It's that man again
Sir: With draft-dodging Dan Quayle henceforth being kept out of the White House only by President Bush remember- ing to take his daily dose of Digoxin, your Greek columnist Taki's continued preoc- cupation with the war records of United States politicians, past and present, has become a shade more topical (High life, 6 and 27 April). But why should he have chosen to omit, in criticising Senator Kerry of Massachusetts (not, as he wrote, my cousin but merely one of my 15 nephews) any mention of the fact that he enlisted in the US navy in February 1966 and served in Vietnam through 1968 to 1970, in December of which year he was invalidedl back to the United States as a result of at wound sustained in the Mekong Delta? As; for his for all I know even abler Democrat colleague and near namesake, Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, he, poor chap, left almost as much of one leg on that same ill-chosen South-East-Asian battlefield as Lord Uxbridge at Waterloo. Is it therefore surprising that such experiences should have made both honourable men cautious- ly pessimistic about any hasty involvement by their country in further open-ended military adventures far from home? I myself have not been surprised to read convincing accounts that the US Chiefs of Staff privately shared their caution.
Alastair Forbes
1837 Château D'Oex, Switzerland
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