WASHINGTON – The veterans’ group that roiled Senator Kerry’s presidential campaign with claims that he exaggerated his war record in Vietnam is preparing to air new ads this week questioning the Democrat’s role in the anti-war movement.

The new wave of advertising comes as Mr. Kerry is reportedly being advised by President Clinton to shift his campaign focus to domestic issues and away from Vietnam and national security.

One of the planned ads will focus on former American prisoners of war and their thoughts and feelings while held by the North Vietnamese about the anti-war activities pursued by Mr. Kerry when he returned to the States. Another will quote passages from a now out of print anti-war book called “The New Soldier” that Mr. Kerry edited and that includes disparaging remarks about the American Legion, whose national convention Mr. Kerry addressed last week.

“It is in our interests to keep Vietnam at the forefront of the election campaign,” says a retired admiral who is one of the leaders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Roy Hoffmann. The group’s leaders believe that if they can maintain their ad campaign right up until Election Day, they will be able to ensnare Mr. Kerry into debating Vietnam and what he did there and what he did when he returned from his four-month tour of duty.

In the epilogue of “The New Soldier,” Mr. Kerry wrote: “We were sent to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children. We knew the saying ‘War is hell’ and we knew also that wars take their toll in civilian casualties. In Vietnam, though, the ‘greatest soldiers in the world,’ better armed and better equipped than the opposition, unleashed the power of the greatest technology in the world against thatch huts and mud paths. In the process we created a nation of refugees, bomb craters, amputees, orphans, widows, and prostitutes, and we gave new meaning to the words of the Roman historian Tacitus: ‘Where they made a desert they called it peace.'”

Kerry campaign spokesmen say that the new ads that seek to cast doubt on their candidate’s credentials to head today’s armed forces will be responded to quickly. But they say that Mr. Kerry has no intention of being deflected from training his sights on President Bush’s record in office and on the economy. Mr. Kerry and his advisers were criticized by other Democrats when they failed for more than a week to respond to the first ads put out by the Swift Boat veterans. The ads first started airing on August 4, but Mr. Kerry himself said nothing about them until August 19.

In recent days, with the Kerry campaign flagging in the wake of a Republican convention that saw Mr. Bush enjoy an 11-point bounce in some polls, senior Democrats bewailed Mr. Kerry’s focus on the Vietnam War, arguing that his campaign was confused and lacked clarity.

Taking a leaf from Mr. Clinton’s 1992 campaign, the Kerry camp now will have a quick-reaction team available to respond to damaging allegations. Led by Thomas Vallely, an old friend of Mr. Kerry’s who is now the director of the Vietnam Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, the team will turn to other prominent veterans for support, including the former senator from Nebraska, Robert Kerrey.

The Democratic candidate yesterday tried to focus his campaigning on the economy and other domestic issues. Traveling in Midwest swing states, Mr. Kerry spent Labor Day accusing Mr. Bush of having done little to help American workers.

“If you believe that losing good-paying jobs and replacing them with ones that don’t pay the bills means that America is heading in the right direction, you should support George Bush and his policies of failure,” said the Massachusetts senator.

Mr. Kerry also attacked Mr. Bush over Iraq and said that if elected he would aim to withdraw American troops before his first term in office ended. “We want those troops home,” he said. “This president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace, and he’s cost all of you $200 billion that could have gone to schools, could have gone to health care, could have gone to prescription drugs, and could have gone to our Social Security.”

He added: “It’s the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Mr. Bush was also out campaigning in Midwest states, where the presidential race is virtually tied. The president pointed to recent statistics that suggest the economy is improving and took aim at Mr. Kerry’s plans. “My opponent has promised to raise some taxes. That’s a promise politicians tend to keep,” Mr. Bush said. “This Labor Day weekend, it’s important for America’s workers to know that my opponent wants to tax your jobs.”