New Witness: Kerry Was Present at Dark Plot Meeting

NY SUN | 3-15-04 | Tom Lipscomb

[doug from upland]

Publication:The New York Sun;

Date:Mar 15, 2004;

Section:National;

Page:4

New Witness: Kerry Was Present at Dark Plot Meeting

Group Debated and Voted Down Plan To Assassinate Senators

By THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB Special to the Sun


    Another witness has come forward to attest that John Kerry was at a November 1971 meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which the group debated and voted down a plan to assassinate senators who supported the Vietnam War.

    A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, has said Mr. Kerry did not attend the Kansas City meeting, and Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley has said Mr. Kerry told him he was a “noshow.”

    “Kerry may have resigned shortly after that meeting or at the meeting…” recalled the VVAW Kansas State coordinator at the time, John Musgrave, in an interview that was published Saturday in the Kansas City Star. Mr. Musgrave is the third VVAW member at the time that has been named as seeing Mr. Kerry at Kansas City. Mr. Musgrave specifically remembered Mr. Kerry’s attendance and his speaking against the murder plot against the senators.

    The Star cited the national director of Veterans for Kerry, a former VVAW member, John Hurley, as saying: “I think he is confusing the St. Louis and Kansas City meetings.”

    But if Mr. Hurley is acknowledging that Mr. Kerry was present at the earlier St. Louis meeting, he is disagreeing with the Kerry spokesman, Mr.Wade, and calling into doubt a recent statement by Mr. Kerry.

    At a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday, Mr. Kerry was asked by a reporter if he thought his credibility had been affected by his close association with Al Hubbard, a key VVAW colleague of Mr. Kerry’s who had appointed him to the leadership of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

    Mr. Hubbard claimed to be a wounded Air Force officer who had served at Danang during the Vietnam War. He appeared with Mr. Kerry many times, including the “Meet the Press” interview after Mr. Kerry’s Senate testimony about American “war crimes” in Vietnam. But Mr. Hubbard was never in Vietnam, was never wounded, and was not an officer, as subsequent research and Mr.Kerry himself have pointed out.

    Mr.Kerry answered he had not spoken to Mr. Hubbard since the week of April 19, 1971. But in the New York Times of August 30, 1971, reporter Enid Nemy, covering an East Hampton fund-raising party for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, states: “Later, Mr. Kerry and Al Hubbard, another veteran, explained some of the aims of the organization….”

    Those present included journalists Jimmy Breslin and Peter Maas, Bruce Jay Friedman, Tom Paxton, and Patricia Kennedy Lawford.

    In separate interviews with The New York Sun, both VVAW member Terry DuBose and Kerry biographer Mr. Brinkley have confirmed Mr. Kerry’s presence at the July St. Louis steering committee meeting of the VVAW.

    Gerald Nicosia, author of the 2001 book “Home to War,” also writes that Mr. Kerry was at that meeting. In a memorable account, Mr. Nicosia said Mr. Kerry “resigned from the executive committee” after a spectacular argument with Mr. Hubbard.“Kerry made a long speech punctuated at frequent intervals by the demand: ‘Who is Al Hubbard?’” and “challenged him to prove he was a Vietnam veteran.” According to the book, Mr. Hubbard “freaked out” and screamed insults at Mr. Kerry.

    In the Kansas City Star account, one of the three veterans who has placed Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, Randy Barnes, first was quoted as saying Mr. Kerry was in Kansas City, which is what he had stated in his interview with the Sun.

    According to the Star, “upon reflection later in the day [Barnes stated] that he could ‘not be absolutely certain’ that Kerry was in Kansas City for the meeting.”

    Terry DuBose, who initially remembered a great deal, began having failures of memory on a third call. And Scott Camil, who in his interview with the Sun could not recall whether Mr. Kerry was at the Kansas City meeting, suddenly remembered in talking with the Star several days later that Mr. Kerry was not.

    In a March 13, 2004, story, the New York Times cited concern among Democrats about “careless utterances of a fatigued, or undisciplined candidate,” but Mr. Wade reassured that “every statement he made we stand by.”

[doug from upland]

Okay, folks, where does the truth lie? Was Kerry in St. Louis? Was Kerry in Kansas City? Three witnesses have place him at the Kansas City meeting. Where is Kerry's resignation letter? When did Kerry resign? Did Kerry vote on whether to kill United States senators? If Kerry resigned earlier because he would not be involved in this suggested violence, why didn't he report the conspiracy to federal authorities? When did Kerry last meet Al Hubbard? Are we to believe the NY TIMES or John Kerry?

A man is running to become the commander in chief. America has the right to get these answers. We must demand that the Washington press corps ask the questions. Remember Woodward and Bernstein? I can't wait for the book and movie. Will Robert Redford play Lipscomb???

[doug from upland]

Article link: CLICK.

[go star go]

there should be a paper trail to prove kerry was there. hotel records/credit card records/etc. i'm sure some enterprising PI could prove it.

[GailA]

Doug is this scott camil going to be working for the hanoi john campaign? We need to do some looking into him. Caller on Mike Fleming local Memphis talk host told us that camil was a real crooked dude has a long record of being involved in shady doings.

We've been camping and I just logged on.

[The G Man]

Would it be too much to ask of the media to hold Kerry to the same standard on this story as they held Bush to on the Alabama AWOL story?

[doug from upland]

Hotels didn't have computers at that time so finding those records would probably be impossible. What are the chances that he would release credit card records even if he had them?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Whether Kerry was there or not, or resigned before during or after the meeting are secondary considerations to his not reporting it. Not one version of his story denies that he knew about the group's plans for assassination. So he resigned over it. BFD.

[mountaineer]

Related issue: how Kerry betrayed Vietnam POWs, story here, in the left-wing Village Voice.

[abner]

Bump!

[doug from upland]

Exactly my thoughts. A silly AWOL story was more important than this. I WANT TO SEE KERRY'S DENTAL RECORDS. Of course, his teeth might have been there, but it wouldn't prove that he was there. :)

[thoughtomator]

Maybe the truth is that they were all too stoned to remember anything clearly.

[EggsAckley]

Forget about Redford doing anything that would damage a Demoncrat. I for one would like to know why Kerry's military files have not been released. They demanded Bush's files, what about Kerry's?

[doug from upland]

Exactly. If this is the issue that caused Kerry to resign the organization, his duty was to report to federal authorities that there was someone advocating the murder of U.S. senators.

[Smartass]

If Kerry was there, and voted no, he would still be guilty of conspiracy ... along with all of the others. If he wasn't there, but had knowledge of the goings on, he would still be guilty of withholding information that could have led to assassinations. The questions revolve around what he knew, and when he knew it. If he was one of the leaders of Vietnam Vets Against the War, he probably had some information. This revelation should be exploited to it's fullest.

[Lexington Green]

Will these Kerry staffers try to assassinate Bush? Apparently, it's not inconceivable. They plotted to kil US sennators. Nobody disputes that. Hope the Secret Service has its eye on these potential assassins.

[hobbes1]

Would it be too much to ask of the media to hold Kerry to the same standard on this story as they held Bush to on the Alabama AWOL story?

surely that question is rhetorical.....lol

[tkathy]

If GWB had done this, it would make headlines.

[Howlin]

and Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley has said Mr. Kerry told him he was a “noshow.”

Is anybody keeping a count of how many things Brinkley has had to "change" in this book since it was published?

[js1138]

It is to his credit that he challenged Hubbard and fought over the radicalization of the organization. But that's not good enough for someone running for president. He should have made a clean break decades ago and denounced the conspirators.

[doug from upland]

Okay, maybe Mel Gibson could play the role. Oh, that's right. He is no longer welcome in Hollywood. I guess with the almost a billion dollars he will make on his movie, he really doesn't care about the Hollywood leftist elite.