http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41194
Hanoi urged U.S. activists to run for office
Kerry mirrored documented plan to 'plant progressive people'
Posted: October 30, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Art Moore
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
One of three newly discovered Vietnam War documents shows Hanoi's communist regime encouraged the U.S. anti-war movement's new strategy in the early 1970s of urging members to run for public office, a path John Kerry took when he vied for a congressional seat in 1972.
John Kerry, with former wife Julia Thorne, after his primary victory in 1972 congressional race (Photo: Boston Globe)
Hanoi said it maintained "relations" with an anti-war group closely tied to Kerry that sought "to eliminate reactionary candidates and plant progressive people in the Senate and House of Representatives," according to a "circular" issued in December 1971 and captured by U.S. troops the following May.
The document, noting that the U.S. anti-war movements have received "assistance and guidance" from Vietnamese communist delegations, outlines the strategy of the radical U.S. group People's Coalition for Peace and Justice, or PCPJ. That organization was tied to Kerry through Al Hubbard, a coordinating PCPJ member who also served as executive director of Vietnam Veterans Against the War while the future senator was its national spokesman and an executive committee member. The PCPJ also shared office space and conducted joint activities with the VVAW.
"Through its activities," the document says, "we can see that the PCPJ has made progress in its newly-adopted policy lines with the following strategic alteration:"
The first point in the strategy reads:
"To gain success in struggles, it is necessary to strengthen internal unity, contact other associations, other social classes, and influential personalities and take part in ((U.S. congressional)) elections (instead of boycotting them), to eliminate reactionary candidates and plant progressive people in the Senate and House of Representatives."
The document is one of three related to Kerry and the anti-war movement that have surfaced among the millions at the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University at Lubbock. The collection was assembled by the late scholar Douglas Pike and now is under the supevision of Stephen Maxner, who confirmed the authenticity of the documents.
The papers help piece together a picture of Hanoi's evolving understanding that the delegations of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong leaders sent to the Paris peace talks offered the regime the opportunity to coordinate with the anti-war movement and influence U.S. politics from within.
As WorldNetDaily reported Tuesday, two documents provide the first concrete evidence that Vietnamese communists were directing Kerry's VVAW.
A third document [pdf file] provides more context, showing that Kerry's July 1971 press conference calling on President Nixon to accept the seven-point plan presented by Viet Cong leader Madame Nguyen Thi Binh was perfectly aligned with Hanoi's step-by-step agenda.
In 1972, as a nationally known figure, Kerry ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the fifth district of Massachusetts after a spate of "district hopping" – making his home in three other districts in a span of only two months.
A Boston Globe series last year recounting his life said: "The 28-year-old activist believed Congress was the logical extension of his activism to end the Vietnam War. He was ready to leave the streets to work within what some fellow protesters scorned as 'the system.'"
Jerome Corsi – a specialist on the Vietnam-era anti-war movement who first identified the significance of the newly discovered documents – recognizes that Kerry's political ambitions surfaced even before he formally joined the anti-war movement.
In March 1970, a few months before joining VVAW, he enter a congressional race then dropped out to make way for anti-war activist Fr. Robert F. Drinan, for whom he later served as campaign chairman.
But Corsi points out that Kerry's career path was in line with Hanoi's agenda.
"Kerry is following along with the plan, putting a pacifist, sympathetic to communist objectives, into a position where he can vote to advance their objectives and aims," said Corsi, who also is co-author of "Unfit for Command," the best-seller challenging Kerry's qualification to lead the nation.
Corsi said that in "Unfit for Command," we saw all the behavior – we knew what Kerry was doing – we just never had the documentation that showed the consistent planning behind the scenes, showing that Hanoi was fully aware of what the anti-war movement was doing and how they could direct it, guide it and apply it to their own propaganda purposes, both within Vietnam and internationally."
Corsi said he does not want to cast Kerry as a "Manchurian Candidate," referring to the 1962 film in which North Korea captures a group of American soldiers and brainwashes them into becoming sleeper agents.
But Corsi believes Kerry crossed a line, promoting a movement that aligned its goals with a communist regime bent on the defeat of the United States.
"Legitimate protest still intends to do service to the U.S.," Corsi explained. "It argues about the ways, means and goals, but never loses loyalty."
But a subversive movement, he said, adopts aims that hurt the United States and "wants our enemy to win."
Corsi finds this particularly relevant today as Kerry espouses normalizing relations with a radical Iranian regime that apparently is wielding influence through Iranian-American donors to his campaign.
"America has lost an appreciation for the dangers of true subversion," Corsi said. "In the 1950s, we understood sabotage from the enemy within as being distinct from legitimate, robust protest against the government."
With respect to Iran, he said, "We have to be very concerned that our internal politics is not subverted by a rogue regime trying to buy public relations to convince the Amerian public that they are not a threat."
As WorldNetDaily reported, Kerry's chief Iranian-American fund-raiser repudiated Kerry's policy of accommodation toward Tehran, declaring the Islamic regime should not be trusted with nuclear materials.
Hassan Nemazee, 54, a New York investment banker and former board member of a pro-Tehran lobby, said under oath in a lawsuit deposition that if Kerry had asked him his view of the Iranian regime, he would have said it should be trusted with no other intention than to build nuclear weapons.
