From: lbaum@atc.boeing.com (Larry Baum)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Kremlin_Gate: Bill Clinton in Moscow during Viet Nam.
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:33:45 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services

In article <01GPMW8JF60W001UUK@utarlg.uta.edu> B645ZAW@UTARLG.UTA.EDU (STEPHEN
TICE) writes:
>
>cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)...
>|>
>
>{ Re: Kremlin_Gate: Bill Clinton in Moscow during Viet Nam.,  6 Oct, t.p.m } 
> 
>|>Stephen Tice writes (apparently with a straight face):
>|> 
>|>   Going to Oxford is very like going to Canada. Protesting the war
>|>   by going to Moscow is very like Jane Fonda in Hanoi. I don't
>|>   like it, but I can live with it. 

Going to Oxford was not at all like avoiding the draft by going to Canada. 
Going to Oxford was no different than going to any other University.  There
were things called student deferments and it mattered not which school you went
to.  Going to Canada meant that one was breaking the law and potentially making
it impossible to ever return to the US.

Goint to Moscow was not at all like going Hanoi a la Jane Fonda.  The latter
was an explicit act of protest against the war, in order for Jane to show
solidarity with the Vietnamese people.  That was clearly her intention.  Going
to Moscow as a tourist was something thousands of people did, even those who
supported the war.  In 1970, I was at Stanford's German campus for 6 months. 
Our class covered the full political spectrum, but all of us took advantage of
the chance to visit such interesting places as East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
and other East European countries.  We propbably would have gone to Moscow too
had the opportunity arisen.  These places are interesting places to tour. 
Museums, castles, famous places, etc.  
>|>
>|>   I have a problem beyond this, which has to do with how effective
>|>   the soviets were in recruiting people. This is where my concern 
>|>   is. (Kim Philby and company, considered)
> 
>|You actually mean this.  You're saying Clinton might have been RECRUITED
>|by the Soviets?  I admire people with active imaginations.
> 
>NPR reported he went. Another Clinton supporter has said he 
>went. I am *asking* why he went, where (Moscow? Eastern Europe?),
>and what happened?  This was doing Viet Nam and I think it stinks, 
>even if he just went for a visit.

Apparently you think that any tourist who went to Moscow during the Vietnam War
was somehow being disloyal.  This position needs some justification since it
applies to thousands of Americans of all sorts of political beliefs.
>
>This whole thing sounds just like the typical cases we're told to 
>watch for in counter-spy training in the military.

If the latest tactic of the Republicans is to somehow try to convince that
Clinton is some sort of Soviet agent, they better come up with more than a
visit to Moscow once, over 20 years ago.  This is truly pathetic.

>Besides the classic British cases, which involve soviet recruitment
>on British university campuses, we have our own "traitors" such
>as John Walker -- so yes I do take it very serious. (And personal.)

What is the analogy to John Walker?  He had access to highly secret info and
divulged it illegally.  Has Clinton worked in defense related industries?  Has
he been in the Pentagon?  Does the Governor of Arkansas have access to top
secret info?  I know!  During this trip to Moscow he was kidnapped and
brainwashed by diabolical agents and planted so that he would become President!
 We'd better be sure noone has the chance to show him the Queen of Diamonds!
>
>I want to know what he was doing over there while we were fighting
>in Viet Nam?? Where did he go and why? That's reasonable to ask.
>And the response "visiting as a student" is not an answer.

Why not, if that is what he was really doing?
>
>And I want to know if he's held any security clearances in the time
>between? This has all likely been checked out if he has. (Though it 
>certainly didn't help with Walker.) 

Does the Governor of Arkansas need a security clearance?  
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.usa.misc,alt.politics.clinton