Kerry Had Wanted a Deferment Before He Enlisted

Thanks to Margaret for calling to my attention this article in today's Telegraph (London):

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

Samuel Goldhaber, the article's author who is now a cardiologist attached to the Harvard School of Medicine, spent 11 hours trailing Mr Kerry and still remembers that the subject of the Paris deferment came up during long conversations about Vietnam.

"I stand by my story," he told The Telegraph. "It was a long time ago, and I was 19 at the time, so it is hard to remember every detail. But I do know this: at no point did Kerry contact either me or the Crimson to dispute anything I had written." ....

If you have been paying attention, Faithful Reader — and you have been, haven't you? ;-) — this is not news to you; see Thirty-Four Years Ago Today, the Harvard Crimson Interviewed John Kerry:

.... When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy....

Well, London has caught up with us. When do you think American mainstream media will? Ha!

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 03/07/04 05:15:16 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Political.