Veterans dispatched with dueling letters

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Bush and Kerry campaign managers yesterday dispatched dueling Vietnam veterans to deliver letters demanding that the other side stop using the Vietnam war, now more than 30 years in the past, as a campaign weapon.

The duel began when Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, tried to deliver a letter to President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. But Mr. Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, never got within sight of the president's house. Access was blocked by a permanent barrier manned by a Secret Service agent and a Texas state trooper. Neither would accept the letter.

Mr. Cleland held an impromptu press conference to accuse the president of orchestrating a series of TV commercials by the independent "527" group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, criticizing Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate.

"These scurrilous attacks on John Kerry's credibility in war, his courage, his valor are false, and George Bush is behind it," he told reporters.

At the conclusion of the press conference, Jerry Patterson, a Vietnam veteran, tried to accept Mr. Cleland's letter on behalf of the president, but Mr. Cleland would not relinquish it.

Nor would Mr. Cleland accept a letter from Mr. Patterson, signed by several Republican veterans of the Vietnam war, accusing Mr. Kerry of employing a double standard on the issue of the Vietnam war.

"You can't have it both ways," said the letter, which was signed by Mr. Patterson and Vietnam veterans including Reps. Duncan Hunter and Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California. "You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up.

"There is no double standard for our right to free speech. We all earned it."

In another development, Benjamin Ginsberg, a lawyer for the Bush campaign, quit the campaign after it was revealed that he was providing legal advice to the Swift Boat group.

He noted that his counterparts at the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee were not resigning, despite their ties to third-party groups that have aired $63 million in anti-Bush commercials.