re: #398 researchok

A part of the problem was that he made his claims re American war crimes after serving only about 4 months in Vietnam.

He also drew grief when he pushed to end the missing POW hearings and investigations. That was immediately followed by his family’s investment in Vietnam.

Lots of bad PR.

Kerry served from 1966-1970. After that time he started his anti-war activism. I don’t know where you got that.

As to the POW hearings, McCain also was skeptical that there were any POWs left behind, but you don’t hear about that.

en.wikipedia.org

Running the committee was seen as politically risky for Kerry, and one that his advisors recommended he not do.[10][11][12] Indeed, as Bob Kerrey later said, “Nobody wanted to be on that damn committee. It was an absolute loser. Everyone knew that the POW stories were fabrications, but no one wanted to offend the vet community.”[9]

And yet, they did work with the Vietnamese government to access their records and declassified over a million pages of documents.

The committee was responsible for getting the Department of Defense to declassify over one million pages of documents.[22] Kerry and McCain and others were able to get the Vietnamese government to give full access to their records.[22] The committee had full-time investigators or delegations stationed in Moscow and other parts of Russia, North Korea, and Southeast Asia.[23] In all, the committee would conduct over 1000 interviews, take over 200 sworn depositions, and hold over 200 hours of public hearings.[23] Some of the hearings were telecast on C-SPAN.[23]

The senators’ work was often hands-on. Smith would get leads about possible whereabouts of a POW, and then Kerry would follow up on them.[24] Because of Kerry’s activities with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the North Vietnamese deemed him honorable and opened their facilities to him.[24] There had been persistent reports of U.S. prisoners held under the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi or in nearby tunnels;[24] Smith had stated in hearings that the Vietnamese Defense Ministry had an underground prison in its compound near the mausoleum, which a Vietnamese official called “a myth and an affront to the people of Vietnam.”[25] Kerry and Smith were personally led through a patchwork of tunnels and catacombs under Hanoi, until Smith was satisfied that no Americans were being held there.[24] The number of live-sighting searches, include those on short notice, sometimes led to Vietnamese officials accusing the whole process of being a cloak for espionage.[25]

His family investing in Vietnam, I never heard, but it what does that have to do with it? He was a soldier who enlisted himself, not drafted.