Roy Hoffmann
Encyclopedia
Rear Admiral Roy F. "Latch" Hoffmann, U.S. Navy (retired) is Chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, established May 4, 2004, in opposition to John Kerry
's candidacy for U.S. President. He is not to be confused with Southern writer Roy Hoffman, the author of Almost Family and Chicken Dreaming Corn.
According to the Washington Post, Admiral Hoffman "saw his honor under attack, and took the fight to the Kerry camp."
According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, after Hoffmann retired from the Navy, he spent "eight years in Milwaukee as the port director before being unceremoniously dumped in 1986." A Milwaukee alderman was quoted as saying "He was given the choice of leaving with grace or he would be fired."
Roy Hoffmann, one of the group's top guns, March 2003: "I am not going to say anything negative about him. He's a good man."
Of Kerry's Silver Star, he said, "It took guts, and I admire that."
Jonathan Z. Larsen, in the March/April 2004 Campaign Journal article "The Endless Assignment. Nine Perspectives from the Edge of Hell," cites from "Tour of Duty" that he "found of interest ... the specific criticism the book offers of the officers to whom Kerry and his fellow Swift boat skippers reported."
Alexander Cockburn
's March 27, 2004, comment:
In an article for Salon, Joe Conason
described Hoffman as "a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as 'the classic body-count guy' who 'wanted hooches destroyed and people killed.'" Hoffmann, he wrote, "first gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain. But it was O'Neill, by now a familiar figure on the Kerry-bashing circuit, who came to Spaeth for assistance." "Until now," Conason added, "Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and 'scorekeeping' may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey
-- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 Commission
."
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
's candidacy for U.S. President. He is not to be confused with Southern writer Roy Hoffman, the author of Almost Family and Chicken Dreaming Corn.
According to the Washington Post, Admiral Hoffman "saw his honor under attack, and took the fight to the Kerry camp."
According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, after Hoffmann retired from the Navy, he spent "eight years in Milwaukee as the port director before being unceremoniously dumped in 1986." A Milwaukee alderman was quoted as saying "He was given the choice of leaving with grace or he would be fired."
Hoffmann and Kerry
"Hoffmann acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally." [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/7/04]Roy Hoffmann, one of the group's top guns, March 2003: "I am not going to say anything negative about him. He's a good man."
Of Kerry's Silver Star, he said, "It took guts, and I admire that."
Jonathan Z. Larsen, in the March/April 2004 Campaign Journal article "The Endless Assignment. Nine Perspectives from the Edge of Hell," cites from "Tour of Duty" that he "found of interest ... the specific criticism the book offers of the officers to whom Kerry and his fellow Swift boat skippers reported."
- "Captain Roy Hoffmann was the commander of the Navy Coastal Surveillance Force, and it was Hoffmann’s decision to send Navy Swift boats up the narrow rivers in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam — almost always without support from helicopters or artillery — where they ran the risk of mines and were fired on almost at will by Viet Cong dug in along the river’s banks. A Swift boat mission up a Mekong Delta river was a fool’s errand, serving no greater purpose than showing the flag."
- Hoffmann's immediate superior was Area Commander Adrian Lonsdale.
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
's March 27, 2004, comment:
- "... As part of the U.S. Navy's slice of the action, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt and his sidekick, Captain Roy (Latch) Hoffmann, had devised 'Operation Sea Lords,' in which the Swift boats would patrol the canals and secondary streams of the Mekong Delta, with particular emphasis on the areas near the Cambodian border. ..."
In an article for Salon, Joe Conason
Joe Conason
Joe Conason is an American journalist, author and political commentator. He writes a column for the weekly New York Observer newspaper, for Salon.com and has written a number of books, including Big Lies , which addresses what he says are myths spread about liberals by conservatives.-Life and...
described Hoffman as "a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as 'the classic body-count guy' who 'wanted hooches destroyed and people killed.'" Hoffmann, he wrote, "first gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain. But it was O'Neill, by now a familiar figure on the Kerry-bashing circuit, who came to Spaeth for assistance." "Until now," Conason added, "Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and 'scorekeeping' may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey
Bob Kerrey
Joseph Robert "Bob" Kerrey was the 35th Governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and a U.S. Senator from Nebraska . Having served in the Vietnam War, earning the Medal of Honor for his actions, he moved into politics. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992...
-- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
."
External links
- Joe Conason, "Smear Boat Veterans for Bush", Salon, May 4, 2004.
- Katie Barge, "Swift Boat Vets chairman's evolving story about knowing Kerry in Vietnam", Media Matters for AmericaMedia Matters for AmericaMedia Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
, August 6, 2004. - "Reconstructing one day on a Swift boat"