Smith Rethinks Backing From Veterans Group Senate Candidate Says She Doesn’T Agree With Leader’S Views That Federal Government Is To Blame For Gulf War Syndrome

The leader of a Gulf War veterans group, who suspects the government is responsible for the ailments that plague those veterans, has taken sides in Washington’s U.S. Senate race.

The campaign for Republican Rep. Linda Smith has been touting the endorsement of Joyce Riley vonKleist and the American Gulf War Veterans Association of Sugarland, Texas.

It was an attempt to counter commercials by Patty Murray that feature veterans praising the Democratic incumbent’s work on their concerns.

But Smith said Friday her campaign might not have been so quick to show off the endorsement if it knew all of vonKleist’s views.

A spokesman for Murray called it “a classic example of an endorsement gone bad.”

VonKleist is a controversial figure in the debate over Gulf War Syndrome. In speeches around the country, she has suggested that the U.S. government developed the AIDS virus and other biological agents. She also contends the Pentagon is covering up the fact that chemical and biological agents sold to Saddam Hussein are responsible for the syndrome, which she says can be spread from veterans to their families.

She offered her opinions on the causes of Gulf War Syndrome in December 1996 at two meetings in Sandpoint. The meetings were sponsored by America’s Promise, a Christian Identity Church that preaches white separatism and has ties to the militia movement.

VonKleist said at the time she knew nothing about the church’s views, but was happy to speak wherever people would pay her way.

The former Air Force nurse recently wrote to Smith saying the association is endorsing her over Murray in the Nov. 3 election.

Murray “has not helped the veterans, she could have told the truth behind the Gulf War illness that it was, in fact, the result of biological chemicals supplied by this country to Iraq,” vonKleist wrote.

Smith said Friday she wasn’t aware of vonKleist’s views. If her staff had checked, “they might not have sent the letter out.”

The Vancouver-area congresswoman said she believes Gulf War Syndrome is a real medical problem, but not part of a government conspiracy or cover-up.

“I have a little trouble with the conspiracy theories,” Smith said.

The Pentagon and the Veterans Administration may have been inept in handling Gulf War veterans’ complaints, she said, but not evil.

The medical problems might be contagious, she said, because many veterans have told her that their problems seem to crop up in their spouses and children.

Rex Carney, a spokesman for Murray, said the endorsement of vonKleist and the association “is not the kind that proves to anyone you’re working on behalf of veterans.”

VonKleist’s speeches in Sandpoint, which drew hundreds of veterans and their family members from around the Inland Northwest, were an impetus for Murray to conduct hearings on Gulf War Syndrome in Spokane and Tacoma, Carney said.

At the time, Murray said she didn’t want radical groups to step into a void that the VA was creating by its lack of attention to the veterans’ medical problems.

Campaign trail Democratic Senate candidate Patty Murray will be campaigning in Eastern Washington today. She will attend a 9:30 a.m. rally at her Spokane campaign headquarters, 1611 N. Ash, and will be at the entrance to Martin Stadium at Washington State University before the football game. Republican candidate Linda Smith will be in Spokane on Monday for a 1:15 p.m. rally at the Spokane Airways terminal at the general aviation section of Spokane International Airport.