After more than a year of pressure, Sen. John Kerry says he has signed an official form to release Navy records that became a source of controversy in the 2004 presidential campaign.
Kerry told Boston Globe editorial writers and columnists the Standard Form 180 will be sent to the Navy within a few days.
Kerry's records became a campaign issue after more than 260 Vietnam veterans who served in his swiftboat section launched an effort to counter many of the senator's claims about his war service.
The Kerry campaign largely avoided responding to specific charges and instead threatened lawsuits against the television stations that aired ads by the former colleagues, organized as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The senator's campaign also demanded publisher Regnery pull best-seller "Unfit for Command," attacked the character of co-authors John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, and accused the group of being run by the Republican Party.
Mainstream media repeated the assertion that the claims against Kerry were debunked, without providing evidence. Those who offered evidence contended the military's records supported Kerry's version of events, often without mentioning the swiftboat vets' assertion that it was Kerry himself who wrote the "official record" in many instances, in after-action reports.
Kerry, however, seemed to contradict his campaign's position in late October, just a week before the election, when he told NBC's Tom Brokaw his military record "is not public." Then in January, Kerry told ''Meet the Press" host Tim Russert he would sign the form.
Blogger Mark Coffey at Decision '08 urges caution, noting it was 111 days between Kerry's promise and his actual signing of the form.
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