I was taken aback when I read that, at first, and I guess I am certainly not the only one.

After an afternoon of reflection I reached to the following conclusion.

Let me play the Devil’s advocate for a while. For it’s hard to believe it; no matter what one may think about John Kerry.

He was young and as such he could indulge a bit in self-delusion and be naïve. Yes, if he remains that naïve even after he got his fatidic 40 years of age, then the famous Churchill’s statement applies: he “has no brain.”

Anyways, that’s how he came to meet an agitated crowd made up of still more naïves than him in those earlier times of trouble. A crowd among which, however, guilty and less naïve opinion leaders spread the key words he just repeated before the Senate. These key words were not that secret since they were chosen to be spread as largely as possible, actually.

How to build such an accusation on a so frail basis?

In any case, if ever I missed something at some point that makes me wrong, then I’ll retort that better living with an enemy you know and who has no brain than making place for another one you don’t know, after all.

John Kerry was anything but naive. John Kerry had attended both St. Paul’s and Yale. And at Yale he was Chairman of the Liberal Party and President of the Political Union. Imagine a person who had attended the ENA, where he had been head of the leading student political association, and was expected by everyone who knew him to become Prime Minister, in time of war, attacking the French Army and defending the German cause. Would he be naive?

David

I could hardly do better than advocate, but since I hold that your knowledge grants you the opportunity to be a judge on this subject…

However, comparing the ENA with Yale was not the best pick. For it would increase someone’s odds to be a Russian puppet since the ENA was created after WWII.

Oh, by the way; since I would worry to be considered as partisan or non-objective I feel obliged to sustain the last point I introduced in my previous comment.

« (….) en avril 1991 le voilà (Serguei Jirnov) en France, à l’Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA)… en qualité d’étranger, «Promotion Léon Gambetta». Un espion soviétique à l’ENA?! «Je ne faisais plus de renseignement. Mais il est vrai que je suis resté au KGB, puis au SVR jusqu’en 1992», répond-il tranquillement.”

« (….) in April 1991 he is (Serguei Jirnov) in France, at the Ecole Nationale d’Adminsitartion (ENA)… as foreigner, “Promotion Léon Gambetta.” A Soviet spy at the ENA?!
“I was not involved in intelligence. But it is true that I was still in the KGB, then in the SVR until 1992,” he answer calmly.”

The full text of this interview is available at:
http://geocities.com/drozdov691/massmedia/010920hebdo_ch/010920hebdo_ch.html