(2004-03-23) -- Questions about the reliability of U.S. intelligence services grew today as documents revealed that the FBI tracked Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry as early as 1971, but did nothing to stop him.

"This looks like another tragic intelligence failure," said an unnamed aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee. "FBI agents knew Kerry was in the country and they even attended his anti-war speeches, but apparently their reports never reached the highest levels of the agency. He was literally within our grasp and we let him slip through."

The aide blamed the failure on the Nixon administration, which he said was too distracted by the war in Vietnam to devote full attention to homeland security.

"If John Kerry is elected president of the United States," he said, "Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves."