KERRY RETREATS FROM HIS DENIAL ON VIETNAM MEET - Evidence Puts Him At Kansas Parley

New York Sun ^ | Mar 19, 2004 | JOSH GERSTEIN

[kennedy]

MILL VALLEY, Calif. — Senator Kerry of Massachusetts yesterday retreated from his earlier steadfast denials that he attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plan to assassinate U.S. Senators was debated.

The reversal came as new evidence, including reports from FBI informants, emerged that contradicted Mr. Kerry’s previous statements about the gathering, which was held in Kansas City, Mo. in November 1971.

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,” a Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said in a statement e-mailed last night from Idaho, where Mr. Kerry is on vacation.

Mr. Wade said Mr. Kerry does remember “disagreements with elements of VVAW leadership” that led to his resignation, but the statement did not specify what the disagreements were.

“If there are valid FBI surveillance reports from credible sources that place some of those disagreements in Kansas City, we accept that historical footnote in the account of his work to end the difficult and divisive war,” the statement said.

It did not address the murder plot, though as recently as Wednesday a top aide to Mr. Kerry said that the Massachusetts senator and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was “absolutely certain” he was not present when the assassination plan, known as the “Phoenix Project,” was discussed.

The New York Sun first reported last week that other anti-war activists placed Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting. A total of six people have now said publicly that they remember seeing Mr. Kerry there. Participants say the plot was voted down, and several say they remember Mr. Kerry speaking and voting against it.

A historian and expert on activism against the Vietnam War, Gerald Nicosia, provided the Sun yesterday with minutes of the meeting.

Mr. Nicosia also read quotes from FBI surveillance documents he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act as he was preparing his 2001 book, “Home to War.”

“My evidence is incontrovertible.He was there,” Mr. Nicosia said in an interview yesterday. “There’s no way that five or six agents saw his ghost there,” said the historian, who lives in Marin County, north of San Francisco.

Mr. Nicosia said that the records show Mr. Kerry resigned from the group on the third day of the meeting, following discussion of the assassination plan and an argument between Mr. Kerry and another VVAW national coordinator, Al Hubbard.

Reading from an FBI informant report, Mr. Nicosia said, “John Kerry at a national Vietnam Veterans Against the War meeting appeared and announced to those present that he resigned for personal reasons but said he would be able to speak for VVAW” at future events.Another document “describes a conversation actually a confrontation between John Kerry and Hubbard that was taking place on one of the days of that meeting,” Mr. Nicosia added.

Mr. Nicosia said it is clear that Mr. Kerry and the others resigned because of the extreme actions the group was considering.

“It’s kind of unmistakable to see a pattern. All four of them were out the door, bingo, the morning after” the socalled Phoenix plot was discussed, the author said.

Mr. Nicosia generally declined to speculate on why Mr. Kerry had denied being present. However, the author did observe, “Especially if you’re running for president, you don’t want to be associated with a plot for assassinating people.”

Mr. Nicosia repeatedly stressed that he was not calling Mr. Kerry a liar and said he has no animus towards the senator. The historian said he sent copies of some of the documents to the Kerry campaign yesterday morning on his own initiative. “I think Senator Kerry better get his story straight on this,”Mr. Nicosia said.

“I’m a Kerry supporter. I honor the guy,”Mr.Nicosia said.He noted that Mr. Kerry threw a book party for “Home at War” at the Hart Senate Office Building. The senator also wrote a positive blurb for the book’s dust jacket.

The book does not mention Mr. Kerry’s presence at the Kansas City meeting. Mr. Nicosia said he did not have the FBI files as he was writing the manuscript. Other accounts led him to think that Mr. Kerry had quit the group at a July meeting in St. Louis.

Mr. Nicosia also provided the Sun with minutes of the meeting that he obtained from the Wisconsin state archives, which hold most of VVAW’s papers.

The minutes, prepared at the group’s national office in New York, recount the actions taken by VVAW’s “emergency steering committee” during the four-day meeting, which ran from November 12 to 15, 1971. The minutes indicate that at the end of the day on Saturday, November 13, discussion turned to “national actions and other things.” The meeting is reported to have adjourned at 10 p.m. and resumed at 11 a.m. Sunday. The document goes on to say that the group passed a motion to hold a “national action… in 3 to 5 different sites.”The next entry in the minutes is, “John Kerry, Scott Moore, Mike Oliver and Skip Roberts resigned as national coordinators.” A later entry indicates that it was decided that the resignations and the decision on the “national action” should be reflected in all the group’s papers.

According to Mr. Nicosia, the FBI documents and other records do not include any direct reference to the assassination plot. However, Mr. Nicosia said some informants who attended the Kansas City meeting warned the FBI of a “drastic move toward more violent actions.”

A VVAW chapter newsletter obtained by the Sun reports that after “much argument” the Kansas City meeting went into closed session “for various opaque reasons of security and expediency in order to discuss the national Christmas action.” The newsletter also notes the resignation of Mr. Kerry and the other three leaders. It cites “personality conflicts and differences in political philosophies” as the main reasons for the resignations.

A group of VVAW members seized the Statue of Liberty on behalf of the group on December 27, 1971. It’s unclear whether that action was approved at the Kansas City meeting in November.

The three other men who appear to have resigned along with Mr. Kerry did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Mr. Moore did not reply to an e-mail and messages left at his home. Mr. Roberts is now the legislative director for the Service Employees International Union, which is supporting Mr. Kerry’s presidential bid. Reached at his union office Wednesday, Mr. Roberts said he would call back but did not. Efforts to locate Mr. Oliver were unsuccessful.

Earlier in the week,some aides to Mr. Kerry suggested that because he appeared on a PBS “Firing Line” broadcast with William F. Buckley on November 14, 1971, Mr. Kerry could not have attended the Kansas City gathering. But that contention also disintegrated yesterday on closer examination.

Tapes of the “Firing Line” television program are housed at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. An archivist there, Carol Leadenham, told the Sun that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Buckley taped a program on November 2, 1971. No air date was noted, but Ms. Leadenham said it is likely that it aired about two weeks later.

“That’s about the usual time between the taping and the air date,” she said.

Some discrepancies in Mr. Kerry’s earlier statements about VVAW remain unaddressed by the campaign. Last week, Mr. Kerry said he last saw Mr. Hubbard in April 1971, shortly before a National Review article exposed Mr. Hubbard for exaggerating his rank and his service record in Vietnam. However, a New York Times report put Mr. Kerry at a fund-raiser with Mr. Hubbard on Long Island on August 29, 1971. Now, Mr. Nicosia’s documents indicate that Mr. Kerry had a verbal altercation with Mr. Hubbard in November of that year.

[Deb]

Has anyone mentioned the fact that Kerry's 1971 testimony will be shown on C-SPAN Sunday? Also his debate on Dick Cavett's show, with a conservative Vietnam vet.

[Torie]

It's been mentioned, but it bears repeating.

[Howlin]

I know my eyes are being opened and I'm reconsidering what I thought I knew.

You know what, I've thought the same thing: I am horrified to be left with the thought that maybe I, too, have let people like John Kerry color my assumptions about Vietnam.

[scannell]

What about the law that requires someone with guilty knowledge of a conspiracy to commit murder to report it to the authorities and therefore, failure to do so would constitute committing a felony themselves?

[Hon]

John Kerry during a July 6, 1971, appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. After his antiwar testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, he became a much sought-after guest on late night talk shows.

++++++

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I can't help but think they are showing that show (as opposed to the many others they have to choose from), because Kerry is said to have done so well against John O'Neill--who lost his temper.

(Also, O'Neill was tarred as having been "hand picked" by Nixon and Colson to "represent" the other side.

An interesting sideline, is that Scott Camil was also supposed to appear with Kerry, and debate another pro-war vet. But the other guy didn't show, so Camil got bumped.

And yes, I mean, that Scott Camil--of the murder plot.

[scannell]

It's not that Kerry disagreed with the Phoenix Project, but with the way they were doing it.

[onyx]

I'm embarrassed a bit...





HA! That's a first! :)

[scannell]

The interesting point is not the original "mistaken" report from the reporter, but the corroberation of the point by Kerry himself when he said he "looked the leaders in the eye and they said you got to win this one..........."

[Hon]

Gee, how times change;

Was VVAW Involved In Plans To Murder 7 US Senators In 1971? What Did Kerry Know?
"Winter Soldiers"/ "Home To War" | March 11, 2004 | Various

Posted on 03/10/2004 10:29:58 PM EST by Hon

To: Hon

This is the kind of thread the oppositon loves.

2 posted on 03/10/2004 10:33:02 PM EST by Torie

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

[Torie]

This is the kind of thread the oppositon loves.

[Torie]

More information seeps into the mind, and new opinions are formed. Amazing isn't it? Ya, I was wrong to gently flame you. I made a mistake. Sorry.

[Texasforever]

Ah be fair, hell this story was so bizarre it defied imagination..

[Hon]

Do you suppose certain parties knew about this from the beginning? Certain parties with strong ties to the anti-war movement?
I hate being a tin foil hat guy but I can't believe that people didn't know this stuff. I knew all about Kerry and VVAW.

++++++

Where were you when I was posting this more than a month ago?

Kerry's Group The VVAW Discussed Assassinating Seven Pro-War Senators In December 1971
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1080806/posts

If I see one more post suggesting that this was brought up by Hillary or the DNC or even the GOP, I think I will scream.

I brought it up. And nobody is paying me nothing.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1080806/posts

[Torie]

It is hard to envision a nominee for president chatting about killing US senators, albeit in dissent bless him, and then engage in a calculated and ongoing coverup, attended by lies. And then he is willing to have the chap who advocated the killings at that time, now be involved in his Florida campaign, and meet with him. I assume that that plan is now inoperative. It really is tinfoil stuff, except it appears in this case to be dead on. The odds were low that any of it was true, but sometimes lottery tickets are winners.

[Hon]

Just teasing you. You weren't alone by the way. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't get less grief posting at DU.

[Hon]

How about a candidate who negotiated with the enemy during a time of war?

Kerry Met With Viet Cong And North Vietnamese In Paris In 1971
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1091943/posts

[Torie]

Just keep at it, and engage. Many here on FR are fair minded. Typing some stuff in your own words would help, as a friendly suggestion. Copy and paste is valuable, but sometimes the personal touch and the attendant communication, helps to seal the deal. Just a suggestion.

[Texasforever]

It is hard to envision a nominee for president chatting about killing US senators, albeit in dissent bless him, and then engage in a calculated and ongoing coverup, attended by lies.

It is very strange the way he has handled it. If he resigned in protest that is a plus not a negative so why try to cover up what would appear to be a principled action?

[Torie]

I don't know. Of course, he should have reported it all to the authorities. I certainly would have, on speed dial, if they had speed dial then, which they didn't Of course, the authorities already knew.

In short, if someone was suggesting a plot to mass murder US senators, I would have freaked. It would have been an epiphaney for me. Your mileage may vary.

[Rollee]

Bumping for later.

[Hon]

"Typing some stuff in your own words would help, as a friendly suggestion. Copy and paste is valuable, but sometimes the personal touch and the attendant communication, helps to seal the deal. Just a suggestion."

Gee thanks for the advice.

But unlike many here I think the facts are more important than my "musings." Call my crazy.

But maybe you're right. I should put in a little more raw conjecture and ranting and cut back on the substantiation.

After all, I want to fit in.