Indeed, there may be a tie between Kerry's statement before the Senate committee and the interest of the FBI in his activities. One FBI report provided to the Globe by Nicosia shows that the government was monitoring whether Kerry planned to go to Paris again. Kerry was "planning to travel to Paris, France . . . for talks with North Vietnamese peace delegation," said the report, dated Nov. 11, 1971.
What is hilarious is that Nicosia doesn't even mention Kerry having gone to Paris in his book, Home To War. He is now finding all kinds of interesting things he forgot to mention.
Kerry's statement dealt with the question of whether he was trying to negotiate in Paris as a private citizen and was thus on that "borderline" of what was allowable. A US law forbids citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on matters such as peace treaties. Meehan said Kerry was not negotiating. "Senator Kerry had no role whatsoever in the Paris peace talks or negotiations," Meehan said in his statement. "He did not engage in any negotiations and did not attend any session of the talks. Prior to his Senate testimony, he went to Paris on a private trip, where he had one brief meeting with Madam Binh and others. In an effort to find facts, he learned the status of the peace talks from their point of view and about any progress in resolving the conflict, particularly as it related to the fate of the POWs."
If you scroll up and read my excerpts from Kerry's testimony, you can see that he is clear that he negotiated. He said that Senator Eugene McCarthy (who had run for President in the previous elections), had set the precedent for negotiating with the enemy.
Kerry seems to have forgotten that he wasn't a Senator in 1970. He was simply a private citizen who had spent about four months in Vietnam.
This should be reposted!