Kerry admits to an error in boast about 1st speech
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 5/1/2003
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that he will stop declaring that his first speech on the floor of the US Senate highlighted his support for the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights, a recollection he has learned is not true.As he has campaigned for the presidency, the Massachusetts Democrat has on numerous occasions stated that his maiden speech as a senator was about abortion rights. Kerry did so last month before a group of women in Des Moines, as he pledged to nominate only supporters of abortion rights to the Supreme Court.
But the Congressional Record shows that Kerry's first speech in the Senate, on March 19, 1985, was made in opposition to President Reagan's push to build 21 MX missiles.
A States News Service report at the time said that Kerry's planned remarks were reduced to a relatively brief four minutes, because more senior colleagues wanted to speak and floor debate had been limited to 10 hours.
In an interview with the Globe Tuesday, Kerry sought to emphasize the importance he places on abortion rights by declaring that it was the subject of his first floor speech in the Senate.
When a Globe reporter told him that the States News account from 1985 raised questions about the accuracy of his statement, Kerry paused and said he may have been misled by a former staff member. He also pledged that if he were mistaken, he would never make the comment again.
An aide said later that the campaign will remove from its website a statement on Kerry's website declaring that ''Senator Kerry's first speech on the floor of the United States Senate was in strong support of Roe v. Wade.''
The Congressional Record shows that on Jan. 22, 1985, about three weeks after the former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts was sworn in as a senator, Kerry entered a written statement reiterating his support for the Roe v. Wade decision. His first spoken words on the floor were made on Feb. 7, 1985, when Kerry made brief remarks about civil rights. His first speech, which usually is a momentous occasion sometimes marked by applause from fellow senators, did not occur until more than a month later, when Kerry took up the topic of the MX missile.
''Certainly it would've been more precise to have referred to John Kerry's 1985 remarks on Roe as his `first statement as a United States senator' than as his first `speech,' '' said a statement issued yesterday by Kelley Benander, a spokeswoman for his campaign. ''The confusion was just that, confusion, and was unintentional. The record will be corrected, but will always reflect that John Kerry has throughout his 18 years in the Senate vigorously supported a woman's right to choose.''
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