The Book on John Kerry

HOW CONVENIENT that Douglas Brinkley's hagiographic "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" should be hitting bookstores just as Kerry's star ascends in the Democratic primaries. Less convenient, perhaps, is the fact that another Kerry book is getting hot right now: "The New Soldier," published in 1971, for which Kerry shares authorial credit with the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Hot not in sales--only a tiny number of copies seem to be around--but in price.

A signed first edition in mint condition is being offered on Alibris for $850. Other copies in varying condition have been on the auction block at eBay, none fetching less than $100. The book's rarity has led to speculation that Kerry systematically rounded up existing copies. When Newsmax did a story on the book last summer, they had to get their copy from a bookstore in Britain. But it may simply be the case that the book is rare because it was a dud that no one hung onto.

Hoping to learn why this vintage paperback photo book might be worth so much, I turned to the Library of Congress. The LOC catalogue lists two copies. It also lists a copy of Kerry's much-less-rare 1997 book, "The New War," whose title suggests that Kerry, at least, had fond memories of his first book. (Attempting to master the literary output of a presidential candidate who's no Daniel Patrick Moynihan is my kind of journalism.)

Alas, the library could only produce Kerry's 1997 book. Returning my original call slip, the librarian said simply that no copy of the book could be located. Possibly, both copies were in the process of being reshelved, which can apparently take days. It could be missing, he shrugged, for "any number of reasons."

But, the librarian said, I could initiate a formal search for the book in alcove number seven. There I found a gentle, older man who invited me to sit down and fill out the paperwork at his desk. When I handed him the completed form, he said, "Someone else was just looking for the same book--yesterday." (I smelled a fellow journalist, or perhaps one of the other campaigns.) "They didn't fill out a form, though." (Lazy bum.) He looked up the title on his computer. "But there are two copies, so you can both read it."

How convenient both copies would be missing in action. As we go to press, the LOC catalog has one copy listed as "not charged" and the other as charged on "internal loan." (Kerry's Senate office, by the way, denies any knowledge of the book's whereabouts.) So I decided to resort to eBay, and for a mere $132.50 became the owner of an unsigned paperback edition. Its condition is "certainly not perfect," the seller said, but this book is "selling like hot cakes. . . . Get John Kerry to autograph it for you. It will immediately go up in value."

"The New Soldier" commemorates the April 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War march on Washington. Kerry, not a longtime member of the organization, had become its impresario earlier that year. The theatrical protests included a staged "search-and-destroy" mission on the steps of the Capitol and, infamously, soldiers, Kerry included, throwing their medals at the Capitol. Kerry got to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The protest played as a major event in the media and went down as an important moment in the history of the antiwar movement. Kerry's testimony was broadcast on National Public Radio. He made appearances on "Meet the Press" and the "Dick Cavett Show" and was mocked for his self-promotional vanity by Garry Trudeau in his nascent "Doonesbury" comic strip. Depending on who you talk to, Kerry represented the moderate, respectable side of veteran protests (after all, he and VVAW were nonviolent and working within the system) or he was the slanderer responsible for the image of Vietnam veterans as either reluctant soldiers, ashamed of their service and angry at the United States, or vicious, misfit war criminals.

"The New Soldier" is a definite period piece. A dark photo of six soldiers planting an American flag, which is flying upside down, adorns the cover. The protesters camped out on the Mall that week (despite a cat-and-mouse permit dispute with Nixon's Interior Department), and it shows. One can almost smell body odor coming off the page. The VVAW guys are hairy men, many with "Easy Rider" mustaches. They appear ironic in their uniforms, toting toy machine guns. As they sit on the grass and eat in the open air, their faces grow dirty for lack of facilities.