John Kerry and Vietnam-Era POWs

One possible reason he might have wanted to cover up evidence about them.

Hopefully, you have already noticed, Faithful Reader, that Sydney Schanberg in The Village Voice has accused Kerry of having actively covered up evidence, as recently as 1993-94, that "a significant number of live American prisoners — perhaps hundreds — were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973".

Why would Senator John Forbes Kerry want to do that?

If you read the Complete Testimony of Lt. John Kerry to US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (April 22, 1971) carefully, you will discover that pollyanish assertions concerning American POWS in Vietnam were part of Kerry's very first foray into the public eye:

.... I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned.

I think this negates very clearly the argument of the President that we have to maintain a presence in Vietnam, to use as a negotiating block for the return of those prisoners. The setting of a date will accomplish that....

Got that? Kerry argued that setting a date for US withdrawal from Vietnam would get back our prisoners of war.

Minimizing the significance of American POWs in Vietnam has, it seems, been one consistency in John Kerry's public life. And covering up evidence of their existence in Vietnam decades after American withdrawal — if that's what he did — would also be covering up how wrong he had been about them two decades earlier.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 03/08/04 06:18:25 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Political.