More questions about Dick's credibility

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal provided information for a 1991 biographical listing in a national lawyers' directory that summarized his military service this way: "With USMC., active duty and reserve, 1970-1976."

This was the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee's last entry in the annual Martindale-Hubble Law Directory of attorneys at private law firms — since then he's held his government post — and it has not attracted any notice up to now. But everything that Blumenthal has said about his Vietnam-era military service has become noteworthy since his misstatements about it have become a major campaign issue.

It started with The New York Times' disclosure last month that in a videotaped 2008 speech, Blumenthal referred to "the days that I served in Vietnam." Then other misleading statements surfaced, such as when he was quoted in 2009 as saying: "When we returned from Vietnam, I remember the taunts, the verbal and even physical abuse we encountered."

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The facts are that Blumenthal served from 1970 to 1976 in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, was never activated for duty overseas, and remained in this country. Blumenthal said after the Times story that "on a few occasions, I have misspoken," and later apologized. He and supporters say that he's never intended to misrepresent his military record, and that his official biography and campaign literature have always had it right.

But now there's increased scrutiny each time a new statement surfaces that he's made about his military service — and veterans interviewed by The Courant were divided in their opinions about his capsule biography in the 1991 edition of the nationally prominent Martindale-Hubble Law Directory.

Again, the listing was: "With USMC., active duty and reserve, 1970-1976."

"I think [active duty] was probably put in there to be misleading, based on all these other things," said Randall H. Collins of Waterford, who served in Vietnam in the late 1960s in the U.S. Army military intelligence division. An unaffiliated voter, Collins, 65, who is Waterford's superintendent of schools, is in the Connecticut Veterans Hall of Fame, established in 2005 to honor those who served honorably and "continue to serve and inspire their fellow man."

"I was repulsed by his comments" in the 2008 videotaped speech, said Collins. "I consider it a lie, not a misstatement."

As to the Martindale-Hubbell entry, he said: "I think it's both accurate and misleading: It's true that boot camp [training] is considered active duty," Collins said, "but when people think of active duty, they think of something longer than six months…. They think of a longer period of time" of "full-time" military service – not part-time reserve status in this country for six years with weekend duty once a month, and two-week drills in the summer.

"It's hard to say it's not technically accurate," Collins said. "I really think it would be insignificant if it weren't for the comments he made publicly about his duty. But when you contextualize it in a pattern, it becomes a little more suspicious. Rightly or wrongly, you read into his motivation of why he put it there."

Blumenthal, 64, voluntarily signed up for the Marine Corps Reserve in April 1970, and served six months' "active duty in training" at Parris Island, S.C., at the beginning of his six-year reserve stint, said campaign spokeswoman Marla Romash. She released a military document listing six months of "total active service" for Blumenthal as of October 1970.

The Courant had asked to interview Blumenthal, but Romash returned the call and responded to questions, saying, "He's addressed all these issues."

Before joining the reserve, Blumenthal had received student and occupational deferments during college and his work as a young staff assistant in the Nixon White House. He had drawn a relatively low number, 152, in the Dec. 1, 1969, draft lottery.

Concerning the language in the lawyers' directory, Romash said that "everything is highly condensed [but] certainly the intent was not to be anything but straightforward." She said she agrees the listing could be "confusing," but it "was not meant to communicate" that Blumenthal had seen "active combat duty." Most other lawyers who said they served in the reserves did not mention "active duty" in their listings. When asked why Blumenthal's listing did, Romash said it might have involved "something intrinsic to the form you fill out."

Collins, the former military intelligence officer from Waterford, was one of several members of the Veterans Hall of Fame who were asked by The Courant what they thought of Blumenthal's Martindale-Hubbell listing — and he was the most critical. Others were more charitable — saying that the item made no claims about Vietnam, and that it's true to say his reserve stint involved months of active duty, even though it was in the U.S.

"I don't see anything wrong with him saying that at all," said Jack Dougherty of Branford, another Veterans Hall of Fame member. Dougherty, 65, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 and served in Vietnam as an infantryman and squad leader. He was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded at Phou Noui.

"At that time, the reservists and the guys who were going to be there forever and ever were side by side in the same, exact boot camp," said Dougherty, who works as a mechanical engineer and is an unaffiliated voter. Dougherty said that the reservists "served their active duty for six months. The balance would be … reserve status," with periodic activities such as drills.

Asked what he thought of the recent disclosures about Blumenthal's misstatements, Doughterty said, "I'm not bent around the axle about it like some people are." He said, "I don't know if he misspoke in the past," but "my personal opinion is that he's a nice guy and does a great job in the category we find him in," as attorney general.

The 1991 volume of the who's-who-style directory of lawyers in private practice was the last of seven or so annual editions covering Blumenthal's time from 1984 to 1990 as a partner in the Stamford law firm of Silver Golub & Teitell; that was his last job before winning the 1990 election for attorney general and assuming office in January 1991. Earlier editions of the directory worded Blumenthal's military history one word differently — with the word "in" instead of "and," as follows: "With USMC., active duty in reserve, 1970-1976." Romash had no explanation for that difference.

Part of the problem for Blumenthal, said one Democratic political consultant, is that he has established an atmosphere that invites questions about credibility. "The problem facing the Blumenthal campaign is that these kinds of situations become fair game," the consultant said, referring to matters such as the Martindale-Hubbell entry, or last week's news reports that a Blumenthal subordinate said the attorney general had told him in the past that he'd served in Vietnam. Such things "might not have come forward as a news story if it hadn't been for the misstatements about Vietnam."

But one of Blumenthal's assets is the reservoir of goodwill he has built up with veterans over decades of attending their events and responding to their requests for assistance.

Another member of the Veterans Hall of Fame, Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Bob Janicki of Guilford, said that he has "struggled for years with impostors," and noted that recently he'd said after Blumenthal's apology, "I don't forgive him."

But now, Janicki, 63, a Republican voter who works for the federal Veterans Administration, said he is writing a letter to newspaper editors about a conversation he had since then with Blumenthal. Part of it says: "Mr. Blumenthal shared with me his personal feelings on what he may have said over the years, and I truly feel that he was honestly sincere, and I believe him. Personally I am not about to go back in time and review every quote presented by the media. I will never trust them, to determine if they were in context or taken out of context."

Courant Senior Information Specialist Cristina Bachetti and Jon Lender contributed to this report.