Meeting with the Enemy
E P I L O G U E
ADVANTAGE SWIFT VETS
On September 21, 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth introduced a television ad entitled “Friends,” with the message that “John Kerry Secretly Met Enemy Leaders” during the Vietnam War, in 1970, while he was still in the Naval Reserves. 28
The Kerry rapid response team jumped into action, charging once again that the Swift vets were lying. John Kerry, his surrogates maintained, did not meet “secretly” with Vietnamese communist negotiators to the Paris Peace talks—–he openly told Senator Fulbright’s committee in April 1971 that he had traveled to Paris and met with “both sides” to the Paris Peace talks. Since he told the Fulbright Committee about his meeting, it could not be “secret,” the spokespersons for the campaign maintained. Besides, since he met with “both sides,” implying that one of the sides had to be ours, so how could the trip have been anything else other than a fact-finding trip? Kerry’s camp also suggested many anti-war radicals were in Paris in 1970 and 1971 meeting with the Vietnamese communists. So, why wouldn’t John Kerry have done the same?
The meeting was secret—certainly secretive. Only in March of this year did Michael Meehan, one of Kerry’s top spokespersons, finally admit to the Boston Globe that Kerry did actually meet with Madame Binh, the top Viet Cong negotiator to the Paris Peace talks. 29 Kerry has ignored questions regarding who arranged the meeting, where it was held, how long it lasted, or what precisely Kerry and Madame Binh discussed. These details remain hidden.
All we know for sure is that on July 22, 1971, John Kerry held a press conference in Washington, D.C., where surrounded by POW families, he called upon President Nixon to accept Madame Binh’s peace proposal, a peace proposal that called for the United States to set a date for military withdrawal and pay reparations—in effect, to surrender—to induce the Vietnamese communists to set a date for the release of our POWs.
Judged by the outcome, Kerry’s trip to Paris was no simple “factfinding mission.” The evidence is that Kerry, while still in the Naval Reserves, inserted himself into a complex negotiation with the result that he advanced the communist side to the detriment of our official negotiating position. From Paris where Kerry received the communist message, to Washington, D.C., where he mouthed that message, Kerry became the Vietnamese communists’ surrogate spokesperson.
There is no historical evidence that would support a Kerry contention that he met with anyone else other than the Viet Cong, officially known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), of whom Madame Binh was the foreign minister, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the official name of North Vietnam’s communist government, of which Lo Duc Tho was a member. There were two Vietnamese communist parties to the Paris Peace talks—these are the “both sides” with whom Kerry met. Because of Kerry’s refusal to disclose any of the details of his trip, we believe the charge still stands.
Advantage, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS FOR KERRY
1. Who arranged your Paris meeting with Madame Binh? Where was it held? Who else participated? What was discussed?
2. Did you visit the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in Paris on other occasions including the summer of 1971?
3. Where, when, and who were these talks with “the other side?”
cont'd...........
