WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- A former Vietnam POW dumped by the Bush-Cheney campaign for his connection with an anti-Kerry veterans group denied illicit activity Tuesday and vowed to continue efforts to sink the presidential bid of the man he considers to have betrayed U.S. service personnel.
Retired Col. Ken Cordier, in an exclusive telephone interview with United Press International, said his volunteer appearance in a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television advertisement attacking Kerry for his anti-war activity -- including Senate testimony of alleged U.S. atrocities -- was a matter of honor and duty.
"I was personally outraged to go back and review the activities of John Kerry in 1971 and 1972 -- his false testimony to the Senate hearing in April of '71 and his activities with the Winter Soldier campaign and Vietnam Veterans Against the War, particularly that unauthorized trip he took to Paris, having discussions with the Viet Cong representative and the North Vietnamese representative (to the Paris peace talks)," Cordier said.
"All of those things constituted what I consider betrayal, to betray the guys who were still fighting over there, and he certainly betrayed the guys like myself who were in prison."
Kerry has said he was not ashamed of his anti-war activities but admitted he may have used stronger language than he should have during his Senate appearance.
Cordier, like several other ex-POWs UPI has interviewed, said Kerry's post-war activities were used by their captors to try to sap their morale and the morale of soldiers still in the field.
Cordier, an Air Force pilot, was shot down over North Vietnam in December 1966 and held prisoner for 2,284 days in the Hoa Lo prison complex, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton." Among his camp mates were John McCain, now a U.S. senator from Arizona, and Paul Galanti, a Navy pilot who appears with Cordier in the Swift Boat ad that airs in three states beginning Tuesday.
The ad features Kerry, a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, voicing his 1971 testimony to the Senate in which he repeats unsubstantiated allegations of U.S. troops routinely committing atrocities in the war with the full knowledge and approval of superior officers.
The accusations had been made earlier in a VVAW event called the Winter Soldier investigation in which men claiming to have served in Vietnam told tales of committing acts such as cutting off heads, shooting civilians and engaging in torture.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a so-called 527 organization, a non-profit advocacy group that is barred from coordinating its activities with any political campaign. It is composed of more than 250 Navy veterans of the war -- many who served with Kerry in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969 -- who say Kerry falsified his combat activities and does not deserve the three Purple Hearts and two medals for bravery he received. The three Purple Hearts, none for serious wounds, enabled Kerry to leave Vietnam after four months of a 12-month tour. The vets also make clear their anger over atrocity allegations.
Kerry has denounced the group and its advertising and filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, charging Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is operating on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign.
"They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas," Kerry said in Boston last week. "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."
The Bush campaign denies the charge.
In the charge, counter-charge atmosphere it was revealed that Cordier did have a tie to the Bush-Cheney campaign -- voluntary co-chairman of its veterans advisory steering committee -- until his dismissal Friday.
"They called me and informed me they had seen the ad, and that, uh, they were going to have to take my name off the list of co-chairs," Cordier said. "And I said, 'Well, I think that is right. I think what I am doing with the Swift Boats is really the most important thing I can contribute at this time. ... Fine with me.'"
Cordier's statement that he was dumped -- not that he resigned as has been reported elsewhere -- was confirmed by deputy campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Stanzel called Cordier a true hero but said, "We have a high standard and that is no coordination, no connection whatsoever with any 527 organization."
Cordier lives in Texas and helps his wife run a home-based business. He said he first volunteered for Bush in the 2000 primaries, during which he obtained the signatures of other ex-POWs for a news release supporting Bush's candidacy. In January 2004 the campaign called him and asked if he'd like to be a co-chair on the veterans committee.
Cordier said he did one job for the campaign since January -- giving a surrogate speech before a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting in Colorado in June. He had no contact with the campaign until his firing Friday.
The former pilot first became acquainted with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth though a friend who knew John O'Neil, its most prominent spokesman and author of a book questioning Kerry's service record.
Cordier insists there was no coordination with the Bush-Cheney campaign in his appearance in the advertisement. He also insists he has received no money from either the campaign or the Swift Boat vets.
Cordier says despite the flap, he'd do the ad again.
"I would have to say I'd do the same thing over again, because I believe I am doing what's right," he said. "They can polygraph all day long about this, but I have had no contact with the campaign."
A major source of money for the Swift Boat vets is a Texas real-estate mogul named Bob Perry, who is also a contributor to the Republican Party. Perry gave the organization $100,000. Two other donors gave $25,000 each. The group has received a total of $159,000 in the second quarter of the year, based on IRS documents.
The Media Fund, a 527 headed by former Clinton administration official Harold Ickes and active in anti-Bush activity, had raised more than $28 million and spent more than $27 million in the same period.
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