John Kerry & John O'Neill, Dick Cavett Show Debate from 1971 on C-SPAN Now [LIVE THREAD]

[Stultis]

Started 6:30 EST, Interviewing Dick Cavett, now John O'Niell, by phone. Show will start soon.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Blood money.

[oh8eleven]

Thank you Mrs. Cleaver. That's a nice dress you have on and
your hair looks really nice too. - Eddie Haskel

[madison10]

SOURCES: CLARKE 'TO EARN OVER $1 MILLION FOR BOOK'; CONTRACT: BONUSES ADDED

BLOOD MONEY. Great job, Dickie, make a ton of money from the murder of innocents on Sept.11, 2001. Brilliant move.

[Future Useless Eater]

This is an exact quote:

"And when I got back here, I was serving as an aide to an Admiral in New York City, and I wrote a letter through him, requesting that I be released from the Navy early, because of my opposition, and I was granted that release, and I have been working against the war ever since then."
      -John Kerry, June 1971

[maggief]

EXCERPT

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

The White House found a better way to go after Kerry. Colson had seen a press conference featuring a young Navy veteran named John O'Neill, who served in the same swift boat division as Kerry shortly after Kerry left Vietnam. O'Neill, like many swift boat veterans, was outraged at Kerry's claim of US atrocities.


In short order, O'Neill became the centerpiece of the Nixon White House strategy to undermine Kerry. O'Neill, now a Texas lawyer, stresses that he did not receive any payment from the White House and was acting on his own because he thought Kerry's statements were unconscionable lies.


For weeks, Colson had been accusing Kerry of ducking a debate with O'Neill. On June 15, Colson wrote to another White House aide: "I think we have Kerry on the run, he is beginning to take a tremendous beating in the press, but let's not let him up, let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader. Let's try to move through as many sources as we can the fact that he has refused to meet in debate, even though he agreed to do so and announced to the press he would."


The next day, O'Neill arrived at the White House to meet with Nixon. The two men bonded; a brief "grip and grin" session turned into an hourlong meeting, with Nixon bucking up O'Neill for the fight against Kerry.


'We've got to change'

Two weeks later, on June 30, the much anticipated debate took place. Kerry, who had been studying debate since he was about 14 years old, appeared with O'Neill on "The Dick Cavett Show." At 6 feet 4 inches, Kerry towered over Cavett and O'Neill. With his thick dark hair, dark blue suit, and lean features, he cut a striking figure.


O'Neill came out swinging. Visibly angry from the start, wearing a light suit, short hair, and white socks, O'Neill used words seemingly intended to taunt his opponent.


"Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on war-weariness and fears of the American people," O'Neill said. "This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, `crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.' Who was quoted in a prominent news magazine in May as saying, `War crimes in Vietnam are the rule, not the exception."'


Where O'Neill was red-hot, Kerry sought to look calm and intellectual, toting a hefty briefing book. He said the veterans weren't trying to tear down the country, but instead say to the country: "Here is where we went wrong, and we've got to change. What we say is, the killing can stop tomorrow."


"On the question of war crimes, it is really only with the utmost consideration that we pose this question," Kerry said. "I don't think that any man comes back to say that he raped, or to say that he burned a village, or to say that he wantonly destroyed crops or something for pleasure. I think he does it at the risk of certain kinds of punishment, at the risks of injuring his own character, which he has to live with, at the risk of the loss of family and friends as a result of it. But he does it because he believes intensely that people have got to be educated about the devastation of this war. We thought we were a moral country, yes, but we are now engaged in the most rampant bombing in the history of mankind."


Again and again, the question was asked: Did Kerry commit atrocities or see them committed by others? Kerry stuck to his script.


"I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that," Kerry said. "However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these acts, I find out later on, are contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty. But we are not trying to find war criminals. That is not our purpose. It never has been."


O'Neill for years has declined to talk about the experience, partly because he says he became disillusioned with politics and government after the fall of Saigon in 1975.


But in a telephone interview from Texas, where he is a trial attorney, O'Neill made it clear he still harbors resentment at the way Kerry accused veterans of atrocities.


"The primary reason I got involved was I thought the charges of war crimes were irresponsible and wrong," O'Neill said. "I thought they did a real disservice to all the people that were there. I thought they were immoral."


The bitterness remains. Asked whether he agrees with the view of some observers that Kerry was forever altered by the war, O'Neill responded: "The war didn't change [Kerry]. I think he was a guy driven tremendously by ambition. I think he was that way before he went and is that way today."

[syriacus]

in 25 years we'll look back on a Viet Nam free of communism

I feel sorry for the generation of Vietnamese children that were abandoned to Communism by Kerry's pressuring of our government.

DaNang Schoolchildren in 2000, commemorating the fall of Saigon.

I wonder how Kerry would have felt if he had to watch his children grow up under Communism.

[syriacus]

Kerry, who had been studying debate since he was about 14 years old,

It's ironic that Kerry, the pseudo-great debater, essentially got rid of debating at the Yale Political Union. You'd think someone who really liked a good debate wouldn't have done that.

The Rise and Fall of the Political Union, The glories of Yale's original debating societies contrast sharply with the atrophy of today's union

As president [of Yale's Political Union], Kerry officially extinguished debate during the 1960s, transforming the Union into a lecture series. ... He dealt the Union a blow from which she has yet to recover.

Since the 1960s membership and participation has steadily declined. >From a membership of over 1000, the Union has dwindled to around 150. Although there is student debate at meetings today, the Union is for all practical purposes still a lecture series.

Makes one wonder if Kerry didn't like monologues better than debates.

[Future Useless Eater]

Another exact quote:

"I find it particularly remarkable, that this gentleman [Kerry], who is building his political career apparently, upon the misery of all of us that served there, for him to libel by inuendo the President of the United States and to suggest that he's keeping people there any longer than they have to be for political reasons. I think thats a particularly remarkable thing to have happen."
        -John O'Neill

[js1138]

I'm pretty sure the people of South Vietnam are mostly free of day to day communist indoctrination. When my daughter decided to visit as part of a honeymoon trip -- she wanted to see where I had been -- I started looking at the we. I found a site run by a Vietnamese American who visits frequently. At least in the south, tourists are free to come and go without supervision. No one stops you from taking pictures. There are internet cafes everywhere without any obvious filters.

So as I said, O'Neill's prediction is correct, even if he was off by a number of years. Vietnam is not North Korea.

On the other hand, it does seem determined to meddle in Laos. I don't know what that's about. I don't want to paint a rosy picture, just a realistic one.

[js1138]

looking at the we = looking at the web.

[js1138]

This is my daughter and her husband in Vietnam a few weeks ago.

[syriacus]

So as I said, O'Neill's prediction is correct, even if he was off by a number of years

I'm glad to hear that things are better now. Thanks for explaining.

[js1138]

To me, this looks like losing the war and winning the peace. Vietnam's economy will determine its politics in the long run. And its economy is now based on tourism.

[Semper Paratus]

It's amazing conservatives survived at all actually. To the old conservatives who lived through this nonsense

And my favorite show was "Firing Line" with WFB which at least gave conservatives equal time. When I was 14 I saw it and thought 'wow' that point of view made sense.

[JulieRNR21]

During the debate O'Neill says that he was in Vietnam for 18 months after Kerry was there for 4 months. So Cavett heard that if he didn't know it before.

I thought O'Neill was much better than Kerry. He had facts & he read & confronted Kerry with his own statements & testimony.

No wonder Kerry refused to debate him in many other forums.

Wish O'Neill was speaking out today as he did then.

[JulieRNR21]

Just heard on Fox that about 30 families of 9-11 victims are sent a letter to Clarke chastizing him for writing the book and releasing it during the hearings.

[cwb]

"O'Neill cites our POWs being held in Hanoi are charged by the North Vietnamese as having committed war crimes and it's hard to grapple with a group like Kerry's that holds the same opinion."

Kerry's so ignorant that he doesn't even realize that his own banter is responsible for giving legitimacy to the enemies charges. Not only here has he endangered the lives of POWs, but with his "war-crimes" charges, he has also tarred every man returning home from Vietnam. It is incalculable, the damage that Kerry has done to the Vietnam Vet...and still he has no idea what he has done.

[cwb]

I've been wondering when someone was going to accuse Clarke of, not only exploiting, but profiting from the tragedy of 9/11.

[cookcounty]

"I could be wrong, but I believe a soldier/sailor/marine is obligated to report wrongdoing (war crimes) to his superior. "

The lowest private has an obligation to report illegal orders. I had at least 2 hours of classes on this and the Geneva Conventions as a Private Recruit in 1971. I'm sure for the officers it was a lot more hours.

[JulieRNR21]

Clarke did a CYA the other day by saying that he's thinking that some of the profits might go to the 9-11 families'....What a weasel!