Kerry insists veterans lie, blames Bush

John Kerry yesterday accused Vietnam veterans who say he didn’t deserve his combat decorations of lying and blamed President Bush for not denouncing their television commercials laying out their charges.

After two weeks of ignoring the commercials, Mr. Kerry denounced them as “lies about my record.”

“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,” the Massachusetts senator said. “He wants them to do his dirty work.”

The veterans said they will run the commercials regardless of what Mr. Bush says, and one of them, Larry Thurlow, stood by his accusation that Mr. Kerry lied about an incident on March 13, 1969, for which Mr. Kerry won the Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart.

Mr. Kerry and his crew mates say their boat came under enemy fire while rescuing an Army Special Forces lieutenant who had fallen off Mr. Kerry’s boat.

Del Sandusky, the pilot of Mr. Kerry’s Swift boat, said the boat was under fire as it cleared obstructions in the river, then raced back to pick up Jim Rassmann, the Special Forces officer who had tumbled into the water. Mr. Rassmann says he, too, remembers enemy fire.

The Washington Post reported that the citation for a Bronze Star awarded to Mr. Thurlow for heroism in the incident refers to “enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire,” contradicting his account and bearing out Mr. Kerry’s.

The Kerry campaign posted the article from The Post on its Web site, and sent an e-mail to supporters saying the article “completely discredited” Mr. Thurlow and “marks the end of the dishonest and disgusting smear campaign against John Kerry and his crew mates from Vietnam.”

Mr. Thurlow said the citation was in error and said an administrative officer must have used Mr. Kerry’s description of the events that began when one of five Swift boats hit a mine.

“After the mine exploded, leaving Swift Boat three dead in the water, John Kerry’s boat, which was on the opposite side of the river, fled the scene,” Mr. Thurlow said.

That, he said, was when Mr. Rassmann fell. “Kerry’s boat returned several minutes later — under no hail of enemy gunfire — to retrieve Rassmann from the river only seconds before another boat was going to pick him up.”

Mr. Thurlow is a member of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 254 Vietnam veterans who served duty similar to Mr. Kerry’s on PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boats. They are sponsoring commercials and a new book, “Unfit for Command,” which argues that Mr. Kerry did not deserve decorations he received in the four months he spent commanding two different PCF boats. Mr. Kerry received three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star.

Mr. Kerry yesterday aimed most of his fire at the president. “If he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: Bring it on.”

With the television commercials beginning to dominate the campaign, Mr. Kerry has discarded plans to keep his own messages off the air during August. He said he will begin running a response advertisement, featuring Mr. Rassmann, who credits Mr. Kerry with saving his life.

Both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush have said the other served honorably during Vietnam — Mr. Bush in the Texas Air National Guard, assigned to duty in the United States — but others have questioned the service of both men.

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