Lando 
Posted on 03/21/2004 6:49:48 AM PST by Lando Lincoln
On the evening September 11th, 1970: thirty-one years to the day before al-Qaeda’s attack on America, John Forbes Kerry was sitting in a room somewhere with the other leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, engaged in a busy meeting of the Executive Committee. Among other things they discussed plans to brand all American soldiers as “war criminals” (literally so, in the form of demonstrations outside of induction centers, “for the purpose of making clear the transition between citizen and war criminal”) and making plans for a speaking tour starring fake Vietnam veteran Al Hubbard and unindicted traitor Jane Fonda. In other words, thirty-four years ago, John Kerry was engaged in the heady work slandering and insulting America’s fighting men and consorting with liars and traitors. Little has changed since.
I don’t think that many people yet understand just how radical John Kerry was during the early 1970’s. As a leader of one of the major anti-war organizations (one which was so anti-American that it ordered the American flag hauled down at all of its offices and engaged in private negotiations with an enemy holding American prisoners and still engaged in battle with the United States) Kerry was certainly much more radical than Bill Clinton who, for all that he was derided as a “Hippy” was more a poseur among that crowd than anything else. During this period, John Kerry was associated with many people who were openly allied with the enemies of the United States.
Now, naturally, this will all be down-played by the media (“it was over thirty years ago!” liberal commentators will shout with the same earnestness that they told us a few months ago that Bush’s dental records from Alabama merely, “proved that his teeth were there, not that he was there”). But still, there’s one potentially explosive issue lurking in all of this: something which has, to date, been ignored by a mainstream media whose bias and heavy-breathing on the “Bush AWOL” issue (now fully exposed as a lie) was so blatant that it even made I, I hard-nosed and long-term observer of media bias, sick. To date, this story has only been seriously discussed in print by one reporter: Thomas Lipscomb of the New York Sun, who provided a great deal of the information I have relied upon in writing this.
Here’s the story in brief: from the 12th through the 15th of November in 1971, VVAW held a major meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. At that meeting a formal proposal was put forward before the organization to assassinate a number of pro-war United States Senators including Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, and John Tower.
The proposal was put forward by Scott Camil, a particularly ardent anti-war activist. Shockingly (given the supposedly “non-violent” nature of VVAW) this was not simply dismissed out of hand. Instead, fearing that they might be overheard by government agents, the senior members of the group relocated to a position on the outskirts of the city, where they debated and voted upon the issue! The vote was defeated, though there is debate over the margin of defeat. None of this is disputed.
Neither, at this point, is it seriously disputed that Kerry was at the meeting. The present line of his campaign, in view of several individuals who place him at the meeting along with FBI surveillance records which say the same, is that the Senator may have been there, but he neither remembers being there nor the reason why he quit the organization. Also at issue is whether Kerry actually quit the group at that time or if he merely quit his position on its executive.
It seems impossible to me that John Kerry would not remember whether he was at the meeting where he personally quite the organization which catapulted him to national fame. FBI records say he was there, other people say he was there: they recall because he gave an extended speech attacking Al Hubbard, another leader of the group, and then delivered a dramatic personal resignation. Why wouldn’t he remember? Given this stunning lapse of memory why isn’t the media, which spent several years spreading every hint of a lie about George W. Bush’s supposed “drug use” looking into the question of just how many drugs the French-looking Senator was doing at the time?
Think about this for a moment: we had weeks of acrimony over charges that President Bush blew off a few National Guard drills in 1972. The media (and the left) demanded “answers” and “evidence.” Now we have a case where the presumptive Democratic nominee for the august office of President of the United States, himself a United States Senator, may have actually debated the merits of and then voted upon a resolution which would have, effectively, authorized the assassination of a number of members of the United States Senate. Even accepting the accounts of those who say that Kerry voted, “no” on the motion, this is still a deeply alarming issue. After all, there’s no evidence that Kerry, on hearing deadly serious talk about assassinating officials of the Untied States, reported it to the proper authorities. If he did, let him say so: and let the proof in the matter be produced.
This was not the idle musing of some disgruntled do-nothing. Scott Camil had gone so far as to recruit assassins and parcel out targets. As I read it that is, in and of itself, a violation of any number of criminal laws (leaving aside regular criminal laws, it would also be a Federal Crime as the individuals targeted were Senators).
Some might seize upon John Kerry’s simultaneous resignation from his position on the Executive Committee as exculpatory evidence. It is nothing of the sort. If I were to go to a club meeting tomorrow, and the fellow members of the club began to seriously plan the assassination of a public official (even if they were only a minority of the membership), it would not be enough for merely to get up and wash my hands of the matter. On learning of an assassination plot, it is not enough to say, “Well, it isn’t my thing.” One who knows of a conspiracy to commit murder has a legal obligation to disclose that knowledge to the authorities.
In any case, Kerry still seems to have retained a link to the organization after these events. An AP report dated January 11th, 1972 describes him as being “head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.” A New York Times story dated January 26th 1972 describes him as, “a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.” He is identically described in another Associated Press story dated April 22, 1972. Now, these might well have simply been errors: but they sure seem like awfully persistent ones.
This issue needs to be seriously explored. I cannot think of many plausible accusations of equal seriousness which could be made. If George Bush’s medical records from 1972 are an issue, then surely the possibility that John Kerry remained silent about a conspiracy to murder a number of United States Senators is at least an issue that deserves equal attention.
Oh, and there’s an interesting final note on this. Guess whose campaign Scott Camil has been offered a job with?
Lando
BTW, what is the statute of limitations on conspiracy to murder a U.S. Senator(s)?
Anyone... Bueller?
| Mike Reagan show to be discussing Kerry and Kansas City, Nov. 1971 |
Clinton was into the "free love" part of that era, nothing more -- far from a radical, relatively to Kerry and his ilk.
Fine with me. Although without question the most popular Rat and the one who's most likely to lure leftists to the voting booth, she's despised by way too large a section of the center to win a general election.
I have doubts about that.
From Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (p. 135):
"Kerry did not return from Vietnam a radical antiwar activist. Friends said that when Kerry first began talking about running for office, he was not visibly agitated about the Vietnam War. 'I thought of him as a rather normal vet,' a friend said to a reporter, 'glad to be out but not terribly uptight about the war.' Another acquaintance who talked to Kerry about his political ambitions called him 'a very charismatic fellow looking for a good issue'"
Isn't this something the Bush campaign should tell the country. It should be a campaign ad.
One Of John Kerry's "Band Of Brothers"
Various | March 8, 2004 | Hon
Posted on 03/08/2004 4:01:31 AM EST by Hon
One Of John Kerry's "Band Of Brothers"
Cape Vet, Kerry Renew Ties
By Jack Coleman
Staff Writer
The Cape Codder OnlineDelivering his victory speech in New Hampshire Tuesday night, U.S. Sen. John Kerry said he was indebted to a specific group around him on stage.
"In the hardest moments of the past month, I depended on the same band of brothers I depended on more than 30 years ago," said Kerry, with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, beside him. "We're a little older now, a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.
"And if I am president, I pledge that those who wore the uniform of the United States of America will have a voice and a champion in the Oval Office."
A few feet away, wearing the Marine Corps cap he has owned since serving in Vietnam, stood Brewster resident Joseph Bangert - one of the proverbial boys in the band.
Joe Bangert of Brewster can be seen directly behind Teresa Heinz Kerry in this photo from CNN of the Kerry camp celebrating John Kerry's victory in the New Hampshire primary. Bangert, like Kerry a Vietnam veteran, was in New Hampshire for five days working on Kerry's campaign. SourceJoseph Bangert, 55, a decorated Marine who met Kerry in 1970 after both became activists against the war, spent five days working as a volunteer in Kerry's campaign.
Bangert returned home yesterday, exhausted but still exhilarated.
"I woke up this morning and I noticed all these guys my age were putting their military hats and jackets on," Bangert said. "I think there's a whole bunch of people who are finding out, through this campaign, that it's OK to be a veteran."
Kerry's candidacy holds potential as "catharsis for the Vietnam generation," he said.
Bangert, of the Veterans for Kerry contingent, said Kerry has drawn together a formidable coalition of veterans, past and current anti-war activists and even some conservatives disenchanted with President Bush.
What they share, Bangert said, is anger at Bush and the federal government for cuts in veterans services and doubts that things will improve under the current commander-in-chief.
Bangert, hobbled by disability since the war, works as a volunteer teaching English to immigrant Brazilians.
He may rejoin the campaign with other veterans heading to South Carolina from Boston this weekend.
Monday night at 10, Kerry returned to campaign headquarters in Manchester for a final rally before the primary.
Kerry spotted Bangert and called out his name, then embraced him.
Joe Bangert's "Testimony" Before The Winter Soldier Investigation
BANGERT. My name is Joe Bangert. I'm a Philadelphia resident. I enlisted in the Marine Corps for four years in 1967. I went to Vietnam in 1968. My unit in Vietnam was Marine Observation Squadron Six with the First Marine Air Wing and my testimony will cover the slaughter of civilians, the skinning of a Vietnamese woman, the type of observing our squadron did in Vietnam and the crucifixion of Vietnamese either suspects or civilians in Vietnam.BANGERT. The first day I got to Vietnam I landed in Da Nang Air Base. I was picked up by a truckload of grunt Marines with two company grade officers, 1st Lts.; we were about 5 miles down the road, where there were some Vietnamese children at the gateway of the village and they gave the old finger gesture at us. It was understandable that they picked this up from the GIs there. They stopped the trucks--they didn't stop the truck, they slowed down a little bit, and it was just like response, the guys got up, including the lieutenants, and just blew all the kids away. There were about five or six kids blown away and then the truck just continued down the hill. That was my first day in Vietnam.
As far as the crucified bodies, they weren't actually crucified with nails, but they would find VCs or something (I never got the story on them) but, anyway, they were human beings, obviously dead, and they would take them and string them out on fences, on barbed wire fences, stripped, and sometimes they would take flesh wounds, take a knife and cut the body all over the place to make it bleed, and look gory as a reminder to the people in the village.
Also in Quang Tri City I had a friend who was working with USAID and he was also with CIA. We used to get drunk together and he used to tell me about his different trips into Laos on Air America Airlines and things. One time he asked me would I like to accompany him to watch. So I went with him and when we got there the ARVNs had control of the situation.
They didn't find any enemy but they found a woman with bandages. So she was questioned by six ARVNs and the way they questioned her, since she had bandages, they shot her. She was hit about twenty times. After she was questioned, and, of course, dead, this guy came over, who was a former major, been in the service for twenty years, and he got hungry again and came back over working with USAID, Aid International Development. He went over there, ripped her clothes off and took a knife and cut, from her vagina almost all the way up, just about up to her breasts and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them out. Then, he stopped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there as a sign for something or other and that was those instances.
BANGERT. Back to this specific instance where I talk about the disembowelment of the women--I think the person involved was a freaked out sexist, if that's what you're trying to get at. I think maybe he had problems. He had to be--he was in the Army for 20 years.
MODERATOR. Any of you gentlemen here on the panel, could you release any incidents of fragging that you ever heard of or saw?
BANGERT. A lifer was in charge of the mail. He stopped the mail for about three days because he wanted his troops to shine their shoes or something or clean up or shave or get a haircut and he stopped the mail. So someone told him if we don't get mail by noon on a specific day before midnight, that night you're going to be offered [sic]. But since he was hard and he was in the Korean War, he thought that what happened in the old Marine Corps is happening in Vietnam, he persisted and the mail wasn't gotten out and before midnight he was fragged.
Bangert Among Group In New Hampshire Stumping For Senator Bangert, a longtime Kerry friend and supporter, was in the Granite State working at the Kerry Headquarters as part of Veterans for Kerry.
Bangert was busy "working the phones," calling veterans and their families. It was a tough job at times, because voters were becoming somewhat jaded. "The poor people from New Hampshire, they've been courted" by all the campaigns," he said. "You'll call someone and they'll say, 'This is the eighteenth call I've gotten today.'" But his status as a veteran reaching out to a fellow veteran helped a lot, he said. "There is a connection immediately."
Bangert, who served as a Marine in Vietnam, first met Kerry shortly after he came home in 1970 and joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, of which Kerry was a prominent member. The group marched to Valley Forge in September of that year, and Kerry spoke at the event. Bangert was impressed, and years later, in 1984, worked on Kerry's campaign.
Many veterans are drawn to Kerry - who served two tours of duty in Vietnam - because of his military service, said Bangert. Veterans, Bangert said, have been an untapped political resource. "Veterans account for 19 percent of the population, and they've never been mobilized," Bangert said.
Joe Bangert's Response To Questions From Veterans On Alt.Vietnam - Usenet
From: GIjoe (bai@capecod.net)
Subject: Re: I told the truth at Winter Soldier,Amen!Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
View: Complete Thread (18 articles) Original Format
Date: 2001-06-08 20:51:47 PSTI am the real Joe Bangert...For the record, I am not haunted by my actions in Viet Nam. Having chucked my medals over the fence during Operation Dewey Canyon III- my masculinity does not hinge on dusty old pieces of metal nor colorful ribbons garnered via tribal headbashing.
The Winter Soldier Investigations were timely and followed the My Lai incident- what happened at My Lai (they the DOD lied) was not an isolated incident of aberrant behavior. Real veterans were assembled from many units and time frames to explain to the American people that what happened at Pinkville was- in a sense- SOP- you can deny it- but then you would be lying- and this was just as Nixon and his lying sack of shit administration who was elected to end the war but did NOT have a secret plan to end the war, but rather expanded the war into the whole Indochina theatre- 'Dewey Canyon I' operated in Laos in 1969- I was there in the sky on the ground briefly. Thank God.
Then in 1970 Nixon's 'limited incursion' into Cambodia ended in bitter defeat in seeking 'COSVN' and ended up with South Vietnamese troops (Hackman Vo's people) beheading Cambodians and eating their livers and hearts! Having been a helicopter crew member I helped saved countless lives of wounded and transported the dead and dying to their temporary resting places in the red clay of Quang Tri and Thua Thien, Laos and Quang Nam.
This was followed by the assassination of American kids at Orangeburg and Kent State who opposed the fucking war!
Being antiwar was a continuation of saving lives and preventing more killing and wounding.
I am very proud that I worked tirelessly to undermine the Thieu regime and help the American people cut off all aid to the Nguyen Van Thieu clique They were/ and are fucking thieves and fascists. Wasn't it Nguyen Cao Ky (sun glasses and purple ascot) and a former French Air Force lackey who once said he greatly admired Adolph Hitler?
You may recall that George Herbert Walker Bush as well as Babs flew into Hanoi to give a speech on behalf of Citibank (and was rewarded with a million Moonie bucks- was rumored to also be in the market to buy 1,000,000 M-16's left behind to be used as some sort of trophy for Viet Nam War buffs- the joke going on then in Thang Long town was "Who wants to but a million ARVN M-16's- never fired- dropped once!"
I worked tirelessly after the war for reconciliation between our two peoples and nations. I have no regrets. And yes, unlike you traumatized hate-filled basket cases and right wing troglodytes I did go back and work in Viet Nam in my own pursuit of happiness.
What I did is none of your concern. I'm okay with Viet Nam- there the war is way over, it is here that closure has not occurred. I have many friends over there as well as here. My friends over there include many former PAVN soldiers who once fought against me- their friendship is a gift which I cherish- I don't pretend you are my enemies today- but you sure act it. Think about this. I'll take them anyDAY over most of you. And that is a fact.
It is 2001 boys- grow up and get a life- THE WAR IS OVER! IT's ALL OVER!
WAR WHAT WAS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! ' Biet roi, kho lam, noi mai nhinh thi biet' as they might say to me ovewr a few cold Halidas or Con Ho's and that is the whole truth.
Now back to your fragging- and self aggrandizing- you all deserve each other- I will drop in from time to time as is my perogative- and if you don't like it- well -tough shit then.
I will not respond to your red baiting McCarthyite tactics and ad hominem arguments.
Look at yourself in the mirror- what do you see? Pathetic nitwits.
There is one lesson I did learn in the 'Nam - some of the best people I ever met served with me and some of the worst scurrilous scumbags were there as well, as you so much remind me from time to time- Well it is time for me to noi tieng Viet Nam so
Tam Biet ya'll- and get a new target tomorrow- and that's the way it is.
G.I. Joe < ;-)
From The Peggy Seeger (Sister Of Pete) Website
Dear Sister Peggy,
Greetings from Cape Cod! My name is Joe Bangert, and I eyed your name on the email list from an email I received today from a mutual friend- Barbara Dane- and was motivated to introduce myself to you and tell you- apart from my love of both you and your brother's musical and artistic contributions to at least three generations of my family- how gratified I am to share with you my deep admiration of Ewan's 'Ballad of Ho Chi Minh'.
Sure I learned it by heart- after returning home from my stint as a door gunner on a Marine helicopter in Quang Tri, Viet Nam circa 1969. Six months later I upped and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and later met Barbara in Paris at the World Assembly for the Peace and Independence of the Indochinese Peoples at Versailles. We had a great banquet with the diplomatic delegations of both the DRVN and the PRGSVN and later some music began- Barbara sang the 'Song of the Coats' and the only song the young boisterous delegation from the USA could all agree on singing together by heart when asked to sing 'an American worker's song' was "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin.
Barbara then asked me to join her on the stage- for I had boldly decided to wear a close fitting shirt which had emblazened on the front of it- the flag of the National Liberation Front of south Viet Nam. It was then that I belted out both "We Will Liberate the South" (Giai Phong Mien Nam) the national anthem of the NLF in Vietnamese- for I am a linguist- and ended that portion of the show with the Ballad of Uncle Ho. It was a show stopper to say these least
Since then I have sang Ewan's delightful song over one thousand times indeed- and when I was working back in Viet Nam, in Ha Noi from 1992-1997 I had the occasion to sing it and teach it to virtually thousands upon thousands of younger Vietnamese boys and girls-I always give Ewan the credit for penning it.
I just wanted you to know that this song rocks even in 2002~!
Best Regards,
Joe Bangert
For those of you who might not be familiar with the National Anthem of the Viet Cong, here are a few lyrics from "Giai Phong Mien Nam":
A good chance for the country has come
Dawn is lighting up everywhere
And our task is to build a more beautiful country
--by Huynh Minh Sieng.
And here is the start of the song, "The Ballad Of Ho Chin Minh":
Now Ho Chi Minh went to the mountains
And he trained a determined band
Heroes all, sworn to liberate the Indo-Chinese people
Drive invaders from the land.
--by Ewan MacColl
JOE BANGERT
Singer
Founding Member of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) Member of 'Hanoi Chapter of the ' Quang Tri- Thua Thien Vietnamese Veterans Association'. Inducted into the Oglala Sioux Warrior Society after serving as a member of security during the siege of Wounded Knee.
TOPICS: News/Current Events; Click to Add Topic
KEYWORDS: 2004; JOSEPHBANGERT; KERRY; Click to Add Keyword[ Report Abuse | Bookmark ]Remember, when Kerry talks about his "Band Of Brothers" this is the kind of guy he is talking about.
To: All
US Senate candidate John Kerry is flanked by fellow Vietnam veterans in front of the State House on September 12, 1984, as he receives their endorsement. Speaking is Joe Bangert, US Marine Sergeant and helicopter gunner.
Kerry has been using this traitorous bastard for years.
This was not the idle musing of some disgruntled do-nothing. Scott Camil had gone so far as to recruit assassins and parcel out targets.
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Not only does he have the looks of someone who thinks he's so cool, that you want to slap him, his voice is even annoying. He sounds like an obnoxious cross between Thurston Howell and Richie Rich.
Unfortunately, it's not just leftists who would vote for her. There are enough people who would vote for her merely because of her sex to take her over the top. Further, she is viewed by many as a "moderate," (which says more about what the media considers moderate than anything else). There will be no scrutiny over her past. She is such an effective communicator, and if you don't believe that, recall how many here at FR thought Lazio had a real shot at beating her.
She's dangerous, more so this year than at any other time. The key to winning this one is to play Kerry like a fish until the very end.
The author of this blog is obviously a close reader of the posts here about this subject. Last night, as you know, I posted how there seemed to be some follow-on activity, since Terry DuBose claims to have been told to assassinate John Tower, since he (DuBose) was also from Texas. I didn't say Camil approached DuBose--and neither did the DuBose quote.
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All polls I've seen show Bush beating Hillary far easier than beating Kerry. Much of media does indeed attempt to portray her as a moderate, but not enough people buy into that nonsense to put her over the top in a general election, imo.
"Kerry was certainly much more radical than Bill Clinton who, for all that he was derided as a “Hippy” was more a poseur among that crowd than anything else.
Clinton was into the "free love" part of that era, nothing more -- far from a radical, relatively to Kerry and his ilk.
1. Clinton travelled extensively in East Europe at the height of the cold war....who did he meet.?
and
2. Arranged the massive 1968 demonstration outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square.
| Publication:The New York Sun; | Date:Mar 12, 2004; | Section:Front page; | Page:1 |
When Talk Turned To Assassination He Exited, Vet Says
By THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB Special to the Sun
The anti-war group that John Kerry was the principal spokesman for debated and voted on a plot to assassinate politicians who supported the Vietnam War.
Mr. Kerry denies being present at the November 12-15, 1971, meeting in Kansas City of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and says he quit the group before the meeting. But according to the current head of Missouri Veterans for Kerry, Randy Barnes, Mr. Kerry,who was then 27,was at the meeting, voted against the plot, and then orally resigned from the organization.
Mr. Barnes was present as part of the Kansas City host chapter for the 1971 meeting and recounted the incident in a phone interview with The New York Sun this week.
In addition to Mr. Barnes’s recollection placing Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, another Vietnam veteran who attended the meeting, Terry Du-Bose, said that Mr. Kerry was there.
There are at least two other independent corroborations that the antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, of which Mr. Kerry was the most prominent national spokesman, considered assassinating American political leaders who favored the war.
Gerald Nicosia’s 2001 book “Home To War” reports that one of the key leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Scott Camil,“proposed the assassination of the most hard-core conservative members of Congress,as well as any other powerful, intractable opponents of the antiwar movement.”The book reports on the Kansas City meeting at which Mr.Camil’s plan was debated and then voted down.
Mr. Nicosia’s book was widely praised by reviewers as varied as General Harold Moore, author of “We Were Soldiers”; Gloria Emerson, who had been a New York Times reporter during the Vietnam War, and leftist Howard Zinn. Mr. Kerry himself stated in a blurb on the cover that the book “ties together the many threads of a difficult period.” Mr. Kerry hosted a party for the book in the Hart Senate Office Building that was televised on C-SPAN.
Another source is an October 20,1992, oral history interview of Scott Camil on file at the University of Florida Oral History Archive.In it, Mr.Camil speaks of his plan for an alternative to Mr.Kerry’s idea of symbolically throwing veterans’ medals over the fence onto the steps of the Capitol during the Dewey Canyon III demonstration in Washington in April of 1971.
“My plan was that, on the last day we would go into the [congressional] offices we would schedule the most hardcore hawks for last — and we would shoot them all,” Mr. Camil told the Oral History interviewer. “I was serious.”
In a phone interview with the Sun this week, Mr. Camil did not dispute either the account in the Nicosia book or in the oral history. He said he plans to accept an offer by the Florida Kerry organization to become active in Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign. Campaign aides to Mr. Kerry invited Mr.Camil to a meeting for the senator in Orlando last week, but they did not meet directly.
Mr. Camil was known to colleagues in the anti-war movement as “Scott the Assassin.” Mr. Camil told The New York Sun he got the name in Vietnam for “sneaking down to the Vietnamese villages at night and killing people.”
According to the Nicosia book and interviews with VVAW members who were involved, at the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Kansas City leadership conference, Mr. Camil tried to put his plan into effect. He called together eight to 10 Marines to organize something he called “The Phoenix Project.” The original Phoenix Project during the Vietnam War was an attempt to destroy the Viet Cong leadership by assassination. Mr. Camil’s Phoenix Project planned to execute the Southern senatorial leadership that was financing the Vietnam War. Senators like John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and John Tower were his targets, according to Mr. Camil. They were to be killed during the Senate Christmas recess the following month.
After an attempt to parcel out the hit jobs required to kill the senators, Mr. Camil’s plan was presented to all the chapter coordinators present and the VVAW leadership. Mr. Nicosia’s book recounts, “What Camil sketched was so explosive that the coordinators feared lest government agents even hear of it. So they decamped to a church on the outskirts of town with the intention of debating the plan in complete privacy.When they got to the church, however, they found that the government was already on to them; their ‘debugging expert’ uncovered microphones hidden all over the place. An instantaneous decision was made to move again to Common Ground, a Mennonite hall used by homeless vets as a ‘crash pad.’”
“Camil was deadly serious, brilliant, and highly logical,” Mr. Nicosia told the Sun.
The plan was voted down. There’s a difference of opinion as to how narrow the margin was.
The claims of Mr. Kerry’s involvement in the assassination discussions in Kansas City have apparently not been previously reported.
The most recent book that focuses on Mr. Kerry’s relations with his fellow Vietnam veterans, Douglas Brinkley’s “Tour of Duty,” reports the events as follows: “In a November 10 letter housed at the VVAW papers in Madison,Wisconsin, Kerry quit, politely noting he had been proud to serve in the national organization. His reason was straightforward: ‘personality conflicts and differences in political philosophy.’ In two days,VVAW was meeting in Kansas City and he would be a noshow.”
But in a footnote, Mr. Brinkley acknowledges,“I could not locate Kerry’s November 10 VVAW resignation letter supposedly housed at the Wisconsin archives. The quote I used comes directly from Andrew E. Hunt’s essential ‘The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1999).”
When asked by the Sun who told him Mr. Kerry was “no-show” at Kansas City, Mr. Brinkley replied, “Senator Kerry.” Mr. Brinkley also stated that Mr. Kerry did not have a personal copy of the resignation letter either.
But in an interview with the Sun, the “essential” historian Mr. Brinkley relied on as his source, Andrew E. Hunt, said “I never stated that there was a letter of resignation, or even implied in my book that I saw one. I never could find one in the archives in Wisconsin. I don’t know how Brinkley got the idea that I had. I never could figure out when Kerry resigned.” When asked about Mr. Brinkley’s statement that Mr. Kerry didn’t have a copy of the resignation letter either, Mr. Hunt said, “I don’t know about that. I never could get an interview with Senator Kerry. But I never saw anyone who saves things the way Kerry does.”
Whether or not there was a letter of resignation dated November 10 is obviously important, since it predates the Kansas City assassination discussions by two days.
Mr. Camil said he did not recall whether Mr. Kerry was at the Kansas City meeting nor did he recall whether he had discussed his assassination plan with Mr. Kerry.
But Mr. Barnes, the head of the Missouri Veterans for Kerry, said, “I don’t think there was a letter of resignation. He just said he was resigning after the vote.”
Clearly there is considerable confusion about the time of Mr. Kerry’s resignation.According to Mr. Nicosia,“He resigned from the executive committee” after a spectacular argument with VVAW leader Al Hubbard at the July national leadership meeting in St Louis.
But on behalf of the John Kerry campaign, spokesman David Wade told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Kerry resigned from Vietnam Veterans Against the War “sometime in the summer of 1971 after the August meeting in St. Louis, which Kerry did not attend.”
Mr.Wade also said,“Kerry was not at the Kansas City meeting.”
Two-thirds of the American troops in Vietnam at the height of American commitment in 1969 had already been withdrawn in the “Vietnamization” policy in effect at the time of the VVAW Kansas City conference in November 1971. When asked recently by the Sun why the assassinations still seemed necessary, Mr. Camil replied: “The war was still going on. We had to stop it.”
After an attempt to parcel out the hit jobs required to kill the senators, Mr. Camil’s plan was presented to all the chapter coordinators present and the VVAW leadership.
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Not much of a leap. More like a baby step. But I see your point. I'll keep digging.
This is the most important sentence in the blog, and we need to see proof of it. If this can be backed up, it means that Kerry was indeed a conspirator to commit murder of federal officers. Penalty of up to life in prison.
Was a move made toward killing, or not??
Kerry Still Called Himself The Head Of VVAW In January 1973
Boston Globe ^ | March 19, 2004
Posted on 03/18/2004 11:26:44 PM EST by Hon
I sometimes wonder why I bother, but again, here is a photo from the BOSTON GLOBE with the Bettman Caption (as surely supplied by Kerry himself):
John Kerry Watching Nixon on Television John Kerry, a Vietnam vet and head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, watches as President Nixon announces an agreement on a cease fire in Vietnam. Kerry, who lost to Republican Paul Cronin (D-Mass) in the November general elections said, "my initial reaction is thank God that the prisoners are coming home and that we at least have stopped American participation in the war."
© Bettmann/CORBIS
Date Photographed: January 24, 1973
Location Information: Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
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