Seven Oaks Magazine.

Going Upriver has been disparaged as a “90 minute campaign ad” and described as verging on hagiography for its glowing portrayal of the young John Kerry’s Vietnam odyssey. It’s true that a life-long friend of Kerry’s directed the documentary, and that voices critical of Kerry are few and far between, as we follow the ivy-leaguer from the bloody carnage of the Mekong Delta back to the turbulent political environment of an America polarized by the war in Southeast Asia. And it’s true that the film puts a heavy emphasis on Kerry’s inherent leadership qualities, whether calmly gunning down Vietnamese fighters, or acting as a poised-beyond-his-years spokesperson for a disparate group of anti-war veterans.

But it’s also true that Going Upriver contains much that today’s John Kerry, and the campaign machine around him, would have preferred to ignore. There are too many moments when “Iraq” could be substituted for “Vietnam”, and too many instances where the words of the young John Kerry are laced with historical irony and even condemnation of the man that Kerry has become. Overall, the film is engaging and makes an important contribution. Though it may serve to enthuse some of the Democrats’ voting base, for many others, including the millions of Americans who oppose the ongoing occupation of Iraq, the documentary may be seen as an indictment of the tragic state of political life in America.

Incredibly, the misnamed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have already come out with an ad condemning Kerry’s role with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), replete with a scene from the film in which the young GI is marching while holding up his hand in the peace sign. The film captures vividly the thinking and action of the young men who had come to oppose the brutality their own government had made them conduct in Vietnam. It shows us clips from a testimonial conference, where dozens of veterans come forward to describe the atrocities they had taken part in. Often, the men break down as they describe the horror, as did a young GI as he holds up a photo of himself grinning over the corpse of a Vietnamese. It’s an image instantly reminiscent of the photos of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The sheer destruction and carnage of what John Kerry called the “barbaric war” in Vietnam will disturb even the most historically aware viewers. Veterans – mostly Kerry’s Swift Boat companions – describe rape, property destruction, and “free-fire zones” in which any Vietnamese was a fair target. The anecdotes make clear that the estimated 1.5 million civilian deaths (out of roughly three million Vietnamese killed) were not accidental “collateral damage”, but rather a central part of the brutal strategy employed by U.S. planners to subdue a rebellious people fighting for their long-denied independence.

After recounting the Swift Boat years, the film shifts ahead to 1971, a critical year for the anti-war movement in the United States, noteworthy for the central role of veterans in protests demanding an immediate end to the war in Vietnam. The veterans camp out in front of government offices in the week leading up to a massive demonstration on April 24. The emotional focal point of the protests is a ceremony in which dozens of them throw away their war medals or ribbons of commendation.

John Kerry the incipient politician is already evident in his anti-war activities. Clean-shaven, and with relatively short hair, Kerry stands out – with some help from his height and slightly aristocratic manners. He already wears his future political ambitions on his sleeve, and is unswervingly polite with politicians and the media. Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee makes Kerry nationally renown. In Kerry’s testimony, he asks the U.S. government to expedite the withdrawal of troops, asking, “how can you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?” By 1971 veterans such as Kerry had correctly realized that the U.S. could not win the war in Vietnam, that the resistance was too strong and determined. If Kerry wins the presidency in November, he will be presiding over the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and could be in the position of asking someone to be the last to die for U.S. control of the Middle East.

So effective is the young Kerry as an anti-war advocate that even President Nixon and other officials start to worry. A government memo gives the directive to “destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader.” (This point in the film was the only one that elicited laughter from the audience).

Subterfuge, however, would prove unnecessary in destroying the young John Kerry. Time, the overall rightward shift of the Democratic party, marriage into the Heinz family fortune, and the present-day demands of U.S. Empire-building have combined to make Kerry unrecognizable compared to the young man he once was.

In 1971, Kerry expressed the hope that his generation’s anti-war movement would make Vietnam “the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.” [1]

More than thirty years later, the United States occupies Iraq after launching an illegal and widely unpopular war. And John Kerry the Senator and presidential candidate has refused to give expression to the demand of today’s anti-war movement to bring the troops home now. Instead, that task has been left to, among others, the growing movement of Iraqi war veterans opposed to the occupation. In the event of a Kerry win, he will assume the role of Nixon against the anti-war movement; we can only hope that one of the young men and women returning from Iraq will rise to prominence, and assume the role that John Kerry once played.

[1] Out Now! A participant’s account of the movement in the U.S. against the Vietnam War, by Fred Halstead, 1978, p.606