May 14, 2001

Interview with Bill Salisbury

Tom Barnard: Our special guest this morning, Bill Salisbury. Good morning sir.

Bill Salisbury: Good morning.

Tom Barnard: How are you today?

Bill Salisbury: I'm fine thanks.

Tom Barnard: Glad you're here. Now I have to ask you a question. As in other branches of the service, once a Navy SEAL, always a Navy SEAL? In other words, would I refer to you as former Navy SEAL or Navy SEAL?

Bill Salisbury: I think either one would be fine, although I think most of us would say once a SEAL always a SEAL.

Tom Barnard: Could I read something to you from today's newspaper?

Bill Salisbury: Sure.

Tom Barnard: "If Jesse Ventura's Vietnam War record is not relevant to his career as an elected official, why does he keep bringing it up? If we had a dollar for every time Ventura has said, 'I was a Navy SEAL,' we'd be able to build stadiums for both the Twins and the Vikings." Signed, Pat Proft, Wayzata.

Bill Salisbury: Pat's on to something.

Tom Barnard: (laughs) Pat's on to something. Actually there are a couple of letters in the "Letters from Readers" column today in the Star Tribune. This, all of a sudden is not important any longer. All Jesse has done for two and a half years is constantly tell us that he was a Navy SEAL. And now that some proof is required, all of a sudden it's not important what he did in the service. When did you get on to this whole situation? What was your actual title? You're retired now, correct?

Bill Salisbury: That's right, I retired as a Navy commander.

Tom Barnard: You were a commander of the Navy SEALs?

Bill Salisbury: That's right.

Tom Barnard: It's like Commander, United States Navy retired, and then SEAL kind of in parentheses.

Bill Salisbury: There you go, that's it exactly.

Tom Barnard: Okay, so when did this come to your attention?

Bill Salisbury: Well, it's interesting. It was probably about six months before the election there in Minnesota. I was watching TV. I was watching Comedy Central and they did a piece on Jesse Ventura at his horse farm with his wife. And he was talkin' like a Navy SEAL. He was talkin' about, "I was a Navy SEAL, let me tell ya about Navy SEALs, they don't wear underwear." Well, that's true. And, I was taken by the guy. I talked to my son, who said, "Oh yeah, he's a pro wrestler."

And so, I write for an alternative newsweekly out here, the San Diego Reader, so I thought, well I'll do a celebrity profile on Jesse Ventura, and it was going to be positive. But as I began to investigate and talk to guys, they said "That guy wasn't a SEAL, he was in Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) 12." And so then the piece became investigative. And I interviewed people who had been both SEALs and in Underwater Demolition Team 12 with Jesse - who was then James Janos - and they said "No, the guy wasn't a SEAL, and he wasn't in Vietnam as a SEAL."

Mike Gelfand: How were you able to interview all these people, when our own local press, which has a much greater interest in the story, couldn't seem to find anybody with personal knowledge?

Bill Salisbury: Well, because I'm a Navy SEAL.

Mike Gelfand: So it was your connections?

Bill Salisbury: I know hundreds of guys. The SEALs are like a lot of elite organizations, they're pretty closed-mouthed. But you know, if you've gone to Vietnam with these guys and you say, "Hey, what can you tell me about James Janos?" Well, they'll tell me. Now, they would not all talk for attribution, although I got four of 'em who would.

Tom Barnard: Now Bill, let me ask you a question. And I don't know this because I was not UDT 12 and I was not a Navy SEAL. But UDT 12 is a pretty tough team and it's pretty rigorous training, is it not?

Bill Salisbury: Absolutely. And I want to make that very clear, that James Janos did dangerous things: he jumped out of airplanes, he blew stuff up and he was a diver. And those are dangerous things. But he did not go to Vietnam and hunt man as he has recently said.

Tom Barnard: And that's why it's so confusing to me. I never jumped out of airplanes, I never blew things up, I never did the diving, I never did any of those things. To me, it would seem like the rigorous training of a UDT 12 guy would be pretty impressive. Why was it necessary to go one step beyond that? Or actually, he went two steps, 'cause first of all he said he was a Navy SEAL when he wasn't, and then he made this reference to "You haven't hunted until you've hunted man, and I've hunted man," and blah blah, and he kept saying it over and over and over again.

Bill Salisbury: That's shameful, yeah.

Tom Barnard: Why is it necessary?

Bill Salisbury: Well, because, SEALs, after Vietnam, began to loom much larger in the public mind than UDT. Now during World War II it was UDT, because in fact, there were no SEALs, there were Scouts and Raiders. But UDT had the big public image because they were going in ahead of the Marines, and doing reconnaissance of beaches, and that sort of thing. But in Vietnam, that was a very minor role. What became important in Vietnam is what the SEALs did. You know, they would go into the paddies and the jungles and hunt for the Viet Cong and get into some really tough combat actions, whereas UDT did not. And so of course, you're going to make more political hay if you can associate yourself with the SEALs. And, that's why he did it.

Mike Gelfand: So, have you been able to confront Janos with these allegations?

Bill Salisbury: No, I tried. I called his office before I did my first piece about a year-and-a-half ago, and all I got back was a message from this John Wodele saying "We don't know why you would write something so obviously false and no we're not going to comment on it." So I have not been able to break through his handlers and say "Hey, come on Governor, you and I both know that you weren't a SEAL." Nobody could make that mistake in the early 70s. Now the unfortunate thing is that Jim Janos could have been a SEAL. We were so hard up for men, we were taking enormous casualties given our numbers, that we were desperate to get volunteers out of UDT and they just wouldn't come.

Tom Barnard: (laughs) Oh, man. Now, is it true that you trained Bob Kerrey?

Bill Salisbury: Ah yeah, that's right. Let me explain that. There's a basic course that we all went through. But then those who went into the SEAL team had to go through an advanced course, and I had just come back from Vietnam and I was the officer in charge of that training. And yeah, in fact Bob Kerrey was Class 42 and he was my first class through the advanced SEAL training.

Tom Barnard: Okay, because I just wanted to make that point. If you don't mind, I'd like to read you one more paragraph from the Star Tribune. Is that all right?

Bill Salisbury: Sure.

Tom Barnard: "In an April 3 interview with the Star Tribune's Dennis Anderson, at which Wodele was present, the governor did make his military service relevant, using it to defend his credentials for setting state conservation policy by claiming 13 times that he had hunted man as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam." And you said that just never happened?

Bill Salisbury: No, and the real clincher, of course you know I interviewed the guys, including one of his commanding officers at UDT 12, and he says "Naw," he said, "he didn't go to Vietnam and he didn't see any combat action."

Mike Gelfand: And there's no doubt that if he had, this guy would have known about it?

Bill Salisbury: Yeah, this guy would have known about it. But another real clincher is the TV station there in Minneapolis got a copy of his military record and in that record is a list of commendations that Janos received and he's got two commendations. One is this national defense ribbon which everybody gets when they go in the service. (studio laughter) And the other is a Vietnam service ribbon, but you don't even have to be in Vietnam to get that. You can be on a ship 100 miles off the coast and that's exactly where he was. What he doesn't have, and what he would have if he ever saw combat, is, a Combat Action Ribbon. And that's missing from his record.

Tom Barnard: So you're saying basically that he was playing basketball at Subic Bay.

Bill Salisbury: Yeah, and that's based on, these units like UDT, they keep what's called a cruise book, when they go overseas: "This is what we did." It's kind of like a high school annual. Now I'll tell ya another difference between SEALs and UDT: We didn't have time for that kind of stuff. We weren't keepin' any cruise books. (studio laughter) But in that cruise book, there's a single mention of James Janos, and it said yeah James Janos played on the third-place basketball team in Subic Bay, and that's it.

Tom Barnard: Is that out of four teams? (laughs)

Bill Salisbury: Yeah. In fact, if the team I played on hadn't come in first, I wouldn't wanna hear about it. (studio laughter)

Tom Barnard: Mr. Salisbury, an interesting story, and again, to tell you the truth, after talking to you now, and I should point out before I say this by the way, that we have many, many people, I get a lot of letters personally from Navy SEALs, from Green Beret, from Marine LRRPs, recon, Rangers.

Bill Salisbury: Know 'em well.

Tom Barnard: They're very, very angry about this. Because I guess if you actually went there, and got the job done, you don't really want to hear about this.

Bill Salisbury: Yeah, yeah, I can understand their anger.

Tom Barnard: They're very, very upset. But in a way, this story is just depressing as hell. Because why is it necessary for a guy - and I've said this before - Jesse was a very successful wrestler, he did a great job as a wrestler. He did an even better job as a commentator for the WWF, and he was very, very good at it.

Bill Salisbury: You bet.

Tom Barnard: Why is it necessary for this man, who has had success, who has made some dough, who's world famous as a wrestler. Why is it necessary for him to lie about his service record?

Bill Salisbury: You know, I've asked that question myself. And the other thing is, he can be proud of being a frogman.

Tom Barnard: Absolutely.

Bill Salisbury: That could have been enough. I just think, maybe, and of course I'm no psychiatrist, but that he got used to exaggerating things when he was in pro wrestling. (studio laughter)

Tom Barnard: Yeah, I think you're right.

Bill Salisbury: Or maybe he's like Ronald Reagan, you know, he can't distinguish sometimes between what he did in the movies and what he did in real life. (studio laughter)

Tom Barnard: Bill it was a pleasure having you on. And if this story heats up we'd like to talk to you again if we could.

Bill Salisbury: No problem.

Tom Barnard: Thank you sir.

Bill Salisbury: Sure, thank you.

Tom Barnard: Bill Salisbury. The guy trained Bob Kerrey as a Navy SEAL. He was a commander of the Navy SEALs, retired now. But, ah, that's, I just keep asking myself that over and over and over again: Why is it not enough to be UDT?

Mike Gelfand: It's never enough.

Tom Barnard: It seems to me that you'd be very, very proud of that. Cause like it said, it was very dangerous, very rigorous training. UDT is something you should be very proud of. There is no way that he served in Vietnam if his commander didn't...his commander would know about it.

Mike Gelfand: This is a national controversy and not one person has ever stepped forward and said "oh, I was with him there." And you know, if he was in Vietnam there would be thousands of people who would have seen him.

Tom Barnard: That's what I would like to know, why is it necessary to lie about this?

Mike Gelfand: Yeah, because what he did was plenty brave.

Tom Barnard: Absolutely. I mean, you can't take that away from Jesse. What he did was very, very brave - the UDT training. Absolutely. I'd rather be in radio, that's all I know.

Mike Gelfand: Thank god for radio.