[opendtv] Re: SINCLAIR TO AIR "A POW STORY: POLITICS, PRESSUREAND THE MEDIA"
- From: Mark Aitken <maitken@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:30:34 -0400
I can assure you that what is aired on the News Special "A POW STORY:
POLITICS, PRESSURE AND THE MEDIA" has been researched. Bob, I look
forward to your commentary after viewing its content. Until then, all is
speculation on your (and others) parts. Let freedom reign, and let truth
be told. All else is fodder for the masses...
Dewey Weaver wrote:
>Bob - thank you for your service to this country. Bush was honorably
>discharged. Flying F4s over the GOM was not exactly a risk free endeavor. John
>Kerry volunteered and put himself in the line of fire then gave comfort to the
>enemy in Paris while he was still an officer in the Navy. Aren't you
>interested in seeing the 100 or so pages of his military records that he
>refuses to release? Bush released all of his... why doesn't John Kerry do the
>same? What does he have to hide?
>
>
>
Dewey: A hint regarding your question from a New York paper. Bob, do you
have your views on the questions asked? Perhaps Kerry ought to speak for
himself, and let all be seen...
http://www.nysun.com/article/3107
<http://www.nysun.com> <https://www.nysun.com/subscribe.php>
*October 13, 2004 Edition > Section: National
<http://www.nysun.com/section/2> > Printer-Friendly Version*
Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun
October 13, 2004
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/3107
An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as
Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" opens a door on a
well kept secret about his military service.
The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter
administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes
Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of
officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an
ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review
by a board of officers.
According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of
reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was
"Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the
grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being
reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service.
And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have
been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to
improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable
discharge to an honorable discharge.
A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, was asked whether Mr. Kerry had
ever been a victim of an attempt to deny him an honorable discharge.
There has been no response to that inquiry.
The document is dated February 16, 1978. But Mr. Kerry's military
commitment began with his six-year enlistment contract with the Navy on
February 18, 1966. His commitment should have terminated in 1972. It is
highly unlikely that either the man who at that time was a Vietnam
Veterans Against the War leader, John Kerry, requested or the Navy
accepted an additional six year reserve commitment. And the Claytor
document indicates proceedings to reverse a less than honorable
discharge that took place sometime prior to February 1978.
The most routine time for Mr. Kerry's discharge would have been at the
end of his six-year obligation, in 1972. But how was it most likely to
have come about?
NBC's release this March of some of the Nixon White House tapes about
Mr. Kerry show a great deal of interest in Mr. Kerry by Nixon and his
executive staff, including, perhaps most importantly, Nixon's special
counsel, Charles Colson. In a meeting the day after Mr. Kerry's Senate
testimony, April 23, 1971, Mr. Colson attacks Mr. Kerry as a "complete
opportunist...We'll keep hitting him, Mr. President."
Mr. Colson was still on the case two months later, according to a memo
he wrote on June 15,1971, that was brought to the surface by the Houston
Chronicle. "Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes another
Ralph Nader." Nixon had been a naval officer in World War II. Mr. Colson
was a former Marine captain. Mr. Colson had been prodded to find "dirt"
on Mr. Kerry, but reported that he couldn't find any.
The Nixon administration ran FBI surveillance on Mr. Kerry from
September 1970 until August 1972. Finding grounds for an other than
honorable discharge, however, for a leader of the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, given his numerous activities while still a reserve
officer of the Navy, was easier than finding "dirt."
For example, while America was still at war, Mr. Kerry had met with the
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegation to the Paris Peace talks in
May 1970 and then held a demonstration in July 1971 in Washington to try
to get Congress to accept the enemy's seven point peace proposal without
a single change. Woodrow Wilson threw Eugene Debs, a former presidential
candidate, in prison just for demonstrating for peace negotiations with
Germany during World War I. No court overturned his imprisonment. He had
to receive a pardon from President Harding.
Mr. Colson refused to answer any questions about his activities
regarding Mr. Kerry during his time in the Nixon White House. The
secretary of the Navy at the time during the Nixon presidency is the
current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner.
A spokesman for the senator, John Ullyot, said, "Senator Warner has no
recollection that would either confirm or challenge any representation
that Senator Kerry received a less than honorable discharge."
The "board of officers" review reported in the Claytor document is even
more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the
President." No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the
president. The president at that time was James Carter. This adds
another twist to the story of Mr. Kerry's hidden military records.
Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft
dodgers and other war protesters. Less than an hour after his
inauguration on January 21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building,
Mr. Carter signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By the time it
became a directive from the Defense Department in March 1977 it had been
expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad
conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence
with negative effect on military records. In those cases the directive
outlined a procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board
of officers. A satisfactory appeal would result in an improvement of
discharge status or an honorable discharge.
Mr. Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form 180, which would
allow the release of all his military records. And some of his various
spokesmen have claimed that all his records are already posted on his
Web site. But the Washington Post already noted that the Naval Personnel
Office admitted that they were still withholding about 100 pages of files.
If Mr. Kerry was the victim of a Nixon "enemies list" hit, one might
have expected him to wear it like a badge of honor, like many others
such as his friend Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers,
CBS's Daniel Schorr, or the actor Paul Newman, who had made Mr. Colson's
original list of 20 "enemies."
There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There
are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as
well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one
odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry
was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his
medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But
when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and
allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five
months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single
day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were reissued.
*October 13, 2004 Edition > Section: National
<http://www.nysun.com/section/2> > Printer-Friendly Version*
>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: Bob Miller <bob@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:18:30 -0400
>
>
>
>>Here is my "hero" scale. Many of us had to weigh the different paths we=20
>>could take and those taken by others at the time of the Vietnam war.
>>
>>When the Vietnam era dawned most of us were pro war. Heroes at that time =
>>
>>were such as Bush senior who went unblinking into a war that was truly=20
>>lethal.
>>
>>As the various stages of Vietnam played out we got student deferments=20
>>for college, being married, getting a good number, knowing someone who=20
>>could get you into the National Guard, conscientious objector status and =
>>
>>running off to Toronto.
>>
>>The heroes were the ones who volunteered for Vietnam because they=20
>>believed it was the right thing to do, the ones who ran off to Toronto=20
>>because they thought it was the right thing to do and the conscientious=20
>>objectors like Ali who went to jail and suffered ridicule.
>>
>>Heroes in order...
>>Volunteers for Nam
>>Those who actively apposed the war on principle especially the early ones=
>>
>>Conscientious objectors
>>Toronto runaways
>>
>>Good guys...
>>Those who enlisted or were drafted or got lucky, its OK in my book to=20
>>get lucky
>>Married types who married for love not to dodge the draft
>>
>>Scum..
>>Those who dodged the draft by joining the National Guard because of=20
>>connections
>>Those who used their family doctors in a conspiracy to avoid the draft
>>
>>That is what I thought then and it is what I think now.
>>BTW I was one who allowed himself to be drafted after checking our=20
>>Toronto. My dad said he would rather see me dead at his hands. Didn't=20
>>volunteer for NAM and declined officer candidate school. Did participate =
>>
>>in one candle lite march against the war after. Definitely not a hero=20
>>but in my book Kerry was on the top two counts, volunteered for NAM and=20
>>then flip flopped and went against the war on principle.
>>
>>We need someone who can flip flop like that.
>>
>>I couldn't vote for Bush for one overwhelming reason. I think he has and =
>>
>>is and will continue to lie about almost all aspects of his National=20
>>Guard duty. I think he still owes at least two and possibly four years=20
>>of his six year enlistment. I think he got into the guard by special=20
>>treatment, served with special treatment and got out early with special=20
>>treatment.
>>
>>I voted for his dad twice after voting for Reagan twice. I don't=20
>>recognize any aspect of this Republican party.
>>
>>Bob Miller
>>
>>
>>
--
Regards,
Mark A. Aitken Director, Advanced Technology
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