PRESTOPUNDIT

MATTHEWS: We‘re joined now by James Warner, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Mr. Warner, tell me about why you participated in this documentary ["Stolen Honor"].

JAMES WARNER: In 1971, I was in a camp with 35 other guys, who were all in solitary. They told us we were there to be punished. In May of 1971, I was taken out to an interrogation, a very long interrogation, the longest one I had without being tortured. We talked for a while, and then the interrogator gave me a storyboard. It was a piece of cardboard with a magazine article cut out, pasted to it. I started reading it, and it was testimony that my mother had given at something called the Winter Soldier hearing. I had no idea what that meant. I read it. She didn‘t—it was innocuous. She hoped I was being well treated and that the war would end soon.

And then there was some more to the story. And I read that. It was comments by people claiming to be veterans. And I got really incensed that had somebody had gotten my parents involved in something like this. And we talked some more about that. And after a while, he showed me another storyboard. My recollection is this was typewritten. I do not recall that this was Senate testimony. I just remember that he said, This is a Navy officer, John Kerry. I recall that it said, Lieutenant JG John Kerry, but I remember the name John Kerry. And I was told that he helped to organize this hearing, along with Jane Fonda.

And I read this, and it was a recitation. And this, too, must have been—or edited because I thought he was saying these are things that he saw. And it struck me that this showed very, very poor judgment to say this because he had to have known that his words were going to be used against us. And he had...

MATTHEWS: Help us explain, who were never in your situation. What do you mean by “used against us”?

WARNER: All along, the communists told us, Before the war is over, or when the war is over, you will not all go home. We‘re going to keep some of you. We‘re going to put on trial, and we‘re going to execute you if you‘re found guilty because you committed war crimes. Now, we spend—after he showed me this, he started—he kept pounding on the table and pointing at this saying, This officer, your own Naval officer, proves that you deserve to be punished.