After leaving the Navy in June 1971, O'Neill quickly emerged as a critic of the anti-war movement and drew the attention of President Richard Nixon, who invited him to the White House for a personal chat. O'Neill recalled on Friday that he had shocked Nixon by telling him he was a Democrat and had voted for Hubert Humphrey.
Two weeks later, the two young veterans had their celebrated debate on The Dick Cavett Show. On the videotape, rebroadcast repeatedly in recent months, O'Neill looks like an angry Boy Scout, his short hair slicked back, his white socks visible beneath a powder-blue suit.
"Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only in the war weariness and fears of the American people," he says, glancing down occasionally at his notes.
A year later, O'Neill spoke at the Republican National Convention in support of Nixon. He does not recall having spoken with Nixon again after that time. And O'Neill said that he has never met George W. Bush.
O'Neill says he rarely thought about John Kerry over the three decades since their debate. It was not until February, he said, that he decided the time had come to take up arms again. At the time, he was in hospital recovering after donating one of his kidneys to his wife, Anne Bradley O'Neill, who has Wegener's disease, a form of lupus.
Reporters began calling his hospital room, he said. He was still very ill, but he began making calls to friends, and quickly discovered that a group of veterans was already making plans to attack Kerry. As soon as he was well enough to join them, he did. By that time, it was becoming clear that Kerry would be the Democratic nominee, and his face was everywhere on television, just as it had been back in 1971.
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