Nixon Aide Wanted GOP to Court Kerry
Even as the Nixon administration was plotting in 1971 to destroy John F. Kerry, then the young, charismatic leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the president's top political strategist apparently didn't get the memo.
Instead, the operative, Murray Chotiner, wrote his own note advocating that the Republican Party recruit Kerry. Kerry did go to Yale University, after all; he must be one of them, Chotiner surmised. "He is a Yale graduate and is inclined toward the 'establishment,' " Chotiner wrote in a memo to Attorney General John N. Mitchell and White House Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman. "His background could be Republican."
The memo was included in about 80,000 pages of documents released Wednesday by the National Archives, which oversees the Nixon library.
Dated April 26, 1971, four days after Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about ending the Vietnam War, the memo, like many of the tapes and documents from the Nixon White House, showed how closely administration critics were scrutinized.
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Instead, the operative, Murray Chotiner, wrote his own note advocating that the Republican Party recruit Kerry. Kerry did go to Yale University, after all; he must be one of them, Chotiner surmised. "He is a Yale graduate and is inclined toward the 'establishment,' " Chotiner wrote in a memo to Attorney General John N. Mitchell and White House Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman. "His background could be Republican."
The memo was included in about 80,000 pages of documents released Wednesday by the National Archives, which oversees the Nixon library.
Dated April 26, 1971, four days after Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about ending the Vietnam War, the memo, like many of the tapes and documents from the Nixon White House, showed how closely administration critics were scrutinized.