Who's Behind the Anti-Kerry Vet Group?

Aug. 20, 2004 -- Houston lawyer John O'Neill has been a nemesis of Sen. John Kerry's since the Nixon years. Now, three decades later, O'Neill has formed a group of anti-Kerry veterans to challenge four of the five medals Kerry was awarded in Vietnam — two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.

The group has been angry with Kerry after since he returned from Vietnam, joined the antiwar movement and accused soldiers of war crimes.

"We have a guy who started out fabricating us as war criminals, fabricating even himself as war criminals," said O'Neill, co-author of the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. "He has now moved on to fabricating himself as a war hero."

But the men who served under Kerry's command stand by him.

"John Kerry earned every one of those medals. We were with him for the Bronze Star and the Silver Star. We validate, we authenticate, you know, his right to receive those medals," said Del Sandusky, the leading petty officer who served alongside Kerry.

"Every time they attack John's record, it attacks my record. I wish they'd stop," said Kerry's former crewmate Bill Zaladonis.

Making sense of the precise charges, however, depends upon which veterans one wishes to believe.

The group of anti-Kerry veterans, called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has many ties to Republican financial backers. With one exception they did not, however, serve on Kerry's boat or with his actual crewmates.

‘A Front for the Bush Campaign’

So why did John Kerry even bother responding? Advisers to the Democratic presidential candidate had been hearing from party politicians that the anti-Kerry veterans group was beginning to be heard, that voters were starting to ask questions.

On Wednesday Kerry went to his Senate office. There he read a story in the Dallas Morning News that the group had received $200,000 from Bob Perry, a Houston real estate magnate and longtime Republican donor with ties to Bush's powerful political adviser, Karl Rove.

The White House denies any contact with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth whatsoever, but has not condemned the group's ad.

"They're funded by thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas," Kerry told a convention of the International Association of Fire Fighters on Thursday in Boston. "They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know — he wants them to do his dirty work."

In addition to the involvement of Perry, other GOP donors, and former Reagan White House media liaison Merrie Spaeth, O'Neill told ABC News that when his group was forming, he sought and received free legal advice from Jan Baran, an expert on election law who also just happens to have been the former counsel for George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, and for four years counsel to the Republican National Committee.

Conflicting Accounts

One big area of dispute concerns the events of March 13, 1969, the day Kerry earned a Bronze Star for plucking Green Beret Jim Rasmann from the Bay Hap River.

According to Kerry's naval citation, his boat and four others were "receiving small arms and automatic weapons fire" and Rasmann "was receiving sniper fire from both banks."

But anti-Kerry veteran Larry Thurlow — commander of a nearby swift boat — said that wasn't the case.

"He embellished his story, in fact, told lies about a situation that developed when he got his Bronze Star," Thurlow told ABC News.

Thurlow said there was never any fire, but Rasmann disagreed.

"I know what happened. I know that if it hadn't been for his efforts, I would have been killed," Rasmann said.

Thurlow was also awarded a Bronze Star for his actions that day, and his own citation mentions "small arms and automatic weapons fire."He said in a phone interview Thursday that his citation was based on Kerry's report.

"This was from John Kerry's report of that day, which said we were under this extreme fire," Thurlow said. "We were not."

Both Kerry's and Thurlow's citations were signed by then-commander George Elliott, who also appears in the anti-Kerry television commercial, which is running in in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

In this heated election year, Elliott is now disavowing his own report, saying he approved the medals based on a report submitted by Kerry that he no longer trusts.

"I did not expect my officers to be submitting inaccurate reports," he said.

But Elliott also pointed out that the person who nominated Kerry for the Bronze Star was Jim Rasmann.

"No one puts in for his own award," Elliott said. "It is recommended by someone who has seen the action and thinks that it is warranted."

That means those who question Kerry's medals are also questioning other fellow veterans, like Jim Rasmann.

As if that weren't confusing enough, Elliot has also defended Kerry from attacks on his war record in the past — though he has now apparently switched sides. After a Boston Globe columnist questioned Kerry's Silver Star during his 1996 Senate race, Elliott sprang his defense, appearing at a Boston press conference to insist: "The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is not something to be looked down upon. It was an act of courage."

There are other charges by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — that two of Kerry's Purple Heart wounds were accidentally self-inflicted, for instance. These are also contradicted by naval records.

Thirty-five years later, we may never know what the exact truth is. We do know this group has received major support from some wealthy Republicans.