Were Kerry's Navy Files Purged?

The New York Sun is proving to be an indespensible source of honest reporting this campaign season. I hope the day comes when they make the hard copy of their paper available in a wider area, which they might do after the manner of the Washington Post. Today, Thomas Lipscomb continues his exploration of John Kerry's discharge from the Navy. The problem, it seems, is less what reporters have access to than what they don't. And Lipscomb is going further this time than he has in the past, claiming that Kerry's files have most likely been purged. The article begins:

"A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975, The New York Sun has learned.

"The 'honorable discharge' on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record, according to Mark Sullivan, who retired as a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve in 2003 after 33 years of service as a judge advocate. Mr. Sullivan served in the office of the Secretary of the Navy between 1975 and 1977.

"On behalf of the Kerry campaign, Michael Meehan and others have repeatedly insisted that all of Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site atjohnkerry.com, except for his medical records.

"'If that is the case,' Mr. Sullivan said, 'the true story isn't what was on the Web site. It's what's missing [emphasis added]. There should have been an honorable discharge certificate issued to Kerry in 1975, if not earlier, three years after his transfer to the Standby Reserve-Inactive.'

"Another retired Navy Reserve officer, who served three tours in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, points out that there should also have been a certified letter giving Mr. Kerry a choice of a reserve reaffiliation or separation and discharge. If Mr. Meehan is correct and all the documents are indeed on the Web site, the absence of any documents from 1972 to 1978 in the posted Kerry files is a glaring hole in the record."

There's also something fishy about Kerry's explanation for why Harvard Law turned him down. Lipscomb writes: "With the only discharge document cited by Mr. Kerry issued in 1978, three years after the last date it should have been issued, the absence of a certificate from 1975 leaves only two possibilities. Either Mr. Kerry received an 'other than honorable' certificate that has been removed in a review purging it from his records, or even worse, he received no certificate at all. In both cases there would have been a loss of all of Mr. Kerry's medals and the suspension of all benefits of service.

"Certainly something was wrong as early as 1973 when Mr. Kerry was applying to law school.

"Mr. Kerry has said, 'I applied to Harvard, Boston University, and Boston College. I was extremely late. Only BC would entertain a late application.'

"It is hard to see why Mr. Kerry had to file an 'extremely late' application since he lost the congressional race in Lowell, Mass., the first week of November 1972 and was basically doing nothing until he entered law school the following September of 1973.A member of the Harvard Law School admissions committee recalled that the real reason Mr. Kerry was not admitted was because the committee was concerned that because Mr. Kerry had received a less than honorable discharge they were not sure he could be admitted to any state bar."

Therefore, Lipscomb believes: "Given this, it is likely that a legal review took place that effectively purged Mr. Kerry's Navy files and arranged for the three-year-late honorable discharge in 1978."

And here's what's missing from the files Kerry has made available, and how the public can come to know what's in them -- which at this juncture is highly unlikely: "One of Mr. Kerry's first acts of office as he entered the Senate on January 3, 1985, was making sure what was still in the Navy files. A report was returned to Mr. Kerry by a Navy JAG on January 25, 1985, and appears on the Kerry Web site. There is an enclosure listed that may have contained a list of files, according to David Myers, the JAG who prepared it, that is not on Mr. Kerry's Web site. It could have provided an index for all of Mr. Kerry's Navy files.

"All officials with knowledge of what specifically happened in Mr. Kerry's case are muzzled by the Privacy Act of 1974.The act makes it a crime for federal employees to knowingly disclose personal information or records.

"Only Mr. Kerry can do that. As of this writing, Mr. Kerry has failed to sign a Standard Form 180 giving the electorate and the press access to his Navy files."

Lengthy analysis can be found at BeldarBlog; I agree with Beldar (and the Big Trunk) that Lipscomb should be in the running for a Pulitzer for his work on this subject. That his chances are slim demonstrate why we need an alternative award for rigorous investigative journalism that steps on the left's feet, too. Captain Ed has more thoughts as well.