Vet: Retraction of Kerry claim was a misquote
Cox News Service
Aug. 7, 2004, 12:44AM
WASHINGTON - The controversy surrounding ads questioning John Kerry's war record grew Friday when a key figure in the veterans group airing the ads was quoted in the Boston Globe retracting one of his central allegations.
But later in the day, retired Lt. Cmdr. George Elliott issued a statement saying he had been misquoted.
The ad, sponsored by an anti-Kerry organization called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, features 13 Vietnam veterans accusing the Democratic presidential nominee of betraying his shipmates and telling lies to win medals in Vietnam.
Elliott, one of the 13 accusers in the ad, was one of Kerry's superiors in Vietnam when Kerry was awarded medals for heroic actions, including the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.
"John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam," Elliott says in the ad.
In a signed affidavit he provided to the ad sponsors on July 21, 2004, Elliott suggested Kerry did not deserve his Silver Star.
At issue is an event in which Kerry killed a fleeing Viet Cong guerrilla while on patrol on the Mekong River. According to accounts provided by Kerry and his swift boat crewmates to Kerry's biographers, Kerry left his boat and pursued the guerrilla because he was armed with a Russian-made rocket launcher capable of penetrating armor.
Kerry has denied shooting the guerrilla in the back.
Republican Sen. John McCain, also a Vietnam veteran, called the attack ad dishonorable and dishonest, and urged the Bush administration to also denounce the ad. The administration distanced itself but did not condemn the ad. |
