Kerry Retreats From His Denial on Vietnam Meet (This ghost from the past may haunt the Ketchup Kid)

The New York Sun ^ | March 19, 2004 | Josh Gerstein

[quidnunc]

Evidence Puts Him At Kansas Parley

Mill Valley, Calif. – Senator Kerry of Massachusetts yesterday retreated from his earlier steadfast denials that he attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plan to assassinate U.S. Senators was debated.

The reversal came as new evidence, including reports from FBI informants, emerged that contradicted Mr. Kerry’s previous statements about the gathering, which was held in Kansas City, Mo. in November 1971.

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,” a Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said in a statement e-mailed last night from Idaho, where Mr. Kerry is on vacation.

Mr. Wade said Mr. Kerry does remember “disagreements with elements of VVAW leadership” that led to his resignation, but the statement did not specify what the disagreements were.

“If there are valid FBI surveillance reports from credible sources that place some of those disagreements in Kansas City, we accept that historical footnote in the account of his work to end the difficult and divisive war,” the statement said.

It did not address the murder plot, though as recently as Wednesday a top aide to Mr. Kerry said that the Massachusetts senator and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was “absolutely certain” he was not present when the assassination plan, known as the “Phoenix Project,” was discussed.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

Could this be the killer that the Swift Boat Vets has promised for October?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Surprise !

[68skylark]

A normal person would remember being at a meeting like this. But maybe Kerry's brain got rattled during all those secret trips into Cambodia.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

“If there are valid FBI surveillance reports from credible sources that place some of those disagreements in Kansas City, we accept that historical footnote in the account of his work to end the difficult and divisive war,” the statement said.

They know something's out there.

They're just not sure what it is yet.

[RichInOC]

...flip...flip...flip...

[Vision Thing]

They (the Kerry people) know something's out there.

They're just not sure what it is yet.

There's nothing worse than having an itch you can't scratch.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Quite an experience, to live in fear.

[Chieftain]

Support for the Swiftees is crucial right now, so they can get these ads on the air on REGULAR TV in battleground states. FReepers are key in getting the word out about the righteousness of the SBVFT by exposing Kerry's FRAUD.

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Get your own "EXPOSE KERRY'S FRAUD SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH" STICKER!

The sticker serves 3 purposes:
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2 - Gets the swiftvets.com website visible to the public, so they can and find out more about 'Hanoi John' Kerry.
3 - Circumvents the lamestream media BIAS filter!

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Large (24" Wide 12" Tall) $20 (like mine above)
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Profits go to SwiftVets.com

Ping your FRiends, let 'em know about this!

FReep mail / private reply for details on how you can get one for your vehicle!

[jocon307]

From the article "Mr. Nicosia...observe[d], “Especially if you’re running for president, you don’t want to be associated with a plot for assassinating people.”

I'd file that under Understatement of the Day.

This story has been bandied about a good deal, at least over here on the right, although it has not gotten much play in the mainstream. I don't know what the Swiftees might have on this that would really put it on the radar. And this whole idea of Kerry "voting against" an assassination plot, is that really exculpatory? If I'm with a group of people who are planning to commit a serious crime, and I "vote" against doing so, and quit the group, am I really legally off the hook then?

My conclusion: John Kerry was a leader in a violent, seditious group who strove mightily to disrupt the American government. He has NEVER recanted any of his words or actions. Manifestly the Swift Boat Vets have named their book well, Kerry plainly is "unfit for command".

[petertare]

Plots like these are not out of the norm for dem supporters. Look at the kooks lining up in NYC---a few thousand probably already have this activity as an action item, and the foaming mobs will gleefully follow.

This is a plus for the Kerry campaign.

[Uncle Miltie]

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,”

This curious wording suggests questions:

1) Do Kerry's diaries record the event?
2) Do surveillance records put him in the room when assassinating Senators was discussed?
3) Will witnesses come forth putting him in the room?

A denial in part begs the question of the remainder.

[rushmom]

I'm thinking his meetings with the North Vietnamese are not too helpful either.

[DoughtyOne]

very nice

[VadeRetro]

Oh, boy! What O what will the Kerry campaign say when the NYT, the LAT, the Washington Post, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and Peter Jennings start demanding answers? ;)

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[freddiedavis]

a bump for BUSH and http://www.swiftvets.com/

[rushmom]

Swing voters don't go for these kind of activities.

[F.J. Mitchell]

The Democrats picked Kerry because they believe American's will swallow anything including bullsh*t, with enough Ketchup on it.

[Steel Wolf]

Mill Valley, Calif. – Senator Kerry of Massachusetts yesterday retreated from his earlier steadfast denials that he attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plan to assassinate U.S. Senators was debated.

This could be a serious blow to the GOP. Senator Kerry has first hand, practical knowlege about the nature of terrorism that President Bush simply does not.

I'll bet you anything President Bush never attended any meetings on assassinating U.S. Senators. For whatever negative you can say about him, no one can now say that Sentator Kerry doesn't know terrorism.

[NavVet]

Bump action

[Steel Wolf]

“If there are valid FBI surveillance reports from credible sources that place some of those disagreements in Kansas City, we accept that historical footnote in the account of his work to end the difficult and divisive war,” the statement said.

The War on Terror is a difficult and divisive war, Mr. Wade. Are you suggesting we start planning to bump off U.S. Senators? It's for a good cause, right? And it'll just be a historical footnote, right?

[Steel Wolf]

Mr. Wade said Mr. Kerry does remember “disagreements with elements of VVAW leadership” that led to his resignation, but the statement did not specify what the disagreements were.

Creative differences?

There were tough choices to be made by the radical activists of the day. What to do, what to do. Overthrow the government by force? Subvert it from within? Maoism? Stalinism? Socialism? Clearly, everyone took a different path, and some were more successful than others.

[xkaydet65]

"Quite an experience, to live in fear."

Maybe Kerry can now experience a tiny bit of the fear felt by the POWs and MIAs. Every footfall in the corridor carried a message of some new terror. Not the least of which was hearing one of your own openly and without coercion condemn you as a war criminal. Which made mockery of your courage in resisting. Kerry can't be made to feel that pain, but maybe some element of justice can be provided for him in this campaign.

[Slide]

Does anyone know if there were any arrests as a result of this meeting?

[Cboldt]

What O what will the Kerry campaign say when the NYT, the LAT, the Washington Post, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and Peter Jennings start demanding answers?

Don't hold your breath. Personally, I think the longer they hold their fire, the more credible the charges become.

[68skylark]

There's nothing worse than having an itch you can't scratch.

Oh, I agree!

[DAC22]

Mr. Wade said Mr. Kerry does remember “disagreements with elements of VVAW leadership” that led to his resignation, but the statement did not specify what the disagreements were.

Creative differences?

Yep, they couldn't decide whether to use H-6 or Torpex to blow the Senators up with. It got sKerry's panties in a wad, so he went home.

[Steel Wolf]

Yeah, we joke about it, but this is beyond bizarre.

At some point, while you're sitting around with your pals planning your future activities, and the topic of 'assissinating U.S. Senators' comes up as a serious consideration, you've gone past what people will accept as 'youthful indescretion'. Even if Kerry quit then and there, and walked out of the building immediately, unless he went to the FBI, he's not in the clear.

In fact, had any of the VVAWs plans been executed, he could have been guilty of the very same 'Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand but did nothing' cover up that the President has been accused of.

[TexasCajun]

And what this business about Kerry not getting his "Honorable Discharge" for 6 yrs?

[aruanan]

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,” a Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said in a statement e-mailed last night from Idaho, where Mr. Kerry is on vacation.

So, the memory of being in Cambodia when he was not in Cambodia was seared, seared into his mind; but actually having been at a meeting where the assassination of U.S. elected representatives was discussed and voted on leaves nary a recollection? Such an individual is either a liar or has some serious cognitive difficulties.

[backhoe]

Here's what I have:

-Kansas City Kerry- "The Phoenix Project"--

[Petronski]

Marked for further reference.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Kerry may have been suffering from post traumatic lying syndrome.

[mtntop3]

If Kerry even KNEW of a plot or of discussions to assassinate a member of the U.S. government, he was bound to immediately report this simply through the oath he took upon accepting a Commission as an Officer in the U.S. Navy.

OATH OF OFFICE:

"Having been appointed an officer in the Armed Forces of the United States, I do hereby accept such appointment and do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter; so help me God."

If Kerry did not carry out his solemn oath in this instance, why would anyone have the slightest confidence that he would carry it out as President of the United States of America?

[festus]

I guess this one wasn't seared, seared, in his mind eh ?

This had jolly well better be the october surprise. Or at least one of them.

[Use It Or Lose It]

3) Will witnesses come forth putting him in the room?

 

Publication:The New York Sun;

Date:Mar 22, 2004;

Section:Front page;

Page:1

KERRY’S CAMPAIGN ASKED A VETERAN TO CHANGE STORY

KANSAS MEETING AT ISSUE

By THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB Special to the Sun



    A Vietnam veteran who said he remembers John Kerry participating in a 1971 Kansas City meeting at which an assassination plot was discussed says an official with the Kerry presidential campaign called him this month and pressured him to change his story.

    The veteran, John Musgrave, says he was called twice by the head of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley, while a reporter for the Kansas City Star worked on a follow-up piece to a New York Sun article about the November 1971 meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plot to kill U.S. senators was voted down. Asked by The New York Sun if he felt pressured, Mr. Musgrave said, “In the second call I did.” Mr. Musgrave said Mr. Hurley said Mr. Kerry had told him “he was definitely not in Kansas City.”

    According to Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Hurley said, “Why don’t you refresh your memory and call that reporter back?”

    A spokesman for Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign, David Wade, last week issued a statement to the Sun, following a week of denials, that said “we accept” Mr. Kerry’s presence in Kansas City as a “historical footnote.”

    By then, the recollections of six witnesses, along with minutes and FBI records, placed Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting.

    But the news of the calls from the campaign to Mr. Musgrave may move the episode from what the campaign is describing as a “historical footnote” to a matter that involves the contemporary behavior of Mr. Kerry and his campaign.

    Mr. Musgrave said 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, Mr. 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.

    But because of the extent of his injuries he was retired from the Marines with full disability and sent home, he said.

    Mr. 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.”

    When asked whom he is supporting in the presidential election, Mr. Musgrave replied, “I am undecided. But I am sure not voting for some guy who called me a liar.”

    Mr. Hurley did not return calls for comment for this article.

    Another related episode in which the Kerry campaign had to handle questions about Vietnam Veterans Against the War involves a statement by Mr. Kerry himself.

    At a Capitol Hill press conference on March 11, 2004, Mr. Kerry was asked by a reporter if he thought his credibility had been affected by his close association with Al Hubbard, a key VVAW colleague of Mr. Kerry’s who had appointed him to the leadership of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

    Mr. Hubbard claimed to be a wounded Air Force officer who had served at Danang during the Vietnam War. He appeared with Mr. Kerry many times, including the “Meet the Press” interview after Mr.Kerry’s Senate testimony about American “war crimes” in Vietnam.

    But Mr. Hubbard was never in Vietnam, was never wounded, and was not an officer, as subsequent research and Mr. Kerry himself have pointed out.

    Mr. Kerry answered this month that he had not spoken to Mr.Hubbard since the week of April 19, 1971.

    Yet the Kerry campaign now apparently accepts that Mr. Kerry was at the November 12 to 15, 1971,VVAW meeting. Mr. Musgrave said he remembers that at that meeting, Mr. Kerry challenged Mr. Hubbard’s continuing to maintain his false claims to being an Air Force officer wounded at Danang.

    “Hubbard sort of sat there with his eyes downcast and Mike Oliver really did all the arguing for him,” Mr. Musgrave said. “And suddenly Hubbard got up and said he was having an ulcer attack and had to get to New York immediately to see his doctor and ran out of the room.You would think we didn’t have any doctors or hospitals in Kansas City.”

    In addition, the New York Times reported on an August 29, 1971, fundraising party for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which “Mr. Kerry and Al Hubbard, another veteran, explained some of the aims of the organization.”John Kerry's Role as a Vietnam Anti-War Activist Poses Challenges to His Campaign

 

Publication:The New York Sun;

Date:Mar 15, 2004;

Section:National;

Page:4

New Witness: Kerry Was Present at Dark Plot Meeting

Group Debated and Voted Down Plan To Assassinate Senators

By THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB Special to the Sun



    Another witness has come forward to attest that John Kerry was at a November 1971 meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which the group debated and voted down a plan to assassinate senators who supported the Vietnam War.

    A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, has said Mr. Kerry did not attend the Kansas City meeting, and Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley has said Mr. 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, John Musgrave, in an interview that was published Saturday in the Kansas City Star. Mr. Musgrave is the third VVAW member at the time that has been named as seeing Mr. Kerry at Kansas City. Mr. Musgrave specifically remembered Mr. Kerry’s attendance and his speaking against the murder plot against the senators.

    The Star cited the national director of Veterans for Kerry, a former VVAW member, John Hurley, as saying: “I think he is confusing the St. Louis and Kansas City meetings.”

    But if Mr. Hurley is acknowledging that Mr. Kerry was present at the earlier St. Louis meeting, he is disagreeing with the Kerry spokesman, Mr.Wade, and calling into doubt a recent statement by Mr. Kerry.

    At a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday, Mr. Kerry was asked by a reporter if he thought his credibility had been affected by his close association with Al Hubbard, a key VVAW colleague of Mr. Kerry’s who had appointed him to the leadership of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

    Mr. Hubbard claimed to be a wounded Air Force officer who had served at Danang during the Vietnam War. He appeared with Mr. Kerry many times, including the “Meet the Press” interview after Mr. Kerry’s Senate testimony about American “war crimes” in Vietnam. But Mr. Hubbard was never in Vietnam, was never wounded, and was not an officer, as subsequent research and Mr.Kerry himself have pointed out.

    Mr.Kerry answered he had not spoken to Mr. Hubbard since the week of April 19, 1971. But in the New York Times of August 30, 1971, reporter Enid Nemy, covering an East Hampton fund-raising party for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, states: “Later, Mr. Kerry and Al Hubbard, another veteran, explained some of the aims of the organization….”

    Those present included journalists Jimmy Breslin and Peter Maas, Bruce Jay Friedman, Tom Paxton, and Patricia Kennedy Lawford.

    In separate interviews with The New York Sun, both VVAW member Terry DuBose and Kerry biographer Mr. Brinkley have confirmed Mr. Kerry’s presence at the July St. Louis steering committee meeting of the VVAW.

    Gerald Nicosia, author of the 2001 book “Home to War,” also writes that Mr. Kerry was at that meeting. In a memorable account, Mr. Nicosia said Mr. Kerry “resigned from the executive committee” after a spectacular argument with Mr. Hubbard.“Kerry made a long speech punctuated at frequent intervals by the demand: ‘Who is Al Hubbard?’” and “challenged him to prove he was a Vietnam veteran.” According to the book, Mr. Hubbard “freaked out” and screamed insults at Mr. Kerry.

    In the Kansas City Star account, one of the three veterans who has placed Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, Randy Barnes, first was quoted as saying Mr. Kerry was in Kansas City, which is what he had stated in his interview with the Sun.

    According to the Star, “upon reflection later in the day [Barnes stated] that he could ‘not be absolutely certain’ that Kerry was in Kansas City for the meeting.”

    Terry DuBose, who initially remembered a great deal, began having failures of memory on a third call. And Scott Camil, who in his interview with the Sun could not recall whether Mr. Kerry was at the Kansas City meeting, suddenly remembered in talking with the Star several days later that Mr. Kerry was not.

    In a March 13, 2004, story, the New York Times cited concern among Democrats about “careless utterances of a fatigued, or undisciplined candidate,” but Mr. Wade reassured that “every statement he made we stand by.”

[68skylark]

Kerry may have been suffering from post traumatic lying syndrome.

All the stress and long hours as Deputy Chairman of the Intelligence Committee could have rattled his mind.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I hope this is the final declaration that destroys Kerry. The Kansas City Star on on March 20, 2004 reported "Responding to a request by The Kansas City Star that staffers question the candidate about the meeting, Kerry passed word March 12 that he “never, ever” attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War after a heated and public argument with the group's executive secretary in St. Louis in June 1971." Now he's "backing away" from that assertion.

It's going to take continual pressure from FR, blogs and talk radio to get this before the general public since the MSM is going to completely ignore it like they did last March when all this was revealed. I hope the plot to assassinate U.S. Senators by Scott Camil and Kerry's knowledge of this plot is his undoing.

I've been looking through some of the FBI files and what you learn about Scott Camil is truly scarry. Here are three images of the FBI files about Camil who is now helping the Kerry campaign.

Kerry sure depends on savory characters to get elected.

[hershey]

Hopefully they have pictures and witnesses of Kerry raising his fist and yelling, Yeah, kill the pigs!

[happygrl]

Whoah! Your post made me do a double take!

[DustyMoment]

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,”

That's pretty suspicious. Considering how his memory of being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968, yada, yada, yada, is "seared - seared - into his memory", how could he NOT recall this little episode? I mean, most people don't hang out with their buds, sucking up a few suds of a Saturday night and casually discuss assassinating politicians.

If it were me, I think I'd remember that conversation.

[Eva]

I have one question about this meeting that discussed assassinating gov't officials, was it before or after the Watergate break-in? Oh, I have another question, would it have been illegal for Nixon to reveal what the FBI had found out about the VVAW, or just politically wrong?

The current VVAW is planning a protest on Thursday. I think that we need to get the whole story of Kerry's involvement with this group out there.

[doug from upland]

No personal recollection of a plan to assassinate senators? We're not talking here whether he forgot to put out the trash. This was a murder plot. They moved the venue twice until they held the meeting in the Mennonite flophouse.

[votelife]

which other Freeper is working with you on the stickers?

[doug from upland]

MIDI - BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

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

[Go Gordon]

There's nothing worse than having an itch you can't scratch.

As Rummy once explained to reporters: "There are things you know you don't know, and there are things you don't know you don't know." This one sounds like the Kerry group doesn't know what it doesn't know. And the Swifties are holding the cards.

[crushelits]

Were getting down to what John Kerry is really all about:

Change your mind, change your story, make up a story, deflect the truth, ignore reality, smear anyone who dares mention truth or reality, grasp every opportunity available to you, call black "white" and white "black," consider utter hypocrisy a virtue, be anti-American if it will make you popular, be pro-American when you need to get votes, do whatever it takes to satisfy your political goals, no matter who you take out, hurt, maim, or disparage in the process.

[Wil H]

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,” a Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said in a statement e-mailed last night from Idaho, where Mr. Kerry is on vacation.

Amazing -He doesn't remember being present at a MURDER PLOT but being in Cambodia (when he wasn't) is SEARED, SEARED in his memory. This man is a total flake. ..And he sleepwalks too..! Do we wan't a delusional whack job sleepwalking with the nuclear football?

[68skylark]

Change your mind, change your story, make up a story, deflect the truth, ignore reality, smear anyone who dares mention truth or reality, grasp every opportunity available to you, call black "white" and white "black," consider utter hypocrisy a virtue, be anti-American if it will make you popular, be pro-American when you need to get votes, do whatever it takes to satisfy your political goals, no matter who you take out, hurt, maim, or disparage in the process.

Wow. That sounds like the eight years before President Bush. I hope we don't go back to those times soon. I'm afraid that it has to happen some day, 'cause the tactics you outline DO work, I'm sorry to say.

[festus]

To put this in perspective :

"I was a member of AlQaida and was present at the meeting but was so upset at the vote to bomb the World Trade Center that I immediately resigned".

Oh ok. Thats great why don't we make you in charge of our nation ?

Can anyone grasp the insanity of this. I mean even if he was NOT at the meeting where the vote was held does it matter ?