In a Dec. 9 NewsBusters post, Tim Graham stated that the film “Winter Soldier” was about “chronicling John Kerry and others trying to create (often falsified) accounts of American soldier atrocities in Vietnam.” Graham offers no evidence of any accounts in the film, or the Winter Soldier investigation from which it sprang, were “often falsified.” Instead, he cites wintersoldier.com as one place where one can get “a second opinion on Winter Soldier.”
Wintersoldier.com — a Free Republic side project, so it’s hardly objective — is more about smearing John Kerry than any substantive research. Aside from a person who recanted his Winter Soldier testimony during the 2004 presidential campaign, the one substantive attack on Winter Soldier most cited by critics is Guenther Lewy’s book “America in Vietnam,” which cites a Naval Investigative Service investigation into the Winter Soldier claims. But as ConWebWatch noted, the Navy won’t confirm whether this report even exists, and Lewy himself does not recall if he saw a copy of the naval investigative report or was briefed on its contents.
Graham also writes that “CNSNews.com reporter Marc Morano did quite a bit of reporting on this last year.” But the only substantial mention of Winter Soldier by Morano is in a March 3, 2004, article aiming to play guilt-by-association by linking Kerry to discredited veteran Al Hubbard (who did not testify in Winter Soldier). Despite describing Winter Soldier as a “stage production,” the only person he quotes as discrediting it is anti-Kerry author B.G. Burkett — who cited the same evanescent Navy report that Lewy did.