What's Past Is Prologue
Did John Kerry commit treason in 1971 when he went to Paris and met with delegations from the Viet Cong and the Communist government of North Viet Nam? The young Navy lieutenant appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee on 22 April 1971 and spoke with some authority ---even if it wasn't on his own.

Kerry said Nixon should declare a cease-fire and "accept a coalition regime which would represent all the political forces of the country which is in fact what a representative government is supposed to do and which is in fact what this government here in this country purports to do, and pull the troops out without losing one more American, and still further without losing the South Vietnamese."

Kerry then suggested that Congress should permit a special national referendum on ending the Vietnam War, leading Fulbright to remind Kerry that Congress "cannot directly under our system negotiate a cease-fire or anything of this kind. Under our constitutional system, we can advise the president." Kerry responded that, "I realize that full well as a study of political science. I realize that we cannot negotiate treaties, and I realize that even my visits in Paris, precedents had been set by Senator [Eugene] McCarthy and others, in a sense are on the borderline of private individuals negotiating, et cetera." (Emphases added here and below.)

Even by Kerry's own admission, his meeting with the Communists and the VC was potentially a matter of treason. But, as with much else he did in those years, Kerry has since then dismissed his language and actions as those of a headstrong youth who was caught up in the emotions of the time. But that doesn't wash with me. He condemned the great majority of his fellow veterans in Viet Nam to reputations as drug addicts, rapists, and war criminals. Specifically, Kerry said that the United States was "murdering" 200,000 Vietnamese a year.

Kerry's suggestion before the Senate committee that there be an immediate pullout led to questions about whether such a move would endanger the lives of South Vietnamese allies.

Kerry responded that "this obviously is the most difficult question of all, but I think that at this point the United States is not really in a position to consider the happiness of those people as pertains to the army in our withdrawal." If the United States did not withdraw, Kerry said, then US bombing would continue, and "the war will continue. So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America...."

But Kerry, who claimed that he himself was a war criminal, apparently continued on a quest for his own morality after he had come home from Viet Nam. He was a leader of the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a super-radical outfit full of cranks, impostors, and even would-be assassins.

At a meeting of the VVAW in Kansas City in November 1971, a proposal was made to assassinate several pro-war United States Senators, including John Tower and Strom Thurmond. Kerry denies being there, claiming that he had quit the organization months before. But that simply can't be because he continued to represent the VVAW for at least another year.

Kerry has long been portrayed as not being at the Kansas City, Mo., meeting because Kerry recalled quitting the organization at an acrimonious July 1971 session, four months before the November meeting at which the assassination plot was discussed.

But last week [March 2004], the Kerry campaign seemed to leave open the possibility that he had attended the November session, after historian Gerald Nicosia said he had found an FBI document that he said indicated that Kerry was there. As a result of Nicosia's assertion, Kerry's campaign said in a statement that while Kerry did not remember being at the meeting, "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."

It brings a tear to my eye. But here's what The American Spectator has to say:

The senator likes to bluster about President Bush's supposed failures on homeland security, and perhaps he is worth heeding on that score. After all he, not our hopelessly provincial president, has real-world experience with groups threatening violent action. He should make the most of it. Perhaps a line can be worked into his stump speeches, right after the line about aircraft carriers: "I know something about assassination plots, too."

John Kerry has already made it clear that war is a political tool for him in achieving his ambitions. If we allow him to reach the highest rung of political power, we cannot be sure that he will pass the necessary judgements in the war against Islamofascism. Instead, he will do the "popular" thing to curry favor with "right-thinking" sell-outs. It is too high a risk. He must not be elected.