The 1970 meeting that John Kerry conducted with North Vietnamese communists violated U.S. law.

Kerry met with representatives from “both delegations” of the Vietnamese in Paris in 1970, according to Kerry’s own testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. But Kerry’s meetings with the Vietnamese delegations were in direct violation of laws forbidding private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers.

Kerry violated U.S. code 18 U.S.C. 953. “A U.S. citizen cannot go abroad and negotiate with a foreign power."

By Kerry’s own admission, he met in 1970 with delegations from the North Vietnamese communist government and discussed how the Vietnam War should be stopped.

Kerry explained to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William Fulbright in a question-and-answer session on Capitol Hill a year after his Paris meetings that the war needed to be stopped “immediately and unilaterally.” Then Kerry added: “I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government.”

However, both of the delegations to which Kerry referred were communist. Neither included the U.S. allied, South Vietnamese or any members of the U.S. delegation. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was the government of the North Vietnamese communists, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PVR) was an arm of the North Vietnamese government that included the Vietcong.

Kerry did meet face-to-face with the PVR’s negotiator Madam Nguyen Thi Binh, according to his presidential campaign spokesman Michael Meehan. Madam Binh’s peace plan was being proposed by the North Vietnamese communists as a way to bring a quick end to the war.

Kerry’s meeting with Madam Binh and the government of North Vietnam was a direct violation of U.S. law.

In [Kerry’s] first meeting in 1970, meeting with Madam Binh, Kerry was still a naval reservist – not only a U.S. citizen, but a naval reservist – stepping outside the boundaries to meet with one of the principle figures of our enemy in Vietnam, Madam Binh, and the Viet Cong at the same time. [Former Nixon administration aide Henry] Kissinger was trying to negotiate with them formally.

Kerry and the Paris Peace Talks,” published on wintersoldier.com, details Kerry’s meetings and the possible violations of U.S. law.

By 1971, Kerry might have violated another law by completely adopting the rhetoric and objectives of the North Vietnamese communists.