" Did Kerry deliberately try to make it look like Nixon was responsible for deaths that occurred in 1968?"
Why not? He has the evil Nixon sending troops into Cambodia that same year, when he was not yet president. Facts, to Kerry, are not stuborn things at all.
This is a curiosity. FR has has numerous threads recently in which Kerry is quoted as saying Nixon sent him to Cambodia, but the Congressional Record just says "the President". Did Kerry say one thing on the floor of the senate and later have his speech "corrected" for the Record?
Such corrections are common. In fact, speeches can be inserted in the Record without taking the trouble to give them, but I wonder if Kerry really Believes Nixon was responsible for the war.