Brinkley: Kerry Faces Questions About Senate Hit Plot
What did Sen. John Kerry know and when did he know it about a plot to assassinate pro-Vietnam War U.S. senators hatched at a November 1971 Kansas City meeting of the group Vietnam Veterans Against America?
According to presidential biographer Douglas Brinkley, that's the question Sen. Kerry needs to answer. If it turns out that the likely Democratic presidential nominee knew of the treasonous plan, Brinkley says he had an obligation to go to the authorities.
"The question is: did Kerry quit [VVAW] before Kansas City or did he quit after Kansas City," Brinkley told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg. "If he quit after Kansas City, that means he clearly knew about this assassination plot against the senators and never went to the authorities."
Kerry says he submitted his official letter of resignation to the VVAW just days before the critical Kansas City confab. But two Vietnam veterans who attended the session told the New York Sun on Friday that they remember Kerry being there.
Meanwhile, copies of Kerry's resignation letter are nowhere to be found.
Brinkley, whose book "Tour of Duty" chronicles Kerry's Vietnam War exploits, said that the former Navy lieutenant had an obligation to warn authorities about the frightening plan, telling Malzberg, "Clearly his critics would say, if he had known about it why didn't he report it."
Once put to a vote, the death plot went down to defeat, with Kerry voting in the majority, according to the two witnesses who say he was there.
However, Kerry officials in Florida have recently invited the assassination plan's author, Scott Camil, to join the senator's campaign, the Sun report claimed.
Brinkley described Camil as "a hothead Vietnam vet who wanted to bring down the U.S. government."
"I'm a little shocked that the Kerry campaign would want him actively working with them in Florida," he told Malzberg.
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