"Hanoi John" was arrested once. Should happen again...
Kerry Involved in 1971 Anti-war Plot
to Assassinate U.S. Senators?
U.S. Veteran DispatchAugust 8, 2004
Thomas H. Lipscomb, writing for the New York Sun reported March 13, 2004, that in 1971, the pro-Hanoi anti-war group that presidential candidate John Kerry was principal leader and spokesman of debated and voted down a plot to assassinate U.S. Senators who supported the Vietnam War. Numerous media outlets claim witnesses and FBI documents conclusively place Kerry at that November 1971 meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Kansas City.
The revelation that VVAW debated killing members of Congress is not a new. The plot was reported in Gerald Nicosia's 2001 book, Home To War. Nicosia wrote that one of the key leaders of the organization, former Marine 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." .
According to the Nicosia book and interviews with VVAW members who were involved, at the VVAW's Kansas City leadership conference, Camil called together eight to 10 former Marines to organize their version "The Phoenix Project." The original Phoenix Project during the Vietnam War was a secret program designed to destroy the Vietnamese Communist leadership by assassination..
Camil's Phoenix Project planned to execute the Southern senatorial leadership Senators like John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and John Tower who were voting to finance the Vietnam War. The senators were to be killed during the Senate Christmas recess the following month..
Mr. Nicosia's book recounts that Camil's plan was presented to all the chapter coordinators present and the VVAW leadership. "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.'".
Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said Kerry did not attend the Kansas City meeting, and Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley said Kerry told him he was a "noshow.".
"Kerry may have resigned shortly after that meeting or at the meeting…" recalled the VVAW Kansas State coordinator at the time of the meeting, John Musgrave, in a March 13, 2004, Kansas City Star interview..
Musgrave, a disabled ex-marine from Baldwin City, Kansas, told the Star that he specifically remembered Kerry's attendance and his speaking against the murder plot..
Musgrave said he got a call from John Hurley, the Kerry campaign's veterans coordinator saying "I'd like you to refresh your memory." Musgrave said Hurley said it twice. "Call that reporter back and say you were mistaken about John Kerry being there.".
Musgrave said, "I told Hurley it was my first meeting as a state officer of the VVAW, and I remember John being there. I remember what I remember.".
Musgrave told Lipscomb that he received three Purple Hearts in Vietnam. After the third Purple Heart for wounds by three 7.62 rounds, one to the jaw and two to the left chest, Musgrave refused the standard release from further service in the combat zone offered Marines with three Purple Hearts and tried to return to his unit, he said. Because of the extent of his injuries he was retired from the Marines with full disability and sent home, he said..
When asked whom he is supporting in the presidential election, Musgrave replied, "I am undecided. But I am sure not voting for some guy who called me a liar." Kerry's camp said the Massachusetts Democrat does not recall the meeting, although FBI surveillance material and the group's archives clearly show that Kerry resigned from his post as VVAW national coordinator at that November 1971 meeting..
Was Kerry obligated to report the VVAW assassination plot to authorities???
Under certain conditions, knowing about such a plot and not reporting it is a crime.