Posted on 10/27/2004 9:57:32 PM PDT by UncleBrucie
THE $905 MILLION SCANDAL THAT KERRY CONTINUES TO GET AWAY WITH
(Summarized from a series of articles in the Village Voice, 1991 to present, by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sydney H. Schanberg)
Think you know everything worth knowing about John Kerry?
Completely missing so far from this campaign is the story of how John Kerry betrayed POWs/MIAs left behind in Vietnam after the war, ordered the destruction of classified records in the process, and ultimately won a $905 million real estate contract for his first cousin C. Stewart Forbes.
The POW/MIA episode is possibly the ugliest blotch on Kerry's whole record, yet with the election only days away it appears that Kerry won't have to answer for his actions. Amazingly, no one has bothered to challenge him.
What happened was, almost 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War, the Senate was under intense pressure from American corporations to re-open trade with post-war Vietnam. But there was one big obstacle: it was rumored that Hanoi was still holding hundreds of American POWs: over 2,000 were known to be missing; Hanoi had returned only 591.
What happened to the other 1,400?
To find out, the Senate set up a Select Committee for the purpose of examining Defense Dept. records concerning POWs and MIAs. A thumbs-up from the committee would show that Hanoi had fully cooperated in returning our men, so trade could be restored and money would flow once again to and from our old enemy.
Kerry was named chairman of the Select Committee in 1991, and thus was born what could be called "The Kerry-McCain Funeral Parlor." Kerry's partner in the undertaking business was, curiously enough, a former POW himself -- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). McCain's motives for helping make his fellow POWs disappear have never been understood or adequately explained.
For the next 18 months, records of missing servicemen that entered the Kerry-McCain Funeral Parlor for examination came out the back door in hearses, whether the men in those records happened to be living or not. Tons of evidence were de-bunked so servicemen left behind could be declared dead, all for the purpose of making Hanoi look good -- and getting lucrative deals like the $905 million real estate contract for Kerry's cousin.
FORMIDABLE EVIDENCE
Here is a partial list of survival evidence that the committee reviewed from official Defense Dept. records:
* over 1,600 eyewitness sightings of American soldiers after the war;
* thousands more such reports based on indirect evidence;
* dozens of satellite photos of Vietnamese and Laotian fields revealing the names and secret ID numbers of downed pilots spelled out in the grass;
* intercepted radio messages from North Vietnamese troops as they moved prisoners around; and
* the testimony several of high-ranking defectors from North Vietnam.
The 1,600 eyewitness sightings were summarily "tossed out of court" by the Kerry-McCain faction. Equally convincing testimony met the same fate. Consider the story of three satellite photos, chronicled in The American Spectator Magazine:
"[One aerial photo showed "GX2527" spelled out on the ground.] The satellite imagery is compelling. The GX in GX2527, for instance, are distress letters; 2527 is the secret four-digit number of Air Force Maj. Peter Matthes, who has been missing since 1969. . .
"[Air Force satellite photo expert Larry] Burroughs , who was brought in by the committee as a consultant, also found other, previously unidentified, distress signals among the satellite images. He also found the letters WRYE. The committee's final report dutifully notes this, but without indicating that WRYE is any more than a random collection of letters. In fact, Capt. Blair C. Wrye of the Air Force, shot down over North Vietnam on August 12, 1966, is an MIA.
"Meanwhile, new information about the satellite imagery has come to light. It is now known, for example, that on June 5, 1992, a satellite picked up S-E-R-E-X, etched on the ground near Dong Vai prison. Major Henry M. Serex, an Air Force electronic warfare officer, was shot down over Vietnam on April 2, 1972. The Pentagon lists him as dead. The satellite pictures in themselves do not prove that anyone is still alive; some of the distress signals may have been made years ago. On the other hand, some of them may be new, and others perhaps are being carved out or etched into the ground even now. At the very least, they are further proof that a cover-up has been, and still is, in progress." (from "The MIA Cover-up" by John Corry, The American Spectator, February 1994)
BAD NEWS FOR FAMILIES
POW/MIA family members became bitterly disappointed when they realized that the Kerry-McCain agenda was not to pursue fact-finding but to resume trading with Vietnam, whatever the cost. In return, both Kerry and McCain hurled insults at the family members, publicly calling them "hucksters . . . con artists . . . dime store Rambos," when all the families had ever wanted was to determine the fate of their loved ones.
When the Kerry-MCain Funeral Parlor closed its doors in 1992, they issued a final 1,123-page report which concluded: "We acknowledge that there is no proof that U.S. POWs survived, but neither is there proof that all of those who did not return had died. There is evidence, moreover, that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number . . " 1,400 plus was a "small number" to Kerry and McCain.
In other words, not to worry, only a "small number" are unaccounted for, so thumbs-up for Hanoi. As for the fate of that "small number," well, who really cares?
It should be pointed out that the POW/MIA cover-up did not originate with Kerry and McCain. It spans a period starting with President Nixon and continuing to this day. Blame must be shared among many powerful Washington officials.
However, it fell to Kerry and McCain to act as the official undertakers, and the mountain of Defense Dept. records they swept under the rug demonstrates that their findings were a blatant sham.
KERRY ORDERS RECORDS DESTROYED
John Kerry actually ordered the destruction of classified records because they revealed the inconvenient fact that POWs were being held by Hanoi as late as 1989. We know Kerry ordered record-shredding because an attorney from the Defense Intelligence Agency who was present wrote a memorandum moving to have Kerry disbarred for "Legal Misconduct, Possible Malpractice, Violation of Title 18 and Ethical Misconduct." The memorandum charges among other things that when objections were raised to the destruction of records, Kerry's liberal committee counsel Bill Codinha said, "It's classified. Who's gonna find out?"
Kerry is also quoted as threatening a staff member that, if word of the document destruction leaked out, "you'll wish you hadn't been born."
Kerry's Chief of Staff, Frances Zwenig, was caught tampering with witnesses, telling them exactly what to say for their appearances before the committee, so they could de-bunk specific evidence that would prove the survival of POWs. She is known to have leaked classified information to, and scripted, witnesses from the Defense Intelligence Agency and Communist officials from Vietnam who came to Washington to testify. This we know because of another Memorandum from the same outraged attorney, John McCreary. (In appreciation of her witness-tampering services, Ms. Zwenig now receives a six-figure salary as head of the American-Vietnamese Trade Council.)
Although the Kerry-McCain bill to normalize trade with Vietnam passed the Senate, it did so over the vociferous objections of Senators Bob Smith (R-NH) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), the minority committee members whose complaints had been reduced to two tiny footnotes in the final report. McCain was quoted as saying the Senate passage would provide "political cover" to help President Clinton normalize relations with Vietnam. He was right.
At no time was Communist Vietnam required to honestly account for missing American servicemen or reform its Stalinist ways. They were handed a trade bonanza by Kerry and McCain without paying a price.
Mike Benge, held as a POW for over 6 years in various North Vietnamese camps, testified that Hanoi kept meticulous, overlapping records on each POW. Transferred from camp to camp, each new commandant would interview him again to create a new record with the same information. The same compulsive record-keeping was applied to American soldiers killed in action. As soon as practicable, their bodies were stripped of papers and personal effects, then transported to a central morgue in Hanoi. (The doctor in charge of that charnel house testified before the Senate committee; he was dubbed "Doctor Death" and spoke from behind a curtain.)
Although Hanoi knew everything, it told next to nothing; it could well afford to keep Americans in bamboo cages. With expert coaching from Kerry's staff, Communist officials at the committee hearings had little to worry about in the way of accountability. One observer of the committee's proceedings, Marine Veteran Ted Sampley, overheard a Defense Dept. official actually apologizing to a North Vietnamese apparatchik that he couldn't be of more assistance in helping the Communist visitor shape his testimony. (!)
Bottom line: To benefit Communist Vietnam, as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs John Kerry ordered the destruction of classified Defense Dept. records; directed his chief of staff to tamper with committee witnesses; and fought tirelessly for Hanoi's interests by declaring his fellow servicemen dead in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. After trade was normalized, John Forbes Kerry's cousin, C. Stewart Forbes, CEO of Boston's Colliers International, wound up with a real estate contract worth $905 million.
HANOI'S SUPERHERO
Three years ago when the House voted 430-1 for a "Vietnam Human Rights Bill" which would penalize Vietnam for ongoing human rights abuses, one Senator made sure it didn't reach the Senate. Sen. Kerry. Naturally.
It's no wonder that John Kerry's photo is displayed in a place of honor at Ho Chi Minh City's War Remnants Museum. [See it at www.wintersoldier.com.] Other than 'Hanoi' Jane Fonda, no American ever did more for Communist Vietnam during and after the war than John Kerry.
This certainly marks the first time a candidate for President has been considered a war hero in his own country and in the enemy's - for the same war.
Meanwhile, lingering on in the memories of their long-suffering families are American servicemen in their 50s and 60s still in captivity somewhere in Southeast Asia, still wondering why their government abandoned them. God only knows how many hundreds there are or what these survivors look like today, denied proper nutrition, medical and dental care for the past 30 years. Someone still loves them, but the families remain among the most voiceless voters in the land, virtually disenfranchised in spite of giving their young men to fight for their country.
May the unseen survivors haunt Kerry and McCain for the rest of their opulent, elected lives. Better yet, may they haunt all of us. HR 103 is a House resolution to re-open next year the investigation of the POWs and MIAs buried by Kerry and McCain. Ask your Congressman to support HR 103.
THE SO WHATS?
It saddens this writer to report that liberal friends to whom she has explained the POW/MIA investigation respond by shrugging their shoulders. It simply doesn't count. Indeed, the list of Kerry actions that "just don't count" seems to be never-ending.
DURING THE VIETNAM WAR . . .
* So what if Kerry met with the Communist Vietnamese delegations in Paris twice while he was still in the Naval Reserve. Such unauthorized "intercourse with the enemy" is punishable, according to Article 104 of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, by death or other court-martial penalty, but so what -- wasn't everybody meeting with the enemy during the Vietnam War?
* So what if recently released FBI records show that the anti-war group he headed, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, was infiltrated top to bottom by known communists and debated the assassination of 3 U.S. Senators at a meeting Kerry attended (but denied attending)? Wasn't everybody planning assassinations back then?
* So what if he threw his war medals away, then ran for President on them? Can't you throw away your medals and be proud of them too?
* So what if he testified before the Senate in April 1971 as the Voice of the Vietcong? So what if he spread the falsehood that American atrocities in Vietnam were the rule, not the rare exception? So what if he left out the endless atrocities committed by the Vietcong against their own people? So what if he stated all the enemy's demands, particularly for an immediate, unconditional U.S. surrender? Wasn't everybody doing Hanoi's bidding?
IN THE 80S . . .
* So what if Kerry made an unauthorized trip in 1984 to meet with the bosses of Communist Nicaragua? Wasn't everybody traveling south to shake hands with enemies of the United States?
* So what if Kerry worked tirelessly for the next two years to help that Soviet-backed regime consolidate power and become a second Cuba in our backyard - an ambition thwarted only by free elections? Didn't everyone want Soviet-armed troops and weapons close to the Panama Canal?
IN THE 90S . . .
* So what if undertaker-in-chief John Kerry ordered POW/MIA records destroyed, tampered with witnesses, bullied staff members - falsified death records wholesale, in effect? The war's over -- why worry about those left behind?
* So what if Kerry's cousin just happened to be awarded a $905 million contract? It was pure luck.
The irony is that, had Kerry been a military officer either Vietnam or Nicaragua, any of the above actions performed in service of the United States would have won him a bullet from a firing squad. Here his actions won him the Democrats' presidential nomination.
One can only imagine how a President Kerry would dispose of American POWs and MIAs in Iraq.
TO READ MORE
For voluminous documentation of this story:
powmiafamiliesagainstjohnkerry.com
nationalalliance.org.
Also do Google keyword searches for:
kerry pow mia
schanberg pow mia village voice
john corry insight kerry pow mia
colliers stewart forbes vietnam $905 million
Help bring back those left behind in Vietnam and Korea . . . urge your Congressperson to sponsor HR RES 103.
From World War II to the presen we have betrayed our men left behind. It is a terrible stain on the honor of a great nation.
Please e-mail this to friends.
- Submitted by a Friend of POW/MIA Families
The more I know about this man the more I believe that he should be severely punished.
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