Gingrich distorted facts on Kerry's 1970 Paris visit

On September 1, FOX News Channel contributor and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- making his second appearance in three days on FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes -- said that Senator John Kerry "went to Paris and in secret, and I confirmed this today, talking to a senior Nixon administration official ... Three times, in secret, without coordinating with the United States government, to talk with the Communist leaders of a country [the North Vietnamese] that were killing young Americans while John Kerry is sitting in Paris talking to them."

Kerry visited Paris in 1970, but it was not in "secret" -- and it was not to formally participate in negotiations with Communist leaders. As the Los Angeles Times reported on March 22, Kerry never supported formal meetings between the North Vietnamese and American anti-war protesters: "Kerry recalled his opposition to VVAW [Vietnam Veterans Against the War] leaders meeting with North Vietnamese officials. 'I thought that would be disastrous to the credibility of the organization,' he said, 'to the people we were trying to convince about the war.'"

Kerry described his trip to Paris in his 1971 public testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government." While Kerry did speak to both sides at the peace talks, Kerry campaign spokesman Michael Meehan told The Boston Globe that Kerry had no formal role as a negotiator at the meeting.

From the March 25 Boston Globe article:

Kerry had no role whatsoever in the Paris peace talks or negotiations ... He did not engage in any negotiations and did not attend any session of the talks. Prior to his Senate testimony, he went to Paris on a private trip, where he had one brief meeting with Madam Binh [leader of the Provisional Revolutionary Government] and others. In an effort to find facts, he learned the status of the peace talks from their point of view and about any progress in resolving the conflict, particularly as it related to the fate of the POWs.

—A.S.