Kerry's "The New Soldier" Available Online
Reported by Marie Therese - October 13, 2004 -
During Monday's Big Story with John Gibson (10/11/04), William LaJeunesse made much of the fact that copies of John Kerry's out-of-print book, The New Soldier, first published in 1970, are not readily available for sale throughout the United States and are selling for what he clearly felt are outrageous prices ($86.00 to $600.00 on Ebay).
In an undated video clip, right wing talk show host, Hugh Hewitt, stated: "There's been a story for a long time - never proven conclusively - that over the last couple of years the Kerry campaign has been buying up copies of New Soldier' and that, as a result, there's not many available." In a voiceover LaJeunesse commented: "First published in 1970, the new soldier is long out of print. Supporters say that's why it's hard to get, not some conspiracy to make it disappear."
He continued: "The things Kerry wrote about in New Soldier' differ little from his controversial testimony before the Senate in 1971...In his introduction to the book, a collection of first hand accounts of the war, Kerry condemns his and fellow soldiers' actions."
CLIP of words from book: "Epilogue: We were sent to Vietnam to kill communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children.'
LaJEUNESSE: "Thirty years later many still want an explanation."
Undated clip of Hugh Hewitt: "They are asking him, will he apologize to the veterans he slandered and he's made no indication that he's willing to do so."
Undated clip of Susan Estrich: "John Kerry already said that his remarks when he came home from Vietnam - angry about a thankless war, upset about what he'd seen - he went on television very recently to say that in his remarks before the Senate and on television, he'd gone too far."
LaJEUNESSE: "Since many people won't be able to get their own copy, you can find it excerpted on the internet, John. That's not a problem. Course the lesson here is be careful what you say, your words may come back to haunt you."
GIBSON: "Maybe not, especially if you go buy up all the copies. Is it true that Kerry actually is - not only - the thing isn't in print - but is trying to scoop em up and get em back our of sight?"
LaJEUNESSE: "Number one, it's very difficult to find at any kind of a bookstore ... we did look on the internet for the past three weeks. It has been very, very sporadic for something that really, arguably, has very little literary merit and shouldn't be difficult to find. But $600.00 for a signed copy? $200.00 for a normal copy? That seems like quite a bit of money for a book like this."
Comment:
Never mind that a copy of the book would have had to survive 33 years. Never mind that LaJeunesse obviously had not contacted a single library in the United States to determine whether or not the book is available FOR FREE through the public lending system. The cost of the book and/or its lack of availability were NOT the real reason for this report.
The hidden agenda was to get viewers to do an internet search for the Kerry book. Being a good little FOX fan, I immediately headed to my computer and googled "The New Soldier." Here's what I found on the first page of results:
JOHN KERRY'S THE NEW SOLDIER
JOHN KERRY'S THE NEW SOLDIER. Read John Kerry's book The New Soldier online for FREE---READ four chapters of JOHN O'NEILL'S book UNFIT FOR COMMAND here for FREE ... John Kerry The New Soldier
I immediately logged onto this site, thinking I could actually read the Kerry book. I downloaded the three PDF files. They do not comprise the entire Kerry book, so I felt that I'd been "suckered" into the site by a misleading (false?) advertisement. What the reader gets are excerpts - the Introduction, Main Content (in essence 46 pages of the recorded statements of various Vietnam vet) and the Epilogue.
Although the site claims to be a blog, as of this posting, there are only two entries, both by someone named Ricky. There is no way for anyone other that "Ricky" to post. It's clearly an advertisement masquerading as a blog. Ricky is a huckster hawking regurgitated conservative pap.
At approximately 5:30 PM EDT Monday afternoon, if you had logged onto "John Kerry The New Soldier", the following is what you would have read first:
"Friday, September 17, 2004
Who do these terrorists think we are? This is our land. We will fight! We will never surrender!' president George W. Bush
Watch a few clips from the STOLEN HONOR documentary here.
Please support this grass roots effort to make as many Americans as possible aware of the existence of John Kerry's anti American book The New Soldier."
By 5:45 PM EDT, the site had been updated and the solicitation to watch a clip of "Stolen Honor" was relegated to the middle of the page.
In the meantime I have discovered a different site does have the entire text of "The New Soldier" in PDF format. A "concerned citizen" named James B. Davis has formed his own 527 and is now offering the entire book on his website, freekerrybook.com. George Butler, co-author of the book and the director of the recently released Kerry biopic, "Going Upriver," has already engaged in legal action to stop Davis from doing this at www.freekerrybook.com. Mr. Davis is President of PMMIC, a medical publishing company in Los Angeles, California. He was not in the office when I called.
What I don't understand is why it was illegal for Mr. Davis to disseminate this book online when he was a .com but is now OK when he is a .org. I thought the copyright laws protected the intellectual property irrespective of what kind of business puts it out there. Additionally, on Ebay there are actually CD copies of the book for sale. How is this possible if the book is still protected under copyright? And is Ebay liable, if this turns out to be a violation of the copyright laws?
An additional note to anyone who might have seen a similar posting on Tuesday morning. It was on the site briefly, but, when a possible inaccuracy was pointed out, I deleted it in order to do follow-up research. However, it turns out that statements I made in my original post are accurate. I apologize to any reader who might have been discomfitted.
