One of the US's most widely admired and highly decorated politicians of modern times has admitted to leading a combat mission during the Vietnam war which shot dead more than a dozen unarmed women and children.
Mr Bob Kerrey (57), who retired as a Democratic senator for Nebraska this year and who has not yet given up his very plausible presidential ambitions, has confessed to being "haunted" by the incident for 32 years.
This week, Mr Kerrey went public about the incident in a series of interviews and has co-operated with a detailed article which is due to be published in the New York Times magazine on Sunday.
"I was so ashamed I wanted to die," he told the Wall Street Journal yesterday. "This is killing me. I'm tired of people describing me as a hero and holding this inside."
Mr Kerrey is the most highly decorated Vietnam-era politician in US public life. As a 25year-old US navy lieutenant, he received the prestigious Bronze Star for his part in the 1969 mission. Later he was awarded the Medal of Honour, the highest US military honour, for his role in another engagement, in March 1969, during which he lost his right leg below the knee.
The killings occurred when the then Lieut Kerrey led a seven-man team on a raid against what they believed was a Vietcong meeting in the Mekong Delta village of Thanh Phong on the night of February 25th, 1969.
"We expected it to be a very difficult mission and we met some people we believed were the outpost and we killed them," Mr Kerrey said in a CNN interview. "And then we went on and took fire where we expected this meeting to occur and we returned fire, and when the firing was over, all we had was women and children that are dead."
However, his claim that the incident was a tragic accident is challenged by a member of his commando team. Mr Gerhard Klann says the unit herded the villagers together before killing them in cold blood.
A Vietnamese woman who claims to be a survivor says the same. "They lined them up and shot all of them from behind," Pham Tri Lanh told CBS.
Mr Kerrey is actively considering a White House bid in 2004 - which may partly explain his sudden candour about the events at Thanh Phong.