WASHINGTON, June 22 (UPI) -- The battle between U.S. Sen. John Kerry and the Texas oilman who financed political attacks against him in 2004 has been rejoined, Kerry's supporters say.
U.S. Navy veterans who served with former Democratic presidential candidate Kerry, D-Mass., in Vietnam have assembled dozens of pages of evidence refuting what they say were lies about Kerry's 1960s service in a series of political attack ads from the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The ads were backed by billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who reportedly told a group of conservative activists Friday that he would pay $1 million to anyone who could disprove the claims made the Swift Boat Veterans groups in the television spots, which have been cited as a major factor in Kerry's 2004 defeat to President George Bush.
Kerry and his backers immediately took Pickens up on the challenge. Evidence submitted by veterans who served with Kerry included a 15-page letter and 42 pages of Navy reports and other documentation, focused on a 1969 battle in which three boats under Kerry's supervision counterattacked after an ambush on a tributary of the Bay Hap River, The Los Angeles Times said.
