DYNAMITE Vietnam POWs Say Kerry's Words and Deeds Were Used by Guards to Torture Them

INSIGHT ^ | AUGUST 4 EDITION | Richard Tomkins, UPI White House correspondent

[Liz]

John Kerry accused American GIs of widespread war crimes while testifying before Congress in the early 1970s.

John Kerry's bid to become commander in chief of wartime America has opened old wounds among some former Vietnam-era POWs who bristle over Kerry's antiwar activism and atrocity allegations during the Vietnam conflict.

Those activities and statements, pushed out of sight by a campaign that spotlights Kerry's service in Vietnam, were used by the POWs' North Vietnamese captors to sap the morale of prisoners and U.S. troops still in the field in South Vietnam, former POWs told United Press International.

"They were always talking about that [antiwar demonstrations], and they picked right up on Kerry's throw-away line, 'Don't be the last man to die in a lost cause, or die for a lost cause,'" said Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who spent 2,284 days as a prisoner. "They repeated that incessantly. ... They used these photographs and inputs, voice tapes, whatever, from these peace people to try to convince us the whole country had turned antiwar and we were showing a very bad attitude and would never go home."

Jim Warner, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese in the Hoa Lo prison complex -- known to U.S. servicemen as the Hanoi Hilton -- remembers Kerry. He became acquainted with him, he said, when a North Vietnamese guard and interrogator the prisoners nicknamed "Boris" took Warner to the quiz shack in the complex's punishment camp called "Skid Row" in May 1971.

During a four-hour propaganda and harassment session, Boris pulled papers from his pocket and gave them to Warner to think about, he said. Some were clippings from a leftist newspaper in the United States. The other was a typewritten transcript of Kerry's testimony before a U.S. Senate panel in which he repeated allegations of U.S. troops routinely committing atrocities, attacking the war and saying communism was not a threat in Vietnam.

The atrocity allegations were garnered from the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit in early 1971, in which actress and activist Jane Fonda and Kerry, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), were involved.

At that event people claiming to have seen combat in Vietnam alleged committing atrocities -- rape, cutting off of ears and heads, murdering women and children -- on a routine basis and with the knowledge of their superiors. Many of the allegations proved false or could not be documented, and the veracity and identities of many witnesses later came into question.

"It was the stuff about the Winter Soldier," Warner said. "The paper he showed me, the statements from John Kerry, were separate. And the stuff that was supposed to be from Kerry was a typewritten transcript of a few pages, but he was pointing to the statements. I can't quote the statements, but essentially they were the same as those being played now on talk shows of his testimony in front of the Senate."

Warner was in his Marine Corps F-4B aircraft when he was shot down over North Vietnam on Oct. 13, 1967, and was held for 1,979 days. He told UPI that in that confrontation with the North Vietnamese officer he was told "these statements [by Kerry] ... were proof I deserved to be punished. I was pretty sure they weren't going to do anything, but in the summer of '69 they had spent four months trying to get information out of me, and I still had the memory of my mistreatment -- sleep deprivation, leg irons, a cement box in the sun [and feet and ankles swollen from chains digging into the flesh].

"The memory of that was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I was extremely uneasy. Every time he mentioned [the papers], this officer said I committed crimes, that this war was illegal. I just had no idea. ... All along they told us they would execute us for our 'crimes.'"

Particularly galling for Warner was his parents' brief participation at an antiwar event in Detroit where they said their son was a prisoner and they hoped he would be released. Warner said he never spoke to his parents about that after his return -- it just wasn't something talked about -- but his sisters had told him Fonda and Kerry were involved in getting his parents to appear, an appearance he believes lent a measure of respectability to the event.

Warner said Kerry and VVAW, which had staged large demonstrations in Washington, often were mentioned in the radio broadcasts that played incessantly over the camp's loudspeakers.

"On our [former POW] listserve there are many people who mention hearing Kerry on Radio Hanoi and how much that infuriated them," Warner said, "but I don't know of anyone else confronted like that."

Cordier, now living in Texas, doesn't recall Kerry's name specifically being used in interrogations, propaganda broadcasts by Hanoi Hannah (Radio Vietnam) or during "attitude checks" -- political indoctrination sessions -- since Kerry was then not a household name. But he said he does remember the North Vietnamese using the so-called Winter Soldier investigations and photographs of war veterans, both real and imposters, throwing military medals over the White House fence.

Paul Galanti, a former Navy pilot who spent 2,432 days in captivity and worked on the 2000 primary campaign of fellow former POW Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also remembers the broadcasts.

"It was propaganda. They stopped torturing us after Ho Chi Minh died pretty much, but all that stuff we got banged on -- they wanted us to say and to confess to war crimes and killing babies and all this other stuff," he said. "They kept talking about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they had seen the right way and blah, blah, blah, and they were on our side, they had crossed over to the peoples' side and all that stuff."

Galanti said he didn't know Kerry's name then, although he had seen a newspaper photograph while in captivity that showed someone who looked like Lurch (a character in The Addams Family television show in the mid-sixties). Like others, they had only heard newscasts about a former Navy lieutenant and the antiwar movement. "I figured out who it was later," he said.

Cordier, Warner and Galanti said although the antiwar protest propaganda was sometimes disheartening, the North Vietnamese failed in their attempt to use it to break the prisoners' will.

"It didn't make us want to give up, it just made us feel discouraged that there were people who felt that way about us," said Warner, who works as a corporate attorney.

Cordier, Galanti and Warner are dead set against Kerry becoming president. Cordier says it's just not Kerry's antiwar past, but his record till now, including his voting against funds for troops in Iraq.

"The measure of a person's character is their whole history up until the present," he said. "It's not what they say they believe or what they'll do when president or all these platitudes. ... And he has consistently taken the side of our enemies and other countries that oppose us or have a different viewpoint."

Joe Crecca, who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966 and held for 2,280 days, won't be supporting Kerry either, accusing him of having "betrayed those who served with him by falsely accusing them of war crimes and a host of other things as soon as he returned to the U.S.A."

Retired Adm. Jeremiah Denton -- held 2,766 days -- helps lead Vets4Bush. Everett Alvarez, who at 3,113 days was the longest-held prisoner of the North Vietnamese, would say only that he would be considered partisan since he had been a Reagan administration appointee.

McCain, who is campaigning for Bush, also was a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton and counts himself as a friend of Kerry. Calls to his office for comment for this article were not returned. However, in 1973, shortly after his release from the Hanoi Hilton, McCain had a strong negative opinion on prominent antiwar activists, although he did not know Kerry by name at the time.

The Kerry campaign, asked to comment, sent UPI an e-mail message that included two quotes from a Oct. 21, 1996, New Yorker article entitled "A Friendship that Ended the War" and asked they be included.

"John McCain has never changed his mind about Kerry's participation in that antiwar demonstration, but he has changed his mind about the man," the article stated. "When I asked McCain if he would be campaigning for [former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, who ran against Kerry for Senate], he shook his head, an emphatic no. 'I simply would not do such a thing. I couldn't do that. ... I'm surprised you would ask. ... Going to campaign against John Kerry is something I wouldn't consider.'"

The second quote from the same New Yorker article the Kerry campaign wanted cited was from Kerry in the same interview: "'We started talking about the war, and Vietnam, prison -- what happened to him and all that. ... Nothing had brought us together before, and we just talked. We talked about what I had done.' Kerry was referring to the episode that McCain had denounced in the 1984 campaign. 'But by now it wasn't a big hurdle,' he went on. 'To his credit, he didn't make it one. He made it clear that he had moved beyond all that. ... The war was a tough period for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. Both of us decided to put all that kind of stuff behind us, and work together at something.'"

During the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week, a number of anti-Kerry veterans' groups participated in demonstrations opposing Kerry's campaign for the nation's top job, and other groups have more demonstration plans in the works.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- former Navy patrol-boat crews, including former comrades and a crewmate of Kerry in Vietnam -- publicly came out in opposition to the senator from Massachusetts last May and plan to launch a television ad attacking his candidacy later this month.

Kerry, meanwhile, is attempting to organize other veterans into a reliable voting bloc. His campaign works with several people who served with Kerry during his four-month stay in Vietnam as testimonials to his service. In July Kerry told CBS's Dan Rather that he was "very proud" of having been a leader of the antiwar movement but admitted some of his language may have been too strong.

Richard Tomkins is a White House correspondent for Insight's sister news service, United Press International.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[Conspiracy Guy]

John Kerry

Sung to Tom Dooley



Hang down your head John Kerry,
Hang down your head and cry.
Hang down your head John Kerry,
We know you’re bound to lie.



You’ve lied about your service,
Over in Viet Nam.
You twist your senate record,
We know that you’re a scam.



Hang down your head John Kerry,
Hang down your head and cry.
Hang down your head John Kerry,
We know you’re bound to lie.



You said that you did war crimes,
Now you say you’re the man.
That has the right to lead us,
I do not think you can.



Hang down your head John Kerry,
Hang down your head and cry.
Hang down your head John Kerry,
We know you’re bound to lie.



You’ve voted yes Iraq War,
Then turned and voted no.
Just what now do you stand for,
We’d really like to know.



Hang down your head John Kerry,
Hang down your head and cry.
Hang down your head John Kerry,
We know you’re bound to lie.

Conspiracy Guy aka DIF 8/6/2004

[GarySpFc]

I heard O'Reilly today talking about having Steve Gardner on tonight. It was very obvious O'Reilly already has his mind made up, and doesn't see any proof the Swiftboat Vets are right. He said, "All the proof is on Kerry's side."

O'Neal is going to be on Hannity tonight, and Nightline is going to have a special.

[Arpege92]

I'm so happy that these vets finally get the chance to say their peace. They've been denied this opportunity for far too long, and it's the "Kerry's and the Fonda's" who are now going to see what it feels like to be on the recieving end.

[PurpleHeartHaze]

Dam straight.

I resent MCcain's Pope complex. He acts like he can personally give Kerry absolution. It don't work that way!!!

[Grendelgrey]

...I used to believe Kerry was given a fast track lateral promotion out of the unit,so they could be rid of him.I guess no one then believed he could actually speak out against them the way he did, or become a senator-much less run for the office of president.Since they knew Kerry it would prolly seem ridiculous to think he would amount to anything.

Military units often peg screw off artists and %*ck-Ups with duties that will minimize risk to others.I had just assumed the commanders had gotten together one night and pinned a purple heart on his sorry ass wound as a way to get rid of him,and sent him packing.

The Bush Administration has once again been wise by keeping its fingerprints off this one.They were mum during the "Moore Offensive"and can with credibility remain silent now,all the while munching the canary,hehehe... The Voices of these men ,these Veterans,are heard much clearer and more loudly because they have been the ones who initiated this action. No Media stone wall will hold this back for long.....

[AZamericonnie]

Reading this just breaks my heart. In word & deed Kerry added to the torture of these men. Where is his shame.

[VOA]

The only thing that ticks me...
that these allegations didn't send The Good Ship Kerry to the bottom of Boston Harbor
when he first ran for the House of Representatives.
(If "the press" can get the records of Ryan in Illinois unsealed, the should
be able to find out if Kerry has been bribing his "Band of Brothers" to appear with him
for decades! Get to work, Fifth Estate!)

[!1776!]

Let's see former POW McCain's comments on this.

I noticed a subtle shot across McCain's bow...

McCain, who is campaigning for Bush,

The Kerry campaign, asked to comment, sent UPI an e-mail message that included two quotes from a Oct. 21, 1996, New Yorker article entitled "A Friendship that Ended the War" and asked they be included.

"John McCain [...] Going to campaign against John Kerry is something I wouldn't consider.'"

Methinks McCain won't respond favorably to something like this. But I could be wrong.

[kingattax]

McCain gets nutty as a bag of squirrel sh*t sometimes.


go figure him defending the biggest lying rat of the vietnam

war, hanoi johnny

[El Gato]

it's the "Kerry's and the Fonda's" who are now going to see what it feels like to be on the recieving end.

Of what? Spit? Bags of urine and excrement? Those are what some vets got when they got home. Until they get that, they won't know what "it" feels like.

Although a landslide Bush victory would come close for Kerry. Jane has at least made a few, wimpy, gestures of reconciliation and remorse.

[raisincane]

I heard Lt. Col. Tom Collins say the same thing on Greg Garrison's radio show last week. Kerry is so deplorable. A traitor for sure. He must never be CIC.

[PurpleHeartHaze]

Hate to say it, but maybe the NVA got to McCain. There is no other explanation. He should LOATHE Kerry.

[bannie]

I'm so happy that these vets finally get the chance to say their peace. They've been denied this opportunity for far too long, and it's the "Kerry's and the Fonda's" who are now going to see what it feels like to be on the recieving end.

Ditto! Karma may be working here.

[TruthNtegrity]

This "gentlemen's club" attitude of the Senate has got to have a line somewhere.

Seeing McCain's cancer-savaged face, I find it difficult to believe that he would just "let it go" when it was Kerry's anti-war statements that were played incessantly in the POW camps and others have said that it got them harsher treatment for not giving in and agreeing with Kerry.

This Viet Nam past has got to be a bag of worms for Kerry but I fear that the MSM will gloss over it. Afterall, they made a big issue of the President's National Guard service in Alabama but have never bothered investigating for themselves, Sen. Kerry's Viet Nam claims to fame.

It's called "vetting" folks, and the DNC didn't have the opportunity to "vet" Kerry. They were so sure, with the Clinton's backing, that Dean was going to be the candidate, that they just didn't do the background checking on Kerry or they would have found all of these issues and had statements at the ready. The fact that Kerry chose to use his 4 months service in Viet Nam versus his 19+ years in the Senate is some kind of denial, the likes of which I've never seen before.

Riding in like a hero, with PH's that are of suspiscious merit, same for Silver Star and Bronze star?

I'm hoping that we can keep sending enough money to the swift boats vets for truth, that the advertisement will keep being played and that at some point, some journalist is going to challenge Kerry with the truth.

TNT

[bannie]

I think a public humiliation on this scale might do a great deal to punish Kerry...it will never be enough because we aren't going to stick him in a brick oven as happened to our honorable POW's. It would, however, still be sweet.

[RightWingMama]

Excellent commentary!

[baseballmom]

It had to happen. Sooner or later this nation had to deal with the treatment of our Viet Nam Troops. Face to face.

Yes, I think you're right. It's about time the Viet Nam vets finally had their day. God bless them all, for what they had to endure in war, and then when they came home.

[FormerACLUmember]

American servicemen (and women) are STILL tortured by Kerry's words today.

Heck, I can't listen to Kerry's droning pedantic supercilious verbal diarrhea for two seconds before changing the station.

[Sisku Hanne]

"The measure of a person's character is their whole history up until the present," he said. "It's not what they say they believe or what they'll do when president or all these platitudes. ... And he has consistently taken the side of our enemies and other countries that oppose us or have a different viewpoint."
Worth a repeat! In fact, worthy of a sign!

I was born in 1961, which makes me a little young to understand first-hand what our returning Viet Nam vets went through. But this I now understand in my heart- that instead of the understanding and forgiveness they so desperately needed and deserved, they were met with vicious disdain and disrespect for their sacrifices. They were attacked and robbed of what they needed and deserved most, much as some of our brave soliers are experiencing today when they return from Iraq.

Now when I look at someone like the abominable John Kerry, I don't just see a conniving medal-grubbing manipulator who lied about his fellow soldiers to the Senate subcommittee and who has never once recanted or apologised for his false words, (even after his Winter Soldier conspirators were thoroughly discredited). I also see a man who has committed a more henious sin...fomenting a hateful environment which denied the returning soldiers what they needed to heal their hearts and minds. Not only denying them their dignity and self-worth, but creating a mythos of the anti-war protestor which has survived to this day and now stalks our Iraq veterans.

It is absolutely repellant to me that the same people who practically celebrate the intentional snuffing of unborn babies lives can then turn around and shout "baby-killer" to our soldiers. It creates a hateful rage inside I didn't know I was capable of feeling. May God forgive me.