An Alert Reader Finds Kerry In Cambodia

UPDATE: Another Alert Reader strikes gold - Kerry is back in Cambodia in a 1992 AP Interview. And "Everybody was over there"!

An alert reader has found the Senate floor speech in which Kerry makes the claim that he was in Cambodia in December 1968. That is not good for Kerry (Insert frownie face, and botox it). The Nixon connection is weak, however. This is a disappointment from a comedy and mockery perspective, but hardly central to the main point.

The speech is in an update to "Swimming to Cambodia", below.

Comments

[cjg]

Would Nixon not have been elected president
before Christmas, though?
I hope not, because I depise Kerry, but it the
was thinking of Nixon being president because
of the election he was not wrong then?

[William C Swaney]

Nixon did not take office until Jan 20,1969...Kerry's lips are moving so you know he is lying...Nixon term citation:
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0840075.html

[Dean Walde]

I was reading Ed Morissey's blog 'Captain's Quarters' at www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt, and has the response from the swiftees that attribute the Nixon claim to Kerry himself in a 1979 Boston Globe story. Thus, it is on for the Swiftees not Kerry as you suggested.

Take care and keep up the great work.

Dean

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Dean is correct. Kerry penned an article for the Globe, Oct. 14, 1979, in which he said the president was Nixon.

[Joanna]

At Instapundit, it's also possible to read some of the rest of Kerry's speech in which the Cambodia whopper appears -- and that context is SCARY! CLUELESS Kerrytalk about how to handle to the Contras...if that's any indication of his understanding of realpolitik, the U.S. is gonna be in very deep doo-doo if he's elected.

[A Mark Gambee MD]

The paragraph of Kerry's March 26, 1987 Senate speech antecedent to that which contains the 1968 Christmas in Cambodia claim (seen as digital photo of the Senate Congressional Record on Instapundit) quotes President Nixon's 1970 announcement of military action in Cambodia, and creates the clear impression in the following paagraph that "...the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there..." was in fact President Nixon. Furthermore, while I don't remember any claims of American troops in Cambodia during the Johnson administration, it became a major issue in the first two years of the Nixon administration, well after Kerry had left Vietnam.

[Ripper]

Another claim, from the Prince?

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/8/5/asia/8593713&sec=asia

"
“The honourable John Kerry is a sincere friend of Cambodia and its people,'' Sihanouk said in a statement handwritten in French and posted on Wednesday on his Web site. "

Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran who commanded a high-speed patrol boat on the Mekong River for six months and at one point entered Cambodia, made several visits to the country as a Democratic Senator from the state of Massachusetts.

[Ripper]

Here's a sixteen page book that should mention previous vists.

1750.
Author: Kerry, John, 1943-
Title: Trip to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam report to the Committee
on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.
Publisher: Washington : U.S. G.P.O. :For sale by the Supt. of Docs.,
Congressional Sales Office, U.S. G.P.O., 1991.
Description: v, 16 p. ; 24 cm.

Doc. Numbers: GPO Item No.: 1039-A, 1039-B (MF)
Govt Doc No.: Y 4.F 76/2:S.prt.102-40.

[Ripper]

A 1992 Article with this odd bit "Kerry, who spent !six! violent months"

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=kerry+cambodia&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1991&as_maxd=8&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=1995&selm=1992Jun26.153405.28348%40news.media.mit.edu&rnum=11
06/25

Kerry-MIA

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By JOHN DIAMOND
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Navy Lt. John Kerry knew he had no business steering his
Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were
orders.
A quarter-century later, Sen. John Kerry says newly declassified documents
have convinced him fellow servicemen captured on such trips were left behind at
war's end.

[TM]

Ok, Ripper, that is a winner - the VRWC thanks you, I thank you, and your Dark Force Decoder Ring is in the mail.

If I were a Kerry defender, I would like this story, BTW - CIA, hush-hush, everyone is lying.

Bring on the tin-foil hats.

[Greg F]

Some might find this web site useful for info on the Swift boats.

Swift Boat Crew Directory