<font size=4>Kerry apparently signed Form 180 for Brinkley, but Brinkley is cooperating in the cover-up
<font size=3>
Bill Dyer - Beldar
<font size=4>
I had always assumed that Sen. Kerry had himself provided his biographer Douglas Brinkley with Kerry's official military records that were already in Sen. Kerry's hands. But in reviewing Brinkley's citations and references for ToD, I came upon this statement at page 520 of his <font color=blue>"Acknowledgements"<font color=black> section (boldface mine):
<font color=blue>
Also with Kerry's permission, I obtained his Navy records and have used them as a reliable source.<font color=black>
I don't know any other way to interpret this than to presume that Kerry signed, and gave to Brinkley for Brinkley's submission to the DoD, Standard Form 180. Brinkley's wording — <font color=blue>"I obtained"<font color=black> — indicates that he submitted the form and that the results were sent directly to him by the DoD.
If so, I believe that a strong argument can be made that by authorizing the DoD to release these confidential materials directly at the request, and into the hands of, one historian, Kerry thereby waived any and all rights to insist that he has a privilege to prevent their release to other interested members of the press, the academic community of historians, and the public. Brinkley's not Kerry's lawyer, wife, priest, or otherwise in a position such that sharing privileged information with him might not constitute a waiver.
The public disclosure of these records via Standard Form 180 is precisely what the SwiftVets have been demanding since May 2004. WaPo's Michael Dobbs has pointed out Kerry's refusal to release these records — although he didn't use the perfectly apt phrases <font color=green>"cover-up" or "stonewall"<font color=black> — in the same August 22nd article that Kerry's sympathizers in the media claim to have <font color=blue>"knocked down"<font color=black> the SwiftVets' claims:
<font color=blue>
Some of the mystery surrounding exactly what happened on the Bay Hap River in March 1969 could be resolved by the full release of all relevant records and personal diaries. Much information is available from the Web sites of the Kerry campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Navy archives. But both the Kerry and anti-Kerry camps continue to deny or ignore requests for other relevant documents, including Kerry's personal reminiscences (shared only with biographer Brinkley), the boat log of PCF-94 compiled by Medeiros (shared only with Brinkley) and the Chenoweth diary.
Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages. <font color=black>
Brinkley insists — both in ToD's Author's Note (at page xiii) and in its Acknowledgements (at page 520) — that Kerry <font color=blue>"had no editorial control"<font color=black> over Brinkley's book manuscript or the entire biography project. Fine. If that's so, and if Brinkley didn't obtain Kerry's military records from Kerry as part of the personal archives subject to Kerry's exclusive control and subject to some sort of contractual restriction that would bind Brinkley, then nothing prevents Brinkley from handing them over to WaPo's Dobbs or any other reporter (or blogger, or SwiftVet).
Nothing, that is, except a partisan desire to help Kerry succeed in his cover-up. |
