From Boys To Men
In a year that rocked America, two scions of famous families came of age
"The Speech." On April 22, 1971, a tall, handsome young man with shoulder-length hair turned up a bit late at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John Kerry was the panel's featured witness. He wore green military fatigues over a white T-shirt and a handful of combat ribbons. Striding confidently to the front of the room, he shook hands with the committee chairman, J. William Fulbright. Then he delivered what friends and family still call "The Speech," an indictment of the conduct of the war that riled many prowar advocates and rattled the Nixon White House. To the rapt audience, Kerry seemed sober beyond his years, cerebral, with a penchant for methodical analysis and a delivery that commanded attention. About his service in Vietnam, where he spent four months commanding a river-running "swift boat" and time on a frigate, Kerry expressed anger and dismay. The war, he said flatly, was a tragic mistake.
The message resonates to this day, thanks in some small way to Kerry's pounding it so hard back in 1971. In his recent appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Kerry was thrown on the defensive when he was asked about another Meet the Press appearance, in 1971. The clip, for which the Kerry campaign had searched unsuccessfully, showed Kerry calling U.S. leaders "war criminals," then admitting that he had committed "the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers." In his latest appearance on the show, Kerry said he regretted his phrasing of those comments, labeling them "a little bit excessive." Friends say that Kerry, in 1971, was talking about the U.S. policy of free-fire zones--killing anything that moved within a specific area--and saying that he believed the policy was immoral. In the recent Meet the Press appearance, Kerry was also asked about a 1971 interview in which he said U.S. troops should be sent into action "only at the directive of the United Nations." That, Kerry now admits, was "stupid."
Vietnam, clearly, will be a presence throughout the current campaign. Last week, Kerry came under pressure to release his military records, including performance evaluations by his Navy superiors. After balking initially, Kerry released the records, and they turned out to be mostly laudatory. But the flap demonstrated that Kerry will be unable to escape his past. That's due in large measure to the fact that he was such a compelling public figure three decades ago. Says historian Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War , "In January 1971, he was another soldier in the crowd. . . . By December of 1971 he was a megastar of the antiwar movement."
During those 12 months, his fame grew--with an appearance on the Dick Cavett talk show and a profile on CBS's 60 Minutes . Kerry hung out with antiwar celebrities like John Lennon and Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary. He appeared at a highly charged rally with Jane Fonda. Kerry, a friend says, couldn't walk down the street in a college town or big city without someone asking for his autograph, hugging him, or, alternatively, berating him as a traitor.
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