Only the massed weight of public opinion could get to those records, and I'm sure that Mr. Kerry won't be signing an SF-180 only 3 weeks from the election.
He knows he can ride out a controversy like this, and that his anti-war liberal left base wouldn't care anyway. After all, we'd hear that "it was 35 years ago, who cares?" from them, wouldn't we?
Like I said, one needs to look at the pertinent sections of the United States Code under which Mr. Kerry's final discharge was adjudicated to gain a hint of just why it wasn't until 1978 that the matter was addressed.
Technically, the statute of limitations for action on a BCNR review is 36 months from the end of creditable service. The Board will entertain requests for review of records beyond that under exceptional circumstances. I'm sure that he had friends enough already, and the Carter amnesty in hand, to ensure action by the BCNR.
Hence the.. "He can run, but he can't hide" line.