This is as good as Kerry’s memory of Nixon as president during the LBJ term....
Captain Ed has the complete text of the letter that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spokesman John O’Neill has sent to television stations in response to the Kerry campaign’s threat to sue them if they run the veterans’ ad. O’Neill’s letter is absolutely devastating. If the facts surrounding John Kerry’s fabrication of claims about his Vietnam service, and his slander of his fellow servicemen after he returned home after a mere four months in Vietnam, were widely known, Kerry would not stand a chance in November.
One key Kerry fabrication is the “Christmas in Cambodia” story that he has told over and over again throughout his career. O’Neill’s letter treats this issue briefly:
If there is a consistent[ly] repeated story by John Kerry about his Vietnam experience, it is his story about how he and his boat spent Christmas Eve and Christmas of 1968 illegally present in Cambodia and, listening to President Nixon’s contrary assurances, developed “a deep mistrust of U.S. government pronouncements.” See Exhibit 24, Kranish book, p. 84. The point of his story was that his government and his commanders were lying about Kerry’s presence in Cambodia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. During a critical debate on the floor of the United States Senate on March 27, 1986, Senator John Kerry said:
Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia.
I have that memory which is seared — seared — in me . . . .
Exhibit 25, Congressional Record - Senate of March 27, 1986, page 3594.
By way of further example, Kerry wrote an article for the Boston Herald on October 14, 1979:
“I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.”
See Exhibit 26.
The Christmas in Cambodia story of John Kerry was repeated as recently as July 7, 2004 by Michael Kranish, a principal biographer of Kerry from The Boston Globe. On the Hannity & Colmes television show, Kranish indicated that Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia was a critical turning point in Kerry’s life.
“WE’RE going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” shouted the Commander. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of hell!” . . .
continued at:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/6821/thurber.html