Seizing the Statue of Liberty for 42 hours and closing it to tourists, while demanding to broadcast on American military radio. Dumping bags of human blood in front of the White House and trying to block visitors from entering the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Invading the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia and announcing, “This is a revolt.” At the same time, taking over a foreign consulate in San Francisco and a hospital ward at Travis Air Force base in California.

Sound like the plot of a bad Hollywood action movie? Well, it all actually happened between December 27 and 29, 1971. A court ordered the occupiers to leave the Statue of Liberty. Police in Washington arrested 75 for disorderly conduct, according to press accounts at the time. Philadelphia police collared 25. Police in San Francisco arrested 18 for trespassing; the New York Times reported that those hauled away by the authorities there “said they considered themselves prisoners of war.” The whole nationwide series of actions was orchestrated by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the group for which John F. Kerry was a prominent national spokesman.

What was Mr. Kerry’s role in all of this? In an article in the January 2, 1972, New York Times, the paper’s Steven R. Weisman reported that Mr. Kerry “is still a member” of the group. The article said,”last week he was helping to raise bail money for the arrested protesters.” Mr. Kerry estimated that the group at the time had fewer than 1,000 active members. The Times article notes that Mr. Kerry had resigned from the group’s executive committee “to pursue electoral politics.” According to VVAW records obtained by The New York Sun, the November 12 to 15, 1971, Kansas City meeting at which Mr. Kerry resigned as a national coordinator was one at which the group decided on a “national Christmas action” with five prongs. The person listed in the records as the coordinator of the “North-East U.S.” action has the name of one of the persons listed in press accounts as seizing the Statue of Liberty.

The takeover of the Statue of Liberty was front-page news in the New York Times, the Daily News, and the New York Post. The Philadelphia, California, and Washington protests were also widely reported news at the time. So it’s puzzling that in all the ink that has been spilled lately by the major journalistic outlets in profiles of Mr. Kerry, no one has mentioned his ties to these radical actions. The problem can’t be that it’s old news — that hasn’t stopped the press from recycling accounts of Mr. Kerry’s service in Vietnam. The problem can’t be that it happened a long time ago: that didn’t stop the press from delving into George W. Bush’s National Guard records or his stop for drunk driving.

The Los Angeles Times yesterday went so far as to run out a whole article quoting Mr. Kerry complaining that the FBI had been following him back in 1971. “I’m offended by the intrusiveness of it. And I’m disturbed that it was all conducted absent of some showing of any legitimate probable cause. It’s an offense to the Constitution,” Mr. Kerry asserted in the interview. The Los Angeles Times doesn’t quote a single individual who reckons that given the actions of the individuals for whom Mr. Kerry was raising bail, the FBI would have been remiss if it hadn’t been keeping an eye on him. Yet between now and Election Day there will be many ordinary Americans who recognize that the disturbing behavior in all this isn’t the FBI’s but Mr. Kerry’s.