he considered messaging Christmas greetings to his commanders "from the most inland Market Time unit" and that a court martial for the incident "would make sense" In addition, George Elliott noted in Kerry's fitness report that he had been in an ambush during the 24-hour Christmas truce, which began on Christmas Eve. Michael Meehan, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, responded to SBVT's charges with a statement that Kerry was referring to a period when Nixon had been president-elect and before he was inaugurated. Meehan went on to state that Kerry had been "deep in enemy waters" between Vietnam and Cambodia and that his boat came under fire at the Cambodian border. Meehan also said that Kerry did covertly cross over into Cambodia to drop off special operations forces on a later occasion, but that there was no paperwork for such missions and he could not supply dates. Based on examination of Kerry's journals and logbook, historian Douglas Brinkley placed the covert missions soon after Christmas. In an interview with the London Daily Telegraph, Brinkley stated that Kerry had gone into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions, dropping off U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S. Army Green Berets, and CIA operatives. Brinkley added, "He was a ferry master, a drop-off guy, but it was dangerous as hell. Kerry carries a hat he was given by one CIA operative. In a part of his journals which I didn't use he writes about discussions with CIA guys he was dropping off." In an interview with Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press", Kerry corrected his 1979 statement about being "five miles across the border" on Christmas Eve, but reiterated that he was on a patrol at the border at that date and had been sent on a covert mission at a later date. In the book, O'Neill argued that a Swift boat commander would have been "seriously disciplined or court-martialed" for crossing the Cambodian border. Critics point out the inconsistency between this description and O'Neill's own claims documented in a conversation with President Nixon in 1971 in which O'Neill told the President he had worked along the Cambodian border on the water in a Swift boat. Document release Kerry has made his Vietnam journals and diaries available to his biographer, historian Douglas Brinkley, but has not made them otherwise publicly available. In declining to make the