Kerrey's War Against Truth by Richard JohnsonThis review was taken from PageSix.com, and was published January 5, 2003. Former Sen. Bob Kerrey engaged in Dick Nixon-style dirty tricks in an effort to suppress the story of his involvement in a Vietnam massacre, a new book alleges. In "The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey," due out from Thomas Dunne Books, Gregory L. Vistica, who broke the original story of Kerrey's involvement in the 1969 Thanh Phong massacre, reveals Kerrey's frenzied efforts to keep him quiet. Vistica learned of the massacre, in which Kerrey and his Navy SEAL squad killed 25 women and children, from squad member Gerhard Klann. But when he tried to publish the story in Newsweek, Kerrey's people complained to the mag's senior editors that Vistica had gotten Klann drunk and promised to make him rich from a book and movie deal, Vistica claims. "I thought such smears were beneath Kerrey, but . . . they would be standard practice when it came to Klann's story," Vistica writes. In the end, Newsweek decided not to run the story because Kerrey had decided to drop out of the presidential race in December '98, six days after Vistica confronted Kerrey about Thanh Phong. After retiring from the Senate, Kerrey was made president of the New School in Manhattan, a left-wing institution known for its antiwar stance. When Vistica severed his relationship with Newsweek in the fall of 2000, he renewed pursuing the Thanh Phong story. He writes that Kerrey then tried to buy his silence by offering him a job running a 24-hour cable news channel devoted to public affairs he planned to start at the New School. Kerrey once made the pitch in front of CBS producer Tom Anderson, who exclaimed, "He tried to offer you a job, to buy you off!" When Vistica took his story to the Times Magazine, Kerrey contacted editor Adam Moss and Times executive editor Joe Lelyveld to tell them that Klann was a "delusional drunk." Kerrey later got the other members of his SEAL team to refute Klann's account in a joint statement. Klann claims Kerrey told them they would all go to jail for war crimes if they didn't back him up. (Kerrey later gave a different version than that of the joint statement in his memoir, "When I Was a Young Man.") After the story broke and Kerrey was being branded a "war criminal" by some, Kerrey used $60,000 in old surplus campaign funds to hire p.r. pro John Scanlon to spin the story, Vistica says. After Kerrey admitted committing an "atrocity," the New School issued a statement saying he had the "unqualified support" of its board of trustees. Vistica writes: "He regarded the truth as . . . something that could be modified, mixed or diverted to suit his needs at the moment. He could change his story at the drop of a hat." Return to the book reviews page. |
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