| Another source is an October 20,1992, oral history interview of Scott Camil on file at the University of Florida Oral History Archive.In it,Mr.Camil speaks of his plan for an alternative to Mr. Kerry’s idea of symbolically throwing veterans’ medals over the fence onto the steps of the Capitol during the Dewey Canyon III demonstration in Washington in April of 1971. According to the Nicosia book and interviews with VVAW members who were involved, at theVietnamVeterans Against the War Kansas City leadership conference, Mr. Camil tried to put his plan into effect. He called together eight to 10 Marines to organize something he called “The Phoenix Project.” The original Phoenix Project during the Vietnam War was an attempt to destroy the Viet Cong leadership by assassination. “My plan was that, on the last day we would go into the [congressional] offices we would schedule the most hardcore hawks for last — and we would shoot them all,” Mr. Camil told the Oral History interviewer. “I was serious.” In a phone interview with the Sun this week, Mr. Camil did not dispute either the account in the Nicosia book or in the oral history. He said he plans to accept an offer by the Florida Kerry organization to become active in Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign. Campaign aides to Mr. Kerry invited Mr.Camil to a meeting for the senator in Orlando last week, but they did not meet directly. Mr. Camil was known to colleagues in the anti-war movement as “Scott the Assassin.” Mr. Camil told The New York Sun he got the name in Vietnam for “sneaking down to the Vietnamese villages at night and killing people.” I wonder if this is a reference to some of the war crimes about which Kerry testified before Congress ? |