The men making the charges are almost all of his fellow officers and the higher chain of command in Kerry's Coastal Division 11. The book points out that on John Kerry's Website he has a photo of himself and 19 fellow swift boat officers, taken while they were simultaneously serving in that unit. Of those 19 fellow officers, 11 have asked him to stop using their image with him. Of the remaining eight, two are deceased, four don't wish to be involved, and one is not a supporter of Kerry but didn't have the opportunity to sign the letter calling for the photo to be taken off the Website. Only one of the 19, Skip Barker, supports Mr. Kerry.

 There has been some confusion about whether the witnesses against Kerry had an adequate view of his conduct, compared with the view of his supporters who were on his boat. The book explains that the swift boats usually moved in a pack of three or four on the same mission. They operated within yards of each other. Moreover, they all docked, bunked, ate and lived in the same camp.

 If one compared their relations to an army company of men, the fellow junior officers who captained the tiny swift boats were the functional equivalent of squad leaders, each with their own handful of men under them. Squad leaders, operating on the same mission together are in excellent positions to assess the performance of their fellow squad leaders. They are covering each other's flanks. The book is filled with testimony of these men, describing what they claim they clearly saw John Kerry doing and not doing.

 Of course, almost every presidential campaign has an outcropping of scandal charges. Usually it is by one or two people -- a woman who claimed she met the candidate in a bar, some political opponent from a long-forgotten campaign reprieving his shopworn, uncorroborated calumny. If a book is involved in such charges, the opposing party usually finds a hack ghostwriter.

 But this scandal charge is by over 200 respectable former naval officers and men. The primary author, John O'Neill, first started publicly challenging Mr. Kerry 30 years ago on the "Dick Cavett Show." The co-author, Jerome Corsi, is not a political hack, but a college friend of Mr. O'Neill, with a Ph.D. from Harvard and a distinguished writing career.

 The book has the ring of sincerity to it, and the mark of careful research and writing. If they are not telling the truth, all these men have exposed themselves to financially ruinous libel actions by Mr. Kerry -- who has the private resources to prosecute such actions. Even as a public figure, he might well win such an action, if this book is the pack of lies the Kerry camp says it is.

 If it is not a pack of lies, the nation needs to know that, too. I would encourage some of the major voices of the non-conservative mainline media -- Tim Russert, Dan Rather, Leonard Downie Jr. of the Washington Post -- to do as I did. Spend an evening reading the book. If they are not struck by the damning picture it paints of John Kerry and the credibility of the presentation, forget about it. But if they judge it as I did, then let their consciences be their guide.