Posted on 03/21/2004 6:49:48 AM PST by Lando Lincoln
On the evening September 11th, 1970: thirty-one years to the day before al-Qaedas attack on America, John Forbes Kerry was sitting in a room somewhere with the other leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, engaged in a busy meeting of the Executive Committee. Among other things they discussed plans to brand all American soldiers as war criminals (literally so, in the form of demonstrations outside of induction centers, for the purpose of making clear the transition between citizen and war criminal) and making plans for a speaking tour starring fake Vietnam veteran Al Hubbard and unindicted traitor Jane Fonda. In other words, thirty-four years ago, John Kerry was engaged in the heady work slandering and insulting Americas fighting men and consorting with liars and traitors. Little has changed since.
I dont think that many people yet understand just how radical John Kerry was during the early 1970s. As a leader of one of the major anti-war organizations (one which was so anti-American that it ordered the American flag hauled down at all of its offices and engaged in private negotiations with an enemy holding American prisoners and still engaged in battle with the United States) Kerry was certainly much more radical than Bill Clinton who, for all that he was derided as a Hippy was more a poseur among that crowd than anything else. During this period, John Kerry was associated with many people who were openly allied with the enemies of the United States.
Now, naturally, this will all be down-played by the media (it was over thirty years ago! liberal commentators will shout with the same earnestness that they told us a few months ago that Bushs dental records from Alabama merely, proved that his teeth were there, not that he was there). But still, theres one potentially explosive issue lurking in all of this: something which has, to date, been ignored by a mainstream media whose bias and heavy-breathing on the Bush AWOL issue (now fully exposed as a lie) was so blatant that it even made I, I hard-nosed and long-term observer of media bias, sick. To date, this story has only been seriously discussed in print by one reporter: Thomas Lipscomb of the New York Sun, who provided a great deal of the information I have relied upon in writing this.
Heres the story in brief: from the 12th through the 15th of November in 1971, VVAW held a major meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. At that meeting a formal proposal was put forward before the organization to assassinate a number of pro-war United States Senators including Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, and John Tower.
The proposal was put forward by Scott Camil, a particularly ardent anti-war activist. Shockingly (given the supposedly non-violent nature of VVAW) this was not simply dismissed out of hand. Instead, fearing that they might be overheard by government agents, the senior members of the group relocated to a position on the outskirts of the city, where they debated and voted upon the issue! The vote was defeated, though there is debate over the margin of defeat. None of this is disputed.
Neither, at this point, is it seriously disputed that Kerry was at the meeting. The present line of his campaign, in view of several individuals who place him at the meeting along with FBI surveillance records which say the same, is that the Senator may have been there, but he neither remembers being there nor the reason why he quit the organization. Also at issue is whether Kerry actually quit the group at that time or if he merely quit his position on its executive.
It seems impossible to me that John Kerry would not remember whether he was at the meeting where he personally quite the organization which catapulted him to national fame. FBI records say he was there, other people say he was there: they recall because he gave an extended speech attacking Al Hubbard, another leader of the group, and then delivered a dramatic personal resignation. Why wouldnt he remember? Given this stunning lapse of memory why isnt the media, which spent several years spreading every hint of a lie about George W. Bushs supposed drug use looking into the question of just how many drugs the French-looking Senator was doing at the time?
Think about this for a moment: we had weeks of acrimony over charges that President Bush blew off a few National Guard drills in 1972. The media (and the left) demanded answers and evidence. Now we have a case where the presumptive Democratic nominee for the august office of President of the United States, himself a United States Senator, may have actually debated the merits of and then voted upon a resolution which would have, effectively, authorized the assassination of a number of members of the United States Senate. Even accepting the accounts of those who say that Kerry voted, no on the motion, this is still a deeply alarming issue. After all, theres no evidence that Kerry, on hearing deadly serious talk about assassinating officials of the Untied States, reported it to the proper authorities. If he did, let him say so: and let the proof in the matter be produced.
This was not the idle musing of some disgruntled do-nothing. Scott Camil had gone so far as to recruit assassins and parcel out targets. As I read it that is, in and of itself, a violation of any number of criminal laws (leaving aside regular criminal laws, it would also be a Federal Crime as the individuals targeted were Senators).
Some might seize upon John Kerrys simultaneous resignation from his position on the Executive Committee as exculpatory evidence. It is nothing of the sort. If I were to go to a club meeting tomorrow, and the fellow members of the club began to seriously plan the assassination of a public official (even if they were only a minority of the membership), it would not be enough for merely to get up and wash my hands of the matter. On learning of an assassination plot, it is not enough to say, Well, it isnt my thing. One who knows of a conspiracy to commit murder has a legal obligation to disclose that knowledge to the authorities.
In any case, Kerry still seems to have retained a link to the organization after these events. An AP report dated January 11th, 1972 describes him as being head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. A New York Times story dated January 26th 1972 describes him as, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He is identically described in another Associated Press story dated April 22, 1972. Now, these might well have simply been errors: but they sure seem like awfully persistent ones.
This issue needs to be seriously explored. I cannot think of many plausible accusations of equal seriousness which could be made. If George Bushs medical records from 1972 are an issue, then surely the possibility that John Kerry remained silent about a conspiracy to murder a number of United States Senators is at least an issue that deserves equal attention.
Oh, and theres an interesting final note on this. Guess whose campaign Scott Camil has been offered a job with?
This was not the idle musing of some disgruntled do-nothing. Scott Camil had gone so far as to recruit assassins and parcel out targets.
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Not only does he have the looks of someone who thinks he's so cool, that you want to slap him, his voice is even annoying. He sounds like an obnoxious cross between Thurston Howell and Richie Rich.
Unfortunately, it's not just leftists who would vote for her. There are enough people who would vote for her merely because of her sex to take her over the top. Further, she is viewed by many as a "moderate," (which says more about what the media considers moderate than anything else). There will be no scrutiny over her past. She is such an effective communicator, and if you don't believe that, recall how many here at FR thought Lazio had a real shot at beating her.
She's dangerous, more so this year than at any other time. The key to winning this one is to play Kerry like a fish until the very end.
The author of this blog is obviously a close reader of the posts here about this subject. Last night, as you know, I posted how there seemed to be some follow-on activity, since Terry DuBose claims to have been told to assassinate John Tower, since he (DuBose) was also from Texas. I didn't say Camil approached DuBose--and neither did the DuBose quote.
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All polls I've seen show Bush beating Hillary far easier than beating Kerry. Much of media does indeed attempt to portray her as a moderate, but not enough people buy into that nonsense to put her over the top in a general election, imo.
"Kerry was certainly much more radical than Bill Clinton who, for all that he was derided as a Hippy was more a poseur among that crowd than anything else.
Clinton was into the "free love" part of that era, nothing more -- far from a radical, relatively to Kerry and his ilk.
1. Clinton travelled extensively in East Europe at the height of the cold war....who did he meet.?
and
2. Arranged the massive 1968 demonstration outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Publication:The New York Sun; | Date:Mar 12, 2004; | Section:Front page; | Page:1 |
When Talk Turned To Assassination He Exited, Vet Says
By THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB Special to the Sun
The anti-war group that John Kerry was the principal spokesman for debated and voted on a plot to assassinate politicians who supported the Vietnam War.
Mr. Kerry denies being present at the November 12-15, 1971, meeting in Kansas City of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and says he quit the group before the meeting. But according to the current head of Missouri Veterans for Kerry, Randy Barnes, Mr. Kerry,who was then 27,was at the meeting, voted against the plot, and then orally resigned from the organization.
Mr. Barnes was present as part of the Kansas City host chapter for the 1971 meeting and recounted the incident in a phone interview with The New York Sun this week.
In addition to Mr. Barness recollection placing Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, another Vietnam veteran who attended the meeting, Terry Du-Bose, said that Mr. Kerry was there.
There are at least two other independent corroborations that the antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, of which Mr. Kerry was the most prominent national spokesman, considered assassinating American political leaders who favored the war.
Gerald Nicosias 2001 book Home To War reports that one of the key leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Scott Camil,proposed the assassination of the most hard-core conservative members of Congress,as well as any other powerful, intractable opponents of the antiwar movement.The book reports on the Kansas City meeting at which Mr.Camils plan was debated and then voted down.
Mr. Nicosias book was widely praised by reviewers as varied as General Harold Moore, author of We Were Soldiers; Gloria Emerson, who had been a New York Times reporter during the Vietnam War, and leftist Howard Zinn. Mr. Kerry himself stated in a blurb on the cover that the book ties together the many threads of a difficult period. Mr. Kerry hosted a party for the book in the Hart Senate Office Building that was televised on C-SPAN.
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.Kerrys 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.
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. Kerrys 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.
According to the Nicosia book and interviews with VVAW members who were involved, at the Vietnam Veterans 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. Mr. Camils Phoenix Project planned to execute the Southern senatorial leadership that was financing the Vietnam War. Senators like John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and John Tower were his targets, according to Mr. Camil. They were to be killed during the Senate Christmas recess the following month.
After an attempt to parcel out the hit jobs required to kill the senators, Mr. Camils plan was presented to all the chapter coordinators present and the VVAW leadership. Mr. Nicosias book recounts, What Camil sketched was so explosive that the coordinators feared lest government agents even hear of it. So they decamped to a church on the outskirts of town with the intention of debating the plan in complete privacy.When they got to the church, however, they found that the government was already on to them; their debugging expert uncovered microphones hidden all over the place. An instantaneous decision was made to move again to Common Ground, a Mennonite hall used by homeless vets as a crash pad.
Camil was deadly serious, brilliant, and highly logical, Mr. Nicosia told the Sun.
The plan was voted down. Theres a difference of opinion as to how narrow the margin was.
The claims of Mr. Kerrys involvement in the assassination discussions in Kansas City have apparently not been previously reported.
The most recent book that focuses on Mr. Kerrys relations with his fellow Vietnam veterans, Douglas Brinkleys Tour of Duty, reports the events as follows: In a November 10 letter housed at the VVAW papers in Madison,Wisconsin, Kerry quit, politely noting he had been proud to serve in the national organization. His reason was straightforward: personality conflicts and differences in political philosophy. In two days,VVAW was meeting in Kansas City and he would be a noshow.
But in a footnote, Mr. Brinkley acknowledges,I could not locate Kerrys November 10 VVAW resignation letter supposedly housed at the Wisconsin archives. The quote I used comes directly from Andrew E. Hunts essential The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1999).
When asked by the Sun who told him Mr. Kerry was no-show at Kansas City, Mr. Brinkley replied, Senator Kerry. Mr. Brinkley also stated that Mr. Kerry did not have a personal copy of the resignation letter either.
But in an interview with the Sun, the essential historian Mr. Brinkley relied on as his source, Andrew E. Hunt, said I never stated that there was a letter of resignation, or even implied in my book that I saw one. I never could find one in the archives in Wisconsin. I dont know how Brinkley got the idea that I had. I never could figure out when Kerry resigned. When asked about Mr. Brinkleys statement that Mr. Kerry didnt have a copy of the resignation letter either, Mr. Hunt said, I dont know about that. I never could get an interview with Senator Kerry. But I never saw anyone who saves things the way Kerry does.
Whether or not there was a letter of resignation dated November 10 is obviously important, since it predates the Kansas City assassination discussions by two days.
Mr. Camil said he did not recall whether Mr. Kerry was at the Kansas City meeting nor did he recall whether he had discussed his assassination plan with Mr. Kerry.
But Mr. Barnes, the head of the Missouri Veterans for Kerry, said, I dont think there was a letter of resignation. He just said he was resigning after the vote.
Clearly there is considerable confusion about the time of Mr. Kerrys resignation.According to Mr. Nicosia,He resigned from the executive committee after a spectacular argument with VVAW leader Al Hubbard at the July national leadership meeting in St Louis.
But on behalf of the John Kerry campaign, spokesman David Wade told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Kerry resigned from Vietnam Veterans Against the War sometime in the summer of 1971 after the August meeting in St. Louis, which Kerry did not attend.
Mr.Wade also said,Kerry was not at the Kansas City meeting.
Two-thirds of the American troops in Vietnam at the height of American commitment in 1969 had already been withdrawn in the Vietnamization policy in effect at the time of the VVAW Kansas City conference in November 1971. When asked recently by the Sun why the assassinations still seemed necessary, Mr. Camil replied: The war was still going on. We had to stop it.
After an attempt to parcel out the hit jobs required to kill the senators, Mr. Camils plan was presented to all the chapter coordinators present and the VVAW leadership.
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Not much of a leap. More like a baby step. But I see your point. I'll keep digging.
This is the most important sentence in the blog, and we need to see proof of it. If this can be backed up, it means that Kerry was indeed a conspirator to commit murder of federal officers. Penalty of up to life in prison.
Was a move made toward killing, or not??
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