KERRY URGES UN CONTROL OF US TROOPS Old Crimson Interview Reveals A More Radical John Kerry By ZACHARY M. SEWARD CRIMSON STAFF WRITER Ten months after returning home from Vietnam, a young John Kerry strolled into the offices of The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970 as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional primary. The decorated veteran, honorably discharged after a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta, spoke in fierce terms during his daylong interview with The Crimson's Samuel Z. Goldhaber '72. But almost 34 years later, Kerry's remarks on American military and intelligence operations vastly diverge from opinions expressed by the present-day Sen. John F. Kerry, D.-Mass., the leading candidate in the Democratic primary for president. "I'm an internationalist," Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. "I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." Kerry said he wanted "to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care." The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator's remarks. As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA operations. Former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich defended Kerry's 1970 statements as appropriate for their time. "In the context of the Vietnam War, those comments are completely understandable," said Reich, who has endorsed Kerry. But a spokesperson for President Bush's reelection campaign said Kerry's 1970 remarks signaled the senator's weakness on defense. "President Bush will never cede the best interests of the national security of the American people to anybody but the president of the United States, along with the Congress," said the spokesperson, Kevin A. Madden. The increasingly likely matchup between Kerry and Bush has already prompted comparisons of the senator's record in Vietnam and the president's domestic service in the National Guard. And the two Yale graduates, both members of the secret society Skull and Bones, appeared set to square off in future months under the specter of the ongoing war in Iraq. Goldhaber, whose first-person profile of Kerry ran in The Crimson Feb. 18, 1970, said yesterday he recalled the candidate as an emerging outsider whose campaign focused squarely on his opposition to the Vietnam War. "We lived, dreamed and breathed Vietnam," Goldhaber said. Still, Adam Clymer '58, political director of the National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania, said Kerry's comments would likely find their way into Bush campaign materials. "If I were them, I'd use this," said Clymer, a former Crimson president. "I'd use it in direct mail." Kerry's conservative opponents have already begun painting the Massachusetts senator and former deputy governor as an elite, New England liberal, and his 21-year voting record in the Senate may provide considerable ammunition. Madden said the Bush campaign would highlight Kerry's Senate votes should he win the Democratic nomination. And Reich forecasted G.O.P. research would extend far beyond Capitol Hill. "If Kerry is the nominee, Republicans will try and search back into everything he ever said on every issue," Reich predicted. Kerry's 1970 remarks to Goldhaber portray a fiery, novice politician inspired by his opposition to the Vietnam War. "He struck me as very ambitious," Goldhaber said yesterday. "He struck me as the sort of person-even back then, newly returned from Vietnam-who was thinking about running for president." -Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=357339 February 12, 2004 Vietnam-Era Kerry Saw a Military Led by U.N. By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - The student newspaper at Harvard University has unearthed a 34-year-old interview with Senator John Kerry, in which Mr. Kerry, then fresh out of Vietnam and an underdog candidate for Congress, suggested that he would cede authority over the military to the United Nations and rein in, or perhaps eliminate, the C.I.A. "I'm an internationalist," Mr. Kerry told the newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, on Feb. 18, 1970. "I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." The Crimson, which published a recap of the 1970 article on Wednesday, reported that Mr. Kerry also said he wanted to "almost eliminate C.I.A. activity." "The C.I.A. is fighting its own war in Laos," he said, "and nobody seems to care." David Wade, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, said the comments, which are at odds with the senator's current statements, reflect the sentiments of "a 26-year-old Vietnam veteran angry at the Nixon White House's indifference to soldiers dying on the front lines thousands of miles away." As a presidential candidate, Mr. Kerry has said that "American security must never be ceded to any institution or to another institution's decision," and has not called for cutting back the C.I.A. Still, the article is generating attention among Republicans, some of whom cite it as evidence that the senator has been inconsistent on national defense. "His rhetoric and his record often are canyons apart," said Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush re-election campaign. Mr. Kerry, who had overwhelming victories in Tuesday night's primaries in Virginia and Tennessee, is spending Wednesday and Thursday at his home in Washington, with no public appearances scheduled, before heading off on Friday to campaign in Wisconsin and Las Vegas. "The man needs some rest," Mr. Wade said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/politics/campaign/12KERR.html?pagewanted=print&position= Kerry called for strong U.N. role in 1970 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry called for United Nations control of the U.S. military in an interview 34 years ago with Harvard University's student newspaper. Kerry was a long-shot congressional candidate in Massachusetts when he was interviewed by The Crimson in February 1970. He was also a 26-year-old Vietnam veteran fighting against the continuing war. He described himself as "an internationalist" and said he wanted "to almost eliminate CIA activity." "I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations," Kerry said. For rest of story, see: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-02-11-kerry-1970_x.htm KERRY URGES UN CONTROL OF IRAQ "Pointing out Bush's mistakes is relatively simple, but what of solutions to the Iraq mess? Kerry was questioned at length on this, and gave the same answers delivered during his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on December 3: "Our best option for success is to go back to the United Nations and leave no doubt that we are prepared to put the United Nations in charge of the reconstruction and governance-building processes. I believe the prospects for success on the ground will be far greater if Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority are replaced by a UN Special Representative for Iraq." "I understand that the United Nations is reluctant to return to Iraq," continued Kerry in his CFR speech, "for good reason. But I believe if the UN role is absolutely clear and substantively real, the Secretary General and members of the Security Council will support this course of action. But one thing is beyond doubt: We will continue to have difficulty persuading other countries, particularly those with meaningful military capabilities, to contribute troops and funds for reconstruction unless and until we vest real responsibility in the hands of the United Nations and the international community." http://truthout.org/docs_03/121003A.shtml              Printer-friendly version Click here to be added to our mailing list.