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French also said Kerry lied about their unit's record in Vietnam. The two men were in the same division for two months in early 1969. He said Kerry's claims after he returned home that the unit engaged in "atrocities" are false

I went to your source in the Oregonian, and this popped out at me.

They were in the same unit, and French says they didn't engage in atrocities. This is something he would know, and it's also something that Kerry has admitted to exaggerating.

The other quotes were basically French saying that Kerry lied about specific incidents. Since we don't have the affidavit in front of us we don't know what modifiers French used in those very short quotes attributed to him in the article. Since it's supposed to be a 3 page statement, and these quotes are a few short sentences, then all I can say is that I want to see the entire statement.

I want to see the context and if there are modifiers used.

Do you have a link to the affidavit?

As noted above, I found the links via Google for the PDF file. But the Swift site pulled the document down. I sniffed their server to see if it was hidden or could otherwise be found. No luck yet. It appears they control it.

No doubt, it could be found somewhere since they had it available for download before. Maybe someone here at FR has a copy of it.

You find excerpts from it in various writings. Here is a paragraph from FrontPage on the dismal prospects of a Kerry libel suit. Notice the reliance on French:

Second, many of the factual statements are utterly benign, and thus could never be actionable. For example, “I served with John Kerry” [French, Elder, Hildreth]. That leaves factual statements like Hibbard’s: Kerry “lied before the Senate.” In libel law, truth is an absolute defense. If, for example, it is true that Kerry “lied before the Senate,” that Kerry “has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam” [Elliott], that Kerry “is lying about his record” [French], and that Kerry “lied to get his Bronze Star” [O’Dell], Kerry has no case for libel.

So would French's benign statement be libel since he's admitted he didn't witness the events himself? I dunno. Probably depends on the court you're in. The professor says Kerry's lawyers would never let him file libel charges because then he'd be opening himself to document discovery requests which we all know would be disastrous for him.

But the article at hand is still a matter of an attorney, French, providing a false sworn statement that he witnessed something he now admits he did not witness.

Do you have a link to the affidavit?

Still searching. Actually, the hunt is interesting. I found this copy of John O'Neill's letter to station managers at rivervets.com:

As described in the attached affidavits, Al French (Exhibit 2), Bob Elder (Exhibit 3), Jack Chenoweth (Exhibit 7), Larry Thurlow (Exhibit 10), and Bob Hildreth (Exhibit 14) were all officers in charge of Swift boats in Vietnam in Coastal Division 11 with John Kerry.

With French now discredited as a witness to these events, 20% of the officers who accuse Kerry just evaporated. That two attorneys (French & O'Neill) could have somehow overlooked the fact that French did not serve with Kerry in combat is more than a little odd.

Then we see that Kerry's immediate commander, Elliott, retracted his statement entirely about Kerry's Silver Star. Frankly, his statements about it all just sound confused to me. At any rate, he was one of the top three commanding officers in the chain of command over Kerry and all SwiftVets.

It's interesting to examine the documents (the few you can still find from either side!) in the light of how they appeared when first issued and how they now appear when we learn of the specific accusations by the most important players have been retracted or discredited.

Natually, Kerry is still a worm. No retractions by French or Elliot alters that. There are plenty of questions about his service and the actions he took after leaving Vietnam that remain unanswered. Or are unanswerable.