POWs in Anti-Kerry Ad on VA Committee

WASHINGTON — Two former Vietnam prisoners of war who appear in ads attacking Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry were appointed by the Bush administration to a panel advising the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The former POWs in the ad, Ken Cordier and Paul Galanti, serve on the VA’s 12-member Former POW Advisory Committee. Anthony J. Principi, secretary of Veterans Affairs, appointed Cordier in 2002 and Galanti in 2003.

Cordier said the VA panel had nothing to do with the Bush campaign or the anti-Kerry group. “It’s totally apolitical, and we meet twice a year to bring to the secretary’s attention problems from around the country in VA hospitals,” he said.

Cordier and Galanti appear in an anti-Kerry ad saying their Vietnamese captors used news of antiwar protests, such as ones Kerry organized, to taunt the prisoners. Cordier was a member of the Bush campaign’s veterans steering committee but quit last month after that role was revealed.

VA spokesman Phil Budahn said Principi did not know about or encourage the veterans’ appearance in the anti-Kerry ad. Budahn said federal regulations bar advisory committee members from engaging in political activity while performing their committee duties, but there are no other restrictions on their activities when not working on committee business.

Kerry’s campaign has complained to the Federal Election Commission that the group running the ads, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, was illegally coordinating its attacks with the Bush campaign, a charge the Bush campaign has denied.

More than $100,000 of the group’s initial funding came from Houston homebuilder and Bush donor Bob J. Perry. A Bush campaign lawyer who advised the group left the campaign after his role became public.