Reply #5: The whole issue of O'Neill's claiming to be in Cambodia has expanded

[skip fox]

End of this post shows new developments:

John O'Neill himself, having claimed recently never to have been in Cambodia,
but in 1971 claimed otherwise. In an 24 Aug. 04 report on Aaron Brown by
Joe Johns:

<snip>

JOHNS: . . . John O'Neill said Kerry made up a story about being in Cambodia
beyond the legal borders of the Vietnam War in 1968. O'Neill said no one could
cross the border by river and he claimed in an audio tape that his publicist played
to CNN that he, himself, had never been to Cambodia either. But in 1971, O'Neill
said precisely the opposite to then President Richard Nixon.

(starts tape)
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
(end tape)

JOHNS: Now, O'Neill may have an explanation for this but he has not returned
CNN's calls. What does seem clear is that a top member of the swift boat group
is now being held to the same standard of literal accuracy they've tried to impose
on John Kerry –
. . .

BROWN: And just quickly on the O'Neill thing, just for my edification here,
Mr. O'Neill's publicist played for you a tape where Mr. O'Neill says what again?

JOHNS: Well, he says in the tape essentially that he did not go to Cambodia,
plain and simple. He says that a couple times in fact in this little short interview
that was played for me on the phone. Now, of course, as you listen to that
conversation with Richard Nixon, he says something completely different or,
at least, that's what it sounds like --

<snip>

By the 25th of Aug. on the Hannity and Colmes show, O'Neill had figured how
to seem to answer this:

<snip>

COLMES: You claimed at one point you weren't , and then you claimed
you were. This is very confusing to people.

O'NEILL: Well, it shouldn't be confused. I was never in Cambodia, and Kerry
lied when he said he was in Cambodia.

COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon you were in Cambodia.

. . .

HANNITY: On the border.

COLMES: There's a tape of you saying that to Richard Nixon.

O'NEILL: What's the next sentence? I was along the Cambodian border.
That's exactly right. What I told Nixon and was trying to tell him in this
meeting was I was along the Cambodian border.

<snip>

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250004


But the problem with that is he'd earlier claimed that not only no one
went into Cambodia, that no one came within 30 miles of the border:

<snip>

O'Neill: . . .everyone familiar with the entire operation series knows
that the PCF, the Swift Boat areas, stopped just north of Sa-Dec, some
50 miles from the border. The areas further north were PBRs--smaller
boats--and that the border was heavily guarded to ensure that nobody
could go across it.

(Interviewer): There were navy gunboats anchored in the Mekong River
Channel, through which a Swift Boat would have to pass.

O' NEILL: Yes. It would have been apprehended 30 miles before. But
were placed there because in 1967 some drunken Army guys actually
went up that river and were interned in Cambodia. And so to avoid future i
ncidents, those gunboats were placed there. And we checked with the c
ommander of those gunboats, whose name is Tom Anderson. He's also in the book.

<snip>

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4835

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x775416#775520