Swift boat interview
Robert Novak
August 27, 2004
NEW YORK -- <font size=4>Retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said Thursday in his first on-the-record interview about the Swift boat veterans dispute that <font color=purple>"I was absolutely in the skimmer"<font color=black> in the early morning on Dec. 2, 1968, when Lt. (j.g.) John Kerry was involved in an incident which led to his first Purple Heart.
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"Kerry nicked himself with a M-79 (grenade launcher),"<font color=black> Schachte said in a telephone interview from his home in Charleston, S.C. He said, <font color=purple>"Kerry requested a Purple Heart."<font color=black>
Schachte, who also was then a lieutenant junior grade, said he was in command of the small Boston whaler or skimmer, with Kerry aboard in his first combat mission in the Vietnam War. The third crew member was an enlisted man whose name Schachte did not remember.
Two enlisted men who appeared at the podium with Sen. Kerry at the Democratic National Convention in Boston have asserted that they were alone in the small boat with Kerry, with no other officer present. Schachte said it <font color=purple>"was not possible"<font color=black> for Kerry to have gone out alone so soon after joining the Swift boat command in late November of 1968.
Kerry supporters say that no critics of the Democratic presidential candidate ever were aboard a boat with him in combat. Washington lawyer Lanny Davis has contended that Schachte was not aboard the Boston whaler, and the statement in <font color=purple>"Unfit for Command"<font color=black> that he was aboard undermines that critical book's credibility.
Schachte until now has refused to speak out publicly on this question and agreed to give only two interviews. One was a television interview with Lisa Myers of NBC News. The second was a print interview with me.
Schachte described the use of the skimmer operating very close to shore as a technique that he personally designed to flush enemy forces on the banks of Mekong River so that the larger Swift boats could move in. At about 3 a.m. on Dec. 2, Schachte said, the skimmer -- code-named <font color=green>"Batman"<font color=black> -- fired a hand-held flare. He said that after Kerry's M-16 rifle jammed, the new officer picked up the M-79 and <font color=purple>"I heard a 'thunk.' There was no fire from the enemy,"<font color=black> he said.
Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis are the two enlisted men who said they were aboard the skimmer and did not know Schachte. However, two other former officers interviewed Thursday confirmed that Schachte was the originator of the technique and always was aboard the Boston whaler for these missions.
Grant Hibbard, who as a lieutenant commander was Schachte's superior officer, confirmed that Schachte always went on these skimmer missions and <font color=purple>"I don't think he (Kerry) was alone"<font color=black> on his first assignment. Hibbard said he had told Kerry to <font color=purple>"forget it"<font color=black> when he asked for a Purple Heart.
Ted Peck, another Swift boat commander, said, <font color=purple>"I remember Bill (Schachte) telling me it didn't happen"<font color=black> -- that is, Kerry getting an enemy-inflicted wound. He said it would be <font color=purple>"impossible"<font color=black> for Kerry to have been in the skimmer without Schachte.
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"I was astonished by Kerry's version"<font color=black> (in his book, <font color=blue>"Tour of Duty"<font color=black>) of what happened Dec. 2, Schachte said Thursday. When asked to support the Kerry critics in the Swift boat controversy, Schachte said, <font color=purple>"I didn't want to get involved."<font color=black> But he said he gradually began to change his mind when he saw his own involvement and credibility challenged, starting with Lanny Davis on CNN's <font color=blue>"Crossfire"<font color=black> Aug. 12.
The next time he saw Kerry after the first Purple Heart incident, Schachte said, was <font color=purple>"about 20 years"<font color=black> later on the U.S. Senate subway in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building. <font color=purple>"I called, 'Hey, John.' He replied, 'Batman.' I was absolutely amazed by his memory."<font color=black> He said they <font color=purple>"talked about having lunch"<font color=black> but never did.
Schachte said he has never been contacted by or talked to anybody in the Bush-Cheney campaign or any Republican organization. He said he is a political independent who has voted for candidates of both parties.<font size=3>
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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