I have been harping on the "Kerry in Kansas City" story. Just sent my second email to the LA Times writer urging him to get on the stick because he is getting scooped. Now the Blogs are finally getting on it. Here are clips from "Junkyardblog," and "Captain Ed."
Junkyardblog - And then there's the story about Kerry's 1971 anti-war activities. This story came out today, and its thrust is that the FBI tailed Kerry while he traveled with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War group to meetings around the country.
According to FBI records, the Nixon administration viewed Kerry as a political threat and had him watched. Those records place Kerry
at VVAW-sponsored antiwar events in Washington; Kansas City, Mo.; Oklahoma City; and Urbana, Ill. The FBI recorded the content of his speeches and took photographs of him and fellow activists, and the dispatches were filed to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and President Nixon.
The files contain no information or suggestion that Kerry broke any laws. And a 1972 memorandum on the FBI's decision to end its surveillance of him said the agency had discovered "nothing whatsoever to link the subject with any violent activity."
But. Kerry denies attending the Kansas City meeting at which the FBI records place him. Eye witnesses also place him there. Kerry says he resigned before that meeting took place, and therefore never went. The FBI says he did, as do several witnesses who knew Kerry at the time.
Kerry's story:
"I still have no memory of a Kansas City meeting.
"I have this stark memory of the humidity that day [I resigned from VVAW]…. I just remember forever a dark storm brewing, with these huge thunderhead clouds."
But his recollection was that he resigned at the St. Louis meeting. "And every reminder we have since then has put it there, including Nicosia's book," he said.
But the files include a "priority" memorandum dated Nov. 16, 1971 — the day after the VVAW's Kansas City meeting ended — from Hoover to Nixon and other high-ranking administration officials. Quoting a "confidential source," the report said Kerry was there and had resigned from the VVAW for personal reasons.
"It's just weird," Kerry said, when asked about the discrepancy. He attributed his previous assertions to a faulty memory.
So what's the fuss? Kerry's presence at that meeting is critical to understanding his past association with VVAW. At that meeting, in November of 1971, VVAW members discussed and voted on a radical plan to target and assassinate US Senators who supported the war in Vietnam. Scott Camil, VVAW member and now a member of Kerry's campaign, dreamed up the plan. Witnesses say Kerry was there and voted against it, later resigning from the group. They also say he delivered an emotional speech in which he declared his intention of going into politics. Whether Kerry resigned from the group because of the plan or for other reasons isn't clear, but either way, if Kerry was there and was part of discussions regarding any plan to kill American officials, he had a legal obligation to report that plan to law enforcement. He never did. He could say "I was there but voted against it," but that's uncomfortably similar to "I voted for it before I voted against it." And now he denies even attending the meeting at which the discussion and vote took place.
Like Kerry says, it's just weird.
All of this is relevant to the Times' story. It's the salient fact, upon which the whole question of Kerry's presence in Kansas City in November 1971 and his resignation from VVAW turns, and would have been a good reason for the FBI to tail him.
But the Times leaves it out. It fails to mention--at all--the assassination plot and the controversy surrounding Kerry's knowledge of it. It fails to mention that Kerry may have been an accessory to the crime of conspiracy in failing to report the plot to law enforcement. Do the FBI records mention the plot? The story never says, only offering that investigating Kerry had found "nothing whatsoever to link the subject with any violent activity." Case closed, then, right? Not necessarily. The plot was real. Kerry was there, according to FBI records and eye witnesses. The plot was never carried out, but Kerry still had a responsibility to alert authorities--Camil and other radicals could have gone ahead with it without official VVAW support. Kerry was in a position to stop it or warn potential targets by alerting law enforcement. He never did, and now denies even attending the meeting.
This is not a small, nitpicking point. John Kerry may have had knowledge of a plot to kill elected officials of the US government and failed to report it to proper authorities. In a time of war. It's hard to find a more relevant issue than whether a current candidate for president once knew of and failed to report a plot to kill American officials, especially when the nation is again at war.
Two salient facts left out by different reporters working for the LA Times, one leaving out the fact that George W. Bush was a fighter pilot, and the other leaving out the fact that John Kerry is lying or, at best, failing to recall a meeting he attended that featured discussion of a plan to assassinate American politicians. If you're looking for a pattern, both omissions help Kerry.
Media bias on display, courtesy the LA Times.
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Captain Ed - LA Times, Star Tribune Spin Kerry Participation in VVAW Assassination Meeting
As I posted late last week, John Kerry's campaign has backed off its earlier assertion that Kerry hadn't attended the November 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War meeting, where the Phoenix Project was debated and put up for a vote. The Phoenix Project was a plan by Scott Camil to assassinate several pro-war elected officials, including Senators John Stennis, John Tower, and Strom Thurmond. Their recantation sprang from the discovery of FBI informant reports -- at least five of them -- of the meetings, which put Kerry firmly in the debate in Kansas City and unearthed by Gerald Nicosia, a pro-Kerry historian.
So what does the Los Angeles Times and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (who reprinted the article) highlight on this episode? The trampling of John Kerry's rights by J. Edgar Hoover, of course:
As a high-profile activist who crossed the United States criticizing the Nixon administration's role in the Vietnam War, John Kerry was closely monitored by FBI agents for more than a year, according to intelligence documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. ... Kerry, now the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, has long known he was a target of FBI surveillance but only last week learned the extent of the scrutiny, he told the Times. The information was provided late last week by Gerald Nicosia, a San Francisco Bay Area author who obtained thousands of pages of FBI intelligence files and who gave copies of some documents to the Times.
The Times wastes no time allowing Kerry to spin this as an affront to Kerry's civil rights:
Kerry said he was troubled by the scope of the monitoring documented in the papers. "I'm surprised by the extent of it," he said. "I'm offended by the intrusiveness of it. And I'm disturbed that it was all conducted absent of some showing of any legitimate probable cause. It's an offense to the Constitution. It's out of order."
Kerry took part in a debate where the ways and means of assassinating prominent political figures, and he wonders why the FBI was conducting surveillance on him and the VVAW? In fact, the VVAW meeting was moved - twice - because VVAW leadership wanted to avoid FBI surveillance on that particular meeting, for obvious reasons. Kerry knew that the FBI was watching the VVAW. But in 2004, the knee-jerk response for this political debacle is to blame the whole thing on Hoover, and Kerry obviously has people in the media willing to play along.
John Kerry debated the assassination of Americans as a political means to an end of the war, and during this campaign lied about his whereabouts in order to cover it up. It's telling that the only issue the LA Times and Strib cares about is FBI surveillance on the VVAW. |
