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Posted at 2:35 PM, Pacific The May 8, 2000 article from U.S. News & World report reproduced below begins by stating that John Kerry conducted clandestine forays into Cambodia during the Vietnam War to deliver weapons to anticommunist forces. Because that statement isn't a direct quote of Kerry, I contacted the reporter, Kevin Whitelaw, this afternoon. Whitelaw still works at U.S. News & World report where he covers foreign affairs and intelligence matters. Hugh: "Did John Kerry tell you that he ran guns into Cambodia?" Kevin Whitelaw: "That's exactly what he told me." Mr. Whitelaw declined my invitation to appear...

Some historical facts. One of the central events in John Kerry's personal mythology is the time he was sent illegally into Cambodia during the Vietnam conflict. It was an event that bestowed on him an aura of a victimhood to balance the fact that he served in uniform, endearing him to the Left while immunizing him from criticism from the Right. The most quoted statement is from a Kerry floor speech of March 27, 1986: I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia, I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and...

Kerry disputes allegations on Cambodia By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | August 18, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry is disputing an allegation made by a group of veterans opposed to his presidential candidacy that he never operated inside Cambodia during the Vietnam War. In a just-published book, "Unfit for Command," the veterans said that "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War" and that he "would have been court-martialed had he gone there." But the Kerry campaign said that the group, which calls itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is wrong...

THE MOVEON.ORG TELEVISION AD The Kerry crowd is running an ad that says that George Bush used his father to get into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Just so you know, there is no record anywhere of any interference by or influence brought to bear by Bush the Elder in Bush the Younger's acceptance into the guard. Not that you leftists care. Point two. That ad from Moveon.org, an anti-Bush group financed by a mysterious Hungarian-born international financier, also features an image of someone stamping George Bush's National Guard records with "failure to appear." There is...

Only a few short weeks ago, John Kerry was enjoying the temperate climate and familiar old stones of his native Boston. But now, as if in a "Twilight Zone" nightmare, he finds himself stumbling about, half lost in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta. It's 1968 again, or is it 1969? The Doors blasts from the radio: "This is the end, beautiful friend, This is the end, My only friend, the end ... " He wakes up: "Saigon, damn. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I...

Only a few short weeks ago John Kerry was enjoying the temperate climate and familiar old stones of his native Boston. But now, as if in a Twilight Zone nightmare, he finds himself stumbling about, half lost in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta. It's 1968 again, or is it 1969?

August 17, 2004 Posted at 2:35 PM, Pacific The May 8, 2000 article from U.S. News & World report reproduced below begins by stating that John Kerry conducted clandestine forays into Cambodia during the Vietnam War to deliver weapons to anticommunist forces. Because that statement isn't a direct quote of Kerry, I contacted the reporter, Kevin Whitelaw, this afternoon. Whitelaw still works at U.S. News & World report where he covers foreign affairs and intelligence matters. Hugh: "Did John Kerry tell you that he ran guns into Cambodia?" Kevin Whitelaw: "That's exactly what he told me." Mr. Whitelaw declined my...

........Kerry's statements about Cambodia do have traction for opponents. He has referred to spending Christmas or Christmas Eve 1968 in Cambodia and coming under fire. At the time Cambodia was neutral and supposedly off-limits to US troops. "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia," Kerry said in 1986 at a Senate committee hearing on US policy toward Central America. "I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there, the troops...

Cambodian Rhapsody Have you got a load of this latest nonsense drummed up by the dhingers against Kerry? From what I can gather, apperently the "so" called "charge" against him this time is that he didn't fight in Cambodia too. Talk about gaul! While they're guy was hiding in a Texas jet plane Kerry was dodging bullets skippering a swiftvet boat on the plumes in Vietnam, and they have the nerve to accuse Kerry of cowardace/duty avoidance? It's almost unbelievalbe! (not quite) what the dhingers will stoop too. Listen you numskulls the war was in V-I-E-T N-A-M Say it with...

“Mr. President,” said John Kerry, addressing his fellow senators in March 1986, “I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and having the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me. ...” This was not the only time during the last 35 years that Kerry has claimed that he was in Cambodia in Christmastime 1968. In an...

NEW YORK -- John Kerry is desperately trying to slide safely away from the collapse of his "Christmas in Cambodia" fairy tale. Two embarrassing "failures of memory" now permanently scar Senator Kerry's campaign to gain trust and demonstrate strength as he tries to move from war hero to war president. In March, reliable witnesses came forward who placed John Kerry at a November 1971 Kansas City meeting where the Vietnam Veterans Against the War secretly voted on a proposal to kill six pro-war senators. This appeared especially odd because Kerry had told two historians, Gerald Nicosia and Douglas Brinkley, that...

Apparently, the latest version of Kerry's Cambodia Chronicles includes the insertion of Navy SEALs by Swift boat into Cambodia in the early part of 1969. Well, I am a former Navy SEAL that served in the 1990s, my father in law is a former SEAL and he served in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam in 1970. I spoke with him about the likelihood that this story could be correct. My contention was that Swift boats were too large to be routinely used as an insertion platform for SEALs. SEALs typically used the Medium SEAL Support Craft (MSSC) or the LSSC....

  These two e-mails are featured on Hugh Hewitt's blog today August 15th 2004.  And here's another e-mail punching holes in the magic hat narrative: "Thanks for your hard word in reporting on Senator Kerry's statements abouthis travels into Cambodia. I have a bias in sending this email because I am a conservative who will vote Republican, I am an ex-soldier (82nd Airborne with Combat Patch) and anex-officer, and I am an American who believes that Senator Kerry would bedangerous as a Commander in Chief. After reading the "I was in Cambodia" story for hours on end, I see that Senator Kerry...

I am having trouble believing my ears. John O'Neil (Swift Vets for the Truth) is on Medved now, fielding calls. According to the latest, Kerry now says he was actually in Cambodia in 1969 on a secret mission for the CIA and he can't talk about it so no one else knows about it...Kerry supporters are buying it... I am waiting for a White Rabbit to pull a pocket watch out of its vest and proclaim that 'he's late...'

“Mr. President,” said John Kerry, addressing his fellow senators in March 1986, “I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and having the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me. ...” This was not the only time during the last 35 years that Kerry has claimed that he was in Cambodia in Christmastime 1968. In...

NEW YORK -- John Kerry is desperately trying to slide safely away from the collapse of his "Christmas in Cambodia" fairy tale. Two embarrassing "failures of memory" now permanently scar Senator Kerry's campaign to gain trust and demonstrate strength as he tries to move from war hero to war president. In March, reliable witnesses came forward who placed John Kerry at a November 1971 Kansas City meeting where the Vietnam Veterans Against the War secretly voted on a proposal to kill six pro-war senators. This appeared especially odd because Kerry had told two historians, Gerald Nicosia and Douglas Brinkley, that...

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Vietnam veterans, says Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry lied to get several of his commendations for gallantry in military service 35 years ago and later lied about other aspects of his service. An independent research organization, FactCheck.org, affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, recently examined some of the claims. Here are the conclusions from it and other sources: Silver Star, for "extraordinary daring and per sonal courage . . . in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of in tense fire." On Feb. 28, 1969, Kerry,...

This might be another nail in the Kerry-in-Cambodia coffin: how often, other than the 1986 Senate statement, did the "5 miles inside Cambodia" claim include encounters with Khmer Rouge? Apparently there were only 3,000 khmer rouge soldiers in 1970(at the takeover; increasing to 50,000 by late 1972.) In 1969 they were set up to put pressure on the government in Phnom Penh, the capital. So they wouldn't be hanging around the Cambodia-Vietnam border. http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/banyan1.htm banyan1 to banyan6 http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0827552.html http://united-states.asinah.net/american-encyclopedia/wikipedia/k/kh/khmer_rouge.html At least Kerry has not fabricated his own name.

____: Our executive editor, Susan Goldberg, asked me to respond to your recent e-mail about Sen. Kerry's wartime claims. This is a topic we have devoted several stories to during this presidential campaign. As early as January 2004, we wrote a story that touched on how Kerry's wartime experience shaped him. In February, Mercury News Washington Bureau reporter Jim Puzzanghera wrote a profile of Kerry that detailed the actions that led to his military honors. In April, after the Boston Globe began questioning the circumstances of Kerry's first Purple Heart, we ran a New York Times article saying the campaign...

Last week John Kerry recanted the detailed and emotional story of his Christmas Eve, 1968 illegal mission into Cambodia that he has been telling for 30 years, most notably in a movie review of Apocalpse Now that he wrote for the Boston Herald on October 14, 1979, in a statement on the floor of the Senate on March 27,1986, and in an AP story from 1992. Faced with mounting evidence that this brazen fabrication was crumbling, Kerry spokesmen acknowledged that Kerry wasn't in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968, but hung tough on Kerry's having been across the border on several...