Dear Senator Kerry
By Gary Aldrich (11/22/04)
Dear Sir,
As a long time employee of the federal government, I have confidence in the records that each government agency maintains. Many official federal records have formed the basis for legal decisions, major or minor. US courts find such records acceptable as evidence in criminal and civil trials, and, as evidence, these records are highly sought by parties of interest to major legal decisions. Obviously, such documents would be helpful in the determination of a citizen’s suitability to seek the highest office in the land.
uring your lifetime, several federal agencies have kept detailed records related to your various careers and your antiwar activities which took place after your return from Vietnam, where you served in a combat role for approximately four months.
Legitimate and interested parties, including veterans groups, non-governmental interest groups (NGOs), and the mainstream media, want to review your federal records, but they cannot because you refuse to fully release them. Several groups and individuals have requested a review of your records since you began your campaign to win the presidency.
Among the various records are your medical records, your IRS records, your military records, and, perhaps most important of all, the records that only you can obtain which contain evidence the Federal Bureau of Investigation gathered as they investigated you under their statutory authority to investigate threats to our nation’s internal security.
Hundreds of these FBI investigations took place during the Sixties and Seventies, but not everyone investigated was guilty of threatening our nation’s internal security. However, unless your records are read by the voting public, only you and the FBI know what is hidden in your FBI files. And you know full well that the FBI is not empowered to disclose what is in your FBI files, regardless of how important such evidence may be.
On the other hand, there is no bar to the release of these documents, if you authorize the disclosure. In fact, many individuals – interested in putting certain controversies to rest – have obtained their own FBI files and then have allowed an interested third party to review them so as to end a conflict or controversy. You can do the same, and nearly 100,000 citizens are urging you to do so. If the whole of the American voting public knew these FBI files with your name on them existed, I am quite sure they would want to know what is contained within those file jackets.
The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, a Fairfax-based foundation has obtained petitions from almost 100,000 individuals who agree that you should request your FBI files, and disclose them immediately. Only then would citizens know the full extent of your antiwar activities. If your activities were innocent and in the best interest of this nation, then the FBI records would certainly reveal your patriotism and your good intent.
I believe it is in your best interest to obtain, and then release these records whether or not you are successful in your bid for the presidency.
Be assured that citizens want to know all there is to know about presidential candidates. To my knowledge, no other candidate is withholding documents that may bear on their character and reputation, but if we learn that is the case, our organization will seek petitions from interested citizens so as to learn about those candidates’ pasts, as well.
Only when citizens are well informed can we expect to have elections that are truly legitimate. If candidates lie or withhold important information bearing on their character or their true loyalty to our nation, voters can be fooled into voting for the wrong persons.
I am certain because you are a long-serving US Senator you would agree that truth is the most important component to ensuring our nation’s future. Please move swiftly to enable the FBI to release your FBI files so that they may be completely reviewed prior to the election on November 2, 2004. All you have to do is sign a one-page form.
Very truly yours,
Gary W. Aldrich
President
The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty
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