DYNAMITE Vietnam POWs Say Kerry's Words and Deeds Were Used by Guards to Torture Them

John Kerry accused American GIs of widespread war crimes while testifying before Congress in the early 1970s.

John Kerry's bid to become commander in chief of wartime America has opened old wounds among some former Vietnam-era POWs who bristle over Kerry's antiwar activism and atrocity allegations during the Vietnam conflict.

Those activities and statements, pushed out of sight by a campaign that spotlights Kerry's service in Vietnam, were used by the POWs' North Vietnamese captors to sap the morale of prisoners and U.S. troops still in the field in South Vietnam, former POWs told United Press International.

"They were always talking about that [antiwar demonstrations], and they picked right up on Kerry's throw-away line, 'Don't be the last man to die in a lost cause, or die for a lost cause,'" said Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who spent 2,284 days as a prisoner. "They repeated that incessantly. ... They used these photographs and inputs, voice tapes, whatever, from these peace people to try to convince us the whole country had turned antiwar and we were showing a very bad attitude and would never go home."

During a four-hour propaganda and harassment session, Boris pulled papers from his pocket and gave them to Warner to think about, he said. Some were clippings from a leftist newspaper in the United States. The other was a typewritten transcript of Kerry's testimony before a U.S. Senate panel in which he repeated allegations of U.S. troops routinely committing atrocities, attacking the war and saying communism was not a threat in Vietnam.

The atrocity allegations were garnered from the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit in early 1971, in which actress and activist Jane Fonda and Kerry, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), were involved.

At that event people claiming to have seen combat in Vietnam alleged committing atrocities -- rape, cutting off of ears and heads, murdering women and children -- on a routine basis and with the knowledge of their superiors. Many of the allegations proved false or could not be documented, and the veracity and identities of many witnesses later came into question.

"It was the stuff about the Winter Soldier," Warner said. "The paper he showed me, the statements from John Kerry, were separate. And the stuff that was supposed to be from Kerry was a typewritten transcript of a few pages, but he was pointing to the statements. I can't quote the statements, but essentially they were the same as those being played now on talk shows of his testimony in front of the Senate."

Warner was in his Marine Corps F-4B aircraft when he was shot down over North Vietnam on Oct. 13, 1967, and was held for 1,979 days. He told UPI that in that confrontation with the North Vietnamese officer he was told "these statements [by Kerry] ... were proof I deserved to be punished. I was pretty sure they weren't going to do anything, but in the summer of '69 they had spent four months trying to get information out of me, and I still had the memory of my mistreatment -- sleep deprivation, leg irons, a cement box in the sun [and feet and ankles swollen from chains digging into the flesh].

"The memory of that was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I was extremely uneasy. Every time he mentioned [the papers], this officer said I committed crimes, that this war was illegal. I just had no idea. ... All along they told us they would execute us for our 'crimes.'"

Particularly galling for Warner was his parents' brief participation at an antiwar event in Detroit where they said their son was a prisoner and they hoped he would be released. Warner said he never spoke to his parents about that after his return -- it just wasn't something talked about -- but his sisters had told him Fonda and Kerry were involved in getting his parents to appear, an appearance he believes lent a measure of respectability to the event.

Warner said Kerry and VVAW, which had staged large demonstrations in Washington, often were mentioned in the radio broadcasts that played incessantly over the camp's loudspeakers.

"On our [former POW] listserve there are many people who mention hearing Kerry on Radio Hanoi and how much that infuriated them," Warner said, "but I don't know of anyone else confronted like that."

Cordier, now living in Texas, doesn't recall Kerry's name specifically being used in interrogations, propaganda broadcasts by Hanoi Hannah (Radio Vietnam) or during "attitude checks" -- political indoctrination sessions -- since Kerry was then not a household name. But he said he does remember the North Vietnamese using the so-called Winter Soldier investigations and photographs of war veterans, both real and imposters, throwing military medals over the White House fence.

Paul Galanti, a former Navy pilot who spent 2,432 days in captivity and worked on the 2000 primary campaign of fellow former POW Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also remembers the broadcasts.

"It was propaganda. They stopped torturing us after Ho Chi Minh died pretty much, but all that stuff we got banged on -- they wanted us to say and to confess to war crimes and killing babies and all this other stuff," he said. "They kept talking about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they had seen the right way and blah, blah, blah, and they were on our side, they had crossed over to the peoples' side and all that stuff."

Galanti said he didn't know Kerry's name then, although he had seen a newspaper photograph while in captivity that showed someone who looked like Lurch (a character in The Addams Family television show in the mid-sixties). Like others, they had only heard newscasts about a former Navy lieutenant and the antiwar movement. "I figured out who it was later," he said.

Cordier, Warner and Galanti said although the antiwar protest propaganda was sometimes disheartening, the North Vietnamese failed in their attempt to use it to break the prisoners' will.

"It didn't make us want to give up, it just made us feel discouraged that there were people who felt that way about us," said Warner, who works as a corporate attorney.

Cordier, Galanti and Warner are dead set against Kerry becoming president. Cordier says it's just not Kerry's antiwar past, but his record till now, including his voting against funds for troops in Iraq.

"The measure of a person's character is their whole history up until the present," he said. "It's not what they say they believe or what they'll do when president or all these platitudes. ... And he has consistently taken the side of our enemies and other countries that oppose us or have a different viewpoint."

Joe Crecca, who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966 and held for 2,280 days, won't be supporting Kerry either, accusing him of having "betrayed those who served with him by falsely accusing them of war crimes and a host of other things as soon as he returned to the U.S.A."

Retired Adm. Jeremiah Denton -- held 2,766 days -- helps lead Vets4Bush. Everett Alvarez, who at 3,113 days was the longest-held prisoner of the North Vietnamese, would say only that he would be considered partisan since he had been a Reagan administration appointee.

McCain, who is campaigning for Bush, also was a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton and counts himself as a friend of Kerry. Calls to his office for comment for this article were not returned. However, in 1973, shortly after his release from the Hanoi Hilton, McCain had a strong negative opinion on prominent antiwar activists, although he did not know Kerry by name at the time.

The Kerry campaign, asked to comment, sent UPI an e-mail message that included two quotes from a Oct. 21, 1996, New Yorker article entitled "A Friendship that Ended the War" and asked they be included.

"John McCain has never changed his mind about Kerry's participation in that antiwar demonstration, but he has changed his mind about the man," the article stated. "When I asked McCain if he would be campaigning for [former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, who ran against Kerry for Senate], he shook his head, an emphatic no. 'I simply would not do such a thing. I couldn't do that. ... I'm surprised you would ask. ... Going to campaign against John Kerry is something I wouldn't consider.'"

The second quote from the same New Yorker article the Kerry campaign wanted cited was from Kerry in the same interview: "'We started talking about the war, and Vietnam, prison -- what happened to him and all that. ... Nothing had brought us together before, and we just talked. We talked about what I had done.' Kerry was referring to the episode that McCain had denounced in the 1984 campaign. 'But by now it wasn't a big hurdle,' he went on. 'To his credit, he didn't make it one. He made it clear that he had moved beyond all that. ... The war was a tough period for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. Both of us decided to put all that kind of stuff behind us, and work together at something.'"

During the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week, a number of anti-Kerry veterans' groups participated in demonstrations opposing Kerry's campaign for the nation's top job, and other groups have more demonstration plans in the works.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- former Navy patrol-boat crews, including former comrades and a crewmate of Kerry in Vietnam -- publicly came out in opposition to the senator from Massachusetts last May and plan to launch a television ad attacking his candidacy later this month.

Kerry, meanwhile, is attempting to organize other veterans into a reliable voting bloc. His campaign works with several people who served with Kerry during his four-month stay in Vietnam as testimonials to his service. In July Kerry told CBS's Dan Rather that he was "very proud" of having been a leader of the antiwar movement but admitted some of his language may have been too strong.

Richard Tomkins is a White House correspondent for Insight's sister news service, United Press International.

Jim Warner, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese in the Hoa Lo prison complex -- known to U.S. servicemen as the Hanoi Hilton -- remembers Kerry. He became acquainted with him, he said, when a North Vietnamese guard and interrogator the prisoners nicknamed "Boris" took Warner to the quiz shack in the complex's punishment camp called "Skid Row" in May 1971. During a four-hour propaganda and harassment session, Boris pulled papers from his pocket and gave them to Warner to think about, he said. Some were clippings from a leftist newspaper in the United States. The other was a typewritten transcript of Kerry's testimony before a U.S. Senate panel in which he repeated allegations of U.S. troops routinely committing atrocities, attacking the war and saying communism was not a threat in Vietnam.

Let's see former POW McCain's comments on this.

If John McCain personally wants to forgive John Kerry and let bygones be bygones, then that is his prerogative. For him to condemn others who have not done so---when Kerry has done nothing of a repentant nature to earn their forgiveness---is appalling.

"My name is Steve Gardner. I served in 1966 and 1967 on my first tour of duty in Vietnam on Swift boats, and I did my second tour in '68 and '69, involved with John Kerry in the last 2 1/2 months of my tour. The John Kerry that I know is not the John Kerry that everybody else is portraying. I served alongside him and behind him, five feet away from him in a gun tub, and watched as he made indecisive moves with our boat, put our boats in jeopardy, put our crews in jeopardy... if a man like that can't handle that 6-man crew boat, how can you expect him to be our Commander-in-Chief?"
-- Steven Gardner

The above quote was from a press conference given at the National Press Club in Washington on May 4, 2004. You may view Steven’s comments at the following web site. Just scroll down to Steven’s picture and click on it.

http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php?topic=SwiftVetQuotes

Searching through that web site, you will find 250 men who served on Swift boats, including the entire chain of command above Lt. Kerry, agree with Steven Gardner that Kerry is not fit to be Commander-in-Chief. That compares to the 13 crew members who support his candidacy.

No wonder so many of these Vets hate Kerry...he was in part responsible for some of the horrific pain they suffered.

The public DOES NOT KNOW about the Vietnam/Watergate era. I hope the Switfvets can contribute to an educational period in which many who are ignorant of what really went on can learn.

Above all....how could a man responsible for Veterans' torture be considered for President? Horrific.

John McCain needs to stop worrying about what the media and democrats will think about him and STAND UP and be counted as a warrior for the truth.

McCain's disdain for Kerry is widely known, but he hasn't
publically stated it for a good many years.

McCain will have nothing to say, he understands that what he said, what Fonda said, what MacNamera said, what other prisnors said, basically it didn't take much to instigate a beating.
Inflating a Kerry sized head could be hazardous, McCain won't say anything.

TT

Now this would be the death blow to the Kerry campaign-an ad by former POW's who said that they were made to listen to this Kerry propoganda while being held captive.

One would think. But anyone who would even consider voting for Kerry probably thinks this is a good thing.

After all, America is always wrong, ya know?</sarcasm>

I'm somewhat reluctant to post this clip from the article given the degree of anger & outrage I feel at one Hanoi John French Kerry for his traiterous actions & how they affected good men ... but ...

Sounds like a joke I heard on late-night last week to the effect, "good news for the DNC is after the convention more people now recognize a picture of John Kerry ... bad news is that they think he's the father in The Munsters".

From Article: The second quote from the same New Yorker article the Kerry campaign wanted cited was from Kerry in the same interview: "'We started talking about the war, and Vietnam, prison -- what happened to him and all that. ... Nothing had brought us together before, and we just talked. We talked about what I had done.' Kerry was referring to the episode that McCain had denounced in the 1984 campaign. 'But by now it wasn't a big hurdle,' he went on. 'To his credit, he didn't make it one. He made it clear that he had moved beyond all that. ... The war was a tough period for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. Both of us decided to put all that kind of stuff behind us, and work together at something.'"

Only problem is Kerry didn't leave his stuff behind him. He decided to glorify it.

It had to happen. Sooner or later this nation had to deal with the treatment of our Viet Nam Troops. Face to face.

Kerry was counting on the short attention span of the American Public and the voters under 45 who cannot grasp the hatred hanging in the air.

It does not take a rocket scientist to know the Viet Nam Vets do not have such a short attention span. They may have come home, tried to put it behind them and got on with their lives, but they never, ever forgot. It is not hatred. It is not dirty political trickery or "shadowy 527 groups."

It is a group of Viet Nam Veterans who have decided to endure anything and everything the left (and even some on the right) decides hurl at them to stand up for their beliefs and to do what is right.

Lawyers and character asassinations are the modern subsitutes for spit and blood. The difference is that now the vets are home to fight, not still on the battlefields or in the prison camps.

Nothing, nothing has changed in regard to John Kerry's treatment of Viet Nam Veterans.

Every time I see Kerry on TV (I know it's very un-Pennsylvanian of me), I say for, many good reasons, "It's on b*tch!!" Then I promptly change the channel to something that doesn't make me want to kick in my tv.

"It didn't make us want to give up, it just made us feel discouraged that there were people who felt that way about us," said Warner,

These were the strong ones. There were some who didn't make it.

Going to campaign against John Kerry is something I wouldn't consider.

I will never understand McCain's attitude.

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