MORE CONSISTENT THAN WE GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR?:

From the Globe Archives (Richard H. Stewart, 1/25/80, Boston Globe)

Antiwar activists from the Vietnam era are not as united about President Jimmy Carter's tough-sounding [State of the Union] speech on the Persian Gulf as they were about the war in Vietnam.

In interviews yesterday, academics like Prof. Noam Chomsky of MIT and Prof. Howard Zinn of Boston University reacted to Carter's address to Congress Wednesday night by expressing concern that the heightened nationalism in the United States will result in increased expenditures for the military at the expense of domestic needs.

John Kerry, now a State Street attorney but during the Vietnam war the man who organized Vietnam veterans opposed to the war, said he agreed that Carter "has to make a statement about American interests in that area (the Persian Gulf), but I would like to see a greater effort made to bring our allies into that declaration."

Kerry said he would like to see Carter "use caution in the escalation of the rhetoric" involved in the warnings to Russia.

As he did during the Vietnam era, Kerry said he favors the draft - but a "fairly administered and equitable draft" that does not favor the rich and well-educated over the poor.

In Senator Kerry's defense, if he thought Jimmy Carter was too bellicose and unilateral then of course he must be appalled by George W. Bush.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2004 9:14 PM