Kerry's Meeting With Communists Violated US Law, Says Author

By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 20, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The 1970 meeting that current Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry conducted with North Vietnamese communists may have violated several U.S. laws, according to an author and researcher who has studied the issue.

Kerry met with representatives from "both delegations" of the Vietnamese peace process in Paris in 1970, according to Kerry's own testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. But Kerry's meetings with the Vietnamese delegations were in direct violation of laws which forbade private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers, according to researcher and author Jerry Corsi, who began studying the anti-war movement in the early 1970s.

According to Corsi, Kerry violated U.S. code 18 U.S.C. 953. "A U.S. citizen cannot go abroad and negotiate with a foreign power," Corsi told CNSNews.com.

By Kerry's own admission, he met in 1970 with delegations from the North Vietnamese communist government and discussed how the Vietnam War should be stopped.

Kerry explained to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William Fulbright in a question and answer session on Capitol Hill a year after his Paris meetings that the war needed to be stopped "immediately and unilaterally." Then Kerry added, "I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PVR)."

However, both of the delegations to which Kerry referred were communist. Neither included the U.S. allied, South Vietnamese or any members of the U.S. delegation. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was the government of the North Vietnamese communists and the Provisional Revolutionary Government was an arm of the North Vietnamese government that included the Vietcong.

Kerry did meet face-to-face with the PVR's negotiator Madam Nguyen Thi Binh, according to his presidential campaign spokesman Michael Meehan. Madam Binh's peace plan was being proposed by the North Vietnamese communists as a way to bring a quick end to the war.

But Corsi alleged that Kerry's meeting with Madam Binh and the government of North Vietnam was a direct violation of U.S. law.

"In [Kerry's] first meeting in 1970, meeting with Madam Binh, Kerry was still a naval reservist -- not only a U.S. citizen, but a naval reservist -- stepping outside the boundaries to meet with one of the principle figures of our enemy in Vietnam, Madam Binh, and the Viet Cong at the same time. [Former Nixon administration aide Henry] Kissinger was trying to negotiate with them formally," Corsi told CNSNews.com.

Corsi's recent essay, titled "Kerry and the Paris Peace Talks," published on wintersoldier.com, details Kerry's meetings and the possible violations of U.S. law.

Corsi also asserted that by 1971, Kerry may have violated another law by completely adopting the rhetoric and objectives of the North Vietnamese communists.

"Article three: Section three [of the U.S. Constitution], which defines treason, says you cannot give support to the enemy in time of war and here you have Kerry giving a press conference in Washington on July 22, 1971 (a year after his meeting with the communist delegations in Paris) advocating the North Vietnamese peace plan and saying that is what President Nixon ought to accept," Corsi explained.

"If Madam Binh had been there herself at that press conference, she would have said exactly what Kerry said. The only difference is she would not have done it with a Boston accent," Corsi said.

The 7 Point Plan, was created by the North Vietnamese communists and was nothing more than a "surrender" for the U.S., according to Corsi.

"You don't advocate that [7 point] plan unless you are on the communist side. It was seen as surrender. [The U.S.] would have had to pay reparations and agree that we essentially lost the war," Corsi said.

"Kerry was openly advocating that the communist position was correct and that we were wrong. He had become a spokesman for the communist party," Corsi added.

Kerry's presidential campaign did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment, but campaign spokesman Michael Meehan told the Boston Globe in March that, "Kerry had no role whatsoever in the Paris peace talks or negotiations."

"He did not engage in any negotiations and did not attend any session of the talks," Meehan added.

Kerry "went to Paris on a private trip, where he had one brief meeting with Madam Binh and others. In an effort to find facts, he learned that status of the peace talks from their point of view and about any progress in resolving the conflict, particularly as it related to the fate of the POWs," Meehan added. Kerry was reportedly on his honeymoon with his first wife Julia Thorne when he met with the communist delegations.

But Corsi does not accept the Kerry campaign's explanation.

"[Kerry spokesman] Meehan made it sound like they were just there on a honeymoon and they got a meeting with Madam Binh, but not every American honeymooner got to meet with Madam Binh. Unless you had a political objective and they identified you as somebody as sympathetic, you were not going to get invited to a meeting with Madam Binh," Corsi said.

"Kerry has skirted with the issue of violating these laws," Corsi added. "[The Kerry campaign is] trying to fudge on the issue because they don't want to come clean on it entirely."


Seems to be a pattern here. First Viet Nam and then Nicaragua. Kerry claimed he met with both sides on Viet Nam, turns out those sides were both communist. Makes one wonder. - Sailor