charges. What we're looking for is an examination of our policy by people in this country, particularly by the leaders before they take young men who are the objects of that policy and try them rather than examine the policy at the highest level where it was in fact promulgated.
MR. O'NEILL: that's very interesting that you would say that, John. I've got an article right now. It's from the May 8, 1971, New York Times. It concerns some of the testimony. It concerns a Danny S. Notley (phonetic spelling), who apparently is a member of your organization. The Army pursued him all the way to Minnesota to try and get him to sign a deposition regarding the allegations of war crimes that he made, and he refused to, as have all 50 people that testified there and 150 that testified in Detroit, and so I suggest that if you're honest, you ought to finally produce the depositions after all of us waiting for two months.
The effect of what you've done hasn't been to prevent one or two Kerrys (sic). It's been to label two and a half million of us as Calleys, not Kerrys, although they may be somewhat interchangeable at times.
That's precisely and exactly what you've done. And I think in honesty, as a just and decent human being, that you'd want to do that. I think there's something particularly pathetic about me having to appear on nationwide television and trade polished little phrases with you to defend the honor of the 55,000 people that died there, the two and a half million of us that served there. I think further that the justification that Hanoi uses for keeping our POWs is that they were engaged in criminal acts there, and I think that someone who comes out and says exactly the same thing could be doing nothing but serving those purposes, although I'm not obviously those are not your intentions. There's no question about that.
MR. KERRY: We the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and I can't even pretend to speak for all the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, let alone speak for all the men who served in Vietnam, and neither in fact can anybody else pretend to speak for a majority. That's entirely in the impossible range. But what we're saying is and the reason that some of these men have not signed depositions is very, very simple, and it's up to each individual. One reason is that specifically they are not looking to implicate other people. They haven't cited names of individuals involved because they don't want more Calleys. They don't want men to enter double jeopardy, to have to come back to the United States of America and be penalized for those things that they did that were the result of the mistakes and the bad decisions of their leaders.
MR. CAVETT: Uh-huh.
MR. KERRY: And the purpose of them not signing them is literally to call for an examination of policy and not scapegoats and to examine it from the President of the United States to General Westmoreland and others. And when they do that, then they will sign and then they will talk.
Now, there are individuals who are perfectly willing to sign. Nobody's ducking anything.
MR. O'NEILL: Well, who are they? Can you tell me that?
MR. KERRY: well, I have a friend who came all the way from Florida today, and if it's all right with you, he's here now. I'd be very happy to bring him on and let him make a deposition.
MR. O'NEILL: Well, I think just you and I. I've had the same experience of four against one before.
MR. KERRY: You've asked for depositions, and I have the man
MR. O'NEILL: Yeah, and I'd like to see him sign a deposition after the show.
MR. KERRY: I think you've made a very, very serious charge.
MR. O'NEILL: That's absolutely correct, I have.
MR. KERRY: And there's a veteran here who's come all the way from Florida who, if you didn't mind, would come on television now with names, facts, dates, places, maps, coordinates, and he's be very willing to make it public.
[Pause]
MR. O'NEILL: I've just got two or three things to say. It's amazing, and it certainly is wonderful that you've finally produced someone after two months.
The second thing I have to say is the last time I came on the show, I appeared basically on a four-against-one format, and I prefer it one to one, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing him do that after the show, and I know the people of America would.
It's interesting that you happen to say that you don't claim to speak for all veterans. You said that before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, same testimony previously cited, "I'm here as one member of a group of a thousand, which is a very much very which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit here at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony."
I'm here, John. I'm a veteran in this country. I'm here to say that's a lie.
MR. CAVETT: Uh
MR. KERRY: May I answer that, please?
MR. CAVETT: You may, after this message, or we'll be in big trouble. We'll be right back.
Commercial Break]
MR. CAVETT: And we're back.
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish my statement, if I could, Mr. Cavett. I think that it's highly interesting that Mr. Kerry has finally produced one person to sign a deposition after three months of accusing two and a half million of us of being war criminals. I suggest that if he produces another four or five hundred thousand depositions, that his charge might stand up. I think all he'd establish, even if the deposition is correct, is that he has one war criminal that belongs to his organization, and that's kind of pathetic.
Further, I'd like to go on
MR. CAVETT: [Unintelligible]
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to go on and finish. I served in Coastal Division
MR. CAVETT: It's easier if we don't jump to a second subject when one is on the table.
MR. KERRY: Well, as to my being a liar, I in my testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I did indeed say what he said. I said I represent one of the group of one thousand, which incidentally was one thousand at any one time. There were some two thousand who came through the whole time we were in Washington. And when I referred to the very much larger group within the country, I referred to our membership of our organization. I didn't say a majority; I didn't say all veterans; I said to a very much larger group, which is the some 20,000 members that we have in the country at this particular moment. And that was my reference there.
As to this question of who speaks for the majority and all this personal vindictiveness, I really think that that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the question of this war and why it is continuing, why [unintelligible] and I really don't think it does just justice to those men who have to give up their lives or be maimed or something or are in Vietnam now to have two veterans of the war sit here and go at each other's throats. I really think we can do better justice to the issue than that, and the issue really is why can't we set a date. Mr. O'Neill has simply shrugged this off, saying that would be absurd.
I want to know why we can't set a date when we know that the prisoners will come home, when we know that people will stop being maimed for the most senseless purpose in the world, and when we know that that in fact can be a solution and release the forces of accommodation in Vietnam which will not be released as long as we are there and as long as we are helping the South Vietnamese.
MR. O'NEILL: I'd certainly like to talk on setting a date, but I suggest that we keep talking about the same two issues we have on the table. Once again from Mr. Kerry's testimony, that same committee, was written, "I understand from Adam Walinsky, your friend It's interesting to see somebody that has a friend write about his experiences in Vietnam. I wouldn't
MR. KERRY: How do you know that?
MR. O'NEILL: He says
MR. KERRY: Wait, wait. How do you know that?
MR. O'NEILL: Well, Mr. Walinsky admitted it in Human Events, also in the Boston Globe.
MR. KERRY: Did you read Mr. Walinsky's letter yesterday [unintelligible]?
MR. O'NEILL: No, I did not.
MR. KERRY: Did you read his letter?
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to finish
MR. KERRY: May I quote his letter no.
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to quote your speech, if that's satisfactory.
MR. KERRY: No wait. You've just made a charge.
MR. O'NEILL: "The country does not know it yet, but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped." I think that Mr. Kerry is trying to talk for something more than his little group of 20,000. I think that he was attempting to represent himself as representative of all of us.
Second, on the war crimes issue
MR. CAVETT: Well, wait a minute. We're way past the thing there
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to -
MR. CAVETT: about whether or not your speeches were written for you or whether or not
MR. KERRY: Somehow the group has suddenly jumped to 20,000 in the period of this
MR. O'NEILL: Whose group has jumped to 20,000? Your group has, you mean?
MR. KERRY: The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Two days ago in Leonard Lyons in New York as a matter of fact, in answer to a charge made by the Vice President of the United States saying a Robert Kennedy speech writer had written my speech, I would be flattered to have one write my speech frankly, but in this letter he wrote to the Vice President, saying, "Dear Mr. Vice President, Thank you very much for insinuating that I wrote John Kerry's speech. I would have been proud to have done it, but I didn't; however, in the future please be sure to mention my name as it will as it is sure to help me in my next election."
No, Adam Walinsky did not submit a draft to me and he did not write my speech. Now, as to the question
MR. O'NEILL: I didn't say that, John. If I can quote Human Events of May 22nd, 1971
MR. KERRY: Can we move
MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to establish this point. "Former Robert F. Kennedy staffer, Adam Walinsky, acknowledged he had helped Kerry put together his eloquent presentation. Walinsky said that Kerry, the 1966 Yale class orator, was pretty darn good with words all by himself, but added he had a hand in drafting those parts of the Kerry address which were on television." I think it is a relatively minor point. It is your speech I disagree with, not with who wrote it.
My understanding is that's what he told a number of people. The same stories appeared over and over. I think that even more important is this point: You happen to feel that you're being vilified. I think you can imagine how the two and a half million of us whom you have vilified feel at this time.
MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.
MR. O'NEILL: I'm speaking for myself now.
MR. KERRY: You're speaking for two and a half million.
MR. O'NEILL: I think, John, if you'd poll the American people instead of taking 75 poll the veterans in this country instead of taking 75 to Bunker Hill, and you asked them the question, "Do you consider yourself a war criminal," you'd find out that I was speaking for very close to two and a half million.
MR. KERRY: That's very, very interesting. I you're speaking for most of the guys in your division and everything else? They feel this way, you think.
MR. O'NEILL: I'd say that most of the veterans I have met. I am aware that you did solicit virtually everybody from Coastal Division 11. I had people calling me from all over the country whom you have called. You have financial resources above and beyond ours. And I don't know what results you happened to get. Do you mind telling me, how many people did you get from Coastal Division 11?
MR. KERRY: I didn't reach any, Mr. O'Neill, because I didn't call any personally and talk to any; however, I do have some friends who came back who did.
MR. O'NEILL: Apparently these members of your organization did.
MR. KERRY: Well, it's very strange. You see, I received a letter from one of them, impromptu, that said, "Dear John, about John O'Neill, I can't understand how he could possibly represent any majority whatsoever," and this is from somebody who served in your division with you at the same time. In fact, who turned over the last boat to the Vietnamese.
[Cross talk]
MR. O'NEILL: I should explain the background of this. There were 800 people that served in Coastal Division 11 over the course of the Vietnam war. I've received approximately 12 calls, the furthest away being from Honolulu, from people that your organization has contacted. Now, if you happen to read one letter, all I can say, it's like your organization. Everybody knows about the 10 percent that don't get the word, and your 20,000 make up about 1/20th of the 10 percent that don't get the word.
MR. KERRY: I think I really think that this is exactly the point that I am trying to make, and that is that we have never purported to represent any majority, nor can Mr. O'Neill sit here and pretend to talk for two and a half million. He can talk for himself. And I think that this contest is ludicrous, that the points to be discussed are the questions of the war, and that's the issue we should get to, and I'd like to talk about that in a rational discussion.
MR. O'NEILL: I suggest it is time to move on. I'd like to make one last point, if I could. I think that Mr. Kerry's [unintelligible] to the American people
MR. CAVETT: All right, but the world's favorite mother has some important news about bathtub safety. Watch. We'll be right back.
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