Posted on 08/16/2004 5:17:27 PM PDT by Ellen
I am sharing a letter my brother sent to Rush Limbaugh regarding Kerry's speech at the DNC when he recalled his bicycling into Berlin.
Having lived in Berlin, a few thoughts on John Kerry: Was his father a Diplomat, Legal Advisor, or a Foreign Service Officer? I guess like Medals and Ribbons they are interchangeable.. Working at the US Mission, Kerry would have lived in Dahlemdorf, a suburb of Berlin, which was actually in very nice condition after the war. For Kerry to have to have gone from dahlem to the bombed out Kufurstedam (quite some distance from Dahlemdorf) would not have been difficult if he traveled by train, however to get a 1950’s bicycle thru gates and turnstyles, let alone on to be allowed on a train would have been very difficult. Going a further to Checkpoint Charlie, would have been a huge trek by bicycle (single speed 1950’s), travel by train w/ bike difficult, and then to think that US Soldiers, and then followed by Russian Soldiers would have allowed him a (12 year old) and his bicycle thru the checkpoint even with a Diplomatic Passport (unconceivable) Riding his bike thru the Brandenburg Gate he says.. I am pretty sure no one got near the Brandenburg gate at this time, let alone..riding his bike thru. He observes “a very perceptible difference - the darkness, the lack of automobiles, the dark clothes.” Both sides of Berlin (East and West) had just gone thru a war.. Was East Berlin really so noticeably different from West Berlin. 25 years after the wall.certainly, but in 1954. to say.”the darkness” , he must have been extremely perceptive at 12. Wouldn’t such a perceptive 12 year old have realized the problems of going into Berlin. He comments of “riding on a train overnight through the Russian sector” and soldiers “rapping on the windows”, this would have been the duty train from Berlin to Helmstead (West Germany) across the East German Corridor, while it was under Soviet Authority was not exactly the “Russian Sector” which refers to heavily Soviet occupied East Berlin. These were the only trains with shades. The shades on trains were instituted by American Forces to discourage trading with soviet guards at the Pottsdam train station. So any rapping was most likely from an American officer walking outside the train. The Soviets were not allowed to touch the train, and from the soviet standpoint, they probably could have cared less if the shades were up or down. I can’t disprove any of his claims, simply in my mind, it raises lots of questions.
William
Here are his quotes and news articles:
The Making Of John Kerry His childhood on the move left him curious about the world. But it also made him a soloist By NANCY GIBBS AND JAMES CARNEY
....In 1954 the family moved again, to Berlin, where as the legal adviser to the U.S. mission, Richard got a longed-for chance to be part of history being made. And John got his first taste of another world. Traveling through communist East Germany, “I actually noticed a very perceptible difference - the darkness, the lack of automobiles, the dark clothes. It just seemed bleak. And I sensed the foreboding unwelcomeness to it.” One day he went so far as to ride his bike through Checkpoint Charlie and into East Berlin to look around and visit Hitler’s bunker. When Richard realized where his son had gone, John recalls, “My dad was not thrilled. He explained to me that I could have [caused] an international incident. I think he took my passport. I think I got grounded - passport grounded.”....
ABC News Dec. 17
The challenges of his youth were coupled with great opportunity. “How many kids get to ride a bike through the Brandenburg Gate and go into East Berlin and see the difference between Communism and the West at age 12?” Kerry observed
Kerry’s war experiences shape complex politician By Chuck Raasch
...At 11, when his father was posted in Berlin, John Kerry rode his bike around a city still filled with heaps of World War II rubble.
“Being exposed to a war-torn country at an early age, it just gives you a very vivid sense how these things, how public issues, play out at their worst case,” says Cam Kerry. “It brought it very much home.''...
STANFORD ...his father was stationed as a diplomat and was obviously given enough salary to enroll him in boarding school. When he was an adolescent, he was sent from the “carefree days of bike riding the bombed-out streets of Berlin”, ...
THE RECORD Senator John Kerry (#2401) January 5, 2004
Kerry: I MEAN HAVING A FATHER IN THE FOREIGN SERVICE ALLOWED ME AT AGE 12 TO GET ON A BICYCLE IN BERLIN, GERMANY, NOT TOO LONG AFTER WORLD WAR II AND RIDE INTO THE EAST SECTOR AND KIND OF LEARN FIRST-HAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FREEDOM AND DICTATORSHIP. I MEAN THESE ARE GREAT LESSONS AND—
Yepsen: WHAT DID HE MAKE OF HIS SON RIDING AROUND—AN AMERICAN DIPLOMAT RIDING AROUND?
Kerry: I’LL TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT HE DID. IT WAS MY FIRST GROUNDING. I GOT THOROUGHLY GROUNDED. HE YANKED MY PASSPORT. I USED MY DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT TO GET THROUGH, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS PRETTY CREATIVE AT AGE 12. [ LAUGHTER ] BELIEVE ME, I WAS GROUNDED.
Yepsen: THERE WERE CONSEQUENCES.
60 Minutes Jan. 25, 2004
“I can remember, as a 12-year-old kid, I actually rode my bicycle into the East sector of Berlin - which is a huge no-no - using my diplomatic passport, until my dad found out and I was firmly grounded and my passport was yanked,” Kerry recalls.
13 March 2003
Speaking to the Commonwealth Club ...and as the son of a foreign service officer who learned a lot riding a bicycle in Berlin down the Kurfürstendamm in the 1950s in the middle of the Cold War, who learned a lot riding on a train overnight through the Russian sector, watching Russian soldiers rapping the windows when this young kid was peeking through the blinds to see what it looked like, learned a lot walking around in and playing in German bunkers and feeling what an occupied nation was like, I learned that you have to be engaged in your foreign policy and learn how to see other nations not just through your own eyes
Much of Kerry’s childhood was spent in Europe while his father was stationed overseas in the Foreign Service. He attended boarding school in Switzerland, and recalls using his diplomatic passport at age 12 to ride his bike through war-ravished neighborhoods into East Berlin. “Until my dad found out and grounded me,” he said
I too, lived in Berlin - from '82 thru '85. Everything you say is true - although I don't know how things were in the '50s there. Since the airlift was in '49, I can't imagine that things were any simpler as far as crossing from East Berlin to West Berlin, or from The Zone to Berlin.
Just a little tidbit as to why my brother has some insight into the Berlin wall (aside for the fact that he worked with intel with the Army)...My brother was helping at a refugee camp for those who were fleeing E. Berlin through Chek(?) just before the wall came down. He met and married a girl who made the daring escape and it was much publicized in the press as the first such marriage.
Well....clinton travelled freely around Easten Europe during the cold war...so I guess John F'n "flip-flop fop" Kerry could have biked through.....wonder if he was "color coordinated" as well......?
Most children travel on their mother's passport. Children do no receive Diplomatic Passports, they are dependents.
Can it be verified anywhere if Kerry had a passport as a twelve year old?
I thought Ketchup Boy's 'Berlin story' would be him taking out Hitler's bunker single-handedly or some such thing.
When my family moved to Berlin in May of 1989, everyone laughed at my dad when he told them we'd live to see the fall of the Berlin Wall. Come November 9 of the same year, those people were crying tears of joy. Never was it so sweet to be wrong.
I believe that the Soviets destroyed Hitler's bunker in 1948 Thus it could not have been visited by someone who came to Germany in 1954.
From the Discovery Channel: "At the end of the war, the Red Army sealed the bunker and although, the location of Hitler's last hide-away has always been known, pieces of the concrete and reinforced roof have only come to light in October of 1999. A debate has continued about what to do with the bunker -- bury, destroy or excavate."
http://dsc.discovery.com/anthology/unsolvedhistory/inside/inside.html
I do not imagine it was different in the 1950's.. Children twelve years of age have their own passports. And IIRC diplomatic children get regular, not diplomatic, passports.
Bored as a lawyer in Boston in 1976, the future presidential hopeful opened ``Kilvert & Forbes'' cookie and muffin shop here. It's still here, at 200 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, though Kerry sold it in 1986.
I wonder if he paid emloyees above minimum wage or gave them health insurance.( like he thinks should be done now)
Remember when Gore told his 'son lay dying in his arms' story at the DNC four years ago? He knew his weakness and was trying to convice people that he was a real, human, frail person who could identify with the cares of the average man.
Kerry knows his weakness. (Well, he has many but for the sake of the election - you know what I mean). His weakness with the electorate is foreign policy so he is lying his boots off trying to convice people he fully understands the realities and needs of war. Thus Cambodia. Thus Berlin, etc.
I was on my mothers passport when young, but received my own passport prior to being 11 years old.....Immediate family of diplomats can have diplomatic status., A-1 or A-2.
I did not watch much of the DNC even though it was held not far from where I reside. I did not recall the portion of the speech where Kerry spoke of riding his bike through the Soviet sector iof Berlin.
Therefore I checked just moments ago as I saved the speech. Drudge had it posted on line before Kerry actually enunciated it and I followed it along as Kerry read from the teleprompter at the Democrat Convention.
I completely overlooked or did not hear that part of the speech. It is simply laughable that Kerry pulled that one off as well. Clearly the man is pathological in his incessant presenting of falsehoods.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
On August 13, 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected and devided the city of Berlin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.