Sen. John Kerry in Hanoi seated under a bust of Communist Vietnam's deceased
leader, Ho Chi Minh, while talking to (negotiating with) a North Vietnam leader.
Kerry labeled POW/MIA families who wanted to know about their loved ones as
"professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists, and dime-store
Rambos" who were only involved in the POW/MIA issue for money.
Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who chaired the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, sponsored the resolution with several other Vietnam veterans, including Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a POW for more than six years.
"The time has come to end this chapter in our history," McCain said, denouncing some opponents as "professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists and dime-store Rambos." The Boston Globe January 27, 1994
When I tried to discuss this and other reports like it with Senator John McCain of Arizona on the Larry King radio show last Friday, McCain, who has sought over the years to debunk all data about prisoners who were not returned, quickly dismissed it as "raw files." Without having examined the documents or spoken to the intelligence investigators who gathered them, McCain said he didn't believe there could have been a camp near the Chinese border with American POWs in it "because we would have known about it."
McCain instead changed the subject and lapsed into name-calling against POW/MIA activists, a tactic he resorts to frequently when the facts get in his way. For example, in last Wednesday's Senate debate on a McCain-sponsored resolution seeking an end to the economic embargo against Vietnam, the senator ignored the hard evidence and went into a diatribe against "the professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists and dime store Rambos who attend this issue . . . "Newsday (New York) February 1, 1994