Next attack. Paris 1971. - Democratic Underground

A_Possum

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Mon Aug-23-04 11:34 PM
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Next attack. Paris 1971.

Ok, let's assume Kerry is gonna do some kind of major smackdown tomorrow. Smearvets are sunk.

At some point, he's gonna be hit with this Paris thing. This isn't some freep myth. He said in his Congressional testimony in 1971 that he had spoken to both sides (North and South Vietnamese) at the Peace talks in Paris, and discussed it at length with the congressional committee. The freepers are spinning this as "negotiating with the enemy" and horribly illegal and all that.

I won't post all of the relevant testimony here, but this part seems pretty important to me:

***********

Question is How to Disengage

The Chairman:

...I realize you want it immediately, but I think that procedure was about as immediate as any by which a country has ever succeeded in ending such a conflict or a similar conflict. Would that not appeal to you?

Mr. Kerry: Well, Senator, frankly it does not appeal to me if American men have to continue to die when they don't have to, particularly when it seems the Government of this country is more concerned with the legality of where men sleep than it is with the legality of where they drop bombs. (Applause.)

The Chairman: In the case of the French when they made up their mind to take the matter up at the conference in Geneva, they did. The first thing they did was to arrange a cease-fire and the killing did cease. Then it took only, I think, two or three weeks to tidy up all the details regarding the withdrawal. Actually when they made up their mind to stop the war, they did have a cease-fire which is what you are recommending as the first step.

Mr. Kerry: Yes sir; that is correct.

The Chairman: It did not drag on. They didn't continue to fight. They stopped the fighting by agreement when they went to Geneva and all the countries then directly involved participated in that agreement.

I don't wish to press you on the details. It is for the committee to determine the best means, but you have given most eloquently the reasons why we should proceed as early as we can. That is, of course, the purpose of the hearing.

Mr. Kerry: Senator, if I may interject, I think that what we are trying to say is we do have a method. We believe we do have a plan, and that plan is that if this body were by some means either to permit a special referendum in this country so that the country itself might decide and therefore avoid this recrimination which people constantly refer to or if they couldn't do that, at least do it through immediate legislation which would state there would be an immediate cease-fire and we would be willing to undertake negotiations for a coalition government. But at the present moment that is not going to happen, so we are talking about men continuing to die for nothing and I think there is a tremendous moral question here which the Congress of the United States is ignoring.

The Chairman: The congress cannot directly under our system negotiate a cease-fire or anything of this kind. Under our constitutional system we can advice the President. We have to persuade the President of the urgency of taking this action. Now we have certain ways in which to proceed. We can, of course, express ourselves in a resolution or we can pass an act which directly affects appropriations which is the most concrete positive way the Congress can express itself.

But Congress has no capacity under our system to go out and negotiate a cease-fire. We have to persuade the Executive to do this for the country.

Extraordinary Response Demanded by Extraordinary Question

Mr. Kerry: Mr. Chairman, I realize that full well as a study of political science. I realize that we cannot negotiate treaties and I realize that even my visits in Paris, precedents had been set by Senator McCarthy and others, in a sense are on the borderline of private individuals negotiating, et cetera. I understand these things. But what I am saying is that I believe that there is a mood in this country which I know you are aware of and you have been one of the strongest critics of this war for the longest time. But I think if can talk in this legislative body about filibustering for porkbarrell programs, then we should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our country. (Applause.)

And this, Mr. Chairman, is what we are trying to convey.

**********

A couple of things puzzle me. One, if Kerry speaking to the delegations in Paris was such a big no-no, then how come Nixon didn't go after him about it? Nixon was looking for any way to take Kerry down after this testimony, and ended up using O'Neill as his surrogate. If this were really illegal, then how come Nixon overlooked it at the time?

Also, Kerry mentions "others," including McCarthy. So he wasn't the only one talking in Paris. He says he understands there's a blurry line there with private individuals, but at the same time says he cannot negotiate treaties.

And if this was such a traitorous, illegal thing to do, why didn't they arrest him on his way out of the committee room?

The most important thing he says, of course, is that SOMEBODY, Congress or the President, needs to act NOW, to save American lives. This is his point that he makes over and over.

Now, my question is, what if Kerry pre-empts the inevitable attack about "parleying with the enemy" by coming right out and talking about what he did and what his motivations were at the time, and says he's proud of what he did. It was certainly heroic, as Paul Krugman points out--it was by no means a ticket into Congress and in fact he lost his first bid for Congress.

Would bringing Paris peace talks up on Kerry's own terms be a stupid mistake? I'm no political strategist, but the pugs will spin this into making him look like a traitor, it seems to me.