http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/9/102940.shtml
Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 10:28 a.m. EDT
Witness: Kerry Coerced War Crimes Testimony
A witness in the 1971 Winter Soldier investigation, which was organized by John Kerry and bankrolled by Jane Fonda and formed the basis for Kerry's Senate war crimes testimony later that year, is accusing Kerry of coercing his account to make the military look bad.
"When I got [to the Winter Soldier investigation], I had no intention of saying anything," Vietnam combat veteran Steven J. Pitkin told WABC Radio's Mark Levin on Wednesday.
But when Kerry and other members of his group Vietnam Veterans Against the War pressed him to give an account that painted Vietnam soldiers as war criminals, "that was a real shock to me," Pitkin said.
"He wanted me to get up and talk about what everybody else was talking about," the Vietnam vet said, remembering that Kerry asked him: "Didn't you see any beatings of civilians? Any rapes? Destruction of villages?"
As Kerry pressed him to give him false testimony, Pitkin said, other VVAW members surrounded him and began urging, "C'mon, people need to hear this, man."
"It was a big pressure job," the Special Forces veteran told Levin. "[Kerry] did what I call extreme coaching."
Pitkin, who was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, RVN Cross of Gallantry, Air Medal and Purple Heart for his Vietnam service, said also that Kerry's famous medal-throwing protest was staged, with some VVAW protesters discarding phony ribbons in a show for the media.
"I heard that they had been scouring Army surplus stores and asking everybody to bring in various ribbons," Pitkin said.
Kerry has told reporters he kept his medals that day, but threw away ribbons belonging to somebody else.
In a sworn affidavit filed last Tuesday, Pitkin said.
"During the Winter Soldier Investigation, John Kerry and other leaders of that event pressured me to testify about American war crimes, despite my repeated statements that I could not honestly do so. . . Kerry and other leaders of the event instructed me to publicly state that I had witnessed incidents of rape, brutality, atrocities and racism, knowing that such statements would necessarily be untrue."
Pitkin's account flatly contradicts Kerry's own version of his participation at the January 1971 anti-war hearings, where he maintains he was primarily a spectator who merely watched as others came forward with their war crimes claims.
Based on Pitkin's admittedly false account and other witness statements, Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations committee that soldiers fighting in Vietnam were "monsters" who raped and pillaged South Vietnam "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."
Hog
