HOW KERRY QUIT VETERANS GROUP AMID DARK PLOT -

The New York Sun ^

[Free ThinkerNY]

HOW KERRY QUIT VETERANS GROUP AMID DARK PLOT

When Talk Turned To Assassination He Exited, Vet Says

By THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB Special to the Sun

The New York Sun

Mar 12, 2004

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 YorkTimes 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 theVietnamVeterans 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.”

[Brilliant]

Did he report it to the authorities?

[muawiyah]

Look, I don't believe Kerry now in a thing he says, so why should I believe his story about quitting.

As far as anyone is concerned, given this man's records, he may be plotting to attend the next session of the Senate wearing a Palestinian style suicide belt.

Kerry is simply not a man to be trusted!

[VadeRetro]

The good news is he voted against assassinating US Senators. The bad news is he lied about everything, his usual behavior.

[Free ThinkerNY]

No. I suppose he forgot to mention it to them.

[TomGuy]

FBI records show Kerry was in KC during that timeframe, too.

Kerry denied being there. He appeared on William Buckley's program during that timeframe.

Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the Kerry-Buckley interview was taped 3 weeks prior to its airing; thus 3 weeks prior to the KC meeting. Just another of Kerry's faulty memories.

[Texas Eagle]

Clearly there is considerable confusion about the time of Mr. Kerry’s resignation.

What are the odds.

[Fedora]

Previously posted here:

How Kerry Quit Veterans Group Amid Dark Plot

[68skylark]

Sounds like Kerry was at the meeting in Kansas City. You'd think something like that would be seared, seared into his memory. But I guess he's forgotten about it. It could be from the stress of all those secret missions into Cambodia.

[Howlin]

No.

[Howlin]

What are the odds.

Exactly. He's been so truthful and clear about everything else.

[rineaux]

“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.”

“I was serious.”!!!

Mr. Kerry invited Mr.Camil to a meeting for the senator in Orlando last week, but they did not meet directly.


This is what troubles me. Kerry would have someone in his own campaign who wanted to assassinate us senators. in a kerry presidency, what role would camil have?

[GailA]

btt

[BunnySlippers]

Bump

[the invisib1e hand]

see what a patriot he is?

[Free ThinkerNY]

Kerry's deceits are quickly catching up with him. It couldn't happen to a nicer scumbag.

[new cruelty]

I suppose that depends on whether he was there- before he wasn't there.

[Republic]

Wonder if this assination plot was part of the reason for the watergate breakin-if there was a collusion between the leftist dems and this group.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

The plan was voted down. There’s a difference of opinion as to how narrow the margin was.

Lemme guess.

"I voted for the plan before I voted against it."

[Free ThinkerNY]

This is what troubles me. Kerry would have someone in his own campaign who wanted to assassinate us senators. in a kerry presidency, what role would camil have?

Maybe Kerry plans to set up a new Department of Internal Assassination.

[TomGuy]

A thread a few days ago (I don't remember which one, there are so many of Kerry deceits) showed Kerry was still involved in group activities into 1972.

He may have resigned (there was a dated resignation letter that surfaced months ago), but he was still involved with the group after the KC meeting.

[AaronInCarolina]

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.

Utter B.S. This de-classified FBI document of surveillance of the meeting and contemporaneous informants at the meeting say otherwise. Page 192 of Section 11 Document (FBI PDF Document Section 11) (11 for November, I think) plainly states that Kerry arrived at the November 1971 meeting in Kansas City and announced that he was resigning from the "executive committee" for "personal reasons". He clearly remained at the meeting and attended for several days, even after announcing his resignation from the executive committee. The document states that he still planned to be an active member of the VVAW, just not part of the executive committee. The document then on PDF page 194 says that the "Agenda committee" met privately for an hour where Scot Camil proposed his "readiness squads" (codeword for Phoenix type group). The surveillance document says that the Agenda committee then refused to let Camil present the proposal to the general meeting, but placed the proposal on the agenda for the Spring Meeting in February 1972. Now there must have been some falling out between Scot Camil and the national VVAW committee, because elsewhere in the document it says that somewhere around December, the national group distanced themselves from Camil, and said that Camil no longer represented the national VVAW organization. The document goes on to say that Camil announced he was starting his own splinter VVAW local group.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

John effing Kerry is, in popular phraseology, a NUT. That explains him. how he got where he is is really puzzling.

[NavySEAL F-16]

Is that headline misleading to anyone else?

[AmericanInTokyo]

Give a scroundrel even one small morsel of praise if you can.

In this case, it is probably true that he voted against action and resigned. But methinks first and foremost in his mind was not so much the safety of US officials, but the fact that he had his eye on a Congressional seat the following year, and this would "go down bad for him and his career." So he bailed out.

But several questions: Why lie about having been there, and secondly, why did he not assist the police and Secret Service in breaking up the actions of the more radical faction? Disturbing.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

This is what troubles me. Kerry would have someone in his own campaign who wanted to assassinate us senators. in a kerry presidency, what role would camil have?

Congressional Liaison?

Talk about commies having the Camil nose under the tent...

[Free ThinkerNY]

That's why he the perfect leader for the rest of the lunatic Democrats.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

I guess there is logic to that way of an explanation for how Kerry got where he is. He's the chief nut.

[TommyDale]

Not only did Kerry fail to report anything to the authorities, he also continued to serve as a spokesman for this radical group for another year or so.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

The best response you can ever expect to get out of a 'Rat in this situation: "Well all politicians lie!"

[AaronInCarolina]

He said he plans to accept an offer by the Florida Kerry organization to become active in Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign.

And why would anyone in his right mind consider coming within 100 miles of this nut-case Camil during the current campaign? Surely Kerry had to know that it was no secret that Camil was a murderous whacko. It just goes to show how Kerry thought he could rail-road his way to victory in November with no interference from his past.

[Yaelle]

There is a photo in a newspaper with a caption under it that dated a year or more after that meeting. The photo was of Kerry watching a Nixon speech, I think, and the caption had him as a "spokesman" for the VVAW. We have seen it posted here on FR. Somebody's bound to have it.

[rineaux]

Do you think the fence sitters in Ohio, Michigan, MO and Florida where Camil resides knows this? Probably not. Jane Fonda will be a staple at the WH if this Traitor is elected.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

When there was the initial talk of Kerry being a fall guy for this election my reaction was, "Well, maybe so--but I highly doubt it".

I am really not so sure any more that the fall guy scenario is not in place. Someone, like the Clintons, had to have clearly known, (duh, look to Teddy, hiccup, Kennedy) about Kerry's colorful, checkered and now schizophrenic past. What a lave campaigner. Imagine him challenging Bush to "Bring it on" over his military record just a few days ago and then his crying to put a stop to it. And pretty boy Edwards challenging people to ask about Kerry's something or another of the "men he served with". It is just absolutely mind boggling to figure out what is going on with that campaign.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

Another point in my case for Kerry bieing a nut.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

Sorry, too quick with the proof read. bieing=being

[Free ThinkerNY]

For all Kerry knew, his comrades in the group might have changed their minds after he left and proceeded to carry out their assassination plans. He had a moral duty to report this to the authorities. The fact that he remained silent is damning. Like Bill Clinton, he is a self absorbed sociopath.

[Texas Eagle]

Terayzuh may want to dig out that old pre-nup and re-read it to make sure it says the same thing it said when they signed it.

[Use It Or Lose It]

stockpirate is becoming the authority on the FBI files.

Mr. Lipscomb fails to mention JOHN HURLEY in this article, as he had in previous articles about this (3/15 and 3/22/04 New York Sun). Hurley tried to get witnesses placing Kerry at the ASSASSINATIONS meetings to change their stories.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Any diver can tell you. Crap has a tendency to come bubbling up to the surface.

[TheLion]

You are so right. Kerry has no moral character, whatsoever.

[Ole Okie]

But methinks first and foremost in his mind was not so much the safety of US officials, but the fact that he had his eye on a Congressional seat the following year, and this would "go down bad for him and his career."

I suspect that in John Effing's mind, he would have been shaken up. Above all, in Sick Willie Clitoon's famous words to the U of Arkansas ROTC Colonel, "I want to maintain my political viability."

This probably did give John Effing more than just some pause. In fact, I think it would curl any rational being's hair.

But rationality and John Effing don't necessarily belong on the same page.

[Southack]

"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."

Congressman Stennis was shot in front of his home in 1973 in what police said was a mugging, though apparently no money was taken. He did manage to survive, however, though only barely.

Southern conservative Democrat George Wallace was likewise shot (though he too lived), and pro-war Congressman Hale Boggs was killed in a plane crash in Alaska shortly after that VVAW vote. Strom Thurmond switched Parties, and John Tower was run out of office with a scandal.

The end result, through hook or crook, was that what remained of the Democratic leadership was liberal and anti-war.

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[RaceBannon]

bump for later

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

"But rationality and John Effing don't necessarily belong on the same page."

That's been my conclusion for months. We need to understand John sKerry truly belongs in a mental patients ward.

[doug from upland]

Can someone record this?

MIDI - BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS (Battle of Kansas City)

It's mid November nineteen seventy one
A major confrontation, friends, was said to have begun
Some vets had done some planning...they were getting really sore
They would move to the next level in attempts to stop the war

The FBI had been watchin' 'em in action
They're gettin' real scary...what's the next thing they would do?
In Kansas City would the plot gain traction
Would senators see pearly gates before the year was through?

A young John F. Kerry had been telling great big lies
U.S. troops pulled off mass murder, that should come as no surprise
They're killing for pleasure and were zapping testicles
Before the U.S. Congress he was spreading all that bull

The FBI had been watchin' 'em in action
They're gettin' real scary...what's the next thing they would do?
In Kansas City would the plot gain traction
Would senators see pearly gates before the year was through?

Back in Vietnam there were some men held by the Cong
They were undergoing torture...that side thought it wasn't wrong
They used John's words...and for the men it's really rough
John F. Kerry, you're a traitor...we have really had enough

The FBI had been watchin' 'em in action
They're gettin' real scary...what's the next thing they would do?
In Kansas City would the plot gain traction
Would senators see pearly gates before the year was through?

Scott Camil had been screamin' "It's time we were votin'!
Are you with or against us...we must know where you all stand"
John told them no and gave his resignation
'Cause after all, you know, that a career had been well-planned

He's hidden the record and hoped we would not find out
But Tom Lipscomb found the story...we know what John's all about
A lesson Kerry learned is now becoming evident
If you are whacking senators, you can't be president

The FBI had been watchin' 'em in action
They're gettin' real scary...what's the next thing they would do?
In Kansas City would the plot gain traction
Would senators see pearly gates before the year was through?

Scott Camil had been screamin' "It's time we were votin'!
Are you with or against us...we must know where you all stand"
John told them no and gave his resignation
'Cause after all, you know, that a career had been well-planned

[stockpirate]

The FBI files concerning the November 1971 meeting of the VVAW in Kansas City, states that JohnKerry resigned from the Executive Committee and would continue to be active, see below.

Did John Kerry resign from the VVAW at the November 1971 Assassination meeting as he claims.

FBI file; “JOHN KERRY, a national leader from Massachusetts, arrived and spoke to the committee. He resigned from the Executive Committee of VVAW for ‘personal reasons’ but added he would still be active in VVAW and available to speak.”

John didn’t Quit VVAW

See also this article which indicates that John was still with the VVAW on a national level:

Kerry with VVAW until at least Feb 1972 as a national leader

[kabar]

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.”

Kerry saves everything except his medal citations. He needed some replacements.

[okie01]

Sounds like Kerry was at the meeting in Kansas City. You'd think something like that would be seared, seared into his memory.

You damnbetcha it is!

But not so anybody else would know...

[okie01]

This is what troubles me. Kerry would have someone in his own campaign who wanted to assassinate us senators. in a kerry presidency, what role would camil have?

John Hurley is the National Director of Veterans for Kerry. Joe Bangert was his state coordinator in New Hampshire. VVAW all.

And I'd wager there are a lot more of these anti-American crypto-Commies in his organization.