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Former President George Bush fanned doubts yesterday about Senator John Kerry's service in Vietnam, sustaining a decades-old debate that has dominated the presidential campaign in the last few weeks.
In an interview with CNN, Mr. Bush did not directly challenge Mr. Kerry's record but rather, with the subtlety of a seasoned pro, parried questions in a way to gently bat the controversy aloft.
Pressed about advertisements by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Mr. Bush called "rather compelling" the claims of some veterans who have attacked Mr. Kerry's service, and he noted that others had accused these veterans of lying. "I have great confidence in Bob Dole," he added. "I don't think he'd be out there just smearing."
Have you no shame, Fly Boy?
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SECTION: Section 1; Part 1, Page 33, Column 5; National Desk
LENGTH: 262 words
HEADLINE: Dukakis Defends Bush Over Record in War
BYLINE: Special to the New York Times
DATELINE: FALMOUTH, Mass., Aug. 13
"Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, questioned about a World War II gunner's challenge to Vice President Bush's account of being shot down over the Pacific, said, ''I don't think that kind of thing has any place in the campaign.''
The Democratic Presidential nominee said the challenge to Mr. Bush's war record was ''unfair'' and ''unfortunate.''
Mr. Bush ''served this country,'' Mr. Dukakis said. ''He served it well and with tremendous courage, and you don't fly 58 missions without enormous courage and tremendous patriotism.''
Mr. Bush, who was a Navy pilot, , has said his airplane was in flames when it plunged to the ocean Sept. 2, 1944.
Chester Mierzejewski of Cheshire, Conn., a turret gunner on another plane in Mr. Bush's squadron, said that the plane was not engulfed in flames, as the Vice President has recounted, and that Mr. Bush might have saved the lives of two other men on the plane had he tried a water landing.
In his autobiography, Mr. Bush wrote that his Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber began burning after it was hit in an attack on a Japanese radio installation and that he ejected after radioing his gunner and radioman to jump.
(via Hesiod)