Two major papers, same owner. Interesting to compare how the Boston Globe reported the same story as the NYT.
Records detail FBI tracking vets, Kerry
Unconfirmed hearsay included in '71 documents
By Michael Kranish and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | May 6, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The FBI released thousands of pages of documents yesterday detailing how the agency monitored the activities of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and occasionally took note of the speeches of one of its leaders, John F. Kerry.
Much of the information in the documents is secondhand hearsay, such as a report on a comment Kerry reportedly made June 14, 1971.
The report quotes a source as saying Kerry told an audience at a Philadelphia YMCA that Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese communist leader, was ''the George Washington of Vietnam. Ho studied the United States Constitution and wants to install the same provisions into the Government of Vietnam."
Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said last night that Kerry was saying ''the people of Vietnam believe he was their George Washington, John Kerry never believed that."
A few months later, an FBI report focused on Kerry talking about the need for political change in the United States. The FBI report notes that Kerry believes that ''change can occur through the system."
The report quotes Kerry as saying that the people in Washington are so ''callously political that they refuse to realize we cannot save our honor in Vietnam and questioned 'how can you save something that is nonexistent?' "
The report from Oct. 14, 1971, says that a college newspaper quoted Kerry as saying that his ''main concern is awakening and politicizing Americans."
The report then quoted Kerry as saying, ''Somewhere, somehow, we lost track of where we are as a nation . . . the thought 'power to the people' is not revolutionary. Our country was founded on this concept."
As Kerry was about to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, an FBI report noted that Kerry was quoted in Washington's Evening Star saying that he intended to return his combat decorations as part of his protest.
''The article described John Kerry as a Vietnam veteran who, in five months as a Navy lieutenant, won the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, all of which he intends to hand back to Congress on April 23," the report said.
Separately, the Kerry campaign last night released a FBI document from 1972 that said the bureau was closing a file on Kerry, because he had ''completely disassociated himself from VVAW" and was pursuing a seat in Congress, and noted that there is ''nothing whatsoever to link the subject with any violent type activity."
Another document said that ''bourgeois liberal politicians tried to advance John Kerry as the spokesman for VVAW in 1971."
About 50 pages of the thousands of documents were released separately earlier this year by historian Gerald Nicosia, who requested them under the Freedom of Information Act as part of his research for a book on the antiwar movement.
Among the findings in those documents was a reference to Kerry ''planning to travel to Paris, France . . . for talks with North Vietnamese peace delegation," according to a report dated Nov. 11, 1971.
Kerry's spokesman has said that while Kerry did go to Paris and talk with both delegations, the spokesman said this took place earlier and was a brief discussion, not a negotiation.
Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
