How is it that Brinkley didn't learn of this stuff? Not so careful of a historian, is he?
Why would he pursue the legitimacy of a signed, official document just for a guy's biography? One would think everything that he was privy to via Kerry was legitimate.
With no military background of his own, Brinkley was probably awestruck by the 'heroism' in Kerry's 'official' records. He had no idea that Kerry himself had written many of the original reports on which they were based.
He obviously never checked on Kerry's Olongapo memories of the bloated corpses in the river and starving women with their babies dying of malnutrition. The direct personal knowledge of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary sailors who passed through Subic over the years would have clued him in that Kerry's claims were absolute bu!!$h!t.
My view: Brinkley was/is ignorant. He got snowed. His Kerry 'biography' shows how badly he did.