critics went farther and claimed that Kerry's testimony about US atrocities emboldened the North Vietnamese to torment the Americans POWs who were still imprisoned at the time. Opening statements Senator Fulbright's opening statement was appreciative of Kerry's views, and also mentioned a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, subsequently reversed, which ruled that Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the group for which Kerry was a leader and spokesman, did not have a constitutional right to use the National Mall. Kerry's testimony After a brief supportive statement from Senator Javits, Kerry read his prepared opening statement, and stated: "I would like to say for the record, and also for the men behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony." "The men behind me" refers to members of VVAW and others who came to the committee to hear Kerry testify, which by all accounts was very crowded with supporters and media. Kerry then explained the Winter Soldier Investigation, which took place earlier that year in Detroit, Michigan. This part of the testimony is considered controversial: "...I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. "It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. "They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of