Even the NYTwits, as hard as they try, cannot blur the
naked truth of it, or avoid telling it...
KATE ZERNIKE and JIM RUTENBERG, New York Times:
Records show that the group received the bulk of its
initial financing from two men with ties to the
president and his family - one a longtime political
associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the
foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential
library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr.
Bush's father for his debate when he was running for
vice president provided them with strategic advice.
And the group's television commercial was produced by
the same team that made the devastating ad mocking
Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he
and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988
presidential election.
The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately
paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby
killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted
in his war medals. But on close examination, the
accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be
riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material
offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by
official Navy records and the men's own statements...
Another partner, Tex Lezar, ran on the Republican
ticket with Mr. Bush in 1994, as lieutenant governor.
They were two years apart at Yale, and Mr. Lezar
worked for the attorney general's office in the Reagan
administration. Mr. Lezar, who died last year, was
married to Merrie Spaeth, a powerful public relations
executive who has helped coordinate the efforts of
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
In 2000, Ms. Spaeth was spokeswoman for a group that
ran $2 million worth of ads attacking Senator John
McCain's environmental record and lauding Mr. Bush's
in crucial states during their fierce primary battle.
The group, calling itself Republicans for Clean Air,
was founded by a prominent Texas supporter of Mr.
Bush, Sam Wyly.
Ms. Spaeth had been a communications official in the
Reagan White House, where the president's aides had
enough confidence in her to invite her to help prepare
George Bush for his vice-presidential debate in 1984.
She says she is also a close friend of Senator Kay
Bailey Hutchison of Texas, a client of Mr. Rove's. Ms.
Spaeth said in an interview that the one time she had
ever spoken to Mr. Rove was when Ms. Hutchison was
running for the Texas treasurer's office in 1990.
When asked if she had ever visited the White House
during Mr. Bush's tenure, Ms. Spaeth initially said
that she had been there only once, in 2002, when
Kenneth Starr gave her a personal tour. But this week
Ms. Spaeth acknowledged that she had spent an hour in
the Old Executive Office Building, part of the White
House complex, in the spring of 2003, giving Mr.
Bush's chief economic adviser, Stephen Friedman,
public speaking advice. Asked if it was possible that she had worked with other administration officials, Ms. Spaeth said, "The answer is 'no,' unless you refresh my memory.''
Cleanse the White House of the Chickenhawk Coup and
Its War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/politics/campaign/20swift.html?hp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 20, 2004
Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad
By KATE ZERNIKE and JIM RUTENBERG
After weeks of taking fire over veterans' accusations
that he had lied about his Vietnam service record to
win medals and build a political career, Senator John
Kerry shot back yesterday, calling those statements
categorically false and branding the people behind
them tools of the Bush campaign.
His decision to take on the group directly was a
measure of how the group that calls itself Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth has catapulted itself to the
forefront of the presidential campaign. It has
advanced its cause in a book, in a television
advertisement and on cable news and talk radio shows,
all in an attempt to discredit Mr. Kerry's war record,
a pillar of his campaign.
How the group came into existence is a story of how
veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's
antiwar statements in the early 1970's allied
themselves with Texas Republicans.
Mr. Kerry called them "a front for the Bush campaign"
- a charge the campaign denied.
A series of interviews and a review of documents show
a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile
Texas political figures and President Bush's chief
political aide, Karl Rove.
Records show that the group received the bulk of its
initial financing from two men with ties to the
president and his family - one a longtime political
associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the
foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential
library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr.
Bush's father for his debate when he was running for
vice president provided them with strategic advice.
And the group's television commercial was produced by
the same team that made the devastating ad mocking
Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he
and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988
presidential election.
The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately
paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby
killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted
in his war medals. But on close examination, the
accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be
riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material
offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by
official Navy records and the men's own statements.
Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had
lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.
In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr.
Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley,
provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F.
Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the
group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's
antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say
anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good
man."
In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston
Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled
the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It
took guts, and I admire that."
George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the
group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in
1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough
re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that
the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an
act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L.
Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out
against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement
about the "bravado and courage of the young officers
that ran the Swift boats."
"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told
the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown
Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift
boat drivers."
Those comments echoed the official record. In an
evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was
one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in
11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and
decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the
second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In
written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed,"
"beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his
peer group."
The Admiral Calls
It all began last winter, as Mr. Kerry was wrapping up
the Democratic nomination. Mr. Lonsdale received a
call at his Massachusetts home from his old commander
in Vietnam, Mr. Hoffmann, asking if he had seen the
new biography of the man who would be president.
Mr. Hoffmann had commanded the Swift boats during the
war from a base in Cam Ranh Bay and advocated a
search-and-destroy campaign against the Vietcong - the
kind of tactic Mr. Kerry criticized when he was a
spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War in
1971. Shortly after leaving the Navy in 1978, he was
issued a letter of censure for exercising undue
influence on cases in the military justice system.
Both Mr. Hoffmann and Mr. Lonsdale had publicly lauded
Mr. Kerry in the past. But the book, Mr. Brinkley's
"Tour of Duty," while it burnished Mr. Kerry's
reputation, portrayed the two men as reckless leaders
whose military approach had led to the deaths of
countless sailors and innocent civilians. Several
Swift boat veterans compared Mr. Hoffmann to the
bloodthirsty colonel in the film "Apocalypse Now" -
the one who loves the smell of Napalm in the morning.
The two men were determined to set the record, as they
saw it, straight.
"It was the admiral who started it and got the rest of
us into it," Mr. Lonsdale said.
Mr. Hoffmann's phone calls led them to Texas and to
John E. O'Neill, who at one point commanded the same
Swift boat in Vietnam, and whose mission against him
dated to 1971, when he had been recruited by the Nixon
administration to debate Mr. Kerry on "The Dick Cavett
Show."
Mr. O'Neill, who pressed his charges against Mr. Kerry
in numerous television appearances Thursday, had spent
the 33 years since he debated Mr. Kerry building a
successful law practice in Houston, intermingling with
some of the state's most powerful Republicans and
building an impressive client list. Among the
companies he represented was Falcon Seaboard, the
energy firm founded by the current lieutenant governor
of Texas, David Dewhurst, a central player in the
Texas redistricting plan that has positioned state
Republicans to win more Congressional seats this fall.
Mr. O'Neill said during one of several interviews that
he had come to know two of his biggest donors, Harlan
Crow and Bob J. Perry, through longtime social and
business contacts.
Mr. Perry, who has given $200,000 to the group, is the
top donor to Republicans in the state, according to
Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan group that
tracks political donations. He donated $46,000 to
President Bush's campaigns for governor in 1994 and
1998. In the 2002 election, the group said, he donated
nearly $4 million to Texas candidates and political
committees.
Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's top political aide, recently said
through a spokeswoman that he and Mr. Perry were
longtime friends, though he said they had not spoken
for at least a year. Mr. Rove and Mr. Perry have been
associates since at least 1986, when they both worked
on the gubernatorial campaign of Bill Clements.
Mr. O'Neill said he had known Mr. Perry for 30 years.
"I've represented many of his friends,'' Mr. O'Neill
said. Mr. Perry did not respond to requests for
comment.
Mr. O'Neill said he had also known Mr. Crow for 30
years, through mutual friends. Mr. Crow, the
seventh-largest donor to Republicans in the state
according to the Texans for Public Justice, has
donated nowhere near as much money as Mr. Perry to the
Swift boat group. His family owns one of the largest
diversified commercial real estate companies in the
nation, the Trammell Crow Company, and has given money
to Mr. Bush and his father throughout their careers.
He is listed as a trustee of the George Bush
Presidential Library Foundation.
One of his law partners, Margaret Wilson, became Mr.
Bush's general counsel when he was governor of Texas
and followed him to the White House as deputy counsel
for the Department of Commerce, according to her
biography on the law firm's Web site.
Another partner, Tex Lezar, ran on the Republican
ticket with Mr. Bush in 1994, as lieutenant governor.
They were two years apart at Yale, and Mr. Lezar
worked for the attorney general's office in the Reagan
administration. Mr. Lezar, who died last year, was
married to Merrie Spaeth, a powerful public relations
executive who has helped coordinate the efforts of
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
In 2000, Ms. Spaeth was spokeswoman for a group that
ran $2 million worth of ads attacking Senator John
McCain's environmental record and lauding Mr. Bush's
in crucial states during their fierce primary battle.
The group, calling itself Republicans for Clean Air,
was founded by a prominent Texas supporter of Mr.
Bush, Sam Wyly.
Ms. Spaeth had been a communications official in the
Reagan White House, where the president's aides had
enough confidence in her to invite her to help prepare
George Bush for his vice-presidential debate in 1984.
She says she is also a close friend of Senator Kay
Bailey Hutchison of Texas, a client of Mr. Rove's. Ms.
Spaeth said in an interview that the one time she had
ever spoken to Mr. Rove was when Ms. Hutchison was
running for the Texas treasurer's office in 1990.
When asked if she had ever visited the White House
during Mr. Bush's tenure, Ms. Spaeth initially said
that she had been there only once, in 2002, when
Kenneth Starr gave her a personal tour. But this week
Ms. Spaeth acknowledged that she had spent an hour in
the Old Executive Office Building, part of the White
House complex, in the spring of 2003, giving Mr.
Bush's chief economic adviser, Stephen Friedman,
public speaking advice. Asked if it was possible that
she had worked with other administration officials,
Ms. Spaeth said, "The answer is 'no,' unless you
refresh my memory.''
"Is the White House directing this?" Ms. Spaeth said
of the organization. "Absolutely not.''
Another participant is the political advertising
agency that made the group's television commercial:
Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, based in Alexandria,
Va. The agency worked for Senator McCain in 2000 and
for Mr. Bush's father in 1988, when it created the
"tank" advertisement mocking Mr. Dukakis. A spokesman
for the Swift boat veterans said the organization
decided to hire the agency after a member saw one of
its partners speaking on television.
About 10 veterans met in Ms. Spaeth's office in Dallas
in April to share outrage and plot their campaign
against Mr. Kerry, she and others said. Mr. Lonsdale,
who did not attend, said the meeting had been planned
as "an indoctrination session."
What might have been loose impressions about Mr. Kerry
began to harden.
"That was an awakening experience," Ms. Spaeth said.
"Not just for me, but for many of them who had not
heard each other's stories."
The group decided to hire a private investigator to
investigate Mr. Brinkley's account of the war - to
find "some neutral way of actually questioning people
involved in these incidents,'' Mr. O'Neill said.
But the investigator's questions did not seem neutral
to some.
Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr.
Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a
pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about
the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The
investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail
for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version
was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making
it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.
"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any
returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was
a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my
life."
By May, the group had the money that Mr. O'Neill had
collected as well as additional veterans rallied by
Mr. O'Neill, Mr. Hoffmann and others. The expanded
group gathered in Washington to record the veterans'
stories for a television commercial.
Each veteran's statement was written down as an
affidavit and sent to him to sign and have notarized.
But the validity of those affidavits soon came into
question.
Mr. Elliott, who recommended Mr. Kerry for the Silver
Star, had signed one affidavit saying Mr. Kerry "was
not forthright" in the statements that had led to the
award. Two weeks ago, The Boston Globe quoted him as
saying that he felt he should not have signed the
affidavit. He then signed a second affidavit that
reaffirmed his first, which the Swift Boat Veterans
gave to reporters. Mr. Elliott has refused to speak
publicly since then.
The Questions
The book outlining the veterans' charges, "Unfit for
Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against Kerry,"
has also come under fire. It is published by Regnery,
a conservative company that has published numerous
books critical of Democrats, and written by Mr.
O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, who was identified on the
book jacket as a Harvard Ph.D. and the author of many
books and articles. But Mr. Corsi also acknowledged
that he has been a contributor of anti-Catholic,
anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic comments to a right-wing
Web site. He said he regretted those comments.
The group's arguments have foundered on other
contradictions. In the television commercial, Dr.
Louis Letson looks into the camera and declares, "I
know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart
because I treated him for that injury." Dr. Letson
does not dispute the wound - a piece of shrapnel above
Mr. Kerry's left elbow - but he and others in the
group argue that it was minor and self-inflicted.
Yet Dr. Letson's name does not appear on any of the
medical records for Mr. Kerry. Under "person
administering treatment" for the injury, the form is
signed by a medic, J. C. Carreon, who died several
years ago. Dr. Letson said it was common for medics to
treat sailors with the kind of injury that Mr. Kerry
had and to fill out paperwork when doctors did the
treatment.
Asked in an interview if there was any way to confirm
he had treated Mr. Kerry, Dr. Letson said, "I guess
you'll have to take my word for it."
The group also offers the account of William L.
Schachte Jr., a retired rear admiral who says in the
book that he had been on the small skimmer on which
Mr. Kerry was injured that night in December 1968. He
contends that Mr. Kerry wounded himself while firing a
grenade.
But the two other men who acknowledged that they had
been with Mr. Kerry, Bill Zaladonis and Mr. Runyon,
say they cannot recall a third crew member. "Me and
Bill aren't the smartest, but we can count to three,"
Mr. Runyon said in an interview. And even Dr. Letson
said he had not recalled Mr. Schachte until he had a
conversation with another veteran earlier this year
and received a subsequent phone call from Mr. Schachte
himself.
Mr. Schachte did not return a telephone call, and a
spokesman for the group said he would not comment.
The Silver Star was awarded after Mr. Kerry's boat
came under heavy fire from shore during a mission in
February 1969. According to Navy records, he turned
the boat to charge the Vietcong position. An enemy
solider sprang from the shore about 10 feet in front
of the boat. Mr. Kerry leaped onto the shore, chased
the soldier behind a small hut and killed him, seizing
a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth describes the man Mr.
Kerry killed as a solitary wounded teenager "in a
loincloth," who may or may not have been armed. They
say the charge to the beach was planned the night
before and, citing a report from one crew member on a
different boat, maintain that the sailors even schemed
about who would win which medals.
The group says Mr. Kerry himself wrote the reports
that led to the medal. But Mr. Elliott and Mr.
Lonsdale, who handled reports going up the line for
recognition, have previously said that a medal would
be awarded only if there was corroboration from others
and that they had thoroughly corroborated the
accounts.
"Witness reports were reviewed; battle reports were
reviewed," Mr. Lonsdale said at the 1996 news
conference, adding, "It was a very complete and
carefully orchestrated procedure." In his statements
Mr. Elliott described the action that day as "intense"
and "unusual."
According to a citation for Mr. Kerry's Bronze Star, a
group of Swift boats was leaving the Bay Hap river
when several mines detonated, disabling one boat and
knocking a soldier named Jim Rassmann overboard. In a
hail of enemy fire, Mr. Kerry turned the boat around
to pull Mr. Rassmann from the water.
Mr. Rassmann, who says he is a Republican, reappeared
during the Iowa caucuses this year to tell his story
and support Mr. Kerry, and is widely credited with
helping to revive Mr. Kerry's campaign.
But the group says that there was no enemy fire, and
that while Mr. Kerry did rescue Mr. Rassmann, the
action was what anyone would have expected of a
sailor, and hardly heroic. Asked why Mr. Rassmann
recalled that he was dodging enemy bullets, a member
of the group, Jack Chenoweth, said, "He's lying."
"If that's what we have to say," Mr. Chenoweth added,
"that's how it was."
Several veterans insist that Mr. Kerry wrote his own
reports, pointing to the initials K. J. W. on one of
the reports and saying they are Mr. Kerry's. "What's
the W for, I cannot answer," said Larry Thurlow, who
said his boat was 50 to 60 yards from Mr. Kerry's. Mr.
Kerry's middle initial is F, and a Navy official said
the initials refer to the person who had received the
report at headquarters, not the author.
A damage report to Mr. Thurlow's boat shows that it
received three bullet holes, suggesting enemy fire,
and later intelligence reports indicate that one
Vietcong was killed in action and five others wounded,
reaffirming the presence of an enemy. Mr. Thurlow said
the boat was hit the day before. He also received a
Bronze Star for the day, a fact left out of "Unfit for
Command."
Asked about the award, Mr. Thurlow said that he did
not recall what the citation said but that he believed
it had commended him for saving the lives of sailors
on a boat hit by a mine. If it did mention enemy fire,
he said, that was based on Mr. Kerry's false reports.
The actual citation, Mr. Thurlow said, was with an
ex-wife with whom he no longer has contact, and he
declined to authorize the Navy to release a copy. But
a copy obtained by The New York Times indicates "enemy
small arms," "automatic weapons fire" and "enemy
bullets flying about him." The citation was first
reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.
Standing Their Ground
As serious questions about its claims have arisen, the
group has remained steadfast and adaptable.
This week, as its leaders spoke with reporters, they
have focused primarily on the one allegation in the
book that Mr. Kerry's campaign has not been able to
put to rest: that he was not in Cambodia at Christmas
in 1968, as he declared in a statement to the Senate
in 1986. Even Mr. Brinkley, who has emerged as a
defender of Mr. Kerry, said in an interview that it
was unlikely that Mr. Kerry's Swift boat ventured into
Cambodia at Christmas, though he said he believed that
Mr. Kerry was probably there shortly afterward.
The group said it would introduce a new advertisement
against Mr. Kerry on Friday. What drives the veterans,
they acknowledge, is less what Mr. Kerry did during
his time in Vietnam than what he said after. Their
affidavits and their television commercial focus
mostly on those antiwar statements. Most members of
the group object to his using the word "atrocities" to
describe what happened in Vietnam when he returned and
became an antiwar activist. And they are offended,
they say, by the gall of his running for president as
a hero of that war.
"I went to university and was called a baby killer and
a murderer because of guys like Kerry and what he was
saying," said Van Odell, who appears in the first
advertisement, accusing Mr. Kerry of lying to get his
Bronze Star. "Not once did I participate in the
atrocities he said were happening."
As Mr. Lonsdale explained it: "We won the battle.
Kerry went home and lost the war for us.
"He called us rapers and killers and that's not true,"
he continued. "If he expects our loyalty, we should
expect loyalty from him."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home |
Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help |
Back to Top