-- by Byron York
James Zumwalt knows the importance of his name. Son of the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, the legendary chief of naval operations during the Vietnam War, and brother of Elmo Zumwalt III, the swift-boat skipper who died in 1988 as a result of cancer related to his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, James Zumwalt knows that when he speaks, many listeners will hear not only his voice but those of his family.
So it was only after much thought that on May 4, Zumwalt, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, joined a group of former swift-boat officers and crew to sign a letter citing "substantive concerns" about former swiftie John Kerry's fitness to serve as commander-in-chief. The men, who called their group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, had several concerns. Some questioned parts of Kerry's service record. Others questioned his judgment. But all were united in one thing: their anger at Kerry's claim, dating back to his testimony before Congress in 1971, that Americans had committed atrocities in Vietnam that "were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." The veterans believed Kerry was lying back then, and their unhappiness with Kerry was rekindled when the charges were repeated in Tour of Duty, historian Douglas Brinkley's new book describing Kerry's wartime experiences. "We have concluded that you have deceived the public, and in the process have betrayed honorable men, to further your personal political goals," the veterans wrote in a public letter to the senator.
Before he signed the letter, Zumwalt thought about his brother. "He was not a big fan of Kerry's," Zumwalt recalls. "When they had the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, my brother refused to go up and shake Kerry's hand. He still had quite a bit of animosity."
Zumwalt also thought about his father, who was angered by Kerry's accusations but who tried, in the final years of his life, to put the past behind him. In 1996, when Kerry was in a tight Senate re-election race and found himself facing allegations of having committed war crimes, he turned to the admiral for help. "Kerry asked my father to come and attend a press conference with him," recalls James Zumwalt. "My father agreed, and he went. I think his viewpoint at the time was that yes, Kerry had made outrageous allegations and had hurt a lot of people and hurt their reputations, but those wounds were now healed, and he [Admiral Zumwalt] owed it to one of those men who had served under him to help him out in his time of need."
So the elder Zumwalt defended Kerry, who won re-election. Now Kerry is on the stump again, and Tour of Duty, not to mention Kerry's daily recitations of his Vietnam record, have caused the old accusations to resurface. "I just felt Kerry was way out of line to be repeating those things again," Zumwalt says, "not only because they were not true, but because it was opening those old wounds again." And so Zumwalt signed the letter.
So did a lot of other people, who also appeared at a Washington news conference announcing the formation of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. There was Bob Elder, who skippered alongside Kerry in 1969, and who signed because he felt a "deep sense of betrayal" by Kerry. There was Bill Shumadine, another swift commander who served with Kerry and said, "I was operating in every river, every canal, and I never saw or even heard of all these so-called atrocities." There was David Wallace, who said, "In the whole year that I spent patrolling, I didn't see anything like a war crime, an atrocity, anything like that." There was Richard O'Meara, a former petty officer who said that, "even though I had served at the same time, in the same unit [as Kerry], I had never witnessed or participated in any of the events that the senator had accused us of." There was Robert Brant, a skipper who joined the group "to express the anger I've harbored for over 33 years about being accused with my fellow shipmates of war atrocities." And there were many more.
Nearly 200 men joined in — a number dwarfing Kerry's "band of brothers," the former members of Kerry's boat crew who are actively supporting his campaign. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth includes a majority of Kerry's fellow skippers, as well as his superior officers, all the way up to Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who ran the swift-boat program.
DUELING PRESS CONFERENCES
As the veterans spoke at their news conference on the 13th floor of the National Press Building in Washington, the Kerry campaign held a hastily arranged news conference of their own one floor below. Kerry aides handed out a press release with five "key questions" about the swift-boat group. The questions were clearly part of the Kerry counterattack, but they were also legitimate queries that the veterans were eager to answer.
The first question was, Who coordinated and paid for the news conference and the group's expenses? The swift-boat veterans answered: We did. John O'Neill, the former swift commander who debated Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show back in 1971, and who was instrumental in forming the new group, says that at the first organizational meeting, eight or nine veterans pledged a total of about $60,000. (O'Neill, now a lawyer in Texas, himself kicked in $25,000.) So far, most of that money has not been spent. O'Neill paid $1,400 to rent the room at the National Press Building where the press conference was held. He also reserved a block of rooms at a Comfort Inn in downtown Washington — hardly deluxe accommodations — where the men stayed. But O'Neill says each man paid for his own expenses, with the exception of a couple who didn't have the money, and whose expenses were picked up by the group.
Second, the Kerry campaign asked whether anyone in the Swift Boat group has "been in contact with any member of the Bush administration or the Bush campaign." The answer is no, according to O'Neill, and there is no evidence to prove otherwise. Indeed, the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to a statement by campaign chairman Mark Racicot, only "learned of the event yesterday [May 3] through press accounts."
Third, the Kerry campaign asked the veterans, "Isn't it true that some of you have completely reversed your opinion of John Kerry after having nothing but praise for him a few short years ago?" It turns out that, yes, some of the group, led by Admiral Zumwalt, defended Kerry back in 1996 against the atrocity charges. None of them believed then or believes now that Kerry was guilty of something like that. After all, they knew the sting of such accusations themselves — accusations that had come from none other than John Kerry. But now, having once defended Kerry against an unsupported allegation, they are quick to point out that that doesn't mean they believe he should be commander-in-chief.
Fourth, the Kerry campaign asked whether it bothered the veterans that "George W. Bush has yet to produce a list of superior officers or fellow guardsmen that served with him." The answer, says O'Neill, is that the members of this particular group served with Kerry and have deep concerns about him. They know him. If other veterans want to question or complain about President Bush, O'Neill says, they are certainly free to do so.
Finally, the Kerry campaign raised questions about the public-relations company O'Neill asked to organize the news conference. The campaign charged that the firm's president, Merrie Spaeth, was "part of the effort to smear John McCain in the GOP presidential primary in 2000" and has "close ties" to the Bush White House. Kerry supporters also suggested that Spaeth had something to do with the campaign against former Georgia senator Max Cleland in 2002.
Spaeth says the Cleland allegation is "not only false, but wildly false." She also says she has no ties to the Bush campaign or to the Republican National Committee. But there is something to the McCain story, Spaeth says, and she wants people to know what happened.
In the days before the 2000 GOP primary in New York, two Texas millionaires, Sam and Charles Wyly, formed a front group, "Republicans for Clean Air," to pay for an ad attacking McCain's environmental policies. Spaeth says a friend of hers in public relations called her shortly before the primary, saying he was representing a group that had done some ads and asked her to help field press inquiries about the group. Spaeth says she knew nothing about "Republicans for Clean Air," and says her decision to help, even in a small way, "turned out to be the biggest mistake, at least one of the top five," of her life. "I regret being involved in any way," Spaeth says, "and I am an admirer of Senator McCain." Now she is quick to point out that, unlike Republicans for Clean Air, the swift-boat organization is "a real group, with real members."
For his part, O'Neill says he chose Spaeth because he knew her personally; her late husband, Tex Lezar, had been O'Neill's law partner. In the past, O'Neill has worked with Spaeth's firm on a variety of non-political issues.
VETERANS VS. VETERANS
In all, the Kerry questions were intended to create the impression that the veterans were not credible because they were not independent. But the questions in fact served to highlight other issues about the independence of some of the veterans who support Kerry. For example, at the Kerry-campaign news conference, reporters asked Del Sandusky, one of Kerry's former crew members who has made numerous campaign appearances for Kerry and who appears in Kerry's new biographical campaign ad, how they might get in touch with him for further questions. "Through the campaign," Sandusky replied.
Another member of the "band of brothers" explained that all contacts with the Kerry veterans have to go through the Kerry campaign. And the campaign subsidizes the veterans' testimonials. For example, a quick look at Kerry's voluminous campaign-finance filings shows a number of checks written by the campaign to the veterans. In the early primary season, there is a $210 check from the campaign to Sandusky, then a $100 check, then a $780 check, and so on — all to cover Sandusky's expenses in testifying for Kerry.
In contrast, the swift-boat veterans seem to be going it alone, on their own dime. And no one would call them a slick political operation. They were surprised, for example, when their website was knocked offline the day of the news conference because so many people wanted to visit. Nobody had thought about that ahead of time. "We're pretty amateurish," says O'Neill.
Amateurish, at least politically speaking, but determined. And angry at Kerry. When someone mentioned to O'Neill that Kerry had recently, in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, described his war-crimes accusations as "honest" but at the same time "a little bit over the top," O'Neill was in no mood for conciliation. "The allegation of war crimes on a systematic basis by Kerry was a total lie," O'Neill told the news conference. "He knew it was a lie when he said it in 1971. It wasn't simply 'over the top'... It was done out of gross political calculation. If that was an attempt to apologize, on behalf of my friends, living and dead, I don't accept that apology."
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