AP
John Kerry speaks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, April 22, 1971.
To many veterans, the emotional high point was on Friday, April 23, 1971, when they threw away their hard-won medals. Mr. Kerry would later be harshly criticized for discarding only his ribbons but keeping his medals, while actually throwing away the medals of two other men.
Mr. Kerry's fame was instant. Morley Safer profiled him on "60 Minutes." The publisher of a book about the veterans by Mr. Butler and David Thorne, another friend and veteran, suddenly insisted that Mr. Kerry be listed as an author. Offers came in for his own television program and for a record album.
The antiwar movement's new star was also coming under attack from the Nixon administration. The White House helped arrange for a pro-war Navy veteran to challenge Mr. Kerry to a debate. And F.B.I. files recently brought to light by Gerald Nicosia, an author who has chronicled the Vietnam veterans' movement, showed that the bureau closely monitored Mr. Kerry.
But several news organizations, including The Kansas City Star and The New York Sun, have recently reported that Mr. Kerry also attended the meeting of the group in Kansas City, Mo., in late 1971 where killing opponents of the war was discussed. on a trip to Europe with his new bride, Mr. Kerry, the 26-year-old ex-lieutenant took a taxicab from Paris to a suburban villa. The son of a diplomat, Mr. Kerry had managed to arrange a private meeting with North Vietnamese and Vietcong emissaries to the peace talks.
He says he does not remember who else was in the room except for Nguyen Thi Binh, the Vietcong spokeswoman in Paris, who was then bedeviling the Nixon administration by issuing peace proposals it considered little more than propaganda.
"It's not a big deal," he says now. "People were dropping in. It was a regular sort of deal." Senator Eugene J. McCarthy had visited Paris months earlier, and other officials often sat in with the Vietnamese and held news conferences afterward.
Mr. Kerry said he considered it a fact-finding mission. The talks had been stalemated for months. Still on the table was a year-old Vietcong initiative that included an offer to release American prisoners of war when American forces pulled out.
Mr. Kerry recalled "testing what I thought the lay of the land was" in the meeting. "Not that you take their word for their word, but because you sort of put the pieces of the puzzle together."
Asked why the Vietnamese would meet with a 26-year-old, Mr. Kerry suggested it was because he had been on television as a veteran opposed to the war. He acknowledged that they might have been trying to use him to shape American public opinion.
"I knew that, and I was trying to be careful about what was real and what wasn't real," he said. "I wanted to really probe. I wanted to look them in the eyes, and say, 'Well, what happens if this happens? And what does this mean?' "
Mr. Kerry came home, and before a Senate hearing 10 months later he criticized President Nixon for not accepting Mrs. Binh's assurances that the Vietnamese would release American prisoners of war if U.S. troops simply left.
John Kerry speaks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, April 22, 1971.
To many veterans, the emotional high point was on Friday, April 23, 1971, when they threw away their hard-won medals. Mr. Kerry would later be harshly criticized for discarding only his ribbons but keeping his medals, while actually throwing away the medals of two other men.
Mr. Kerry's fame was instant. Morley Safer profiled him on "60 Minutes." The publisher of a book about the veterans by Mr. Butler and David Thorne, another friend and veteran, suddenly insisted that Mr. Kerry be listed as an author. Offers came in for his own television program and for a record album.
The antiwar movement's new star was also coming under attack from the Nixon administration. The White House helped arrange for a pro-war Navy veteran to challenge Mr. Kerry to a debate. And F.B.I. files recently brought to light by Gerald Nicosia, an author who has chronicled the Vietnam veterans' movement, showed that the bureau closely monitored Mr. Kerry.
But several news organizations, including The Kansas City Star and The New York Sun, have recently reported that Mr. Kerry also attended the meeting of the group in Kansas City, Mo., in late 1971 where killing opponents of the war was discussed. on a trip to Europe with his new bride, Mr. Kerry, the 26-year-old ex-lieutenant took a taxicab from Paris to a suburban villa. The son of a diplomat, Mr. Kerry had managed to arrange a private meeting with North Vietnamese and Vietcong emissaries to the peace talks.
He says he does not remember who else was in the room except for Nguyen Thi Binh, the Vietcong spokeswoman in Paris, who was then bedeviling the Nixon administration by issuing peace proposals it considered little more than propaganda.
"It's not a big deal," he says now. "People were dropping in. It was a regular sort of deal." Senator Eugene J. McCarthy had visited Paris months earlier, and other officials often sat in with the Vietnamese and held news conferences afterward.
Mr. Kerry said he considered it a fact-finding mission. The talks had been stalemated for months. Still on the table was a year-old Vietcong initiative that included an offer to release American prisoners of war when American forces pulled out.
Mr. Kerry recalled "testing what I thought the lay of the land was" in the meeting. "Not that you take their word for their word, but because you sort of put the pieces of the puzzle together."
Asked why the Vietnamese would meet with a 26-year-old, Mr. Kerry suggested it was because he had been on television as a veteran opposed to the war. He acknowledged that they might have been trying to use him to shape American public opinion.
"I knew that, and I was trying to be careful about what was real and what wasn't real," he said. "I wanted to really probe. I wanted to look them in the eyes, and say, 'Well, what happens if this happens? And what does this mean?' "
Mr. Kerry came home, and before a Senate hearing 10 months later he criticized President Nixon for not accepting Mrs. Binh's assurances that the Vietnamese would release American prisoners of war if U.S. troops simply left.
