Reply #10: The rest of that email....

[PaDUer]

VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM -
the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas

Leonard Magruder - Founder/President
Former professor of psychology, Suffolk College, N.Y.
Member: National Associaton of Scholars

PRESS RELEASE: MAGRUDER IN TRADEMARK ONE-MAN PROTEST AT LOCAL NEWSPAPER.
DATA BEING COVERED-UP BY CBS CONFIRMS HIS MONTH LONG STORY ABOUT VIETNAM VETS OPPOSITION TO KERRY AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

(One day advance notice - protest is tomorrow, Thursday June 3, 1:00 p.m., "Journal -World", 7th and New Hampshire, Lawrence, Kansas. Note: If this arrives chopped up a correct copy will be posted shortly at v.v.a.r.org).

Leonard Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academice Reform, today held a protest in front of the news offices of "The Journal-World" in Lawrence, Kansas, carrying a large sign that read "Stop Media Cover-up for Kerry". Magruder, a long-time activist, often held one-man protests on campuses during the 60's charging the protestors with lying about American soldiers in Vietnam."This is like old times" he said. He told reporters that mainstream media was not telling the public about polls he had reported that show Vietnam vets overwhelmingly reject Kerry as unfit to be Commander-in-Chief. He said CBS was covering up a poll they just did that confirmed his findings.

Washington, D.C. - Talon News, June 1 -(www.gosupa.com/news)-Veterans
Deserting Kerry.
"A CBS News poll released this week contained some devastating news for the Kerry campaign. After months of touting his military record and his combat heroism, the Massachusetts Democrat is losing the veteran's vote to President Bush by a landslide. Buried deep inside the internals of a CBS poll released Wednestday was this stunning statistic: veterans prefer Bush over Kerry by a whopping 13 points, 54 to 41. Not surprisingly, coverage of the stunning poll result has been slim to none. Said Bush-Cheney spokesman Scott Stanzel to Steve
Malzberg of WABC Radio, "It's buried in every poll that I've seen."
"That is the issue" said Mr. Magruder, "the mainstream media is
cheating to help Kerry." He is calling on vet groups everywhere to march in protest against the cover-up, saying it was as big a betrayal of national security as was the media reporting on the Tet Offensive in 1968.If those who have experienced war believe overwhelmingly, (our current estimate is 75% against) that Kerry would be unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief, then that is obviously something the public needs to know about and consider.
- 30 -
----------------------------------------------------------------------Background:
Following is a chronological, summarized, account of our efforts to break this cover-up and bring this matter to the attention of the American public. The full articles may be seen at v-v-a-r.org

(1) Press Release: April 21, 2004
MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERING UP VIETNAM VET REJECTION OF KERRY AS
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

"The national or mainstream media is gambling with national security when it hides the fact that most Vietnam veterans are opposed to the idea of Kerry as Commander-in-Chief. In one of our recent articles we reported on what anecdotal data we had seen on this subject to that date as follows:
In the Wintersoldier.com poll, it is running 96% against Kerry. In "The Wall Street Journal" letters section, 66% against. An editor of the "North County Times" of San Diego reports “100 to 1” against, a South Carolina media poll reports 66% against. Talk show host Hewitt reports of his callers, “the vast majority hold Kerry in contempt because of his actions,” and view his antiwar activities
as “profoundly wrong and disqualifiying for the presidency.”
Last month, Mr. Magruder sent out an appeal to all the Vietnam
veterans on the V.V.A.R. mailing list, some two hundred or so, to send him estimates of opinions in the groups of Vietnam veterans they know. Here are the up-to-date results from that request, broken down into two groups: group results with data, group results with no data. (This is an ongoing poll. Please send any results from your group)

GROUPS WITH DATA
6 Vietnam vets this weekend at HS reunion, all oppose Kerry- Dan Haney-602nd Air Commando Sq. A1 pilot '67
Out of 45 Vietnam veterans... all say pooh on JFK...100%- powmiavets
Our heli-vets pol shows 160 against and 6 for Kerry-Ron Leonard-25th
Aviation Battalion
I know about 650 Vietnam vets and their attitude toward about Kerry is 100% negative - Dan Decker, TSgt.USAF (ret.)
I know thousands of vets .I would say the opinion is about 98% against Kerry
- Tony Cartlidge-Vietnam Combat Marine- 1968
Of 27 Vietnam veterans I know, including myself, not one is willing to vote for John Kerry. -Charles Banto- USMC 1958-1974 -2 tours in Vietnam 100,000 e-mails, almost all veterans, around 100 to 1 against Kerry - Don Bendell, Special Forces, Vietnam, 1968-69, noted author
Out of 25 guys 85%-95% against Kerry - Mike- mleonardos 240 vets, mostly Vietnam, 85% against Kerry -Tony Newcomb, Cpt.U.S.Army (ret.)
Of the more than 2500 veterans of all ranks who responded , 59 took umbrage with what I had to say (against Kerry)-Mark A. Smith, former POW, Vietnam.
An ongoing poll, with names and comments at
www.11thcavnam.com
is running 16 for Bush, 4 for Kerry. (80% for Bush.)
12 Vietnam vets, all of whom are against John Kerry.-Vietnam vet, Tom Taylor
A summary of individual votes sent in to V.V.A.R. is running 12 for Bush, 3 for Kerry
I'd make the numbers 80 to 20 against Kerry- Philip Topps, Cpt. Inf.(ret), 1st Inf. Div. 69-70
100 against Kerry - 0 for him- Storrs Warinner- F-4 pilot Ubon 67-68
17th Annual Reunion - out of 55 vets all against Kerry - Bob Griffin -101st Abn. Div. Vietnam 1968-69

GROUPS WITH NO DATA
Every vet we know is opposed to Kerry - Chuck and Mary Schantag, P.O.W. Network
Rangers are 100% against Kerry -noatlmus44 - President
Every veteran I've talked to is against Kerry - Major General Carl Snyder (ret.) , Air Force -Korea and Vietnam.
74% against Kerry, "over my dead body" -
www.vetsrollcall.com/poll.htm
I am anti-Kerry, as are most of my friends who are Vietnam veterans - Stud 369
I share the distrust I hear from my veteran colleagues - Peter McHugh, CW4 USA -67-68,71-72
I would say 90% of the military here (power plant) are against Kerry -P.Rein

Here is a moving one:
"It is encoraging to see that the Vietnam vets are so solidly against Kerry; but don't forget about us WW-2 and Korea vets. We sat here at home watching Kerry turn on his fellow servicemen in Vietnam and we felt sorry for those who were still in combat. And we will not forget. Among my small circle of WW-2 vets we are solidly against Kerry, 8 for Bush, 0 for Kerry. Bill Nickerson USN-QMC, Luzon and Korea. [e-mail]

This was followed two weeks later with a second press release on the subject, this time to 38 major newspapers throughout the world. It included an update on the data and essentially the same commentary as the first.

(2) Press Release: May 3, 2004
STUDENT GROUP IN APPEAL TO WORLD MEDIA AS AMERICAN MEDIA CONTINUES TO SHOVE KERRY DOWN AMERICA'S THROAT

A week later we sent out a third press release on the subject. By this time there had been two mentions of the issue in secondary media, and a startling public rejection of Kerry by his own comrades-in-arms.This also was covered- up by the mainstream media, except for a brief effort to discredit the rejection by CBS.

(3) Press Release: May 9, 2004
STORY OF VIETNAM VETERAN OPPOSITION TO KERRY BREAKS THROUGH MASSIVE MEDIA BETRAYAL OF PUBLIC TRUST AND ASSAULT ON ELECTORAL PROCESS.

"Leonard Magruder, president of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform said today that a poll he has been putting together from vet groups all over the country, showing strong opposition by Vietnam veterans to Kerry, had received national attention in "Insight Magazine" and on Geoff Metcalf national radio even as the rest of the media engaged in a massive cover-up of this and additional evidence.
Although the samples in the Magruder poll are fairly small, collectively the trend is very clear and dramatic.Nor have we ever had a report of a group of Vietnam vets for Kerry. It now appears that at least 75% of all Vietnam vets are opposed to Kerry. Failure to report on this opinion, coming from those best in a position to help the public judge Kerry’s fitness to be Commander-in-Chief, constitutes an extreme attack by the national media on the democratic
process.

The Magruder findings were strongly reinforced when on May 4, 2004, at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Swift Boat Veterans for Truth announced that 220 out of 229 Swift boat veterans contacted (96%) had signed an open letter that challenged Senator Kerry's fitness to serve as America's Commander-in-Chief. A substantial number of those who had served directly with Kerry signed the letter. Other signers included the entire chain
of command above Lt. John Kerry in Vietnam, including Admiral Roy Hoffman, (ret.) who said, "I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces."
In the letter they said, "By changing from an anti-war to a "war hero" status... you have deceived the public and in the process have betrayed honorable men.
It is vital that the American public have as much information as possible about candidates for President of the United States."

Yet, NBC, ABC, and the Associated Press all refused to tell the American people about the conference. Dan Rather of CBS Evening News mentioned the event briefly but lied about it,calling it a “Republican plot,” and saying that its spokesman, John O’Neill, who exposed Kerry’s lies in a debate in 1971 on the Dick Cavett Show, had been handpicked “by Richard Nixon.” This was in keeping with a long history of CBS lies about Vietnam, most notably its lies about the Tet Offensive in 1968 and its lies about General Westmoreland in its film, "The Uncounted Enemy".

Is it possible to have a more powerful and credible testimony than this ? By military men, men who served with Kerry, trying to warn the nation ? Is this not a front page story ? Then why did Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say later in their press release of May 19th, "The major media has intentionally avoided reporting on our news releases." This is media treachery of the highest order. .
Thousands of Vietnam vets will get this article. We urge you to make a sign, make copies of this article, go to your local newspaper and TV station and protest against this development. Don't let Dan Rather get away with this.
Remember the Tet Offensive
This election may well hinge on whether the media informs the public about how veterans feel about Kerry, or are they again, like they did in the case of the Tet Offensive of 1968, going to rob the American people of the ability to make critical judgments about their most vital security interests in a time of war?

On May 16 a fourth press release went out, this time directly attacking Dan Rather and CBS.

(4)Press Release: May 16, 2004
MAGRUDER TO DAN RATHER (CBS): “WE’RE TURNING OFF CBS NEWS.- SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH, AND ALL OTHERS, WILL BE HEARD. A BIG STORY, YOU CAN’T HIDE IT. VIETNAM VETS OVERWHELMINGLY REJECT KERRY AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.”

"We are giving away a nineteen-page monograph, with photos, to PROTEST the attack on Vietnam veterans by CBS Evening News on Tuesday, May 4, 2004
(“Republican plot,” “handpicked by Nixon”). IN ADDITION WE URGE YOU TO JOIN US IN TURNING OFF CBS EVENING NEWS.

The monograph was compiled not long ago as a history of our own battles with CBS “dirty tricks” over the years. To receive a copy, please send your name and mailing address to
[e-mail]
, or you can go to
www.v-v-a-r.org
and read the monograph online, "Vietnam and the Media."In addition, we are sending out new additional copies of our film "How the Campus Lied About Vietnam, " to Vietnam vet groups, hoping they can show it in connection with a discussion by vets about Kerry on local Public Access TV.

COMMENTARY:
Kerry goes around the country presenting himself as a “moral hero” for his dissent during the war years. But that won’t do. Like those in the “peace” movement, who also cloaked themselves in an aura of great moral purpose, the truth is that Kerry, like them, gave "aid and comfort to the enemy”(General George Patton Jr.), marched under the flag of the Viet Cong, consorted with Hanoi in Paris, and certainly turned his back on the American soldier when he charged
them with endless atrocities.
You can see the beginnings of it in Kerry's ’71 testimony before Congress, and the creepy, anarchistic people he hung out with in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, many of them fake veterans, people who once gathered in Kansas City to discuss the assassination of U.S. Senators. John Musgrave, a friend of Mr. Magruder was there and he says Kerry was there also. Kerry says he wasn't. Another story being ignored by the media.

In a recent speech in Seattle Kerry once again displayed his 19th century geopolitical mentality . "They've looked to force before exhausting diplomacy,"he said. Faced with an enemy that says they will come over here and kill us all, men, women and children, the only possible defense is to strike first (preemption) and do it alone if necessary (unilateralism) . Kerry's attack on these two basic elements of the Bush Doctrine is make believe, because he can't come
up with an alternative. Bush understood the situation immediately after 9/11.
Kerry still doesn't understand it.Didn't he understand in Vietnam that he had to shoot that Viet Cong before he shot Kerry (preemption). And that there was no time to consult with his buddies, (unilateralism).

Kerry thought the Viet Cong were “freedom fighters.” He thought the
Sandinistas were “freedom fighters.” If he treats the terrorists as if they are “freedom fighters,” they will eat him, and us, alive. Dan Rather and company must stop covering for Kerry and start asking him the same tough questions they ask Bush. We urge all Vietnam vets to turn off CBS Evening News until he does.
The nation needs to see Kerry as he really is, a typically befuddled leftist, confused about Vietnam, not as the “hero of Vietnam dissent” the media is trying to project. We cannot survive another betrayal by the media as happened in the case of Vietnam.