For more than 30 years, John O'Neill has been stalking John Kerry, sometimes at the behest of a Republican president, but always in an attempt to discredit Kerry's combat service record in Vietnam.
With Kerry now the Democratic nominee for president, however, O'Neill's anti-Kerry campaign is intensifying. In a new book, released Wednesday, O'Neill presents a sweeping indictment of Kerry, including charges that two of his three Purple Hearts were from self-inflicted wounds, not enemy fire.
The indictment of Kerry does not stop there, however. In his 214-page book, "Unfit For Command," O'Neill also charges that as an anti-war activist following his service in Vietnam, Kerry attended a meeting where plots to assassinate pro-war senators were discussed.
The book, published by conservative Regnery Publishing Inc., also accuses Kerry of having met secretly with communist delegates to the Vietnamese peace talks in Paris -- having "danced on the edge of treason," in the words of Regnery's publicists.
...In 1971, when Kerry emerged as the articulate and telegenic leader of Vietnam veterans trying to end the lengthy conflict, the Nixon White House offered up O'Neill as "the un-Kerry."
A clean-cut Naval Academy honor graduate from San Antonio, O'Neill had earned two Bronze Stars as, like Kerry, a Swift Boat skipper in "Coastal Division II," better known as the Mekong Delta. O'Neill, in fact, once commanded PCF 94, the same Swift Boat that had previously been under Kerry's command.
O'Neill was incensed by Kerry's anti-war activities, particularly his claims that American troops in Vietnam had committed wholesale atrocities. His criticism of Kerry eventually came to the attention of Nixon White House counsel Charles Colson, and he became the centerpiece of Colson's attempt to discredit Kerry.
"Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes a Ralph Nader," Colson wrote in one of the White House memos about recruiting O'Neill to challenge Kerry.
Nixon himself became part of the effort, meeting with O'Neill for an hour in the Oval Office.
Indystar article
With Kerry now the Democratic nominee for president, however, O'Neill's anti-Kerry campaign is intensifying. In a new book, released Wednesday, O'Neill presents a sweeping indictment of Kerry, including charges that two of his three Purple Hearts were from self-inflicted wounds, not enemy fire.
The indictment of Kerry does not stop there, however. In his 214-page book, "Unfit For Command," O'Neill also charges that as an anti-war activist following his service in Vietnam, Kerry attended a meeting where plots to assassinate pro-war senators were discussed.
The book, published by conservative Regnery Publishing Inc., also accuses Kerry of having met secretly with communist delegates to the Vietnamese peace talks in Paris -- having "danced on the edge of treason," in the words of Regnery's publicists.
...In 1971, when Kerry emerged as the articulate and telegenic leader of Vietnam veterans trying to end the lengthy conflict, the Nixon White House offered up O'Neill as "the un-Kerry."
A clean-cut Naval Academy honor graduate from San Antonio, O'Neill had earned two Bronze Stars as, like Kerry, a Swift Boat skipper in "Coastal Division II," better known as the Mekong Delta. O'Neill, in fact, once commanded PCF 94, the same Swift Boat that had previously been under Kerry's command.
O'Neill was incensed by Kerry's anti-war activities, particularly his claims that American troops in Vietnam had committed wholesale atrocities. His criticism of Kerry eventually came to the attention of Nixon White House counsel Charles Colson, and he became the centerpiece of Colson's attempt to discredit Kerry.
"Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes a Ralph Nader," Colson wrote in one of the White House memos about recruiting O'Neill to challenge Kerry.
Nixon himself became part of the effort, meeting with O'Neill for an hour in the Oval Office.
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