Wednesday, October 13, 2004
sKerry's Discharge?
........According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to an honorable discharge......../snip/..
........There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were reissued.
UPDATE: Junkyard Blog excerpts some comments from the Freepers that fits within my personal experience and observations:
Just spoke with reporter friend in DC. She is talking with former USN ONI types who worked on DOD/USN investigation that resulted in total loss of Kerry’s Navy security clearance.Kerry had been granted a Top Secret by the Navy on October 11, 1967 based on a routine background investigation by Office of Naval Intelligence. A top secret clearance was required for his work at that time.
Obtaining and holding a security clearance of any level, especially TS or above, requires certain terms, obligations, commitments and conditions from the holder. One of the most important is the holder of the clearance must promptly and fully any contacts with any foreign officials, agents, etc.
Lieutenant Kerry left active duty with the Navy on January 3, 1970, but he still carried those obligations as a commissioned officer of the Naval Reserve. Without telling anyone and without receiving permission from superiors,FBI or counter-intelligence officers, he traveled to Paris in the summer of 1970. He claimed the purpose of his trip was a honeymoon with his first wife, Julia Thorne, but there was another hidden purpose.
Numerous North Vietnamese and Viet Cong intelligence agents and officials were in Paris, having arrived a year earlier for the “Peace Talks.” While in Paris, Kerry met with agents on a number of occasions and had extensive discussions with them about U.S. plans, procedures and how to get the U.S. to essentially surrender in Vietnam.
These clandestine meetings were never reported to the Navy.
Almost a year later, in April 1091, speaking as the leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War, Lieutenant Kerry told a Senate hearing about his meetings with enemy agents. Senior DOD officials wanted to prosecute him as a Naval Reserve officer for violating a number of laws and regulations, but this was vetoed by the Nixon White House. They didn’t want to give the anti-war crowd any additional PR ammunition.
However, the Navy immediately pulled Kerry’s security clearance. He became a Naval Reserve officer who was known not to be trusted. He kept his commission, but lost all access to any classified information. In the words of one of the now-retired agents, “Lieutenant Kerry wasn’t cleared to know what time it was!”
I don't know if this is true, but it makes one heck of a lot of sense. Meeting with enemy officials is a sure way to lose one's security clearance.
