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May 4, 2004. The Kerry campaign held a press conference directly
after the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" event. (Above are, r-l,
Wade Sanders, Del Sandusky and Drew Whitlow). Senior Advisor Michael
Meehan said, "The Nixon White House attempted to do this to Kerry, and
the Bush folks are following the same plan." "We're not going to
let them make false claims about Kerry and go unanswered," Meehan said.
He said his first instinct was to hold a press conference with an empty
room where veterans could testify to their time spent in the military with
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
The campaign provided an information package which raised significant
questions about "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Spaeth Communications,
which hosted the event, "is a Republican headed firm from Texas which has
contributed to Bush's campaign and has very close ties to the Bush Administration."
Lead organizer John O'Neill, a Republican from Texas, "was a pawn of the
Nixon White House in 1971." Further some of the people now speaking
against Kerry had praised him in their evaluation reports in Vietnam. |
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John Dibble, who served on a swift boat in 1970, after Kerry had left,
was one of the veterans at the Kerry event. He said of Kerry's anti-war
activities that at the time, "I didn't like what he was doing." In
retrospect, however, Dibble said, "I probably should have been doing the
same thing...probably more of us should have been doing that." He
said that might have meant fewer names on the Vietnam Memorial and that
Kerry's anti-war activities were "a very gutsy thing to do." |
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