Greg Ransom
Please makes
a donation
PayPal / Amazon
This blog is brought
to you by its readers
Ransom Papers
"In the early afternoon," the statement continues, "Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border. There, Kerry and his crew along with two other boats were ambushed, taking fire from both sides of the river, and after the firefight were fired upon again. Later that evening, during their night patrol, they came under friendly fire. Many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien" on the Gulf of Thailand, Meehan said in his statement.The Knight-Ridder papers seem to be the only ones in the country pursuing the Swift Boat / Kerry in Cambodia story. This is the chain's second major story on the matter in as many days. Let the partisan smearing of Knight-Ridder begin![Kerry's commanding officer Roy] Hoffmann said he was leery of Kerry's claim to have ventured into Cambodia in early 1969 to deliver CIA operatives or special forces soldiers.
"I was always properly informed. The whole time I was there, I don't recall" such a mission, Hoffman said.
UPDATE: Here is the Swift Boat base at Ha Tien as it appeared during the Vietnam war. The page includes pictures and a map. This is part of the "SEALORDS" section of the PCF45 site I mentioned the other day. Quotable:
Ha Tien was perhaps the first forward location to be utilized as a base for supporting Swift Boat operations aimed at interdiction in the South Vietnam rivers close to the Cambodian border. It was, however, originally set up as a very temporary stopping point for crew rest by Swifts on Operation Market Time patrols in the Gulf of Siam away from the primary base at An Thoi.UPDATE II: The Knight-Ridder article is in papers all over the country, including the Seattle Times and the Denver Post.On October 14 1968, shortly after Admiral Zumwalt conceived of SEALORDS, Swift Boat OinC Mike Bernique was informed by local Vietnamese at Ha Tien that the VC had set up a tax collection site a few miles up the Giang Thanh River from Ha Tien.
Even though it was strictly forbidden by the Rules of Engagement for Swift Boats to operate that far up the rivers, Mike proceeded to follow up on this lead and investigated. He discovered the tax collection site and a fire fight ensued. This resulted in five enemy KIA's and the collection of weapons, ammunition, supplies and documents left behind by the fleeing communists.
Mike was called to Saigon to explain his unauthorized conduct and to answer a diplomatic protest by Cambodian Prince Sihanouk that he had fired across the border into that supposed neutral country. Facing possible disiplinary actions, he answered Admiral Zumwalt's questions with an emphatic "Tell Sihanouk he's a lying SOB."
The Admiral declared that Bernique was exactly the kind of aggressive skipper he was looking for and awarded him a Silver Star instead of a general court marshal.
From that point forward, the Giang Thanh became known as "Bernique's Creek" Eventually, patrols were augmented throughout the length of the Giang Thanh River and extended from its northeastern head along the Vinh Te Canal to the east all the way to the western bank of the Bassac river. Interdiction operations included not only Swift Boats, but also PBRs (Patrol Boat River) and units of the Navy's Mobile Riverine Force.
The only people who won't know about this story are those get all their news from the NY Times and the WaPo. But who watches Dan Rather anyway?
UPDATE III: The Boston Herald runs with the Kerry in Cambodia story. Worth noting:
[Swift Boat vet John] O'Neill said all ``the living commanders in Kerry's chain of command'' deny Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia.UPDATE IV: N. Z. Bear is tracking Google links to the Knight-Ridder story, along with Google hits for a "Swift Boat" search.
UPDATE V: More on press coverage of "Kerry in Cambodia" at Powerline and Captain's Quarters.
UPDATE VI: Betsy's Page posts this remarkable letter from "the "Reader's Representative" of the Kansas City Star:
Some of you think the paper isn't doing its job of covering Sen. John Kerry and the controversy surrounding his military record."So, how long can the wire services ignore this story," Betsy asks.Last week, readers called and wrote in, saying The Star hasn't covered critics' assertions that:
1) Kerry's claim of being in Cambodia on Christmas of 1968 was a lie; and that
2) One of the swift boat veterans says he was misquoted by the Boston Globe, and is still fully behind the anti-Kerry movement.
True, The Star hadn't published either of these news items as of Friday. By Friday afternoon however, the paper corrected itself and assigned a reporter to write the story. It ran Saturday.
Why the delay? The answer has to do with credibility. The Star had been waiting for credible sources to move stories over the news wire, which is how most of the news about national politics gets in the paper. When these sources were slow to act, editors felt they had to.
Star editors point out that last week they asked national news wires to provide stories about statements from Kerry and the swift boat veterans. “We are sensitive to the need to address this,” said Darryl Levings, national editor at The Star.
The only criticism here might be that editors waited too long to act. How long is too long? It's a difficult question to answer, and the fact that editors recognized the need for the story and assigned the task is laudable. Readers should also be praised for voicing concerns about the lack of a story.
The Star subscribes to several news wire services — the aforementioned credible sources — including Knight Ridder (The Star's parent company), The Associated Press, and the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post wire services.
On Friday, a Google News search turned up dozens of references to the Kerry stories. Many of them were on fringe news and personal Internet pages, sites that The Star and other mainstream media don't recognize as credible by themselves. Such news must be verified, preferably with two independent sources. That doesn't always happen on Internet sites, talk radio and cable TV news shows — even though such electronic media often are far ahead of other traditional news media in reporting controversy.
Sometimes the early reports do get it right. When that happens, traditional news media look like slowpokes. As with other celebrity and political news stories, electronic media frequently move faster than print news does. That's because they don't always have the system of checks and balances newspapers require.
UPDATE VII: Jim Geraghty:
"Between the Brinkley book and the O’Neill book, the American public has been given two completely contradictory portraits of Kerry’s four months in Vietnam. The voters deserve to know which one is right."Posted by Greg Ransom
