Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 2004, first came to national prominence through his spokesman role for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) before the US Congress.
In 1971, when Kerry was 27 years old, he represented VVAW when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The next day, H. R. Haldeman, chief of staff to President Richard Nixon, told Nixon that Kerry had done "a superb job" in denouncing the Nixon administration's policy.[1]
Nixon, agreeing that Kerry had been "extremely effective", resolved to discredit him.[2]
VVAW consisted of veterans whom, like Kerry, had served in Vietnam, and opposed American involvement in the Vietnam War.
During the course of his Presidential campaign, as well as his previous campaigns for senatorial seats, his work with VVAW was raised as a subject of controversy. During his campaigns for political office, he was charged with making inconsistent statements about two events in 1971: an antiwar demonstration at the United States Capitol in April, and a series of VVAW meetings in Missouri in 1971.[3][4]
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John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 1971. The most explosive allegation was his description of testimony by Vietnam veterans at the Winter Soldier Investigation that they had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam...", and their testimony that war crimes had happened "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."[5]
On April 23, 1971 John Kerry and other veterans threw their medals, ribbons, discharge papers, photographs, citations and articles of their uniforms over a fence at the Capitol building at Washington, D.C. in protest. One disabled veteran even threw his cane. The stated purpose of the demonstration was to show that this protesting group of veterans thought the war was unjust, and that the administration had betrayed them.
Thomas Oliphant, a Boston Globe reporter who was present that day, described the scene as follows:
As he neared the spot from which members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were parting with a few of the trappings of their difficult past to help them face their future more squarely, I watched Kerry reach with his right hand into the breast pocket of his fatigue shirt. The hand emerged with several of the ribbons that most of the vets had been wearing that unique week of protest, much as they are worn on a uniform blouse. [. . .] At the spot where the men were symbolically letting go of their participation in the war, the authorities had erected a wood and wire fence that prevented them from getting close to the front of the US Capitol, and Kerry paused for several seconds. We had been talking for days -- about the war, politics, the veterans' demonstration -- but I could tell Kerry was upset to the point of anguish, and I decided to leave him be; his head was down as he approached the fence quietly. In a voice I doubt I would have heard had I not been so close to him, Kerry said, as I recall vividly, "There is no violent reason for this; I'm doing this for peace and justice and to try to help this country wake up once and for all." With that, he didn't really throw his handful toward the statue of John Marshall, America's first chief justice. Nor did he drop the decorations. He sort of lobbed them, and then walked off the stage. Some people have written secondhand accounts of that day stating that Kerry at that moment also threw "medals" that had been given to him by a couple of vets who were not there. I remember Kerry doing that later in the day after the event had broken up. [1]
Some critics have contended that the reports vary about what decorations Kerry returned in 1971, and demonstrate inconsistency on Kerry's part [2].
Kerry contends, however, that he has always been consistent in re-telling what he did that day in protest. In an April 2004 television interview, Kerry described the ribbon/medal tossing issue as "a phony controversy".[3]
In 1971, VVAW was holding quarterly meetings and met in different cities, including St. Louis, Missouri in July. From November 12 to November 15, 1971, the group met in Kansas City, Missouri. At this meeting, a VVAW member named Scott Camil advocated the assassination of certain politicians who favored continuing the war, including Senators Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, and John Tower. Some claim the idea was quickly shouted down and was never seriously discussed.
Years later, Kerry claimed he did remember the meeting in St. Louis, where acrimonious discussions had contributed to his decision to resign from VVAW. He said, however, that he did not recall attending the Kansas City meeting, and thought that he had already resigned by then. Some people who were at the Kansas City meeting claim that he was not there. Historian Gerald Nicosia, recounting the history of the antiwar movement in his book Home to War, stated that Kerry said he had resigned from VVAW at the St. Louis meeting.
In 2004, however, Nicosia said that new FBI documents included a report from an unnamed confidential source. The source recounted Kerry’s resignation at a VVAW meeting, but placed the event at the meeting in Kansas City rather than at the one in St. Louis. In response, Kerry’s office reiterated Kerry's claim that he did not remember being at the later meeting, but added, "If there are valid FBI surveillance reports from credible sources that place some of those disagreements in Kansas City, we accept that historical footnote in the account of his work to end the difficult and divisive war."
VVAW member Randy Barnes was also quoted in the media as having seen Kerry at the Kansas City meeting. Thereafter, however, he said that he had thought that Kansas City was first but now realized that St. Louis was first. He concluded that he might have been confusing the two Missouri meetings.
The focus on the Kansas City meeting arises because of Camil’s suggestion of violence. (Camil himself has said that he does not remember seeing Kerry at that meeting.) No one has contended that Kerry himself ever supported violent action. Instead, he is remembered as having advocated moderation, nonviolence and work within the system. Kerry claims he resigned partly because he was uncomfortable with the radicalism of some VVAW members, and partly because he wanted to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he did in 1972.
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