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| Gerald Nicosia sits in the dining room of his Corte Madera home from where he says FBI documents were stolen. Alan Dep photo |
Last week, the Los Angeles Times broke the story that Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, had been closely monitored by FBI agents for more than a year due to his work with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Times reporter John Glionna said he wrote the story after briefly skimming through a mountain of documents obtained by Nicosia under the Freedom of Information Act. No one knows what is in the missing files - including Nicosia, who submitted his Freedom of Information request in 1988 while working on his book "Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement." The information he requested - 14 boxes of files detailing the FBI's spying on the VVAW - arrived in 1999, too late for him to incorporate in his book.
"By the time I got the files, the book was about to go to press," Nicosia said. Nicosia, who needed to move on to another project, set the files aside. It wasn't until a month ago, after a writer from the New York Sun called him with questions about a 1971 VVAW meeting in Kansas City, that he began to read some of the files. At the end of their conversation, Nicosia says the Sun writer told him: "By the way, you know John Kerry was at that meeting." Nicosia said all of the information he'd seen until then had indicated otherwise. Kerry had stated that he resigned four months prior to that four-day Kansas City meeting - during which some members of the VVAW suggested that the group initiate peace talks with North Vietnamese officials. One member at the meeting even suggested the possibility of assassinating U.S. senators who still backed the war, Nicosia said. The information in the files that Nicosia obtained from the FBI indicated that Kerry resigned during this Kansas City meeting in November 1971. Nicosia, a Kerry supporter, said he notified the Kerry campaign when he noticed the discrepancy, and Kerry corrected his mistake shortly after. He chalked the error up to a faulty memory. Nicosia said his files also contained information supporting a story that ran in the Boston Globe Wednesday. The story said that Kerry traveled to Paris in 1971 and spoke to North Vietnamese negotiators. Kerry has since issued a statement saying the talks were informal, Nicosia said. Kerry, who requested his FBI dossier in 1987, was surprised to learn of the information in the files obtained by Nicosia because it demonstrated an extensive amount of surveillance that hadn't been revealed to him. Following publication of the Los Angeles Times article, Kerry released some of the documents he had been given. The memos reported that there was nothing to associate Kerry with any violence or violent group. They recommended that no further investigation be conducted. A tireless researcher, Nicosia, 54, spent 12 years interviewing more than 600 veterans and doctors for "Home to War." Published by Crown/Random House in 2001, the book runs 690 pages. His other books include "Memory Babe," a biography of Jack Kerouac published in 1983. Nicosia first noticed the missing documents on Thursday evening. His wife had closed the doors leading to his children's bedrooms because they were messy and didn't want Glionna, who was coming over to do a follow-up interview, to see them. When she came home in the afternoon and found them open, Nicosia said she blamed him. Nicosia first noticed the missing documents on Thursday evening. His wife had closed the doors leading to his children's bedrooms because they were messy and didn't want Glionna, who was coming over to do a follow-up interview, to see them. When she came home in the afternoon and found them open, Nicosia said she blamed him. Then several hours later, Nicosia noticed that four folders laced with references to Kerry, which he had already book-marked - as well as three entire boxes of documents - had disappeared from the dining room. "Then it clicked on me," Nicosia said. Someone could have entered the house during the afternoon when Nicosia went out and his wife and children were also out of the house. But Twin Cities Police Cpt. Michael Casteen said there was no sign of forced entry, and a construction crew working nearby said it saw nothing. Nicosia said a repairman was working on the sliding glass door in the room where the documents were kept earlier on Thursday while he was upstairs being interviewed by Glionna. Nicosia said the police are attempting to question the repairman, who works for a Sonoma County business. But Casteen said, "Right now, we have very little to go on." Early last week, a CNN reporter interviewed Nicosia at this house and broadcast pictures of the room with the documents. "Everyone saw what the boxes look like," Nicosia said. While he has no evidence, Nicosia said he suspects political motives. "There is obviously a lot of sensitive stuff in that material - stuff that could really be used against Kerry in a big way in the campaign," Nicosia said. " Maybe we're back in the era of dirty tricks." Contact Richard Halstead via e-mail at rhalstead@marinij.com |