Kerry accepts challenge to disprove Swift Boat ads

BOSTON — Sen. John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record, said Friday he has personally accepted a Texas oilman's offer to pay $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the Massachusetts Democrat wrote: "While I am prepared to show they lied on allegation after allegation, you have generously offered to pay one million dollars for just one thing that can be proven false. I am prepared to prove the lie beyond any reasonable doubt."

Kerry, a Navy veteran and former prosecutor, said he was willing to present his case directly to Pickens, who provided $3 million to bankroll the group during Kerry's race against President Bush.

Kerry said he would donate any proceeds to the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

The senator said Pickens issued the challenge Nov. 6 in Washington, while serving as chairman of a 40th anniversary gala for American Spectator magazine.

"I trust that you are a man of your word, having made a very public challenge at a major Washington dinner, and look forward to taking you up on this challenge," Kerry wrote.

In the letter, Kerry offered to travel to Dallas to meet with Pickens in a public forum or to invite him to come to Massachusetts. He suggested the two could visit the Paralyzed Veterans of America in Norwood to see firsthand how Pickens' money could be used to help veterans. A copy of the letter was provided to The Associated Press.

"I am certainly open to your challenge," Pickens wrote Friday in a letter faxed to Kerry.

Pickens said he wouldn't consider giving Kerry the reward unless Kerry surrenders copies of his wartime journals, as well as movies he shot while on patrol and his complete military records for 1971 to 1978. Pickens said such documentation, which the group has previously sought, would be needed to disprove its ads.

"When you have done so, if you can then prove anything in the ads was materially untrue, I will gladly award $1 million. As you know, I have been a long and proud supporter of the American military and veterans' causes," he wrote.

Pickens proposed a counterchallenge: "If you cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue, that you will make a $1 million gift to the charity I am choosing — the (Congressional) Medal of Honor Foundation."