Posted on 08/27/2004 9:10:17 AM PDT by dennisw
August 27, 2004
DID DOUGLAS BRINKLEY single-handedly create John Kerry's Swift Boat nightmare? It appears so. First Douglas Brinkley inspired the founding of "Swift Boat Vets for Truth" with his book "Tour of Duty". Quotable:Retired since 1978 as a two-star rear admiral, [Roy] Hoffmann comes under particular criticism in the Kerry biography. Brinkley wrote that Kerry saw him as approving cowboy tactics and holding a cavalier attitude toward civilian casualties. Hoffmann said was stunned to find what he termed "gross exaggerations" and "distortions of fact" attributed to Kerry in the Brinkley book. That motivated him to contact other veterans and ask if they'd seen the book. Before long, he said, he had "80 to 100 people solidly lined up" to cooperate in the production of a new book - "Unfit for Command" by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi - that outlines their challenge to Kerry.Then he provoked John Kerry's most potent Swift Boat accuser -- shipmate Steve Gardner -- with a viciously unfair hit piece in TIME magazine. Quotable:[Steve Gardner's] first public statement came unintentionally, he said, when Douglas Brinkley, author of the authorized Kerry war biography "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" talked to him in a phone conversation he thought was off the record.Good work Doug. Can't wait to read your New Yorker piece.Brinkley put Gardner's thoughts in a March 9 article for Time magazine online, "The Tenth Brother" in which he got a story "sharply different from what the other nine crew members have had to say." Gardner said he thought Brinkley, who spoke with him for two hours, simply was checking facts he had gathered in compiling his book, which relied heavily on Kerry's personal war journals.
Brinkley claims he had tried hard to track down Gardner during his research for the book, but Gardner is skeptical, noting the Globe's Kranish was able to reach him easily. In the Time story, Brinkley writes: "A disappointed Wasser gave me Gardner's telephone numbers, reminding me that PCF-44 gunner's mate was nicknamed 'The Wild Man' by his crewmates for his hair-trigger penchant for firing M-60s into the mangrove thicket. 'Let me know what you find out,' Wasser told me. 'I'm having trouble understanding where he's coming from."
After that article, Gardner said he felt "trashed" and vulnerable, until he got a call from Adm. Roy Hoffman, the organizer of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ..
Now Gardner appears in the new swiftboat vets' television ad, accusing Kerry of falsely claiming to have spent Christmas in Cambodia in 1968. "If I had been by my lonesome, I would have been history six months ago," he said. "Nobody would have listened to me as a gunner's mates, until officers stepped forward and said, 'This has got to stop.'"
UPDATE: Here's some good advice for John Kerry:
First, admit the fallibility of wartime memory: He was not in Cambodia in 1968 when he said he remembers "President Nixon" (who did not take office until Jan. 20, 1969) lying to the American people.Does John Kerry want to be "right" -- or does he want to be President?Second, clarify that he never saw any war crimes committed by Swift Boat units he served with or in. Apologize to vets offended by the aspersions in his postwar remarks ..
Such modesty and magnanimity would be great qualities to reveal in a man who would be commander in chief ..
Arrogantly, righteously, duplicitously superior or humbly, honestly, openly conciliatory. What shall it be?
.. and thought mama T would fix any problems, like she always did. Kerry lives in an alternate universe.
bump TO SUPPORT THE NEW SWIFT VETS AD AND GEORGE BUSH... http://swift2.he.net/~swift2/gardner2.mpg
Before this is over I hope to get a more realistic handle on how many Calleys there were. These stories are like urban legends. The closer you get to them the faster they evaporate.
I have a personal theory about these kind of incidents, but I'm waiting for some actual facts to back me up.
"It takes two to lie, Marge. One to lie and one to listen." - Homer
No Kerry did. Back in 1971 Kerry had the microphone and national audience, today, 33 years later the Vets have the microphone and national audience.
Kerry is now feeling some of the same pain he inflicted on the honorable men who served with valor and distinction in Viet Nam.
bump
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