Kerry's "Imaginary" Friend

As a graduate of the Yale class of 1966, I resent the self-serving lies and misrepresentations advanced by my classmate John Kerry. Herewith, a few corrections:

John Kerry has been using the Pershing name to dramatize his Vietnam experience, claiming to have been a close friend of Richard Pershing, the grandson of General (Black Jack) Pershing. Richard Pershing was a member of the Yale class of 1966, and he was killed in Vietnam shortly after we graduated. However, Kerry's constant references to his 'dearest' friend are exaggerated and exploitative. In fact, Dick Pershing and I roomed together for all 4 years at Yale.

I don't remember John Kerry ever being in our room or even being a particular favorite of Dick's. In this regard, it is particularly revealing that a recent biography of General Pershing, Until The Last Trumpet Sounds (by Gene Smith), includes an entire chapter on Dick, primarily on his years at Yale; the name John Kerry does not appear.

The Pershing Family did know Kerry, but they disliked him intensely. This antipathy stemmed primarily from an incident at the Pershing home on Park Avenue not long after Dick's death: at a gathering of friends and family, Kerry worked the room with his anti-Vietnam message, incurring the undying enmity of Mr. and Mrs. Pershing and Dick's older brother Jack, a Green Beret. The family was shocked and insulted by Kerry's insensitivity.

Kerry has implied - as recently as the first Presidential debate – that he became disillusioned about Vietnam by his military experience. However, as early as 1965, in his Junior year at Yale, he was giving anti-war speeches; and his Class Day Oration in 1966 - prior to graduation - criticized American involvement in Vietnam. These sentiments clearly antedated his Vietnam experience. So why did he join the Navy? He told some classmates that it would help his career.

The above pattern suggests a callous and opportunistic personality -- hardly what I would call Presidential.

This is a late response, but as this piece is still being circulated, I think it's worthwhile to post this again.

Dave Schlossberg might actually exist, but you have to wonder how well he really knew Dick Pershing if he didn't know that Kerry and Pershing met at prep school and were friends since the age of thirteen:

>>>In 1957, after his father had become the chief political officer at the US Embassy in Norway, the 13-year-old Kerry entered the Fessenden School in West Newton, Mass. There he began a pattern of filling his family void by forming close friendships with like-minded boys, including Richard Pershing, grandson of the famed US general John Joseph Pershing. Like Kerry, the young Pershing had been educated in Europe; the intertwining of their later lives would leave a deep imprint on Kerry. <<<

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061503.shtml

Of course, maybe ol' Dave wasn't privy to the goings on over at Skull and Bones, to which Kerry and Pershing belonged:

>>>Of the 15 members of Skull and Bones, an extraordinary bond formed between the four on their way to Vietnam: Kerry; Thorne; Fred Smith, a Kerry flying partner who would later found Federal Express; and, Pershing, Kerry's close friend since age 13.<<<

(Boston Globe, linked above)

>>Kerry's rising profile brought him notice at Skull and Bones, Yale's exclusive secret society, which two years later also welcomed Bush. As a senior, Kerry was tapped to join, coming in with two close friends, Richard Pershing and David Thorne.<<<

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-kerry25jul25,1,4783108.story?coll=la-home-headlines

>>> A decade ago, he orchestrated one of the biggest reunions his Bones class had ever had. The Massachusetts Democrat gathered almost all 15 together to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of their fellow Bonesman, Richard Pershing, Kerry's close friend who was killed in action in Vietnam.

Kerry credited Bones for the strength of their friendship.

"I have never felt so void of feeling before," Kerry wrote in a letter to his parents after Pershing died, according to The Boston Globe. "With the loss of Persh something has gone out of me - he was so much a part of my life at the irreplaceable, incomparable moments of love, concerns, anger and compassion exchanged in Bones that can never be replaced."

At the sober reunion in honor of Pershing, Kerry led his fellow Bonesmen to Arlington National Cemetery, where they reminisced by their friend's grave. A Marine played taps. Everyone spoke at the grave, including Kerry. <<<<

(Baltimore Sun, March 23, 2004)

And it seems quite apparent he didn't get invited on those fun weekends with the other guys:

>>>NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT. June 1966. John invited me to go to the Harvard-Yale crew races. The plan was for Richard Kerry, John's father, to sail his boat Merlin to a dock in New London, where we would meet them. In midafternoon, I parked my Volkswagen and saw John, Dick Pershing, and his girlfriend Kitty Hawks already standing on the dock loading some baskets of food onto Merlin.

In fine, hazy evening light, we sailed out onto the estuary of the Connecticut River to watch the contest. Harvard was favored in all boats. This did not seem to deter John or Dick. "A better view is needed," said Dick. "To the top of the mainmast," replied John. The two friends skillfully climbed the old wooden mast, where they balanced precariously on the spar. However, the cheerleading efforts of Kerry and Pershing could not improve the Yale crews as they lost race after race.

When the races were over, the group assembled a picnic and ate hamburgers cooked over a charcoal grill. Kerry and Pershing amused themselves by reciting alternate verses of Kipling's "Gunga Din" in excellent Cockney accents.<<<

http://www.twbookmark.com/books/61/0821262041/chapter_excerpt19417.html

>>Pershing's dazzling girlfriend from Smith College caught everyone's eye: Kitty Hawks, the smart, witty daughter of the legendary Howard Hawks, who directed ``The Big Sleep'' and ``Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.'' Reached at her home in New York, Kitty Hawks described her time with Pershing and Kerry and the other bonesmen in romantic terms: ``To fall in love with one of them was to fall in love with all of them. It was an amazing time. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it.''

Hawks added: ``There was an element of sobriety to Johnny, and Dick didn't have that. All of us thought [Kerry] would be an important person in this country somehow. It didn't feel so much as ambition as destiny, that this was bound to happen to him in one way or another.'' <<<

(Boston Globe, linked above)

>>Pershing brought out Kerry's merry side, taking him along with his crowd on Manhattan club crawls and hockey excursions.<<<

(LA Times, linked above)

Now, as for Jack Pershing, it seems his "emnity" was so undying that he stood in for his late brother as a member of Kerry's wedding party just two years later. ("Tour of Duty," pages 340-341)

And the Pershing family "disliked" Kerry so intensely that it offered him use of their Jamaica estate on his honeymoon ("Tour of Duty," page 341). See also:

>>For his honeymoon, Kerry chose a telling location: the Pershing family's Jamaica home. Richard Pershing, a close friend of Kerry's and a fellow member of Yale's Skull and Bones society, had been killed in Vietnam. Pershing's grandfather, General John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, had commanded US forces in Europe during World War I. <<<

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061703.shtml

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