Old Harvard Crimson Interview Reveals A More Radical John Kerry [MUST READ]

The Harvard Crimson ^ | Feb 11, 2004 | ZACHARY M. SEWARD

[nwrep]

Ten months after returning home from Vietnam, a young John Kerry strolled into the offices of The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970 as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional primary.

The decorated veteran, honorably discharged after a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta, spoke in fierce terms during his daylong interview with The Crimson’s Samuel Z. Goldhaber ’72.

But almost 34 years later, Kerry’s remarks on American military and intelligence operations vastly diverge from opinions expressed by the present-day Sen. John F. Kerry, D.-Mass., the leading candidate in the Democratic primary for president.

“I’m an internationalist,” Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. “I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”

Kerry said he wanted “to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.”

The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator’s remarks.

As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA operations.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich defended Kerry’s 1970 statements as appropriate for their time.

“In the context of the Vietnam War, those comments are completely understandable,” said Reich, who has endorsed Kerry.

But a spokesperson for President Bush’s reelection campaign said Kerry’s 1970 remarks signaled the senator’s weakness on defense.

“President Bush will never cede the best interests of the national security of the American people to anybody but the president of the United States, along with the Congress,” said the spokesperson, Kevin A. Madden.

The increasingly likely matchup between Kerry and Bush has already prompted comparisons of the senator’s record in Vietnam and the president’s domestic service in the National Guard. And the two Yale graduates, both members of the secret society Skull and Bones, appeared set to square off in future months under the specter of the ongoing war in Iraq.

Goldhaber, whose first-person profile of Kerry ran in The Crimson Feb. 18, 1970, said yesterday he recalled the candidate as an emerging outsider whose campaign focused squarely on his opposition to the Vietnam War.

“We lived, dreamed and breathed Vietnam,” Goldhaber said.

Still, Adam Clymer ’58, political director of the National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania, said Kerry’s comments would likely find their way into Bush campaign materials.

“If I were them, I’d use this,” said Clymer, a former Crimson president. “I’d use it in direct mail.”

Kerry’s conservative opponents have already begun painting the Massachusetts senator and former deputy governor as an elite, New England liberal, and his 21-year voting record in the Senate may provide considerable ammunition.

Madden said the Bush campaign would highlight Kerry’s Senate votes should he win the Democratic nomination.

And Reich forecasted G.O.P. research would extend far beyond Capitol Hill.

“If Kerry is the nominee, Republicans will try and search back into everything he ever said on every issue,” Reich predicted.

Kerry’s 1970 remarks to Goldhaber portray a fiery, novice politician inspired by his opposition to the Vietnam War.

“He struck me as very ambitious,” Goldhaber said yesterday. “He struck me as the sort of person—even back then, newly returned from Vietnam—who was thinking about running for president.”

[NYC Republican]

Thanks! After over 4,000 posts on FR, you would have thought I'd know that already...

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

from...The Kerry Files.

[jmaroneps37]

This is a great example of why lurch is doomed. In the past, we would have had to rely on the ( ha ha ha) ratmedia to dig this stuff up. Now with the Net, talk radio and FOXtv we can do it ourselves. The power of the ratmedia to say"This is news. This is not news. This goes on the air, that will never see the light of day." are OVER.

[Wallace T.]

The GOP should hope that Kerry and his operatives (both on his payroll and in the mainstream media) continue to harp on Bush's National Guard record. This makes his big time antiwar activist role fair game. Reminding voters of his "longhair dope-smoking maggot" days will not endear him to the Rust Belt voters he needs to hold to carry Gore states like IL, MI, and PA, and pick up states like OH and WV that would put him over the top. The best depiction of these blue collar and lower end white collar Baby Boomers' Vietnam era experience was the movie "The Deer Hunter" and not "The Big Chill."

If Kerry has a chance of winning, he must, like Clinton in 1992, focus away from the social issues and repeat the "It's the economy, stupid" mantra that worked so well for Der Slickmeister.

[Condor51]

"The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care."

---

Wrong you commie rat, some did care - that's why we were fighting there. But you probably admired the Pathet Lao for their 'struggle against the oppressors', right - you maggot. And John how'd you forget to mention our Cambodia missions? Or were you saving that for a future anti-american pro-communist tirade? And is it true John that Pol Pot contributed to your first political campaign? You know John, if you released all your records for the past 35 years you could clear up that question.

For the 'youngsters' here; Pol Pot

[babaloo]

Harold Ford is a nasty piece of work. He gets invited on the shows because he takes on the character of a "reasonable moderate democrat" but he is not. Do not trust anything this man says.

[Aquinasfan]

I said a lot of stupid things when I was 24 too. I think his congressional voting record will be far more damaging. He has a higher liberal rating than Ted Kennedy. And the fact that he was one of only 14 dissenters on the Defense of Marriage Act, in spite of the fact that "everybody knows I'm against homosexual marriage," is going to cost him.

[Aquinasfan]

If we do that, he says, the 'rats won't make ans issue of GWB's National Guard service.

OK, now I get the National Guard thing.

[prognostigaator]

bttt

[js1138]

And the fact that he was one of only 14 dissenters on the Defense of Marriage Act, in spite of the fact that "everybody knows I'm against homosexual marriage," is going to cost him.

What will cost him in the end is that he has taken all possible sides on every issue. Not just wishy-washy avoid confrontation stands, but radical stands completely opposing his alternate personality.

[maica]

This stuff is so damaging I am feeling the need for a tin-foil hat. If Kerry is hugely discredited before the Dem convention, Hillary will find a way to accept the heavy burden of running against GWB, and all the schoolteacher delegates will think she is the second coming.

Could it be Hillary operatives bringing all this focus (discreetly) (by manipulating the press corps into thinking they have found red meat with Bush's NG service) onto Kerry's activities?

[buffyt]

Thanks for posting this! I have been trying to read it all day, and I guess their website is being so bombarded with hits that it won't open. The UN???? Well,

JOHaNoi Jane KERRY

I would like to see the UN out of the US. and the US out of the UN!

[new cruelty]

bump

[backhoe]

Cross-link:

-John Kerry- some selected, informative links...--

[backhoe]

This stuff is so damaging I am feeling the need for a tin-foil hat. If Kerry is hugely discredited before the Dem convention, Hillary will find a way to accept the heavy burden of running against GWB, and all the schoolteacher delegates will think she is the second coming. Could it be Hillary operatives bringing all this focus (discreetly) (by manipulating the press corps into thinking they have found red meat with Bush's NG service) onto Kerry's activities?

FWIW, I suspect you are right. All this stuff about Mr. Kerry has been out there all these years- not like it's a secret!

[tuckrdout]

"This is a useless debate about what happened 30-35 years ago. The key here is what has each done lately to lead this Nations in one of its most perilous times. On these grounds, Bush wins hands down.

This is what every Republican needs to say when presented with the "national guard" red herring. Remind them that Bush put in all his time in the guard, and has been on duty EVERYDAY, as Commander in Chief of the military, the last four years. We don't care about what he did 30 years ago; Bush has proven his patriotism and skill in the past 3 years!

[tuckrdout]

Hey! Can we send this letter from Col. Campenni to our own local newspapers? I think this would be a great way to get it before the eyes of all the voters, I don't see it publisized in the NYT!

[maica]

The videotape of an obscure Canadian TV show where Dean dissed the Iowa caucus process 'turned up' just before the Iowa Primary. While his 2004 televised behavior in Iowa also contributed to his defeat, I am sure that somebody hoped the 10 year old videotape would be damaging when they distributed it to various media outlets.

Kerry's people? or Hillary's people? I bet on H's crowd.

[dmanLA]

Great post!