SwiftVets.com

[kate]

CAMPAIGN ROUNDUP\ BARTLEY HITS RIVALS ON CONTRIBUTION LISTS
Boston Globe
August 8, 1984


Former Massachusetts House speaker David M. Bartley, a candidate for US Senate, yesterday criticized two rivals - Lt. Gov. John F. Kerry and US Rep. James M. Shannon - for their handling of campaign contributions.

"Jim Shannon's accepting $6000 from Massachusetts Mutual (Life Insurance Co.* executives and then voting for a $14 million tax break for that insurance company is only a small part of the problem," said Bartley at a press conference at his Boston headquarters.

"John Kerry's solution to the special-interest contributors is to hide them by failing to reveal their occupations and identities. Seventy percent of Kerry's $1000 contributors remain uidentified."

Bartley said at least voters know who Shannon is accepting money from, but "as far as John Kerry is concerned, we can only ask what's he trying to hide."

Kerry has filed additional information this week with the Federal ElectionCommission, providing required information on many donors.

Bartley himself still has many donors without full identification. According to Bartley, since January, 200 of 1400 contributors were inadequately identified as of June 30. He said his staff cut that to 100 as of yesterday. He said 80 percent of his $1000 givers were fully identified.


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one of..... We The People

[kate]

CANDIDATES ARE HAVING TROUBLE ANSWERING WBZ-TV'S QUESTIONS
Boston Globe
April 4, 1984


When asked the United States' current defense budget, seven Democrats seeking US Sen. Paul Tsongas' seat in the upcoming primary gave answers ranging between $240 billion and $305 billion. None gave the correct answer of $258 billion.

The various answers were aired last night on WBZ-TV's 6 o'clock newscast. The question, one of three, was a quiz the newscast called "Just the Facts" and covered issues ranging from foreign affairs to nuclear weapons. Another quiz aired Monday night.

The questions were posed to former House speaker David Bartley; Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly; William Hebert, the former Massachusetts Teacher's Assn. executive director; Lt. Gov. John Kerry; former Hampden County registrar of deeds John Pierce Lynch and US Reps. Edward Markey and James Shannon.

Last night, the seven men were asked to identify the foreign countries in which the United States has placed nuclear missiles. The candidates could not identify all three countries, Great Britain, West Germany and Italy.

A third question was, "How many US military personnel have been stationed overseas?" Most candidates replied "several hundred thousand," but none was able to give the correct answer of 498,000.

On Friday, WBZ-TV plans to air a quiz on domestic issues given to the three Republican candidates seeking Tsongas' seat.


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one of..... We The People

[kate]

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FOR TSONGAS' SEAT\ STAKE OUT THEIR TERRITORY AT FIRST DEBATE
Boston Globe
February 19, 1984
Author: Chris Chinlund Globe Staff

All seven Democratic candidates for the US Senate seat to be vacated by Paul Tsongas came together here yesterday for their first debate, an hour-long session in which the contenders laced into the policies of President Ronald Reagan and took a few subtle pokes at each other.

The debate - sponsored by the Montachusett Political Caucus, a progressive political action committee in north central Massachusetts - drew more than 100 people into a packed room at the First Parish Unitarian Church.

Early in the session, US Rep. James Shannon (D-Mass) attempted to stake out the liberal ground by assuring the audience he "stood tall on the tough issues of abortion and school prayer . . . tall on the tough issue of race."

Shannon later said those comments were directed at one of his prime opponents, US Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass), who has voted against busing and against federal funding for abortions. Markey, a proponent of a nuclear freeze, later changed his voting on busing and abortions.

"I am running as a progressive candidate," Markey responded after the debate to Shannon. "I have no apologies to make for my stands."

Tension was less evident among the other five candidates: Lt. Gov. John Kerry, former Massachusetts House Speaker David Bartley, Secretary of State Michael Connolly, former Massachusetts Teachers' Assn. executive director William Hebert and former Hampden County Register of Deeds John Pierce Lynch.

All are seeking the Massachusetts seat held by Tsongas, a Democrat, who is not seeking re-election because he has cancer and wants to spend more time with his family. The Republican candidates were not participants in yesterday's debate.

The nuclear freeze was the most talked-about issue of the debate, with the bulk of candidates endorsing it and warning that Reagan's policies could lead to war and destruction. Lynch - with his pitch for a strong defense and motto of "power respects power" - was the exception.

But the topics were not limited to war and peace. Acid rain, the environment, employment and the economy were on the candidates' agenda.

Connolly said the country's high rate of cancer is a political issue.

"We have to clean up our water and clean up our air," he said.

Connolly separated himself from fellow candidates in telling the audience directly "I see abortion as a destruction of human life and I can't vote for government funding for abortions."

During a question-and-answer period, Kerry was asked why he, the only candidate who is a member of the administration of Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, doesn't have the governor's endorsement.

"I think that with my record and my ideas I am perfectly capable of being elected on my own," he responded. Kerry said Dukakis is "perfectly delighted that I am running."

Bartley won applause midway through his presentation when he ridiculed Reagan's reputation as "the great communicator." He said it is wrong that while our Marines die in Lebanon, Reagan wins popularity contests at home.

Bartley, a member of former governor Edward J. King's administration and director of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's campaign in the 1980 New York presidential primary, said his political experience would make him a good senator.

Although several candidates stressed education, none did so as strongly as Hebert. He listed the important issues as "defense of the country, the economy of the country and the education of girls and boys . . . and if we take care of the third priority, the other two will be enhanced."

The biggest difference between Shannon and Markey emerged as they defined the campaign's issues.

To Markey, the issue is the nuclear freeze. "The fundamental issue of our time is whether we live together or die together," he said. "I don't intend to apologize for making this the central issue of my campaign."

Said Shannon, "We must not let the issues of war and peace get in the way of issues people talk about around the kitchen table every night." He cited as examples factory closings, financing college education and paying health-care costs.

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one of..... We The People

[kate]

GUN LAW AND LICENSE TO KILL
Boston Globe
July 13, 1985 Author: Robert A. Jordan, Globe Staff

After this week's US Senate vote, Michael Yancino believes Massachusetts is closer to the day when it will be a lot easier for "honest" citizens to legally obtain handguns.

"No question about it," said Yancino, the head of the local Gun Owners Action League (GOAL)as he reflected on the Senate's 79-15 vote in favor of legislation that would remove a federal ban on the interstate sale of guns.

"The senators of Massachusetts are way out of touch from the rest of the world," he added, referring to Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, who were among the 15 voting against the bill.

One of the concerns of Bay State gun-control advocates is that the national bill, if it passes, will all but wipe out one of the strongest gun-control laws in the nation on the state level - the Bartley-Fox law - which carries a mandatory one-year sentence for persons convicted of carrying unlicensed handguns.

Six years after the Bartley-Fox law went into effect in 1975, handgun murders in Boston dropped by 32 percent. But that trend could reverse if the national bill becomes law.

For instance, under that bill, anyone could come through states, including Massachusetts, carrying unloaded, unlicensed firearms as long as the weapons are in an "inaccessible" place, such as the trunk of a car. If the bill passes, "It's back to the dark ages," said Natalie Roy, executive director of the Massachusetts Citizens For Handgun Control.

With the early success of the bill, Yancino thinks chances are better that the Legislature will pass a GOAL-backed bill which, critics charge, would make it virtually impossible for police chiefs to deny or revoke a handgun license.

What the GOAL, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, is aiming for, Yancino said, is "to standardize the process" for issuing handgun licenses statewide, instead of leaving it to the discretion of each city or town police chief.

But Roy, who is in the forefront of the fight against the state bill, sees it quite differently. "Standardizing is not what the bill is doing." Rather, she said, "It is making it incredibly easy to get a handgun license."

Under the new bill, the police chief can deny a license only if he can produce "substantial evidence" that the applicant should not be licensed.

And even though drug addicts, felons and those with mental illness still would be excluded under the new bill, "blind people and seriously handicapped people, those who can't even hold a gun, can also get a license under this bill," Roy said. It would also be extremely difficult to weed out the addicts and mentally ill applicants under the new law, she added.

Yancino sees no reason why an individual should not have a license "as long as the individual's reason is proper." He explained that, "We're dealing in effect with honest citizens. So my reason for a license would be because I want one."

A police chief can always deny the applicant, Yancino said, but will have to explain why, in writing, it was denied. Then the applicant "can go to court." However, the court could be bound by the new law to order approval of the license.

Currently, the bill, which the joint Public Safety Committee reported out favorably, is headed for the House.

"We want the bill to die in the House," said Roy. "If it doesn't, we're fairly sure it will die in the Senate. But it's alarming that a bill like this would even get out of committee, and it's more alarming that it could get substantial support in the House."

In the event that it somehow passes the House and Senate, gun-control advocates have a key ally in Gov. Michael Dukakis, who promised to veto any such bill.

But, as Roy said, "We can't rely on one person to determine the outcome of the bill. What if Dukakis loses next year and (Edward) King gets in there? It would be disastrous for us, and everyone else."

Roy has reason for concern. Yancino vowed, "We will make it a campaign issue. I can assure you that GOAL will do it in the governor's race and in every legislative race. This isn't a game."

It certainly isn't. Nor is pulling the trigger of a handgun, particularly the so-called "Saturday Night Special." Such guns are made for only one purpose - to shoot people.
Nearly 400 people in the United States are killed each week with handguns. In fact, the nation's handgun murder rate is 100 times higher than England's, which has strict handgun laws.

That clearly shows that strengthening our handgun laws - both nationally and locally - could save more lives, while weakening them would only result in more tragedy.

And many who think a handgun is self-protection may one day pay a very high price to find out they were wrong - dead wrong.


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[kate]

KERRY PROPOSES $2.3B CUT IN 1986 'STAR WARS' FUNDING
Boston Globe
June 4, 1985 Author: Fred Kaplan, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kerry delivered a 47-page statement on the Senate floor yesterday in support of his amendment to cut the Reagan administration's space-based missile-defense budget, the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative, for next year by $2.3 billion.

The administration has requested $3.7 billion for fiscal year 1986. Kerry's amendment would authorize $1.4 billion, the same amount Congress approved for fiscal 1985. It would also reorganize the program, boosting basic research projects but eliminating elements that Kerry says violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1972.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has recommended authorizing $3 billion for the program, often nicknamed "star wars."

Kerry derided the notion of a foolproof missile defense as "a fantasy, an illusion," and said the Soviets could defeat such a system simply by building more offensive weapons.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), senior Democrat on the committee, spoke against Kerry's motion, saying it "goes far beyond any cut I'd be willing to make."

He said Kerry's cut would prevent a "vigorous research program," which Nunn supports, and would "reduce the leverage we would otherwise have at the arms control negotiations" in Geneva. Nunn urged senators to vote for some other amendment if they find the committee's $3 billion recommendation too high.

The Senate will vote on Kerry's amendment today, along with at least six other amendments that would also cut "star wars" funding, though not as deeply.

During a brief dialogue on "star wars," Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) asked Nunn if he could give assurances that the Pentagon is spending the money for "star wars" efficiently. Nunn replied, "I wouldn't give the senator that kind of assurance on any project in this bill.



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one of..... We The People

[kate]

WHOSE VIETNAM? WHOSE QUAGMIRE? WHOSE PUPPET IS ORTEGA?
Boston Globe
May 7, 1985 Author: David B. Wilson, Globe Staff

In poker, to sandbag is, while holding a strong hand, to check and pass with the intention of raising against any aggressive opening bet.

This is to suggest that the Russians and the Cubans - and their American apologists - have been sandbagged in Nicaragua, a country about the size of Iowa with about half the population of Massachusetts and almost half under 15.

Much has been made by such Democrats as Sen. John F. Kerry and Rep Edward J. Markey of the Vietnam analogy. America, they say, is about to be sucked into a quagmire.

Whose Vietnam? Whose quagmire?

In Vietnam, after the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, certainly, any successor governments were client states - "puppets" if you must insist - of the United States.
Whose puppet is Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan Fidel Castro, jetting from Moscow around the Soviet bloc countries denouncing "US imperialism"? Not Ronald Reagan's, it would seem clear.

Upon which great, distant power must Nicaragua now depend for money and markets for its coffee, bananas, beef and sugar and for the tanks, helicopters and who knows what else Nicaragua believes it requires to defend itself from the concentration of military power deployed in Honduras, its northern neighbor? Not the United States, certainly.

Indications from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Havana are that while Vietnam and Cuba are great at staging May Day parades of armor, missilery and goose- stepping cannon fodder, they are not very good at feeding their subjects or maintaining democracy, freedom and social felicity.

The Sandinista government, then, is a legitimate Communist government which depends for its existence on the Soviet Union and its Cuban client. The Sandinistas face a certain amount of intimidated political opposition and a murderous, terrorist, guerrilla movement encouraged by another foreign power - the United States, whose role is comparable to China's in 1965.

In other words, Ortega finds himself in a set of circumstances resembling those with which, in the end, the US and President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam found themselves unable to cope.

The contras' frequent brutality seems well documented. But if they were attempting to overthrow a pro-American, right-wing regime, the Kerrys and the Markeys of the Congress in both parties would no doubt hail them as freedom fighters determined to throw off the militarist Yanqui yoke.

Twice in this century, the United States has thrown its weight into world wars to prevent the domination of the Eurasian geopolitical land mass by one country - Germany.

A corollary to this strategic principle, having to do with the long-term national security of the United States, is that no nation outside this hemisphere can be permitted to expand its empire within it.

If that was not clear before Ortega went to Moscow, having dispatched Massachusetts' junior senator to Washington with his message, it is clear today.

Under Jimmy Carter, the United States withdrew its support from the Somoza regime, countenanced what seemed to be potentially a democratic alternative and sent millions in aid to the Sandinistas.

Obviously, US intelligence has concluded that the government of Nicaragua is offering the Soviet-Cuban alliance a stepping stone into Central America. This is, simply, impermissible by any American President.

Nicaragua, itself, presents no military threat to the US. But a destabilized Central America, consumed by revolution, definitely does. The Russians, Cubans and Sandinistas know that. The White House knows it. Whether misplaced idealism or mere partisanship is responsible for Kerry's obstinate inability to recognize reality is hard to tell.

It is difficult to believe, though, that the 1,313,150 Massachusetts voters who chose Kerry thought they were electing a senator from Managua.

Down on the South Shore, the Quincy Shipbuilding Division of General Dynamics is letting 3100 skilled workers go and seems about to shut down in the midst of the largest Navy shipbuilding program since World War II.

It seems safe to say that no senator has been more hostile toward the Reagan Administration's defense policies than John Kerry. That hostility, shared almost unanimously by the rest of the state's congressional delegation, must be comforting to rival defense contractors in competing states.


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one of..... We The People

[kate]

KERRY ADDS SUBSTANCE TO STYLE
Boston Globe
April 23, 1985 Author: Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Three days ago, Sen. John F. Kerry, not long removed from the largely ceremonial office of Massachusetts lieutenant governor, left here with a cease-fire offer from President Daniel Ortega Saavedra.

A week earlier and a continent away, Massachusetts' junior senator left Manila, after winning a promise from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos that he would release two jailed student leaders who oppose his regime.

Kerry, in less than four months time, has carved a niche in the Senate as an aggressive liberal with a foreign policy agenda and little tolerance for the notion that freshman senators, like children, should be seen and not heard.

In Washington and in Boston, the Senate's most closely watched freshman has played to generally favorable early reviews. But his critics worry that he may be preoccupied with international concerns and is unflinchingly ideological in a body where compromise breeds success. And Kerry acknowledges the existence of a lingering public perception that he favors style over substance.

As he faces voters from Lynn to Springfield this weekend, Kerry can argue that he's as concerned with jobs in Fall River and highway funds for Boston as he is with human rights in the Philippines and Soviet advisers in Managua.

By the accounts of state and local officials, some of them expressed with surprise, the starchly cool Kerry has proven eager to roll up his sleeves and wade zestfully into low-visibility issues that affect the state that elected him.

In the Senate, though, there is a suspicion that Kerry, one of seven new senators this year, may turn out to be more showhorse than workhorse. "He blew in here like a tornado, brash and looking for the cheap headline," asserted an aide to a more retiring senator, who declined to be quoted by name.

But for a man who has often attracted that criticism, it is suprisingly rare this year. Kerry boosters, as well as some one-time detractors, said in interviews this week and last that his Senate performance so far has been impressive.

"John has found the right office and the right platform. He's always been an effective advocate," said Joseph T. Baerlein, the assistant state secretary of economic affairs, who ran Evelyn Murphy's 1982 campaign against Kerry for lieutenant governor and recalls Kerry advocating a nuclear freeze in that campaign.

"John Kerry has always been interested in international affairs, and that's no surprise," said John Sasso, the chief secretary to Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. "But he's bent over backward to be very attentive to things back home."

Such generally high marks have been made possible in part by Kerry's experience directing federal-state relations during his two years as lieutenant governor, and by what friends say is a determination to disprove impressions - misimpressions, says Kerry - that he's all style and little substance.

"The perception of me as a showboat has persisted by virtue of the strong image people have of 1971 and 1972, which has proven to be indelible," Kerry lamented, referring to the antiwar work that spawned his 1972 campaign for Congress.

But 13 years later, with lines of exhaustion on his face and flecks of gray in his thick head of hair, Kerry is making some headway in changing that image.

"A lot of people started with the attitude that he was a real hot dog, but it turns out that he's reasonable and hard-working," said an aide to one key Democratic senator.

By his own estimate, Kerry hasn't had a full weekend off since he was sworn in in January. After returning from a tiring six-day trip to Manila a week ago Sunday, he left Thursday for Managua, where he spent 26 hours of his 38-hour visit in meetings with government officials. This weekend, he's scheduled to visit Lynn and Framingham and be host at a town meeting in Springfield.

Inevitably, the back-to-back trips had some wondering whether Kerry's focus on foreign affairs was inordinate, even though he is the sole freshman to win a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said one of his constituents raised the same question with him when he returned from a visit here a week ago. Recalled Markey: "I said to him, 'Better your congressman should go than your son.' " Added Kerry: "The importance of the trips outweighs the potential negatives."

One of the negatives, anticipated by Kerry, was Republican criticism. Sunday and yesterday, Kerry and his traveling companion, Sen. Thomas R. Harkin (D-Iowa), were criticized for meeting with Ortega by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who said he believes the two senators were used by the Nicaraguans.

In the Senate, too, there was some mild grumbling at the two, according to Senate sources, by senior senators who considered the freshman venture presumptuous, by some moderate Democrats who feared the Ortega offer might identify Democrats too closely with the Nicaraguan government, and by some Republicans suspicious of Kerry's ideology. Said one moderate Republican: "From what I'm able to gauge, I'm not sure John hasn't come here with his mind made up. The feeling is he's very ideological and set in his ways."

To some, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), much of the longstanding criticism of Kerry is unfair. "He suffers from the fact that he's tall, good- looking, rich and articulate, and sometimes the resentment of his colleagues grows out of that," said Frank.

Indeed, during his visit here last week, Kerry's physical presence worked against Harkin. Time and again, reporters and television crews focused on the more telegenic Kerry, leaving him, embarrassed at times, speaking for both of them as Harkin stood in the background.


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sole freshman to win a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee? ?
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one of..... We The People

[kate]

A STATURE HE CAN BANK ON
Boston Globe
March 1, 1985 Author: Mike Barnicle, Globe Staff

Have you lost any sleep lately worrying about how you're going to come up with your kids' college tuition? Face it: The folks at tuition offices have notoriously poor senses of humor. They look at a personal check as if it were a rat sandwich.

Is your hair falling out because you have a chronic case of the shorts and the oil bill is due? Does your car insurance premium or dry cleaning tab look like a problem this month? Do those automatic banking machines laugh as soon as you put your card in the slot?

Do you disguise your voice in order to sound like Cyndi Lauper whenever you answer the phone at home because, more than likely, it's some pinhead bank officer demanding payment on the other end of the line? Are you tired of lying to people, telling them the check is in the mail?

Well, ease up, brothers and sisters. Relief is just a phone call away.

If you need money advice - and who doesn't? - just call 202-224-2742. That's not a phone number for some fly-by-night fast-cash operation where you get $1000 right away as long as you leave your mother and oldest son as collateral.

It's the phone number for the Washington office of Sen. John Forbes Kerry. In addition to being a senator, Kerry is also a creative financial whiz who just obtained a $473,313 loan from a Rhode Island bank in order to buy a $175,000 town house on Capitol Hill.

Don't sit there scratching your head over the numbers. It's just plain, simple Washington arithmetic.

Here's how Kerry's deal works: The house cost $175,000. The loan amounts to $473,313. OK?

Part of the proceeds from the loan go toward reducing the mortgage on the house. Another part - a sizable hunk - goes toward reducing Kerry's 1984 campaign defecit, which amounts to $420,000 plus change. Still there?

Not bad, huh? Sort of a consolidation of debts.

The Fleet National Bank of Providence, Rhode Island, gave Kerry the money. His interest rate is pegged at one point above prime, which makes it 11 1/2 percent today; which makes it a very, very good deal indeed.

Now, either John Kerry is quite popular in Rhode Island or that state has three senators this morning. Or maybe he was just reluctant to dicker with local banks because of recent publicity surrounding their inability to understand federal law or recognize local desperadoes laundering money down at the old neighborhood branch office.

It's important to understand that Kerry's transaction is legal. It is also pure genius. In addition, it is more proof of the fact that the bigger you are the easier it is to do things that are way out of reach for the average person.

John Kerry is not a bad fellow. And if he can convince an out-of-state bank to toss him nearly a half million bucks to wrap a few bills up, more power to him.

But why in the world don't people in positions of power just deal with things honestly? When asked for explanations, why don't they speak English? Why does the public get some gofer instead of the principal, Kerry, standing up.

A Washington Post story quotes one of Kerry's aides as saying the loan "was part of a consolidation of a series of debts, predominantly from the campaign . . . . We were looking for the best way to deal with all this and decided to consolidate it into one large note . . . so it's all under one umbrella."

The Rhode Island bank was used, the staffer said, because of convenience. "They ( Fleet National Bank ) have an office at 60 State street where John had his law office."

Look, you know, I know, Kerry knows and anybody playing with a full deck knows that the bank did John Kerry a favor. What's this foolishness about "looking for the best way to deal with all this..."? It was a favor, pure and simple.

For instance, let's say you're tap city. Or your daughter needs orthodontia work or you want to buy a new house or maybe add an addition on to the home you're in. Let's, for argument sake, figure your indebtedness - mortgage plus all other debts - at $80,000.

What do you think would happen if you went to the Fleet National Bank in Rhode Island - or any other bank - and applied for $250,000 to consolidate matters? Well, unless you had a gun or somebody owed or wanted to do you a favor, you'd be looked at as a candidate for the funny farm, not the credit division.

If John Kerry snapped $473,313 out of a Rhode Island bank at 11 1/2 percent simply by shopping around for the best deal, than he is some expert at both consumer and economic affairs. If he got it because of who he is or who he knows, what's new?

After all, there's nothing wrong with having a friend in a bank. Just ask Gerry Angiulo.



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one of..... We The People

[kate]

SENATE, IN 94-3 VOTE, OK'S CHARTER FOR VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA
Boston Globe
April 10, 1986 Author: Globe Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Senate yesterday, in a move Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said marked "a milestone on the long road back for America's Vietnam veterans," voted 94-3 to approve a federal charter for the Vietnam Veterans of America.
The charter, which has won House approval in previous years but has failed to win Senate approval, is expected to be endorsed again by the House.

The charter extends official recognition to the group, which has 32,000 members and represents some of the the more than 3 million men and women who fought in Vietnam and 9 million whose service spanned the war years.

Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and leading advocate for special recognition, said yesterday that the veterans "have really engaged in not one, but two struggles.

"The first was the conflict in Southeast Asia, where they served their country.The second was the struggle for recognition and respect at home."

He said in response to questions after the vote that the charter goes only part of the way in healing the wounds of war and cited ongoing health issues affecting Vietnam veterans as an example.

North Carolina's two Republican senators, Jesse A. Helms and John P. East, and Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) voted against the measure.


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one of..... We The People

[kate]

KERRY FINDS AN ISSUE JUST RIGHT FOR HIM
Boston Globe
December 1, 1986
Author: David Nyhan, Globe Staff

Rarely has a rookie in Washington had a month like Sen. John F. Kerry's November.

Kerry finds himself in the delicious position of having been laboring in a backwater that suddenly becomes the hottest patch in politics: contra gun-running and contra war-waging, and, who knows, maybe contra dope- smuggling.

You couldn't get a hotter plot if the writers from "Miami Vice" were laying it out on story-boards: trendy young liberal Vietnam hero senator investigates the contras, their safe houses, their White House phone numbers, when, bang, a contra plane manned by US military alumni is shot down, with a survivor who can be paraded around Managua. Then, poof, the National Security Council's leaders evaporate in a furor over funding the contras with profits from secret Iranian arms deals.

To a politician, this is being well-positioned, in the way that Dave Henderson was well-positioned at Anaheim. Kerry is the lead senator on investigating the ripest stink to hit Washington since -----gate! Can there be any headier brew?

Even more fortuituous for Kerry is the fact that he has been in office for a couple of years, and learned to curb his rookie exuberance. Always a young man in a hurry, he was denied his first bid to go to Washington when former US Rep. Robert F. Drinan beat him out in a 1970 caucus of Bay State liberals; then he lost a 1972 bid in another district. So Kerry spent a decade paying his dues as a Middlesex County prosecutor and lieutenant governor.

He hit Washington running; running so hard he stumbled. His biggest gaffe was taking himself off to Managua, trying to settle the contra-aid mess by meeting Sandinista front-man Daniel Ortega. Oops; fresh from assuring Kerry the Sandinos were good guys, Ortega boarded an Aeroflot jet for Moscow. Kerry had been sandbagged, falling into the kind of propaganda trap Sandinistas set for unwary US liberals.

And so eager was Kerry last year to prove that he was not just another tax- and-spend liberal that he flung himself pell-mell into the Gramm-Rudman- Hollings deficit-reduction pit. That was the temptation Sen. Gary Hart managed to withstand. Kerry's precipitous and, it turns out, premature embrace of a quick-deficit-fix seems to have influenced even Sen. Ted Kennedy, from whom he has contracted Potomac fever.
Sen. Ted Kennedy followed Kerry's lead into the what-the-hell-fellas-it- loo ks-like-the-kind-of-vote-that-can't-hurt puddle of Gramm-Rudman. The two liberal Bay State red-hots fell into temptation like sailors on shore leave. Now older and wiser, Kerry has conducted his contra probe with some skill and restraint.

Kerry is undeniably one of the biggest media hounds in Washington. If it's 11 o'clock, you know where your senator is: He's on the Capitol steps, adjusting his necktie, waiting for Chet or Nat or Jack or Liz to interview him for the nightly news. A hard worker, bright, cosmopolitan, fixated on career, Kerry is apparently a man of limitless ambition. So single-minded is his drive, say other Bay State pols, it's doubtful that even becoming president would suffice. Is there a goal after president? Do they give Olympic medals to politicians? Nobel prizes?

As he proved by edging out Jim Shannon in the 1984 Democratic primary, Kerry is an adept pol. As he just proved by snaring the chairmanship of the 1988 Democratic Senate campaign committee, he's a shrewd mover within the party who wants to line up IOUs around the nation. And as he showed by jumping on the contras early, he's got a nose for an issue with potential.

Kerry's television style is mesmerizing. Like Gary Hart, another lean, ambitious and politically precocious child of the '70s, Kerry made himself into a totally telegenic personality. He fixes his stare on the camera and goes into Kerryspeak, a highly concentrated language that is more grammatical than Kennedyspeak, but tends to be less emotional around what the liberals used to call the fairness issue, and instead appears more calculated to appeal to the self-interest of yuppies.

We've had Kennedy run for president, and Mike Dukakis is mulling it over. But any thorough accounting of the Bay-Staters-I-Wanna-Be-President Club must include the lean, lantern-jawed Yalie who decided early on that Nicaragua was going to be the Vietnam of the '80s. Stay tuned to Radio Kerryspeak.


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[kate]

FILIBUSTER WAS MADE TO TV
Boston Globe
August 14, 1986
Author: John Robinson, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON --

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" it wasn't.

Sen. John Kerry was not Jimmy Stewart.

The crusade against President Reagan's request for military aid for the Nicaraguan rebels was not a fight against corruption in high places.

And while Stewart's portrayal of an impassioned, exhausted senator passing out in a snowdrift of constituent letters as he reads them on the Senate floor is a classic example of a filibuster, the debate cut off yesterday by a cloture vote was not.

It was an extended debate, announced in advance, orchestrated with specific deadlines, and engaged in by scores of senators. It was not what fans of the 1939 Frank Capra classic would have expected.

Indeed, this week's real-life debate, despite the many rising young politicians that it highlighted, received only a fraction of the media attention lavished on the Nicaragua aid issue before previous votes this year in the House and Senate, both of which endorsed the president's request.

Jimmy Stewart ended up changing hearts and minds, but although the most recent Nicaragua debate provided an opportunity for its foes to test support for various amendments, not a single one passed.

However, there were parallels to the film in this week's filibuster, and the most striking was the projection of it on television.

Until this year, people who wanted to see the US Senate in action either had to watch in person from the visitor galleries, or accept a fictionalized version like "Mr. Smith" or "Advise and Consent," another Capitol Hill classic.

But June 1, the Senate initiated a six-week experiment with television, which was made permanent this month, and the president's request for aid to the rebels, called contras, became the first major debate on a great issue to be widely available to television viewers as well as to readers of newspapers and magazines.

Viewers with the patience to withstand 20 hours of debate were rewarded with real-live would-be Jimmy Stewarts, lots of them. They displayed just as much fervor as burned in the Stewart character, Sen. Jefferson Smith, a whippet-thin junior senator in his first term who got fed up with the way things were in Washington and took to the Senate floor to say so -- at length.

Besides Kerry, who is 18 months into his first term and who is ardently opposed to military assistance to the rebels fighting Nicaragua's Sandinista government, there was Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), another member of the 1984 freshman class.

There was Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who was particularly evocative of the ficitional Sen. Smith when he used part of his allotted two hours of debate time Tuesday to read letters from home to his colleagues.

Kerry, Harkin, and Leahy pushed the filibuster strategy on some doubtful colleagues earlier in the summer, and they found a powerful ally in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who saw in the strategy an ideal way to push the Senate's Republican majority to deliver a strong bill of economic sanctions against white minority-ruled South Africa despite President Reagan's steadfast opposition to such a measure.

But the filibuster strategy, which proponents argued would help "educate" the American people about contra aid, was controversial. And its educational value has been placed in question, since few television stations picked up any of the debate.

"We monitor it during the day. If anything was hot, we'd pick it up. But I don't think there's been that much news," said Stanley Hopkins, news director of Boston's WBZ-TV (Ch. 4).

Jeff Rosser, at WNEV-TV (Ch. 7), said his station's emphasis on local and regional news worked against picking up television feeds from the Senate, and Gary Griffith, assignment manager for WCVB-TV (Ch. 5) said technical limitations prevented using material broadcast from the Senate floor.

"The problem with the Senate is the unpredictability of Senate rules," Griffith said. "I personally think it's going to be harder than these guys think to get on TV."

Some Democrats who opposed contra aid argued that a filibuster would amount to admitting defeat before the debate even began, sending the wrong psychological message and alienating colleagues who might otherwise be favorable to antiaid amendments designed to restrict the contra package.

It also led to suspicion that the filibuster, coming only six months after the Senate voted in favor of the aid, was really an excercise for the electronic media pushed by younger senators who tend to be the most adept at handling the demands of television.

"They hurt themselves badly with their colleagues," said one aide to a veteran anticontra Democrat. "If they really wanted to fight this to the bitter end, as they said they did, why didn't they vote against the unanimous consent agreement that limited the debate? This whole thing is partly the result of enthusiasm and inexperience."
Sen. Mack Mattingly (R-Ga.), a freshman in favor of the aid who faces a tough reelection bid in November, was more specific about what he considered the motives of the filibuster enthusiasts.

"Forget about television," said Mattingly, who was floor manager for the pro-contra forces, "and support the legislation before us. Act decisively. Reaffirm the vote we took in January."

Sen. Peter V. Domenici (R-N.M.), belittled the debate as "a microscopic examination of the motive of all those opposed to the regime in Nicaragua."

Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.), a strong opponent of contra aid, was forced to support a cloture vote yesterday to halt the contra debate because it was threatening to push another priority, South African sanctions, off the Senate calendar.

"When I was in the state Legislature," he angrily told his colleagues, many of whom were allies on the South African issue, "we learned that in this process you win some and you lose some and then you move on. But around here we have people who just have to win all the time."

Sensing a towel-snap at the filibuster leaders, Kerry rose to object to Weicker's comment, but the ensuing cloture vote was invoked anyway, an event that Kerry said was not preordained.

"Lesser issues than this get filibustered all the time," Kerry said in defense of the strategy he pushed vigorously. "There was nothing we could do about the parlimentary situation.


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[kate]

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Boston Globe
July 10, 1986
Author: Adam Pertman and John Robinson, Globe Staff

Cameron Kerry, brother of Massachusetts' junior senator John Kerry, has charged the The Almanac of American Politics with printing "a falsehood." According to John Sullivan, the reference book's publisher, he received a letter from Kerry's law associate and attorney, John M. Connolly, objecting to a passage in the book that links the younger Kerry with "a murky incident" during John Kerry's unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1972. According to the Almanac, "Kerry's brother was caught wiretapping his opponents' phones." Connolly maintains "that reference is untrue," and newsclips from the period indicate that Kerry was arrested only for breaking and entering. His case was continued without a finding in April 1983. Sullivan said Kerry has asked for a correction, which he said is usually accomplished by deleting the material from the next year's book.


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[kate]

KERRY BLASTED BY BROTHER OF NICARAGUA REBEL LEADER
Boston Globe
June 3, 1986

The brother of a Nicaraguan rebel leader yesterday criticized Sen. John F. Kerry for urging a congressional investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing by some contra leaders and their US supporters.

In a Boston press conference, Mario Calero, whose brother, Adolfo, heads the largest contra military contingent, said the allegations are "ridiculous" and politically motivated. He said they were being raised in an attempt to persuade members of Congress to vote against President Reagan's $100 million aid package for the rebels, which will be considered by the House by mid-June.

Calero reacted strongly when asked about such allegations as drug dealing, gun-running and theft of the US aid and private donations to the rebels for their fight against the Sandinista government.

"They are . . . wrong about that," Calero said of the charges. "We are decent people and would never tolerate money coming into our organizations from things like drug dealing."

Calero singled out Kerry for criticism for calling for congressional investigations into the charges. Even before the charges were raised, Calero said, Kerry demonstrated his feelings towards the contras by meeting only with Sandinista leaders when he traveled to Nicaragua last year.

Although acknowledging that Kerry has long opposed military aid to the contras, a spokesman said Kerry had met with several opposition leaders in his visit to Nicaragua shortly after taking office in 1985. Another aide said Kerry has sought the congressional probes because "these allegations have been raised by people who have worked closely with the contras over the years.

The charges "are very serious in nature and it is going to take an investigation by a committee armed with subpoena powers to find out what exactly the truth is," said Ron Rosenblith, Kerry's administrative assistant.


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[kate]

KERRY GETS AIRBORNE VIEW OF MIDEAST SAYS HE STILL SUPPORTS ISRAEL BUT HAS 'DEEPER UNDERSTANDING' OF REGION
Boston Globe
May 29, 1986
Author: Curtis Wilkie, Globe Staff

JERUSALEM -- Sen. John F. Kerry -- a pilot as well as a politician -- took the controls of an Israeli Air Force Fouga training jet the other day during a courtesy flight and got a stunning view of the Middle East.

"Suddenly I'm looking at Egypt, I'm looking at Jordan," he recalled in an interview yesterday. A few miles farther and he could see Saudi Arabia, and since he was in Israeli airspace, he could, of course, look at Israel. At the moment, he was in the midst of his first trip here and executing an aerobatic loop, and he concluded, "this was an appropriate view -- upside down."

As he left Israel yesterday after a six-day visit, Kerry said he took away "a deeper understanding of the complexity, the multifaceted complexity of the situation. We Americans are so prone to quick-solving in a time frame different from this place. You can go through the historical confrontations here just walking around. At home they may take you back 50 years, 200 years, but here they go back thousands of years."

Kerry said he saw nothing which might make him want to change any of his votes in the Senate, where he is counted in the ranks of strong supporters of Israel. In fact, he said his experience here "reinforces my votes."

At the same time, he said, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he developed a better appreciation for the Middle East problems and hoped to be able to visit such moderate Arab nations as Egypt and Jordan to hear their side.

Kerry led a delegation of 14 Massachusetts residents who participated in a program organized by B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League. Their itinerary included meetings with Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Prime Minister David Levy as well as a session with Palestinian leaders.

"I don't think I came here insensitive to the Palestinian issue," Kerry said. "I've always been supportive of the need to deal with it in a realistic way."

But he said he was "more convinced" as a result of his talks here that "there is a fundamental intransigence on the part of the Arabs that complicates" the prospect of a solution. Kerry said the split between King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, underscored the problem. "I don't think there is any question," he said, that the PLO is a "terrorist organization," and he criticized Arab nations for "supporting this counterforce to a solution" arms sale to Saudi Arabia, but acknowledged his earlier opposition to an arms sales to Jordan was "not an easy vote, mostly because of Hussein's efforts" to get the peace process moving.

The Massachusetts Democrat said it was important for the United States to make its support of Israel clear and "not send mixed messages to Arab countries." The United States believes in "democracy and peace," he said, "and it happens that Israel stands for that." Whenever Arab states moved toward peace -- as Egypt did in the 1970s -- "we have a clear track record of backing them."

Kerry said he favored maintaining US aid to Israel -- the leading recipient of American assistance -- at its present level despite budgetary cutbacks. If Israel becomes militarily threatened, he said, he would be prepared to increase aid.


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[kate]

BRITISH PRESSING US SENATORS ON EXTRADITION
Boston Globe
May 2, 1986
Author: Steven Erlanger, Globe Staff


LONDON -- Sens. John Kerry and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) might ordinarily be pleased to find their pictures on the front page of the Sunday Times of London. They might not be so pleased, however, to see the accompanying headline: "The senators who side with IRA."

Sunday's article was only an example of the increasing pressure British officials and media have been putting on US politicians to approve a treaty amendment to simplify the extradition of fugitives wanted here on charges of terrorism.

In British eyes, approval of the treaty amendment is being seen increasingly as a quid pro quo for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's agreement to allow US bombers to use British bases in the air strike against Libya.

In a radio interview Sunday, Thatcher herself contrasted President Reagan's readiness to act against Libya with the absence of a Senate vote on the treaty amendment. She blamed "the Irish lobby" for the situation in the Senate despite Reagan's own "very, very active" support.

"What is the point in the United States taking a foremost role against terrorism and then not doing anything against Irish terrorism which is afflicting one of their allies?" Thatcher asked.

"It's no good having terrorist acts in Britain and the IRA getting away to America knowing nothing will be done about them," she said. "We've got to fight Irish terrorism and not give them a safe haven in the United States."

Thatcher was referring to the amendment to the Anglo-American extradition treaty, which has been stuck in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for nine months.

The amendment is designed to prevent wanted members of the Irish Republican Army or other groups accused of using terrorism from asserting that their crimes were politically motivated. Such assertions, if US courts agree with them, can protect IRA members from extradition.

Kerry and Dodd, along with Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), are seen here as the main obstacles to the treaty amendment in the committee. Should the amendment be approved, the new treaty must then be ratified by two-thirds of the full Senate.

An aide to Kerry said the senator opposed the revised treaty because it eliminated a political defense by those who would be extradited.

He said elimination of such clauses could have permitted former President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines, for example, to seek extradition of political enemies living in the United States.

The State Department urged the Senate to ratify the treaty, Reuters reported. A department spokesman, Charles E. Redman, told reporters that Britain had helped the United States in its air raid on Libya last month and that the support should be reciprocated.

After the raid on Libya, Reagan wrote the committee asking its members to approve the amendment. Last week, the chairman of the Conservative Party and a key Thatcher Cabinet member, Norman Tebbit, told US correspondents that Thatcher's support for Reagan on Libya had been costly and that "a greater sensitivity" by Americans to British concerns would be helpful.

Implying that Thatcher, who is in political trouble, could use some pluses to point to from the close relationship with America, Tebbit mentioned a number of issues. But first and foremost, he said, was the extradition treaty.

Tebbit, who was badly hurt and whose wife was paralyzed in a 1984 IRA bomb attack aimed at Thatcher, said he would not say Reagan "owed Thatcher one," but added: "Sometimes you see a friend and want to do him a favor."

Even the center-left Guardian newspaper, in an editorial this week, said that "terrorism" was a word "lightly tossed around, but even in the US there is no agreement when the sticking point arrives about who is a terrorist."

It went on: "Congress is reluctant to use the term in relation to the IRA because of pressure from lobbies whose conception of the problem is both ancient and ingrained."
British officials themselves say they understand that "people named Kerry may have difficulties with their constituencies" on the issue, however much their opposition is couched in terms of protecting "political dissent."

But officials point out that the Irish government itself forcefully condemns the IRA and that Dublin freely signed the Anglo-Irish accord last November. The accord recognizes that Northern Ireland will remain a part of the United Kingdom until a majority of Northern Irish citizens vote otherwise.

"It's one thing to protect political dissent," a British official said. "It's another thing to protect murderers and bombers. The Irish government doesn't like everything that goes on in the north, but they know enough about the IRA not to put them in the same league with Nelson Mandela," the imprisoned South African black leader.

British officials also decry a Democratic alternative to the treaty amendment that would separate offenses into those directed against civilians, which would not be protected by "political motivation," and those directed against military and security personnel.



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