Documents show senators' Vietnam War struggles
In 1971, then-27-year-old John Kerry delivered testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that contained a powerful message to the members of the upper chamber: You have the power to end to this.
“We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America, which has the power to raise and maintain armies, and which, by the Constitution, also has the power to declare war,” Kerry said. “We have come here, not to the president, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people, and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now.”
Years before Kerry's testimony, senators on the committee struggled privately with the moral implications of the war, with an administration they felt was misleading them, and with their own obligation to tell Americans the truth, according over 1,000 documents released by the committee Wednesday. The testimony, pulled from closed-door hearings in 1967 and 1968, offers a stark snapshot of the Senate statesmen’s feelings about the war. Sen. Kerry says it contains valuable lessons for students of history — and for his colleagues who are now grappling with difficult questions pertaining to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq....
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“We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America, which has the power to raise and maintain armies, and which, by the Constitution, also has the power to declare war,” Kerry said. “We have come here, not to the president, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people, and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now.”
Years before Kerry's testimony, senators on the committee struggled privately with the moral implications of the war, with an administration they felt was misleading them, and with their own obligation to tell Americans the truth, according over 1,000 documents released by the committee Wednesday. The testimony, pulled from closed-door hearings in 1967 and 1968, offers a stark snapshot of the Senate statesmen’s feelings about the war. Sen. Kerry says it contains valuable lessons for students of history — and for his colleagues who are now grappling with difficult questions pertaining to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq....