In an astounding display of 21st century inquisition, some self-appointed politically correct guardians of the Internet and opinion media suddenly have discovered presidential candidate John Kerry’s 1971 speech to Congress as a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Apparently, they weren’t around at the time when it was widely broadcast on television and published in all sorts of newspapers, magazines, and a book.
Using selected quotes and innuendo involving actress Jane Fonda, the thrust of the inquisitors’ case against former Navy Lt. Kerry, who was wounded three times in combat with the Viet Cong, is that he was pro-communist and anti-GI. This is akin to claiming that Martin Luther King Jr. was in league with the Ku Klux Klan and anti-African American. Anyone around at the time with an open mind could see that King was dedicated to nonviolently ending the last vestiges of the American Civil War. In the same spirit, Kerry and VVAW were dedicated to ending the last vestiges of the war in Vietnam.
Perhaps these shocked readers of Kerry’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will next read The Pentagon Papers, subtitled in the 1971 Bantam paperback edition “The Secret History of the Vietnam War.” And then perhaps they will study Nuremberg and Vietnam by Telford Taylor, brigadier general (ret.), also published in 1971, on war crimes and the responsibility of the US government.
But to truly curl their hair, they should read POW/MIA’S: Report of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, United States Senate, issued January 13, 1993. (
http://www.aiipowmia.com/ssc/ssctest.html) Long after most Americans wanted to forget all about Vietnam, Kerry and Sen. John McCain, himself a POW in Vietnam, and other Vietnam veterans in Congress were still trying to heal a festering wound of the war.
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