(CNSNews.com) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reveals that the then anti-war activist admitted to writing many of the battle reports during his four months of combat in Vietnam.
Kerry told the committee on April 22, 1971, "...I can recall often sending in the spot reports which we made after each mission..."
Kerry also said that many in the military had "a tendency to report what they want to report and see what they want to see."
"What is significant about this is [Kerry] is readily admitting that he often submitted reports and he is implying that he himself exaggerated in those reports," Burkett told CNSNews.com.
"We have no way of knowing specifically which documents Kerry composed; and of the the ones he did compose -- did he in fact exaggerate or outright lie in those reports? That is the issue here," Burkett said.
The controversy about who authored the now controversial after-action reports arose earlier this week, when the Washington Post obtained the military records of Larry Thurlow, one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Thurlow's military records indicated that enemy fire erupted after Kerry's boat was hit by a mine explosion on March 13, 1969.
Thurlow now insists there was no enemy fire that day. The best selling new book by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, details the groups' critique of Kerry. Kerry has denounced the book and the Swift Boat vets and accused them of being an affiliate of President Bush's re-election campaign.
Thurlow's own Bronze Star citation states that there was "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units." But Thurlow believes his citation was based on Kerry's own account of the day.
"I am convinced that the language used in my citation ... was language taken directly from John Kerry's report," Thurlow said earlier this week. "John Kerry was the only officer who filed a report describing his version of the incident," Thurlow added.