THERE ARE LOTS OF KERRY QUESTIONS THAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND:
Tom Maguire is looking at some of them. And here's a report of Kerry hedging. Go figure!
Instapundit -
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Was Kerry at a meeting in 1971 where people talked about assassinations? Does it matter now? I'm really not sure what I think about this story, which seems rather complicated to me. Hedging on Kerry's part probably won't help, though.
Just one Minute Blog - The Next Big Thing?
This story may rival "Bush AWOL"; it may simmer on the fringes of the VRWC; or it may disappear. The gist, as reported in the Kansas City Star:
Confronted with 32-year-old FBI records, Sen. John Kerry's campaign all but conceded he attended a 1971 Kansas City meeting where a fellow anti-war veteran called for political assassinations.
Those active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War at the time stress that the suggestion for such a violent approach was angrily rejected. They say their memories do not include Kerry taking part in the radical discussion.
That is from Scott Canon, who is a reporter for the Kansas City Star (earlier story here). Is he a big-time journalist, or what? If this story breaks nationally, he will be! Reading down a bit, we notice that someone has been doing some legwork:
Interviews with 18 men who in the early 1970s were members of the group, most of them in leadership positions, offer varying accounts of whether the vague plot was discussed as a matter of organization business or merely the stuff of late-night chatter.
Thomas Lipscomb, writing in the Jewish World Review, paints a darker picture on March 15, with a follow-up on March 16. Both stories precede (and seem to have prompted) the release of redacted copies of the FBI files on John Kerry, which had been sitting, unread, in the possession of Gerald Nicosia. Mr. Nicosia obtained them in response to a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for information on the Vietnam Veterans Against The War as material for a book he published in 2001.
The InstaPundit links to Bryan Preston and Captain Ed, who
note the LA Times coverage as an example of media slant in
favor of Kerry.
Cybercast News Service saw the FBI files last week, courtesy of a troubled Mr. Nicosia.
Now, where might this story be headed? As to the most serious allegation, that Kerry had an obligation to report a criminal conspiracy, I am skeptical. Whether the proposal took place as part of a V.V.A.W. business meeting or in a late night bull session is in dispute; in any event, the proposal was shouted down (or voted down?), and no further action was taken, so one might well ask, what conspiracy?
However, there a couple of ways I can imagine this story finding traction. First, Release the Files! Former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, writing at the ever-reliable GOPUSA, was exhorting the media to clamor for Kerry's FBI file just a few weeks ago. Now it turns out that a hugely relevant overlapping section is in private hands, and the holder is sharing it with selected reporters. Set the truth free! Or, if the media does not so clamor, how can they keep a straight face when they tell us they are serious reporters?
Secondly, Kerry's association with the V.V.A.W may be
problematic - Mr. Nicosia, who wrote the book on them,
thinks so anyway. Who are these guys? Kerry seems to have
quit in part because the group became too radical - what
other radical ideas did they have? The lying, crooked RAM
should be able to have fun watching Kerry explain that he
knew nothing about an assasination plot being discussed by
his band of brothers. What else did Kerry know nothing
about? What did Kerry conveniently forget, and when did he
conveniently forget it? The Cracker Barrel Philosopher is
already walking down this road.
Excerpts from the Kansas City Star and the Cybercast New Service.
MORE: Author Andrew Hunt gets mentioned in the March 15 Lipscomb piece; here is his book.
And we are intrigued by this from the March 16 Lipscomb piece:
At a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday, Mr. Kerry was
asked by a reporter if he thought his credibility had been
affected by his close association with Al Hubbard, a key
VVAW colleague of Mr. Kerry's who had appointed him to the
leadership of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Mr. Hubbard claimed to be a wounded Air Force officer who
had served at Danang during the Vietnam War. He appeared
with Mr. Kerry many times, including the "Meet the Press"
interview after Mr. Kerry's Senate testimony about
American "war crimes" in Vietnam. But Mr. Hubbard was
never in Vietnam, was never wounded, and was not an
officer, as subsequent research and Mr.Kerry himself have
pointed out.
Mr. Kerry answered he had not spoken to Mr. Hubbard since
the week of April 19, 1971...
Echo chamber - the reporter, and his view of the
significance, is in the Cybercast News Service story. I'm
not clear why we ought to care, except that it ties into
the notion that Kerry's memory about his friends is very
selective.
UPDATE: The NY Times recycles the Kerry talking points, but compounds the puzzle with this:
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Mr. Kerry resigned from Vietnam Veterans Against the War
in November 1971, the reports indicate, several months
later than he has previously recollected. He quit to run
for Congress from Massachusetts after feuding with more
radical leaders within the group, among them Al Hubbard, a
national co-director who had met in Paris with
representatives of North Vietnam.
A Nov. 19, 1971, F.B.I. teletype marked "urgent" quoted an
informant describing a group meeting six days earlier in
Kansas City, Mo., at which many delegates wanted the group
to take the initiative in peace efforts with North
Vietnam. "John Kerry, V.V.A.W. national chairman,
considered conservative by most V.V.A.W. members resigned
for `personal reasons,' " the report said.
Hmm, negotiating with the North Vietnamese. Was that in
coordination with the evil Nixon regime, or an
extracurricular activity?
MORE: The WaPo could scarcely care less about the reported
assasination plot:
The documents shed new light on some of Kerry's activities
and contradict some statements his campaign previously
made, including the timing of his resignation from the
group and whether he participated in a controversial VVAW
meeting in Kansas City, Mo., in November 1971. Campaign
spokesman David Wade said Kerry had confused the Kansas
City meeting with an earlier meeting in St. Louis.
Controversial. Do all Post readers already know why it is
controversial? Am I the only one just hearing about this?
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More On Kerry and Kansas City
Excerpts from the KC Star and the Cybercast News Service appear below as a supplement to the preceding post, "The Next Big Thing?". Emphasis on the question mark, please.
And we find Captain Ed is on this like salt on a sailor, with a round-up of big-media coverage.
Kerry hedges on '71 KC meeting
By SCOTT CANON The Kansas City Star
Posted on Sat, Mar. 20, 2004
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Confronted with 32-year-old FBI records, Sen. John Kerry's
campaign all but conceded he attended a 1971 Kansas City
meeting where a fellow anti-war veteran called for
political assassinations.
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Those active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War at the time stress that the suggestion for such a violent approach was angrily rejected. They say their memories do not include Kerry taking part in the radical discussion.
A statement Thursday by Kerry's camp said the
Massachusetts Democrat did not recall the meeting,
although FBI surveillance material and the group's
archives clearly show that Kerry resigned from his
national coordinator post at that November 1971 meeting.
In interviews last week, the senator's campaign insisted
that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee
clearly remembered bolting from the group months earlier.
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Responding to a request by The Kansas City Star that
staffers question the candidate about the meeting, Kerry
passed word March 12 that he “never, ever” attended a
meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War after a heated
and public argument with the group's executive secretary
in St. Louis in June 1971.
In a prepared statement late Thursday night, however,
campaign spokesman David Wade, traveling with the
candidate in Idaho, said: “John Kerry had no personal
recollection of this meeting 33 years ago. John Kerry does
recall the disagreements with elements of VVAW leadership…
that led to his resignation.
“If there are valid FBI surveillance reports from credible
sources that place some of those disagreements in Kansas
City, we accept that historical footnote in the account of
his work to end the difficult and divisive war.”
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Kerry's anti-war activities launched his political career
but also have been used by opponents to portray him as a
radical. One conservative tabloid has described the Kansas
City meeting as a “dark plot.”
By all accounts, Kerry stood as a voice for moderation in Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In fact, several records from the group stored at the Wisconsin State Historical Society show that he quit over philosophical differences in the middle of the four-day gathering in Kansas City.
The Kerry campaign on Friday released a 1972 FBI surveillance memo from its records that states a “review of subject's (Kerry's) file indicated there is nothing to associate him with any violence or violent-prone group. …”
In the end, no violence has been attributed to the veterans' organization. Rather, historians view its so-called Dewey Canyon III demonstration — where veterans tossed their medals onto the Capitol steps — as a significant force in rejuvenating the anti-war movement.
The FBI teletypes based on informants' attendance at the meeting — with some sections and sources' names blacked out — appear to make no mention of any discussion of assassination plots, something sure to have caught the bureau's attention.
Gerald Nicosia, author of Home to War: A History of the
Vietnam Veterans Movement, obtained records that the FBI
kept on Vietnam Veterans Against the War throughout much
of the group's history. In poring over the records this
week, Nicosia found reports stating that Kerry's
resignation was accepted at the Kansas City meeting amid a
heated confrontation with the group's executive secretary,
Al Hubbard.
In a brief interview, Wade said last week's denial stemmed
from Kerry's failure to remember the Kansas City meeting
and the campaign's reliance on Home to War and two other
books that all suggest he quit before
November.
After new evidence emerged this week, however, the
campaign spokesman said Kerry simply mistook his
recollection of the Kansas City meeting for the one in St.
Louis in June 1971 — when records show Kerry was re-
elected to the organization's executive committee despite
growing resentment toward his celebrity and his push for
moderation.
Last week, John Hurley, an organizer of veteran volunteers
for Kerry's presidential run, called two men who were
quoted in The Star as recalling Kerry attending the Kansas
City meeting. John Musgrave of Baldwin City, Kan., said
Hurley called him twice and in the second conversation
asked the disabled veteran to contact the newspaper
reporter to say he had doubts about the memory.
“He said, ‘I'd like you to consider that before that
article comes out call him and tell him you were wrong,' ”
said Musgrave, who has expressed disappointment with
Kerry's position on issues regarding prisoners of war.
Hurley said Friday he believed last week Musgrave was simply mistaken.
“I asked him to be very sure of his recollection, not to change his recollection,” Hurley said. “I would apologize to John Musgrave if he thought in any way I was pressuring him.”
Another veteran, Randy Barnes of Kansas City, said Hurley had contacted him but did not prompt him to question his memory, although his certainty about the fact wavered after their conversation.
Minutes of the Kansas City meeting and internal Vietnam Veterans Against the War correspondence make clear that Kerry was active in the group — mostly as a strong draw on the lecture circuit of campuses and groups such as the Kansas City Rotary Club in September 1971 — in the months leading up to the November meeting. One FBI report suggests that despite his resignation from leadership, Kerry was willing to work for the group after November 1971. Three other national coordinators also resigned at the meeting.
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None of the records show any indication of what then-
Florida organizer Scott Camil dubbed a “domestic Phoenix
Program” he was promoting to the Vietnam veterans group.
Camil told The Star last week that his idea — modeled
after a U.S. military effort to hollow out the leadership
of Viet Cong sympathizers in South Vietnam — would have
made targets of pro-war politicians to force the
withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.
“I'm sorry about those discussions now, but they did take
place,” Camil, a Kerry supporter, said in a telephone
interview last week. Camil said then he did not think
Kerry attended the Kansas City meeting and that he did not
recall ever making his suggestion of violence in the
presence of the future U.S. senator.
That topic is absent from the group's archives — perhaps
reflecting that it never gained credibility beyond a few
members or that the discussion would have been too
damaging to record.
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“Was John obligated to go to the police on this?” asked Nicosia, the author who described himself as a Kerry supporter. “I think if the thing ever got off the ground, Kerry would do something to stop it.”
His book is mostly flattering to Vietnam Veterans Against the War and to Kerry, whom he portrays as struggling against radical elements for control of the group.
Interviews with 18 men who in the early 1970s were members of the group, most of them in leadership positions, offer varying accounts of whether the vague plot was discussed as a matter of organization business or merely the stuff of late-night chatter.
“In the business meeting, there was no consideration of violence,” said Dave Collins, then the group's Oklahoma coordinator. “The recollection I had was some guys saying, ‘We ought to go and off some of those (people).' …It was guys ticked off and talking big at midnight. No one in the group took any of it seriously.”
Collins, like others, did not remember Kerry attending the Kansas City meeting, which moved from the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus to different city churches over four days. At least two others who at the time were active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War said they thought Kerry was at the Kansas City meeting, although they did not connect their recollections of him to the debate over violent strategies.
Barnes of Kansas City first said he remembered Kerry attending the meeting and then, after talking about it with members of the campaign staff, said he could not be sure whether the budding politician was there. He also recalled the 1971 discussion of Camil's idea as a significant disruption to the Kansas City meeting.
“We're sitting there waiting for the joke. And it became clear that (Camil) was somewhat serious about it, so serious that people began to discuss it,” Barnes said. “Now when I say that, I don't mean real substance discussion about doing that, but along the lines of ‘that's what our government was doing to Vietnam.' Once people understood he (Camil) was serious, they told him he was crazy.”
Joe Bangert traveled from Philadelphia to the meeting and said the idea of killing was contrary to a group whose officers often closed correspondence with lines such as “peace and love and nonviolent action.”
“We were rebelling. We were decompressing from our time in Vietnam,” Bangert said. “But we were incapable of doing violence.”
CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE
Kerry Lying About Anti-War Past, Supporter Alleges
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
March 18, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - A Vietnam War historian and supporter of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has told
CNSNews.com that Kerry is lying about key events related
to his anti-war activities in 1971.
Kerry said he hasn't spoken to former anti-war associate
Al Hubbard since the two men appeared side by side on
national television in April 1971, but according to author
Gerald Nicosia, that assertion is wrong. So is Kerry's
insistence that he did not attend a November 1971 meeting
of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), at which group
members discussed the possibility of assassinating U.S.
senators who were still supporting the war in Vietnam,
Nicosia said.
Nicosia backed up his comments regarding Kerry's presence
at the November 1971 meeting by providing CNSNews.com with
the FBI's redacted files about that meeting.
Questions about events that happened 33 years ago continue
to nag the Kerry candidacy as the Massachusetts Democrat's
November match-up against President Bush comes into
sharper focus.
Kerry faces increasing skepticism about answers he gave to
certain questions as well as recent statements he made,
including his claim that some foreign leaders had told him
they were hopeful Bush would be defeated this year.
Among the questions surrounding Kerry's involvement as a
27-year-old anti-war protester are those about his
relationship with Hubbard, the former executive director
of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Kerry and Hubbard
appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on April 18, 1971 to
argue for an end to the war.
But shortly thereafter, Hubbard, who had been introduced
on the NBC program as a decorated Air Force captain, was
exposed for having exaggerated his military credentials. A
separate news investigation revealed that there were no
military records showing that Hubbard had either served in
Vietnam or was injured there.
Last week, during a Capitol Hill news conference,
CNSNews.com asked Kerry whether he was still in touch with
Hubbard or whether he was willing to repudiate Hubbard
because of Hubbard's fabricated war record.
"I haven't talked to Al Hubbard since that week" of the
Meet the Press appearance, Kerry replied. Kerry also said
he did not believe that VVAW's credibility was hurt as a
result of Hubbard falsifying his war record.
But Gerald Nicosia, author of the book Home to War: A
History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement and a Kerry
supporter, disagreed with Kerry's contention that he and
Hubbard saw no more of each other after the week of April
18, 1971.
"That is bull****. No, no, [Kerry] saw [Hubbard] at
numerous meetings after that, including the one I talk
about in my book, the July meeting in St. Louis," Nicosia
told CNSNews.com .
[Kerry] saw [Hubbard] in July, and according to FBI [files
on Vietnam Veterans Against the War] and the minutes of
those meetings, [Kerry] probably saw him in November
[1971] too," Nicosia said.
Kerry and Hubbard had a heated argument at the St. Louis
meeting in July that was "witnessed by 200 veterans,"
according to Nicosia.
Despite the presidential candidate's claim last week that
Hubbard had not hurt the anti-war group's credibility in
1971, Kerry actually believed otherwise, according to
Nicosia.
"There was a big fight with Al Hubbard in which Kerry
confronted him and they were screaming at each other
across the hall," Nicosia explained. Hubbard, who had ties
to the radical Black Panthers group, and Kerry "couldn't
have been more opposite personalities," Nicosia said.
The simmering tension between the two men finally reached
a boil in St. Louis, Nicosia said, with Kerry
shouting, "Who are you, Al Hubbard? Are you even really a
veteran?
"So it was a big screaming match," he added.
Nicosia told CNSNews.com he was uncomfortable disputing
Kerry's statements.
"I am in kind of an awkward position here. I am a Kerry
supporter and I certainly don't want to do anything that
hurts him. On the other hand, my number one allegiance is
to truth. So I am going to go with where the facts are,
and John is going to have to deal with that," Nicosia said.
"I am having some problems with the things he is saying
right now, which are not matching up with accuracy," he
added.
November 1971 meeting
Nicosia also disputed Kerry's denial that he was in
attendance when VVAW members met in Kansas City in
November 1971 to discuss the possibility of assassinating
U.S. senators still committed to the Vietnam War.
Kerry was at the meeting, Nicosia insisted, pointing to
FBI files and the minutes from the VVAW meeting, which he
has obtained. "The minutes of the meeting -- November 12th
through the15th -- it's got John Kerry there, it's got
John Kerry resigning there on the third day," Nicosia said.
Nicosia provided CNSNews.com with a copy of the FBI's
redacted files of that November 1971 VVAW meeting. The
files refer to the fact that Kerry had "resigned
for 'personal reasons.'"
"You are talking to a Kerry supporter, but I will tell
you, after everything that I have heard and seen, I would
conclude that he was there," he added.
Nicosia said he is not sure why Kerry is answering
questions on the issue in the manner he is.
"Why didn't [former President Bill] Clinton say he [had
sex with] Monica Lewinsky? It took him until he had to be
confronted with the hard evidence before he said he did,"
Nicosia said.
"I think [Kerry] may be worried or the people around him
may be worried that his association with VVAW is a very
negative thing and they want John to back away from it,"
he added.
Nicosia concluded with advice for Kerry.
"The chickens are coming home to roost, and unfortunately
he is starting to backtrack and I personally don't think
backtracking is going to work because people are going to
go at him and find the discrepancies," Nicosia said.
As recently as two days ago, Kerry's presidential campaign
spokesman David Wade told the New York Sun that, "Kerry
was not at the Kansas City meeting." Wade added that Kerry
had resigned from the VVAW "sometime in the summer of
1971." |
