Posted on 09/17/2004 12:49:32 AM PDT by kattracks
For years it was said that Jane Fonda committed treason when she went to Vietnam in July 1972. In the late 1990s, with increasingly widespread use of the Internet, the charge became a staple of discussion by conservatives and veterans. However, their belief in Fonda’s criminality was not substantiated. We undertook to do just that, and laid out the definitive case against her in our 2002 book, “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda In North Vietnam.
A current parallel has arisen in connection with the presidential candidacy of John Kerry. For the past several weeks, the Internet has been ablaze with charges—as yet unexplained, let alone legally substantiated— that by traveling to Paris for meetings with the North Vietnamese communists and their Viet Cong allies in 1970, Kerry violated American criminal statutes. Indeed, one well-intentioned group, Patriot Petitions, has disseminated a petition to President of the Senate Richard Cheney, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, seeking Kerry’s prosecution.
Just as Fonda’s critics turned out to have been correct about their gut feelings regarding her treasonable actions in North Vietnam, so, too, Kerry’s critics—who feel strongly that his trip violated the law, without quite knowing why—are correct.
The explanation of Kerry’s criminal behavior in Paris is some thirty-four years overdue.
Our major premise—the legal one—is that one federal statute makes it a crime for American citizens to have “intercourse” with the “enemy,” while another federal statute similarly prohibits “intercourse” with “any foreign government.”
Our minor premise—the factual one—is that John Kerry confessed to engaging in exactly that proscribed conduct.
Therefore, John Kerry is a criminal.
Kerry’s criminality has deep historical roots. Americans acted similarly even before the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, Article 28 of the American Articles of War of 1775 provided: “Whosoever belonging to the continental army, shall be convicted of holding correspondence with, or giving intelligence to, the enemy, shall suffer such punishment as by a general court-martial shall be ordered.” The essence of this non-intercourse colonial statute has appeared in each subsequent military code since 1775.
Its modern embodiment is Title 10, Section 904 of the United States Code [Uniform Code of Military Justice], which provides:
Any person who . . . without proper authority, knowingly . . . communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly, shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.
The meaning of this section—apart from the definition of “enemy,” which in the early 1970s certainly included the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese (see Title 18, United States Code, Section 11)—has been interpreted in four appellate cases.
Edward S. Dickenson was a turncoat American POW who collaborated with the Chinese Communists in a prison camp during the Korean War. Upon his repatriation he was charged with violating Section 904’s predecessor. The court’s most important ruling was that at the time Dickenson committed the acts charged, even though his enlistment had expired (due to incarceration in the POW camp), he remained subject to military jurisdiction. This ruling was reinforced when Dickenson appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which noted that the defendant “had neither been discharged . . . nor had his military status been severed . . . . He was a soldier, subject to the rules, discipline and jurisdiction of the Army and squarely within the provisions of Article 2 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice . . . which provides as subject: ‘All persons belonging to a regular component of the armed forces, including those awaiting discharge after expiration of their term of enlistment . . . .’” (Emphasis added).
Claude J. Batchelor (see Why Not Call It Treason?) was another Korean War collaborator. Upon his repatriation he, too, was charged with violating Section 904’s predecessor. One of Batchelor’s defenses was that he had no criminal intent. The United States Court of Military Appeals rejected that argument, holding that intent was not necessary for commission of the crime (unlike treason cases, where intent is an essential element).
A third Korean War collaborator was William H. Olson. In affirming his conviction, the Court of Military Appeals said this: “[I]f the accused was the instrument used by the enemy to spread propaganda against his own country, and he did so voluntarily, he has thereby aided the enemy’s cause within the meaning of the statute.” (Emphasis added). The court then quoted the 1949 Manual for Courts-Martial for the proposition that “non-intercourse” has been the consistent interpretation of Section 904 and its predecessors:
Correspondence does not necessarily import a mutual exchange of communication. The law requires absolute non-intercourse, and any unauthorized communication, no matter what may be its tenor or intent, is here denounced. The prohibition lies against any method of communication whatsoever, and the offense is complete the moment the communication issues from the accused, whether it reaches its destination or not.
As to whether the charges of collaboration leveled against Olson were within the statute’s proscription, the court noted that “[I]t is certain that communications, collaboration, and intercourse with the enemy which results in a program of psychological warfare inimical to this country is within [the statute’s] fair meaning.”
The fourth case, United States v. Johnson, arose during the Vietnam War. According to the United States Court of Military Appeals:
While on duty with the Marine Corps in Vietnam, the accused proceeded to Bangkok, Thailand, on authorized rest and recreation leave. When he did not return at its expiration, he was listed as being absent without leave. He was apprehended [and] returned him to Saigon. * * * In his statement, the accused described in detail his whereabouts during his unauthorized absence and acknowledged that he intended to travel across Thailand and Laos and into Vietnam with the intent to contact the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese regulars and talk with them "of certain moral responsibilities: (1) Duties to God; (2) duties to fellow man. In other words, I feel that it is the responsibility of all men to go out and make peace regardless of what sacrifices they may have to make and it is for this reason that I decided to go out and attempt to meet with the enemy and teach him something of Christianity and of moral responsibilities. * * * [Later, Johnson expressed to a government agent] his desire once more to contact the North Vietnamese in his crusade for peace and morality among the enemy. He was apprehended before he could begin his mission.
Charged with several crimes, including an attempt to violate Section 904—remember, Johnson never even reached the Vietnamese communists—his conviction was reversed by the Court of Military Appeals strictly on Miranda-like “failure to advise” grounds. The opinion, however, is clear that one can be charged with even an attempt to violate Section 904 without ever having consummated the crime.
The second federal statute for consideration is Title 18, United States Code, Section 953, known as the Logan Act:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Section 953 was at the core of Agee v. Muskie, decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980.
Rogue CIA employee Philip Agee (represented by Melvin L. Wulf, late head of the ACLU) successfully challenged a State Department regulation allowing for revocation of an American citizen’s passport because he had not yet been charged with a crime. However, certain aspects of the Agee case speak loudly about John Kerry’s criminal behavior. Agee, at that time the most outspoken and vicious opponent of CIA clandestine activities, proposed to the Iranian militants that they offer a deal to our government: return of the embassy hostages in exchange for all CIA files on its Iran operations since 1950.
On that basis, the government prepared a draft indictment which appears as an appendix to the court’s opinion.
The Grand Jury charges:
From on or about the 4th day of November 1979 until on or about the 24th day of December, 1979, (an Iranian), and (an Iranian), and a large group of other Iranians whose names are to the Grand Jury unknown, hereinafter referred to as "Iranian Terrorists", constituted a "foreign government" as defined by 18 U.S.C. s 11, in that they were a faction and body of insurgents within Iran, a country recognized by the United States and with which country the United States was at peace; that during the aforesaid period Philip Agee, herein charged as the defendant, a citizen of the United States, then in the vicinity of Hamburg, Germany, did, without authority of the United States, directly and indirectly carry on correspondence and intercourse with the aforesaid body of insurgents constituting a foreign government and with officers and agents thereof, with intent to influence the measures and conduct of said foreign government and of the officers and agents thereof in relation to disputes and controversies between said foreign government and the United States, and to defeat the measures of the United States in such disputes and controversies, in that within a few weeks before the 23rd day of December 1979, the said Philip Agee did communicate, correspond, and have intercourse with the aforementioned Iranian Terrorists by counseling, and suggesting to them, in relation to their dispute and controversy with the United States that they could prevail in their unlawful demands on the United States by forcing the United States contrary to the authority thereof, by extortion, to deliver into the possession of the aforesaid Iranian Terrorists constituting said foreign government, certain United States property, to wit, all records of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (CIA) on CIA intelligence operations in Iran for the past 30 years, in return for the release by said Iranian Terrorists of upwards of 50 citizens of the United States who were duly accredited to the official staff of the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and who were then being threatened with execution and being unlawfully held and confined within the United States Embassy at Tehran, Iran by force by said foreign government as hostages in its dispute and controversy with the United States; all in violation of 18 U.S.C. ss 953.
Given Title 10, Section 904 and Title 18, Section 953, there is no doubt whatsoever that intercourse with the enemy and intercourse with a foreign government with intent to “defeat the measures of” the United States constitute federal crimes.
There is also no doubt that under Dickenson, Batchelor, Olson and Johnson, respectively, reservists are subject to Section 904, criminal intent is not necessary for conviction, providing propaganda to the enemy can constitute commission of the crime, and even an unsuccessful attempt is punishable.
By logical extension, the same is true under Section 953 of the Logan Act, as the draft indictment of Philip Agee makes eminently clear.
Our major premise having been established, this leaves only our minor premise to be examined.
It has long been well known that in the early 1970s, the North Vietnamese and their southern Viet Cong allies maintained representatives in Paris, and that various American citizens—among them Jane Fonda—made pilgrimages to meet with them, absorb the current party line, and spread their communist propaganda.
In 1970, John Kerry was one of those pilgrims. When he went to Paris, he was a citizen of the United States. He was still a member of the United States Navy. And clearly he lacked any authority from the government to act on its behalf.
We do not have to speculate about Kerry’s activities in Paris because he openly admitted what he did there. During the question and answer period following his April 22, 1971 televised testimony before the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate, Kerry said:
I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh's points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned.
Even today, knowing what we know about the Vietnamese communists and about John Kerry, it is difficult to grasp the enormity of what he was confessing to. As an American citizen and a member of the United States Navy—while his former comrades and countless others were fighting and dying in Vietnam at the hands of Viet Cong guerillas and North Vietnamese regulars—Kerry consorted with the Viet Cong representative and discussed (“talked with,” he euphemized) her “plan.” That obscene plan included a trade: the return of our POWs for a withdrawal of American forces. As John O’Neill expressed in his important bestselling book Unfit For Command, “. . . America could have its POWs back only if we agreed that we lost, then surrendered, and then set a date to leave.”
Kerry’s wartime trip to Paris was confirmed about six months ago by a campaign spokesman, who tossed it off as a mere “fact-finding” excursion.
Yet Kerry was apparently so impressed with the “facts” he found in company with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese that a few months after his return from Paris he had the effrontery to urge the President of the United States to accept his communist hosts’ plan for “peace” in Vietnam.
In sum, John Kerry—an American citizen and a naval officer, with no authority granted by his government—made arrangements while in the United States to meet with America’s enemies. He then traveled across the Atlantic, conferred with the communists in Paris, absorbed their terms for “peace” in Vietnam, returned to the United States to publicly endorse monstrous plans that trafficked in the lives of our POWs, and by so doing “defeat[ed] the measures of the United States.”
In this, John Kerry shares the unpatriotic company of Dickensen, Batchelor, Olson, Johnson, Agee and Hanoi Jane Fonda—all violators of federal “intercourse with the enemy” laws.
All criminals.
*
Henry Mark Holzer, Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn Law School, specializes in federal appeals. Erika Holzer, a lawyer and novelist, is co-author, with Professor Holzer, of Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service. A second edition is forthcoming with a new preface entitled “John Kerry: The Ultimate Fake Warrior.”
Excellent ....... passing it on to my net.....
keep up the excellent work......
This is pure golden elixer for many a Veteran's soul
Bump.
Too bad this wasn't read to the American Legion and National Guard Conventions before Kerry spoke to them.
Why weren't charges brought against him back then by opponents on the right?
Careful FRiend....
Some DUmmy is likely to see this and call in the Secret Service.
Charges were not brought against Kerry or any of the rest of them for two reasons.
1. Nixon’s advisors thought that arresting anti-war activists would incite more opposition to the war than already existed and lead to accusations of censorship and repression of people’s first amendment rights (it’s not like there was a REAL war on or anything).
2. This was pre-Reagan. Kerry was admittedly guilty of either war crimes or perjury but even if the government had convicted him of anything the almost unanimously liberal judiciary would have overturned the conviction and the press would have portrayed Kerry as even more of a hero than they did anyway.
In addition to the crimes the article mentions, the communist victory in Indochina cost more than 2,500,000 Cambodians their lives – plus about another million or so Vietnamese and Laotians who died during the terror that followed the defeat of the west in the Indochina wars. In Vietnam and Laos entire tribes were wiped out, their cultures exterminated.
John Kerry was a major supporter of the communist victory in Indochina. For my money this makes John Kerry a mass murderer on a Hitlerian scale.
Senator McCain please call your lawyer.
Yes, John Kerry has much Cambodian and South Vietnamese blood and misery on his hands.
Kerry admitted to committing "atrocities." Where's the judge and jury?
So what do you think the chances are that he could be charged AND convicted in the future? In my opinion, this would be pure justice. Well, it would be purER if he could restore all the lives that were lost or, at least, ruined as a result of his big-headed actions.
The Plot Thickens?
By A. L. "Steve" Nash, MAC Ret.
Unlike McCain, Bush, and Gore,,,,Kerry has adamantly refused to authorize the release of his military records. Most think it's because of his phony battle medals. I think the real reason is below. He was not granted an Honorable Discharge until March 2001, almost 30 years after his ostensible service term had ended! This is very much out of the ordinary, and highly suspect.
There are 5 classes of Discharge:
Honorable, General, Other Than Honorable, Bad Conduct, and Dishonorable.
My guess is that he was Discharged in the '70s, but not Honorably.
He appealed this sometime while Clinton was doing trouser-tricks in the Oval Office. Political pressure was applied, and the Honorable Discharge was then granted. His file is probably rife with reports of this, submissions and hearings on the appeal, reports of his "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy, along with protests that were filed with respect to his alleged valor under fire.
This will blow up in his face before October 15th.
On 18 Feb. 1966 John Kerry signed a 6 year enlistment contract with the Navy (plus a 6-month extension during wartime). On 18 Feb. 1966 John Kerry also signed an Officer Candidate contract for 6 years -- 5 years of
ACTIVE duty & ACTIVE Naval Reserves, and 1 year of inactive standby reserves (See items #4 & #5).
Because John Kerry was discharged from TOTAL ACTIVE DUTY of only 3 years and 18 days on 3 Jan. 1970, he was then required to attend 48 drills per year, and not more than 17 days active duty for training. Kerry was also
subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Additionally, Kerry, as a commissioned officer, was prohibited from making adverse statements against
his chain of command or statements against his country, especially during time of war. It is also interesting to note that Kerry did not obtain an honorable discharge until Mar. 12, 2001 even though his service obligation should have ended July 1, 1972.
Lt. John Kerry's letter of 21 Nov. 1969 asking for an early release from active US Navy duty falsely states "My current regular period of obligated service would be completed in December of this year."
On Jan. 3, 1970 Lt. John Kerry was transferred to the Naval Reserve Manpower Center in Bainridge, Maryland
Where are Kerry's Performance Records for 2 years of obligated Ready Reserve, the 48 drills per year required and his 17 days of active duty per year training while Kerry was in the Ready Reserves? Have these records been
released?
Has anyone ever talked to Kerry's Commanding Officer at the Naval Reserve Center where Kerry drilled?
On 1 July 1972 Lt. John Kerry was transferred to Standby Reserve - Inactive. On 16 February 1978 Lt. John Kerry was discharged from US Naval Reserve.
Below are some of the crimes Lt. Kerry USNR committed as a Ready Reservist, while he was acting as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War:
1. Lt. Kerry attended many rallies where the Vietcong flag was displayed while our flag was desecrated, defiled, and mocked, thereby giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
2. Lt. Kerry was involved in a meeting that voted on assassinating members of the US Senate.
3. Lt. Kerry lied under oath against fellow soldiers before the US Senate about crimes committed in Vietnam.
4. Lt. Kerry professed to being a war criminal on national television, and condemned the military and the USA.
5. Lt Kerry met with NVA and Vietcong communist leaders in Paris, in direct violation of the UCMJ and the U.S. Constitution.
Lt. Kerry by his own words & actions violated the UCMJ and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer. Lt Kerry stands in violation of Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Lt. Kerry's 1970 meeting with NVA Communists in Paris is in direct violation of the UCMJ's Article 104 part 904, and U.S Code 18 U.S.C. 953. That meeting, and Kerry's subsequent support of the communists while leading mass protests against our military in the year that followed, also place him in direct violation of our Constitution's Article 3, Section 3, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare.
The Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President . having previously taken an oath . to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
A. L. "Steve" Nash, MAC Ret, UDT/SEAL SEAL Authentication Team -Director AuthentiSEAL Phone 707 /438 0120 "The only service where all investigators are US Navy SEALs"
http://www.authentiseal.org
All I can find is the PDF of the 1978 honorable discharge http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Honorable_Discharge_From_Reserve.pdf and the information listed below:
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/weekly/aa092500a.htm
Honorable. The Honorable characterization is appropriate when the quality of the member's service generally has met the standards of acceptable conduct and performance of duty for military personnel, or is otherwise so meritorious that any other characterization would be clearly inappropriate. (For example, a Medal of Honor recipient would almost always receive an Honorable Discharge, unless he/she was involved in the most serious of misconduct). In the case of an Honorable Discharge, an Honorable Discharge Certificate (DD Form 256) is awarded and a notation is made on the appropriate copies of The DD Form 214/5.
Thank you.
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