On the evening September 11th, 1970: thirty-one years to the day before al-Qaeda’s attack on America, John Forbes Kerry was sitting in a room somewhere with the other leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, engaged in a busy meeting of the Executive Committee. Among other things they discussed plans to brand all American soldiers as “war criminals” (literally so, in the form of demonstrations outside of induction centers, “for the purpose of making clear the transition between citizen and war criminal”) and making plans for a speaking tour starring fake Vietnam veteran Al Hubbard and unindicted traitor Jane Fonda. In other words, thirty-four years ago, John Kerry was engaged in the heady work slandering and insulting America’s fighting men and consorting with liars and traitors. Little has changed since.

I don’t think that many people yet understand just how radical John Kerry was during the early 1970’s. As a leader of one of the major anti-war organizations (one which was so anti-American that it ordered the American flag hauled down at all of its offices and engaged in private negotiations with an enemy holding American prisoners and still engaged in battle with the United States) Kerry was certainly much more radical than Bill Clinton who, for all that he was derided as a “Hippy” was more a poseur among that crowd than anything else. During this period, John Kerry was associated with many people who were openly allied with the enemies of the United States.

Now, naturally, this will all be down-played by the media (“it was over thirty years ago!” liberal commentators will shout with the same earnestness that they told us a few months ago that Bush’s dental records from Alabama merely, “proved that his teeth were there, not that he was there”). But still, there’s one potentially explosive issue lurking in all of this: something which has, to date, been ignored by a mainstream media whose bias and heavy-breathing on the “Bush AWOL” issue (now fully exposed as a lie) was so blatant that it even made I, I hard-nosed and long-term observer of media bias, sick. To date, this story has only been seriously discussed in print by one reporter: Thomas Lipscomb of the New York Sun, who provided a great deal of the information I have relied upon in writing this.

Here’s the story in brief: from the 12th through the 15th of November in 1971, VVAW held a major meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. At that meeting a formal proposal was put forward before the organization to assassinate a number of pro-war United States Senators including Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, and John Tower.

The proposal was put forward by Scott Camil, a particularly ardent anti-war activist. Shockingly (given the supposedly “non-violent” nature of VVAW) this was not simply dismissed out of hand. Instead, fearing that they might be overheard by government agents, the senior members of the group relocated to a position on the outskirts of the city, where they debated and voted upon the issue! The vote was defeated, though there is debate over the margin of defeat. None of this is disputed.

Neither, at this point, is it seriously disputed that Kerry was at the meeting. The present line of his campaign, in view of several individuals who place him at the meeting along with FBI surveillance records which say the same, is that the Senator may have been there, but he neither remembers being there nor the reason why he quit the organization. Also at issue is whether Kerry actually quit the group at that time or if he merely quit his position on its executive.

It seems impossible to me that John Kerry would not remember whether he was at the meeting where he personally quite the organization which catapulted him to national fame. FBI records say he was there, other people say he was there: they recall because he gave an extended speech attacking Al Hubbard, another leader of the group, and then delivered a dramatic personal resignation. Why wouldn’t he remember? Given this stunning lapse of memory why isn’t the media, which spent several years spreading every hint of a lie about George W. Bush’s supposed “drug use” looking into the question of just how many drugs the French-looking Senator was doing at the time?

Think about this for a moment: we had weeks of acrimony over charges that President Bush blew off a few National Guard drills in 1972. The media (and the left) demanded “answers” and “evidence.” Now we have a case where the presumptive Democratic nominee for the august office of President of the United States, himself a United States Senator, may have actually debated the merits of and then voted upon a resolution which would have, effectively, authorized the assassination of a number of members of the United States Senate. Even accepting the accounts of those who say that Kerry voted, “no” on the motion, this is still a deeply alarming issue. After all, there’s no evidence that Kerry, on hearing deadly serious talk about assassinating officials of the Untied States, reported it to the proper authorities. If he did, let him say so: and let the proof in the matter be produced.

This was not the idle musing of some disgruntled do-nothing. Scott Camil had gone so far as to recruit assassins and parcel out targets. As I read it that is, in and of itself, a violation of any number of criminal laws (leaving aside regular criminal laws, it would also be a Federal Crime as the individuals targeted were Senators).

Some might seize upon John Kerry’s simultaneous resignation from his position on the Executive Committee as exculpatory evidence. It is nothing of the sort. If I were to go to a club meeting tomorrow, and the fellow members of the club began to seriously plan the assassination of a public official (even if they were only a minority of the membership), it would not be enough for merely to get up and wash my hands of the matter. On learning of an assassination plot, it is not enough to say, “Well, it isn’t my thing.” One who knows of a conspiracy to commit murder has a legal obligation to disclose that knowledge to the authorities.

In any case, Kerry still seems to have retained a link to the organization after these events. An AP report dated January 11th, 1972 describes him as being “head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.” A New York Times story dated January 26th 1972 describes him as, “a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.” He is identically described in another Associated Press story dated April 22, 1972. Now, these might well have simply been errors: but they sure seem like awfully persistent ones.

This issue needs to be seriously explored. I cannot think of many plausible accusations of equal seriousness which could be made. If George Bush’s medical records from 1972 are an issue, then surely the possibility that John Kerry remained silent about a conspiracy to murder a number of United States Senators is at least an issue that deserves equal attention.

Oh, and there’s an interesting final note on this. Guess whose campaign Scott Camil has been offered a job with?