John Forbes Kerry (born
December 11, 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts
, and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.As the Presidential nominee of the
Democratic Party, he was
defeated by 34 electoral votes in the
2004 presidential
election by incumbent
President George W. Bush.
Senator Kerry is a
Vietnam veteran,
and was a spokesman for
Vietnam Veterans Against the
War when he returned home from service. Before entering the
Senate, he served as an
Assistant District Attorney and
Lieutenant Governor
of Massachusetts under
Michael
Dukakis, who was nominated for President by the Democrats in
1988.
Family history and childhood years
Family background
Kerry is the second child of
Richard
J. Kerry, a
Foreign Service Officer and an
attorney for the
Bureau
of United Nations Affairs, and
Rosemary Forbes Kerry, a World War II
nurse and member of the wealthy
Scottish-American Forbes family.
He has three siblings: two sisters, Diana
(born in 1947) and Margerie (aka Peggy; born in 1941) and a
brother, Cameron (born in 1950),
Cameron Kerry was picked to be Barack
Obama's general counsel of the Commerce Department
.
His immediate family members were reportedly observant
Roman Catholics. As a child, Kerry
served as an
altar boy.
Although the extended
family enjoyed a great fortune, Kerry's parents themselves were
upper-middle class; a wealthy great
aunt paid for Kerry to attend elite schools
in Europe and New
England
. Kerry spent his summers at the
Forbes family estate in
Brittany, and there, he enjoyed a more opulent lifestyle than he
had previously known in Massachusetts.
While living in the
U.S., Kerry spent several summers at the Forbes family's estates on
Naushon
Island
off Cape
Cod
.
Through his maternal grandmother, Margaret Tyndal
Winthrop, John Kerry is distantly related
to four U.S. Presidents, including George W. Bush, to the first
American female writer
Anne
Bradstreet, to Massachusetts Bay Colony founder and first
Governor
John Winthrop, and to various
royals and nobles in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and
Africa.
Paternal grandparents
It was discovered in 2003 by genealogist
Felix Gundacker, working with
The Boston Globe, that Kerry's
paternal grandparents, who had been born "Fritz Kohn" and "Ida
Löwe" in the
Austro-Hungarian
Empire, changed their names to "Frederick and Ida Kerry" in
1900 and converted from
Judaism to
Roman Catholicism in 1901 or 1902. Fritz'
elder brother Otto had earlier, in 1887 or 1896, also changed his
name to "Kerry" and converted from Judaism, presumably to escape
violent
antisemitism.
The "Kerry" name,
widely misinterpreted as indicative of Irish
heritage,
was reputedly selected arbitrarily: "According to family legend,
Fritz and another family member opened an atlas at random and
dropped a pencil on a map. It fell on County Kerry in
Ireland, and thus a name was chosen."
Leaving the suburb of
Vienna
where they had lived since 1896, Fred and Ida,
together with their son Eric, immigrated to the United States in
1905, living at first in Chicago
and
eventually moving to Brookline, Massachusetts
by 1915.
The
village where Fritz Kohn was born in 1873 was at that time known as
Bennisch
and was a part of Silesia in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
but is today known as Horní Benešov
in the Czech Republic. After learning of his
ancestral connection with their village, the mayor and citizens
sent congratulatory correspondence to John Kerry with regard to his
political pursuits.
For a time, Fred Kerry was a prosperous and successful shoe
merchant, and Ida and two of the children, Richard (who would
become the father of John Kerry) and Mildred, were able to afford
to travel to Europe in the autumn of 1921, returning on October 21.
A few
weeks later, on November 15, Fred Kerry filed a will leaving
everything to Ida and then, on November 23, walked into a washroom
of the Copley
Plaza
Hotel in Boston and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a
handgun. The suicide was front-page news in all of the
Boston newspapers, reporting at the time that the motive was severe
asthma and related health problems, but
modern reports cite family sources saying that the motive was
financial trouble: "He had made three fortunes and when he had lost
the third fortune, he couldn't face it anymore", according to
granddaughter Nancy Stockslager.
John Kerry has said that although he knew his paternal grandfather
had come from Austria, he did not know until informed by
The
Boston Globe on the basis of their genealogical research that
Fred Kerry had changed his name from "Fritz Kohn" and had been born
Jewish, nor that his
great-uncle and
great-aunt, Ida Kerry's brother Otto and
sister Jenni, died in
Nazi
concentration camps.
Childhood years
Kerry has said that his first memory is from when he was three
years old, of holding his crying mother's hand while they walked
through the broken glass and rubble of her childhood home in
Saint-Briac, France. This visit
came two and a half years after the United States had liberated
Saint-Briac from the
Nazis on
August 14, 1944. The family estate, known as
Les Essarts, had been
occupied and used as a Nazi headquarters during the war. When the
Germans abandoned it, they bombed Les Essarts and burned it
down.
The sprawling estate was rebuilt in 1954. Kerry and his parents
would often spend the summer holidays there.
During these summers,
he became good friends with his first cousin Brice Lalonde, a future Socialist
and Green Party
leader in France, who ran for president of France in
1981.
While his father was stationed at the U.S.
Embassy in Oslo, Norway
, Kerry was sent to Massachusetts to attend boarding school. In 1957, he attended
the Fessenden School in West
Newton, a village in Newton, Massachusetts
. The Fessenden School is the oldest all-boys
independent junior boarding school in the country. There he met and
became friends with Richard Pershing, grandson of
First World War U.S. Gen.
John Joseph Pershing. Former Massachusetts
senator
Ted Kennedy also attended the
Fessenden School, although several years prior to Kerry.
The
following year, he enrolled at St. Paul's School
in Concord, New Hampshire
, and graduated from there in 1962. Kerry
learned skills in
public speaking
and began developing interest in
politics.
In his free time, he enjoyed
ice hockey
and
lacrosse, which he played on teams
captained by classmate
Robert S.
Mueller III, the current director of the
FBI
. Kerry also played
bass guitar for the prep school's band
The
Electras, which produced an album in 1961. Only five hundred
copies were made—one was auctioned on
eBay in
2004 for $2,551.
In 1959, Kerry founded the
John Winant
Society at St. Paul's to debate the issues of the day; the Society
still exists there.
In November 1960, Kerry gave his first
political speech, in favor of John F.
Kennedy's election to the White House
.
In 1962, Kerry was a volunteer for
Ted
Kennedy's first
Senatorial
campaign. The summer after his graduation from St. Paul's, he dated
Janet Jennings
Auchincloss, First Lady
Jacqueline Kennedy's half-sister.
Auchincloss invited Kerry to visit her
family's estate, Hammersmith Farm,
in Rhode
Island
where Kerry met President John F. Kennedy for the first
time.
According
to Kerry, when he told the president he was about to enter Yale
University
, Kennedy
grimaced, because he had gone to rival Harvard
University
. Kerry later recalled, "He smiled at me,
laughed and said: 'Oh, don't worry about it. You know I'm a Yale
man too now.'" According to Kerry "The President uttered that
famous comment about how he had the best of two worlds now: a
Harvard education and Yale degree", in reference to the
honorary degree he had received from Yale a
few months earlier.
Later that day, a White House photographer
snapped a photo of Kerry sailing with Kennedy and his family in
Narragansett
Bay
.
Yale University (1962–1966)
In 1962,
Kerry entered Yale
University
, majoring in
political science. He
graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1966. Kerry played on the
soccer,
hockey,
lacrosse and
fencing
teams; in addition, he took flying lessons.
In his
sophomore year, Kerry
became the Chair of the Liberal Party of the
Yale Political Union, and a year later
he served as president of the Union. Amongst his influential
teachers in this period was Professor
H. Bradford Westerfield, who was
himself a former president of the Political Union. His involvement
with the Political Union gave him an opportunity to be involved
with important issues of the day, such as the
civil rights
movement and Kennedy's
New Frontier
program.
He was also inducted into the secretive
Skull and
Bones Society
.
Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor
Rollin Osterweis, Kerry won many
debates against other college students from across the nation. In
March 1965, as the Vietnam War escalated, he won the Ten Eyck prize
as the best
orator in the junior class for a
speech that was critical of U.S.
foreign
policy. In the speech he said, "It is the spectre of Western
imperialism that causes more fear among
Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is
self-defeating."
Over four years, Kerry maintained a 76 grade average and received
an 81 average in his senior year. Kerry, even then a capable
speaker, was chosen to give the class oration at graduation. His
speech was a broad criticism of American foreign policy, including
the Vietnam War, in which he would soon participate.
Military service (1966–1970)
Commission, training, and tour of duty on the USS
Gridley
On February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He began
his active duty military service on August 19, 1966. After
completing sixteen weeks of
Officer Candidate School at the
U.S.
Naval Training Center in Newport,
Rhode Island
, Kerry received his officer's commission on
December 16, 1966. During the 2004 election, Kerry posted
his military records at his website, and permitted reporters to
inspect his medical records. In 2005, Kerry released his military
and medical records to the representatives of three news
organizations, but has not authorized full public access to those
records.
Kerry's first tour of duty was as an
ensign on the
guided
missile frigate in 1968.
The executive officer
of the Gridley described the deployment as: "We deployed
from San Diego to the Vietnam theatre in early 1968 after only a
six-month turnaround, and spent most of a four month deployment on
rescue station in the Gulf of Tonkin
, standing by to pick up downed
aviators."
During his tour on the
Gridley, Kerry requested duty in
Vietnam, listing as his first preference a position as the
commander of a
Fast Patrol Craft
(PCF), also known as a "Swift boat." These boats have
aluminum hull and
have little or no armor, but are heavily armed and rely on speed.
"I didn't really want to get involved in the war", Kerry said in a
book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up
for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They
were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was
going to be doing." However, his second choice of billet was on a
river patrol boat, or "
PBR",
which at the time was serving a more dangerous duty on the rivers
of Vietnam.
On June 16, 1968, Kerry was promoted to the rank of
lieutenant, junior grade.
On June
20, 1968, he left the Gridley for Swift boat training at
the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado
.
Swift boat duty
On
November 17, 1968, Kerry reported for duty at Coastal Squadron 1 in
Cam Ranh
Bay
in South
Vietnam. In his role as an officer in charge of Swift
boats, Kerry led five-man crews on a number of patrols into
enemy-controlled areas. His first command was Swift boat PCF-44,
from December 6, 1968 to January 21, 1969, when the crew was
disbanded. They were based at Coastal Division 13 at Cat Lo from
December 13, 1968 to January 6, 1969. Otherwise, they were
stationed at Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi. On January 30, 1969,
Kerry took charge of PCF-94 and its crew, which he led until he
departed An Thoi on March 26, 1969, and subsequently the crew was
disbanded.
On
January 22, 1969, Kerry and several other officers had a meeting in
Saigon
with
Admiral Elmo
Zumwalt, the commander of U.S. Naval forces in Vietnam,
and
U.S. Army General Creighton Abrams, the overall commander of
U.S. forces in Vietnam. Kerry and the other officers reported that
the "
free-fire zone" policy was
alienating the Vietnamese and that the Swift boats' actions were
not accomplishing their ostensible goal of interdicting Viet Cong
supply lines. According to his biographer,
Douglas Brinkley, Kerry and the other
visiting officers felt their concerns were dismissed with what
amounted to a pep talk (
Tour of Duty,
pp. 254–261).
Military honors
During
the night of December 2, 1968 and early morning of December 3,
1968, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating near a
peninsula north of Cam Ranh
Bay
together with a Swift boat (PCF-60).
According to Kerry and the two crewmen who accompanied him that
night, Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis, they surprised a group
of men unloading
sampans at a river crossing,
who began running and failed to obey an order to stop. As the men
fled, Kerry and his crew opened fire on the sampans and destroyed
them, then rapidly left. During this encounter, Kerry received a
minor wound in the left arm above the elbow. It was for this injury
that Kerry received his first
Purple
Heart.
Kerry received his second Purple Heart for a wound received in
action on the
Bo De River on February
20, 1969. The plan had been for the Swift boats to be accompanied
by support helicopters. On the way up the Bo De, however, the
helicopters were attacked. They returned to their base to refuel
and were unable to return to the mission for several hours.
As the Swift boats reached the
Cua Lon
River, Kerry's boat was hit by a
RPG round, and a piece of
shrapnel hit Kerry's left leg, wounding him.
Thereafter, they had no more trouble, and
reached the Gulf of
Thailand
safely. Kerry still has shrapnel in his left
thigh because the doctors tending to him decided to remove the
damaged tissue and close the wound with
suture rather than make a wide opening to
remove the shrapnel. Kerry received his second Purple Heart for
this injury, but like several others wounded earlier that day, he
did not lose any time off from duty.
Eight days later, on February 28, 1969, came the events for which
Kerry was awarded his Silver Star. On this occasion, Kerry was in
tactical command of his Swift boat and two others in an eight boat
formation. Their mission on the Duong Keo river included bringing a
demolition team and dozens of South Vietnamese Marines to destroy
enemy
sampans, structures and bunkers as
described in the story
The Death Of PCF 43. Running into
an ambush, Kerry "directed the boats to turn to the beach and
charge the Viet Cong positions" and he "expertly directed" his
boat's fire and coordinated the deployment of the South Vietnamese
troops, according to the original medal citation (signed by Admiral
Zumwalt). Going a short distance farther, Kerry's boat was the
target of an RPG round; as the boat beached at the site, a VC with
a rocket launcher jumped and ran from a spider hole. While the
boat's gunner opened fire, wounding the VC on the leg, and while
the other boats approached and offered cover fire, Kerry jumped
from the boat and chased the VC and killed him, capturing a loaded
rocket launcher.
Kerry's commanding officer,
Lieutenant Commander George Elliott,
joked to Douglas Brinkley in 2003 that he didn't know whether to
court-martial Kerry for beaching the boat without orders or give
him a medal for saving the crew. Elliott recommended Kerry for the
Silver Star, and Zumwalt flew into An Thoi to personally award
medals to Kerry and the rest of the sailors involved in the
mission. The Navy's account of Kerry's actions is presented in the
original
medal citation
signed by Zumwalt. The engagement was documented in an after-action
report, a press release written on March 1, 1969, and a historical
summary dated March 17, 1969.
On March 13, 1969, five Swift boats were returning to base together
on the Bay Hap river from their missions that day, after a
firefight earlier in the day (during which time Kerry received a
slight shrapnel wound in the buttocks from blowing up a rice
bunker), and debarking some but not all of the passengers at a
small village. They approached a fishing weir (a series of poles
across the river for hanging nets), so that one group of boats went
around left, hugging the shore, and a group with Kerry's 94 boat
went around right along the shoreline. A mine was detonated
directly beneath the lead boat, PCF-3, as it crossed the weir to
the left, lifting PCF-3 completely into the air.
James Rassmann, a
Green Beret advisor who
was aboard PCF-94, was knocked overboard when, according to
witnesses and the documentation of the event, a mine or rocket
exploded close to the boat. According to the documentation for the
event, Kerry's arm was injured when he was thrown against a
bulkhead during the explosion. PCF 94 returned to the scene and
Kerry rescued Rassmann from the water. Kerry received the Bronze
Star for his actions during this incident; he also received his
third Purple Heart.
After the crew of PCF-3 had been rescued, and the most seriously
wounded sailors evacuated by two of the PCFs, PCF 94 and another
boat remained behind and helped salvage the stricken boat together
with a damage-control party that had been immediately dispatched to
the scene.
Controversy over military service and awards
As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 200
Vietnam veterans formed the group
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
(SBVT), subsequently renamed
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth,
which held press conferences, ran ads and endorsed a book
questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards.
Return from Vietnam
After Kerry's third qualifying wound, he was entitled per Navy
regulations to re-assignment away from combat duties.
Navy records show
that Kerry's preferred choice for re-assignment was as an aide in
Boston, New
York
or Washington, D.C.
On March 26, 1969, after a final patrol the night before, Kerry was
transferred to Cam Ranh Bay to await his orders. He was there for
five or six days and left Vietnam in early April.
On April 11, 1969, he
reported to the Brooklyn
-based Atlantic Military Sea Transportation
Service, where he would remain on active duty for the following
year as a personal aide to an officer, Rear Admiral Walter Schlech. On January 1, 1970
Kerry was temporarily promoted to full
Lieutenant. Kerry had agreed to an extension of
his active duty obligation from December 1969 to August 1970 in
order to perform Swift Boat duty, but in January, 1970, he
requested early discharge in order to run for Congress the
following fall. He was discharged from active duty on March 1,
1970.
John Kerry was on active duty in the United States Navy from August
1966 until January 1970. He continued to serve in the Naval Reserve
until February 1978. Kerry lost at least five friends in the war
including Yale classmate Richard Pershing, who was
killed in action on February 17,
1968.
Anti-war activism (1970–1971)
After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the
Vietnam Veterans Against the
War (VVAW). Then numbering about 20,000, VVAW was considered by
some (including the administration of President
Richard Nixon) to be an effective, if
controversial, component of the antiwar movement.
On April 22, 1971, Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran to
testify before Congress about the war, when he appeared before a
Senate committee hearing on proposals relating to ending the war.
He was still a member of the United States Navy Reserve, holding
the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade. Wearing green
fatigues and service ribbons, he spoke
for nearly two hours with the
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in what has been named the
Fulbright Hearing, after the Chairman of
the proceedings, Senator J.W. Fulbright. Kerry began with
a prepared
speech, in which he presented the conclusions of the
Winter Soldier Investigation,
and then went on to address larger policy issues.
The day
after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with
thousands of other veterans in which he and other veterans threw
their medals and ribbons over a fence erected at the front steps of
the United
States Capitol
building to dramatize their opposition to the
war. Jack Smith, a
Marine, read a statement
explaining why the veterans were returning their military awards to
the government. For more than two hours, almost 1000 angry veterans
tossed their medals, ribbons, hats, jackets, and military papers
over the fence. Each veteran gave his or her name, hometown, branch
of service and a statement. As Kerry threw his decorations over the
fence, his statement was: "I'm not doing this for any violent
reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this
country wake up once and for all." The documentary film
Sir! No Sir!
includes archival footage of Kerry at the demonstration: he is one
of several young men seen throwing things over the fence.
Media appearances
Because Kerry was a decorated veteran who took a stand against the
government's official position, he was frequently interviewed by
broadcast and print media. He was able to use these occasions to
bring the themes of his Senate testimony to a wider audience.
For example, Kerry appeared more than once on
The Dick Cavett Show on
ABC television. On one Cavett
program (June 30, 1971), in debating
John O'Neill, Kerry argued
that some of the policies instituted by the U.S. military leaders
in Vietnam, such as
free-fire zones
and burning noncombatants' houses, were contrary to the
laws of war. In the
Washington Star newspaper (June 6,
1971), he recounted how he and other Swift boat officers had become
disillusioned by the contrast between what the leaders told them
and what they saw: "That's when I realized I could never remain
silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam."
On
NBC's
Meet The
Press in 1971, Kerry was asked whether he had personally
committed atrocities in Vietnam. He responded:
- "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say
that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as
thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in
shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and
interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which
we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon
against people. I took part in search and destroy
missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is
contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the
Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of
written established policy by the government of the United States
from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed
these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered
us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these
men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that
tried Lieutenant Calley, are war
criminals."
Operation POW
Kerry's prominence also made him a frequent leader and spokesman at
antiwar events around the country in 1971. One of particular note
was Operation POW, organized by the VVAW in Massachusetts. The
protest got its name from the group's concern that Americans were
prisoners of the Vietnam War, as well as to honor American POWs
held captive by
North Vietnam.
The event sought to tie antiwar activism to patriotic themes.
Over the
Memorial Day weekend, veterans and
other participants marched from Concord
to a rally on Boston Common
. The plan was to invoke the spirit of the
American Revolution and Paul Revere by spending successive nights at the
sites of the Battle of Lexington and
Concord
and the Battle of Bunker Hill
, culminating in a Memorial Day rally with a public
reading of the Declaration of
Independence.
The
second night of the march, May 29, 1971, was the occasion for
Kerry's only arrest, when the participants tried to camp on the
village green in Lexington
. At 2:30 a.m. on May 30, 1971, local and
state police awoke and arrested 441 demonstrators, including Kerry,
for trespassing. All were given the
Miranda Warning and were hauled away on
school buses to spend the night at the Lexington Public Works
Garage. Kerry and the other protesters later paid a $5 fine, and
were released. The mass arrests caused a community backlash and
ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.
Despite his role in Operation POW and other VVAW events, Kerry
eventually quit the organization over leadership differences. Kerry
has been criticized regarding VVAW—see
John Kerry VVAW controversy for
more details.
Early career (1972–1985)
1972 campaign for Congress
In
February 1972, after Kerry previously passed on an opportunity to
run in another district, his wife, Julia bought a house in Worcester
. Residence there would have required Kerry
to run for
Congress against an
incumbent
Democrat,
Harold D. Donohue.
Instead however, the couple rented an
apartment in Lowell
. The incumbent in that district,
F. Bradford
Morse, was a Republican who was thought to be retiring.
Counting Kerry, the Democratic primary race in 1972 had 10
candidates. One of these was State Representative
Anthony R. DiFruscia of Lawrence
. Both Kerry's and DiFuscia's campaign HQs
were in the same building. On the eve of the September primary,
Kerry's younger brother Cameron and campaign field director
Thomas J. Vallely, both then 22 years old, were
found by police in the basement of this building, where the
telephone lines were located. They were arrested and charged with
"
breaking and entering with
the intent to commit
grand larceny",
but the case was dismissed about a year later. At the time of the
incident, DiFruscia alleged that they were trying to disrupt his
get-out-the vote efforts. Vallely and Cameron Kerry maintained that
they were only checking their own telephone lines because they had
received an anonymous call warning that the Kerry lines would be
cut.
Although Kerry's campaign was hurt by the election-day report of
the arrest, he still won the primary, narrowly beating state
Representative Paul J. Sheehy. DiFruscia placed third. Kerry lost
in Lawrence and Lowell, his chief opponents' bases, but placed
first in 18 of the district's 22 towns.
In the general election, Kerry was initially favored to defeat the
Republican candidate, former state Representative
Paul W. Cronin,
and an independent, Roger P. Durkin. A major obstacle, however, was
the district's leading newspaper, the
conservative Sun. The paper editorialized against
him. It also ran critical news stories about his out-of-state
contributions and his "
carpetbagging",
because he had moved into the district only in April. Subsequently
released "Watergate" Oval Office tape recordings of the Nixon White
House showed that defeating Kerry's candidacy had attracted the
personal attention of President Nixon.
The final blow came when, four days before the election, Durkin
withdrew in favor of Cronin. Cronin won the election, becoming the
only Republican to be elected to Congress that November in a
district carried by Democratic
Presidential nominee George
McGovern.
Law school and early political career (1972–1985)
After Kerry's 1972 defeat, he and his wife bought a house in
Lowell. He spent some time working as a fundraiser for the
Cooperative for
Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), an international
humanitarian organization. He decided that the best way for him to
continue in public life was to study law . In September 1973, he
entered
Boston College Law
School. In July 1974, while attending
law
school, Kerry was named executive director of Mass Action, a
Massachusetts advocacy association.
He received his
Juris Doctor (
J.D.) from Boston College in 1976.
While in law school
he had been a student prosecutor in the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex
County
, John J. Droney. After passing the bar exam
and being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1976, he went to
work in that office as a full-time prosecutor.
In January 1977, Droney promoted him to First Assistant District
Attorney. In that position, Kerry had dual roles. First, he tried
cases, winning convictions in a high-profile rape case and a
murder. Second, he played a role in administering the office of the
district attorney by initiating the creation of special
white-collar and organized crime units, creating programs to
address the problems of rape and other crime victims and of
witnesses, and managing trial calendars to reflect case priorities.
It was in this role in 1978 that Kerry announced an investigation
into possible criminal charges against then Senator
Edward Brooke, regarding "misstatements" in
his first divorce trial.
In 1979, Kerry resigned from the District Attorney's office to set
up a private law firm with another former prosecutor. And, although
his private law practice was a success, Kerry was still interested
in public office. He re-entered electoral politics by running for
Lieutenant Governor of
Massachusetts and won a narrow victory in the 1982 Democratic
primary. The ticket, with
Michael
Dukakis as the gubernatorial candidate, won the general
election without difficulty.
The position of Lieutenant Governor carried few inherent
responsibilities. Dukakis, however, delegated additional matters to
Kerry. In particular, Kerry's interest in environmental protection
led him to become heavily involved in the issue of
acid rain. His work contributed to a
National Governors
Association resolution in 1984 that was a precursor to the 1990
amendments to the federal
Clean Air
Act.
During his campaign, Kerry had argued that nuclear evacuation
planning was "a sham intended to deceive Americans into believing
they could survive a nuclear war". Once in office, he drafted an
Executive Order
condemning such planning, which Dukakis signed despite having lost
the presidential election.
Election to the Senate
The junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts,
Paul Tsongas, announced in 1984 that he would
be stepping down for health reasons. Kerry decided to run for the
seat. As in his 1982 race for Lieutenant Governor, he did not
receive the endorsement of the party regulars at the state
Democratic convention. Again as in 1982, however, he prevailed in a
close primary. In his campaign, he promised to mix liberalism with
tight budget controls. As the Democratic candidate, he was elected
to the Senate despite a nationwide landslide for the re-election of
Republican president
Ronald Reagan,
for whom Massachusetts voted by a narrow margin. In his acceptance
speech, Kerry asserted that his win meant that the people of
Massachusetts "emphatically reject the politics of selfishness and
the notion that women must be treated as second-class citizens."
Kerry was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in January 1985.
Service in the U.S. Senate (1985–present)

A Senate portrait of Kerry
Iran-Contra hearings
On April
18, 1985, a few months after taking his Senate seat, Kerry and
Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa
traveled to
Nicaragua
and met the country's president, Daniel Ortega. Though Ortega was
democratically elected, the trip was criticized because Ortega and
his leftist Sandinista government had strong ties to Cuba
and the
USSR
. The Sandinista government was opposed by
the
right-wing CIA-backed rebels known as the
Contras. While in Nicaragua,
Kerry and Harkin talked to people on both sides of the conflict.
Through the senators, Ortega offered a cease-fire agreement in
exchange for the US dropping support of the Contras. The offer was
denounced by the
Reagan administration
as a "
propaganda initiative" designed to
influence a House vote on a $14 million Contra
aid package, but Kerry said "I am willing … to
take the risk in the effort to put to test the good faith of the
Sandinistas." The House voted down the Contra aid, but Ortega flew
to Moscow to accept a $200 million loan the next day, which in part
prompted the House to pass a larger $27 million aid package six
weeks later.
In April
1986, Kerry and Senator Christopher
Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut
, proposed that hearings be conducted by the
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee regarding charges of Contra involvement in cocaine
and marijuana trafficking. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana
, the Republican chairman of the committee, agreed
to conduct the hearings.
Meanwhile, Kerry's staff began their own investigations and, on
October 14, issued a report that exposed illegal activities on the
part of
Lieutenant
Colonel Oliver North, who had set
up a private network involving the
National Security
Council and the CIA to deliver military equipment to right-wing
Nicaraguan rebels (Contras). In effect, North and certain members
of the President's administration were accused by Kerry's report of
illegally funding and supplying armed militants without the
authorization of Congress. Kerry's staff investigation, based on a
year-long inquiry and interviews with fifty unnamed sources, is
said to raise "serious questions about whether the United States
has abided by the law in its handling of the contras over the past
three years."
The
Kerry Committee report
found that "the Contra drug links included … payments to drug
traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the
Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases
after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement
agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under
active investigation by these same agencies." The US State
Department paid over $806,000 to known drug traffickers to carry
humanitarian assistance to the Contras. Kerry's findings provoked
little reaction in the media and official Washington.
The Kerry report was a precursor to the
Iran-Contra affair. On May 4, 1989, North
was convicted of charges relating to the Iran/Contra controversy,
including three felonies. On September 16, 1991, however, North's
convictions were overturned on appeal.
Kerry and the George H.W. Bush administration
On
November 15, 1988, at a businessmen's breakfast in East
Lynn
, Massachusetts, Kerry made a joke about then
President-elect
George H.W. Bush and his running mate, saying "if Bush
is shot, the
Secret
Service has orders to shoot
Dan
Quayle." He apologized the following day.
During
their investigation of Noriega, Kerry's staff found reason to
believe that the Pakistan
-based Bank of Credit and
Commerce International (BCCI) had facilitated Noriega's drug
trafficking and money
laundering. This led to a separate inquiry into BCCI,
and as a result, banking regulators shut down BCCI in 1991. In
December 1992, Kerry and Senator
Hank
Brown, a Republican from Colorado, released
The BCCI
Affair, a report on the BCCI scandal. The report showed that
the bank was crooked and was working with
terrorists, including
Abu
Nidal.
It blasted the Department
of Justice
, the Department of the Treasury
, the Customs Service, the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as
influential lobbyists and the
CIA.
Kerry was criticized by some Democrats for having pursued his own
party members, including former
Secretary of Defense
Clark Clifford, although Republicans
said he should have pressed against some Democrats even harder. The
BCCI scandal was later turned over to the
Manhattan District
Attorney's office.
Precursors to presidential bid
In 1996, Kerry faced a difficult re-election fight against Governor
William Weld, a popular Republican
incumbent who had been re-elected in 1994 with 71% of the vote. The
race was covered nationwide as one of the most closely watched
Senate races that year. Kerry and Weld held several debates and
negotiated a campaign spending cap of $6.9 million at Kerry's
Beacon Hill
mansion. Both candidates spent more than the cap, with each camp
accusing the other of being first to break the agreement. There is
no evidence that this led to Kerry's win in a very close race but
it is more than possible that this contributed to his victory.
During the campaign, Kerry spoke briefly at the
1996 Democratic National
Convention. Senator Kerry won re-election with 53 percent to
Weld's 45 percent. According to
Newsweek, during the
2004 presidential election,
Weld was interviewed by
Karl Rove,
Karen Hughes and other senior members
of the
Bush
campaign on debating and running against Kerry.
In the 2000 presidential election, Kerry again found himself close
to being chosen as the vice presidential running mate.
A release from the presidential campaign of presumptive Democratic
nominee
Al Gore listed Kerry on the short
list to be selected as the vice-presidential nominee, along with
North Carolina Senator
John Edwards,
Indiana Senator
Evan Bayh, Missouri
Congressman
Richard Gephardt, New
Hampshire Governor
Jeanne Shaheen and
Connecticut Senator
Joe Lieberman.
Gore eventually selected Lieberman as the nominee, but Kerry
continued to campaign on behalf of the Gore-Lieberman campaign
through
Election Day.
Issues and voting record
Most analyses place Kerry's voting record on the left within the
Senate Democratic caucus. During the 2004 presidential election he
was portrayed as a staunch
liberal by conservative
special interest groups and the Bush campaign, who often noted that
in 2003 Kerry was rated the
National Journal's top Senate liberal.
However, that rating was based only upon voting on legislation
within that past year. In fact, in terms of career voting records,
the
National Journal found that Kerry is the 11th most
liberal member of the Senate. Most analyses find that Kerry is at
least slightly more liberal than the typical Democratic Senator.
For example, Keith T.
Poole of the University
of Houston
found that Kerry was tied for being the 24th most
liberal Senator.Kerry has stated that he opposes privatizing
Social Security,
supports
abortion rights for adult women
and minors, supports
civil unions for
same-sex couples, opposes
capital punishment except for
terrorists, supports most
gun control
laws, and is generally a supporter of trade agreements. Kerry
supported the
North
American Free Trade Agreement and
Most Favored Nation status for China,
but opposed the
Central American Free
Trade Agreement.
In July 1997 Kerry joined his Senate colleagues in voting against
ratification of the
Kyoto Treaty on
global warming without greenhouse gas
emissions limits on nations deemed developing, including India and
China. Since then, Kerry has attacked President Bush, charging him
with opposition to international efforts to combat global
warming.
On October 1, 2008, Kerry voted for S. Amdt. 5685 to H.R. 1424,
also known as the "bailout bill."
Iraq
In 1991,
during the debate before the Gulf War,
Kerry initially opposed the immediate use of military force to
expel Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait
.
The
United Nations had imposed
sanction on Iraq, and Kerry
argued that the sanctions then in place should be given more time
to work.
On December 14, 2001, 3 months after the attacks of 9/11, Kerry
said on
Larry King Live that "I
think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally.
This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think
the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear.
Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely
vital that we continue against, for instance, Saddam
Hussein."
More recently, Kerry said on October 9, 2002; "I will be voting to
give the President of the United States the authority to use force,
if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a
deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a
real and grave threat to our security." Bush relied on that
resolution in ordering the
2003
invasion of Iraq.
Kerry also gave a January 23, 2003 speech to
Georgetown
University
saying "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam
Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator; leading an
oppressive regime he presents a particularly grievous threat
because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. So the
threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."
Kerry did, however, warn that the administration should exhaust its
diplomatic avenues before launching war: "Mr. President, do not
rush to war, take the time to build the coalition, because it's not
winning the war that's hard, it's winning the peace that's
hard."
After the invasion of Iraq, when no
weapons of mass destruction were
found, Kerry strongly criticized Bush, contending that he had
misled the country: "When the President of the United States looks
at you and tells you something, there should be some trust."
Kerry had spoken before the war about the sorts of weapons many
believed Saddam Hussein had. On the Senate floor on October 9,
2002, he said that "According to the CIA's report, all U.S.
intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons.
There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop
nuclear weapons."
Other Senate activities
During his Senate career, Kerry has sponsored or cosponsored dozens
of
bill. Some of his notable bills
have addressed
small business
concerns,
education,
terrorism,
veterans' and
Vietnam War POW/MIA
issues, marine resource protection and other topics. Of those
bills with his sponsorship, as of December 2004, 11 have been
signed into law.
Kerry chaired the
Senate Select
Committee on POW/MIA Affairs from 1991 to 1993. The committee's
report, which Kerry endorsed, stated there was "no compelling
evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity
in Southeast Asia." In 1994 the Senate passed a resolution,
sponsored by Kerry and fellow Vietnam veteran
John McCain, that called for an end to the
existing trade embargo against Vietnam; it was intended to pave the
way for normalization. In 1995, President
Bill Clinton normalized diplomatic relations
with the country of Vietnam.His long-time senior Senate staff
includes Chief of Staff David "Mac" McKean and Legislative
DirectorGeorge Abar.
Kerry was the chairman of the
Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee from 1987 to 1989. He was reelected to the
Senate in
1990,
1996 (after
winning re-election against the then-
Governor of Massachusetts
Republican
William Weld),
2002, and
2008. In January 2009,
Kerry replaced
Joe Biden as the chairman
of the
Senate Foreign
Relations Committee.
As of 2009, Kerry serves on four Senate committees and nine
subcommittees:
-
Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
-
Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
-
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet
(Chairman)
-
Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export
Promotion
-
Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast
Guard
- Subcommittee
on Science and Space
-
Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine
Infrastructure, Safety, and Security
- Committee on
Finance
- Committee on
Foreign Relations (Chairman)
-
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
- Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe
2008 U.S. Senate election
On Tuesday, September 16, 2008, John Kerry faced his first
Democratic Primary opponent in 24 years, being challenged by
Gloucester Attorney
Ed O'Reilly. Kerry
won the primary, with a vote of 339,925 (68.87%) to O'Reilly's
153,636 (31.13%).
Kerry defeated Republican nominee
Jeff
Beatty in the general election with close to 2/3 of the
vote.
Seniority
As of 2009, Kerry ranked 13 among 99 Senators by seniority.
However, he was the junior Senator from his state due to
longevity of Ted Kennedy's service. In the
111th Congress, Kerry was the most
senior
junior Senator. On Tuesday, August 25, 2009, Kerry
became the senior senator from Massachusetts following Ted
Kennedy's death.
2004 presidential campaign
Kerry/Edwards campaign logo
In the 2004 Democratic
Presidential primaries,
John Kerry defeated several Democratic rivals, including Sen.
John Edwards (D-North Carolina.),
former Vermont Governor
Howard Dean and
retired
Army General
Wesley Clark. His victory in the Iowa caucuses
is widely believed to be the tipping point where Kerry revived his
sagging campaign in New Hampshire and the February 3, 2004, primary
states like Arizona, South Carolina and New Mexico. Kerry then went
on to win landslide victories in Nevada and Wisconsin. Kerry thus
won the Democratic nomination to run for President of the United
States against incumbent George W. Bush. On July 6, 2004, he
announced his selection of John Edwards as his running mate.
Democratic strategist
Bob Shrum, who was
Kerry's 2004 campaign adviser, wrote an article in
Time
magazine claiming that after the election, Kerry had said that he
wished he'd never picked Edwards, and that the two have since
stopped speaking to each other. In a subsequent appearance on ABC's
This Week, Kerry refused to respond to Shrum's allegation,
calling it a "ridiculous waste of time."
On November 3, 2004, Kerry conceded the race. Kerry won 59.03
million votes, or 48.3 percent of the popular vote; Bush won 62.04
million votes, or 50.7 percent of the popular vote. Kerry carried
states with a total of 252
electoral votes. One Kerry
elector voted for Kerry's running mate, Edwards, so in the final
tally Kerry had 251 electoral votes to Bush's 286.
Although, as in the
previous
election, there were disputes about the voting, no state was as
close as Florida
had been in 2000 (see
2004 United States presidential election controversy and
irregularities).
Post-presidential campaign activities
2008 presidential election
Immediately after the 2004 election, some Democrats mentioned Kerry
as a possible contender for the 2008 Democratic nomination. His
brother had said such a campaign was "conceivable", and Kerry
himself reportedly said at a farewell party for his 2004 campaign
staff, "There's always another four years."
Kerry established a separate
political action committee,
Keeping America's Promise, that raised money and channeled
contributions to Democratic candidates in state and federal races.
Through Keeping America's Promise in 2005, Kerry raised over $5.5
million for other Democrats up and down the ballot. Through his
campaign account and his political action committee, the Kerry
campaign operation generated more than $10 million for various
party committees and 179 candidates for the US House, Senate, state
and local offices in 42 states focusing on the midterm elections
during the 2006 election cycle. "Cumulatively, John Kerry has done
as much if not more than any other individual senator", Hassan
Nemazee, the national finance chairman of the
DSCC said.
On January 10, 2008, Kerry endorsed Illinois Senator
Barack Obama for President. He was mentioned as
a possible Vice Presidential candidate for Senator Obama, although
fellow Senator
Joe Biden was eventually
chosen. After Biden's acceptance of the vice presidential
nomination, speculation arose that John Kerry would be a candidate
for
Secretary of
State in the Obama administration. However, Senator
Hillary Clinton was offered the
position.
2008 Senate re-election
On January 24, 2007, Kerry announced he would not run for President
in 2008, instead choosing to run for another Senate term. He was
challenged in the Democratic primary by attorney Ed O'Reilly.
Seeking a 5th term, Kerry, on September 17, 2008, handily defeated
Ed O'Reilly in the primary. Kerry also defeated Republican
Jeff Beatty in November.
Controversy over comments on Iraq and education
On
October 30, 2006, Kerry was a headline speaker at a campaign rally
being held for Democratic California gubernatorial
candidate Phil Angelides at
Pasadena
City College
in Pasadena, California
. Speaking to an audience composed mainly of
college students, Kerry said, "You know, education, if you make the
most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an
effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in
Iraq." Kerry said that he had intended the remark as a jab at
President Bush, and described the remarks as a "botched joke", but
he had inadvertently left out the key word "us" (which would have
been, "If you don't, you get
us stuck in Iraq"). In
Kerry's prepared remarks, which were released during the ensuing
media frenzy, the corresponding line was "… you end up getting us
stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush." It was also clear
from the context of the speech which, prior to the "stuck in Iraq"
line, made several specific references to Bush and elements of his
biography, that Kerry was referring to President Bush and not
American troops in general. However, most news outlets covering the
controversy did not mention or report these contextual comments,
making it seem as if Kerry was referring to American soldiers in
general.
The day after the remarks were made public, leaders from both sides
of the political spectrum, including Republicans President George
W. Bush, Senator
John McCain and
then-Speaker of the House
Dennis
Hastert, said that Kerry's comments were insulting to American
military forces fighting in Iraq.
Democratic Representative Harold Ford, Jr. called on Kerry to
apologize and Pennsylvania
Senate candidate Bob
Casey, Jr. canceled an appearance with Kerry.
Kerry initially stated: "Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal
clear as I know how. I apologize to no one for my criticism of the
president and of his broken policy." Kerry also responded to
criticism from George W. Bush and
Dick
Cheney. However, after two days of media coverage, citing a
desire not to be a diversion, Kerry apologized to those who took
offense at what he called the misinterpretation of his
comment.
Climate change
Kerry
said in Bali
an
administration run by the Democrats would mean the difference
between night and day on policies to fight global warming and the
Democrats would, unlike Bush, back mandatory emissions targets and
pass a bill to create a cap-and-trade
system for carbon dioxide
emissions.
GI Bill support
Kerry has teamed up with Congressman
Peter
T. King to help sponsor a new GI
Bill to help give incentives for military personnel.
Ted Kennedy funeral
Kerry served as an honorary
pallbearer
for the late former Senator
Ted
Kennedy.
Personal life

John Kerry
Kerry is 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), enjoys
surfing and
windsurfing,
as well as
ice hockey,
hunting and playing
bass
guitar. According to an interview he gave to
Rolling Stone magazine in 2004, Kerry's
favorite album is
Abbey Road and
he is a fan of
The Beatles and
The Rolling Stones, as well as of
Jimi Hendrix and
Jimmy Buffett. He also mentioned that he never
liked
heavy metal. During his 2004
presidential campaign, Kerry used
Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender" as one
of his campaign songs. Later he would adopt
U2's
"
Beautiful Day" as his official
campaign song.
Kerry is described by
Sports
Illustrated, among others, as an "avid
cyclist", primarily riding on a road bike. Prior to
his Presidential bid, Kerry was known to have participated in
several long-distance
rides
(centuries). Even during his many campaigns, he was reported to
have visited bicycle stores both in his home state and elsewhere.
His staff requested recumbent stationary bikes for his hotel
rooms.
In 2003, Kerry was diagnosed with and successfully treated for
prostate cancer.
Family
Kerry was married to
Julia Thorne in
1970, and they had two daughters together:
Alexandra and
Vanessa. Alexandra was born on September 5,
1973, days before Kerry began law school.
A graduate of
Brown
University
, she received her M.F.A. in June 2004 from the
AFI Conservatory. She is a
documentary filmmaker. Vanessa was born on December 31, 1976.
She is a
graduate of Phillips
Academy
(like her grandfather) and Yale
University
, and
attended Harvard
Medical School
and a master's program in health policy at the
London
School of Economics
. Both daughters were active in their
father's 2004 Presidential campaign.
In 1982 Thorne, who was suffering from severe
depression, asked Kerry for a
separation. They were divorced on July 25, 1988, and the marriage
was formally
annulled in 1997. "After 14
years as a political wife, I associated politics only with anger,
fear and loneliness" she wrote in
A Change of Heart, her
book about depression.
Thorne later married Richard Charlesworth,
an architect, and moved to Bozeman,
Montana
, where she became active in local environmental
groups such as the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Thorne
supported Kerry's 2004 presidential run. She died of cancer on
April 27, 2006.
Kerry and
his second wife, Teresa
Simões-Ferreira Heinz, the widow of Pennsylvania
Senator H.
John Heinz III, a Republican, and
former
United Nations interpreter
were introduced to each other by John Heinz at an
Earth Day rally in 1990.
They did not meet
again until after John Heinz's death, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
. They married on May 26, 1995, in Nantucket
. John Kerry's stepsons Teresa's three
sons from her previous marriage are
H. John Heinz
IV,
André Heinz and
Christopher Heinz, who married Alexandra
DeRuyter Lewis on February 10, 2007.
The
Forbes 400 survey estimated
in 2004 that Teresa Heinz Kerry had a
net
worth of $750 million. However, estimates have frequently
varied, ranging from around $165 million to as high as $3.2
billion, according to a study in
the
Los Angeles Times.
Regardless of which figure is correct, Kerry is the wealthiest U.S.
Senator. Kerry is wealthy in his own name, and is the beneficiary
of at least four trusts inherited from
Forbes family members, including his mother,
who died in 2002.
Forbes magazine (a
major business magazine named for an
unrelated Forbes family)
estimated that if elected, Kerry would have been the third-richest
U.S. President in history when adjusted for
inflation. This assessment was based on the
couple's combined assets, but Kerry and Heinz signed a
prenuptial agreement that keeps their
assets separate. Kerry's financial disclosure form for 2002 put his
personal assets in the range of $409,000 to $1.8 million, with
additional assets held jointly by Kerry and his wife in the range
of $300,000 to $600,000.
Religious beliefs and practices
A
Roman Catholic, Kerry was
said to carry a
rosary, a prayer book, and a
St. Christopher medal (the patron
saint of travelers) when he campaigned. However, while Kerry is
personally against
abortion, he supports a
woman's legal right to have one, which puts him at odds with the
Catholic Church. Similar tension
exists between the Church and several other Catholic national
political figures, including
Rudy
Giuliani,
George Pataki,
Nancy Pelosi,
Tom
Ridge,
Tom Vilsack (one of his
possible vice-presidential choices in the
2004 election),
Joe
Biden, and
Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Discussing his faith, Kerry said, "I thought of
being a priest. I was very religious while at school in
Switzerland. I was an altar boy and prayed all the time. I was very
centered around the Mass and the church." He also said that the
Letters of Paul moved him the most,
stating that they taught him to "not feel sorry for myself."

Congressional portrait with U.S. flag
in the background
According to
Christianity
Today, Kerry remarks about his faith:
Electoral history
See also
References
-
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/20/kerry_poised_to_cap_long_journey/
- http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact1
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_family
- Kerry's Jewish brother named to top post at
Commerce Department, retrieved on 2009-11-04.
- Martin, Douglas. "H. Bradford Westerfield, 79,
Influential Yale Professor," New York Times, January
27, 2008.
-
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Request_For_History_of_Service.pdf
- Official Record Copy of request for duty in
Vietnam, retrieved on 2009-11-04.
- John Kerry's Vietnam medals
-
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/kerry_medals/PDFs/Doyle.pdf
-
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/kerry_medals/PDFs/SeaLords324.pdf
-
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/kerry_medals/PDFs/SeaLords312-316.pdf
- LTJG Peter N. Upton, The Death Of PCF 43
- Silver Star Medal - John F. Kerry
-
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/kerry_medals/PDFs/SeaLords270.pdf
- John Kerry's Vietnam medals
-
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/kerry_medals/PDFs/SeaLords358.pdf
- Bronze Star Medal - John F. Kerry
-
http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/jkerry/thricewnd.pdf
-
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/jkerry/rqstswiftboat.pdf
-
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/jkerry/releaseactduty.pdf
- Unfinished Symphony: Democracy and Dissent - Documentary,
2001
- Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists, Mary Susannah
Robbins, pages 78-90
- Lexington Minute-Man Newspaper, May 23, 1991.
- Boston.com / Photo gallery
- STLtoday - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Archives
- The BCCI Affair - 19 Ed Rogers and Kamal
Adham
-
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E5D91130F936A15753C1A960958260
- FactCheck.org
- U.S. Senate: Legislation & Records Home >
Votes > Roll Call Vote
-
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00212
- http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=127595
- Kerry's Regrets About John Edwards
- Kerry Disregards Bob Shrum Book: "Ridiculous Waste
Of Time"
- Keeping America's Promise
- Kerry endorses Obama over '04 running mate -
CNN.com
-
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/hillary-clint-3.html
- ap.google.com, John Kerry bests 1st primary
opponent in 24 years
- Planet Ark : UN Climate Talks Under Pressure to
Drop 2020 Goals
- Honorary pall bearers to greet Kennedy family
outside Basilica, retrieved on 2009-11-04.
- News & Politics (washingtonian.com)
- http://www.dailykos.com/user/John%20Kerry/diary
External links and references
Official
Media
- Gibbs, Nancy and Waller, Douglas, What
Kind of President Would Kerry Be?, Time, February 9, 2004
- Klein, Joe, " The Long War of John Kerry: Can a Massachusetts Brahmin
become President?", The New
Yorker, December 2, 2002.
- Kranish, Michael, John Kerry: Candidate in the making, The Boston Globe, June 15, 2003
- The 2004 Debates
- The New
Soldier, John Kerry's book at FreeKerryBook.org
- Profile: John Kerry, BBC
News
- Frontline: the choice 2004—Thorough two-hour special
comparing Kerry and Bush
- Black Political Task Force endorses John Kerry,
1984 on the WGBH series
- Ten O'clock News
- Researcher Alleges Potential Plagiarism in 11 Passages of
Kerry's Writings
- John Kerry's complete 1971 statement before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee from National Review
- Selections from John Kerry's 1971 statement before
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
- This Land! Popular viral
video featuring John Kerry, 2004.
- Healthlink
- Kerry Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
- Obama rally with John Kerry and Others MP3 on
February 2, 2008 in Sacramento, CA
Information
Further reading
- Brinkley, Douglas, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam
War, William Morrow & Company, 2004. ISBN
0-06-056523-3
- Kerry, John and Vietnam Veterans Against the War, The New
Soldier, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1971. ISBN
0-02-073610-X
- Kerry, John, The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens
America's Security, Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN
0-684-81815-9
- Kerry, John, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better
America, Viking Press, 2003. ISBN 0-670-03260-3
- Kerry, John and Teresa Heinz Kerry, This Moment on Earth:
Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future,
PublicAffairs, 2007. ISBN 978-1-586-48431-6
- Kranish, Michael, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton. John
F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who
Know Him Best, PublicAffairs, 2004. ISBN 1-58648-273-4
- McMahon, Kevin, David Rankin, Donald W. Beachler and John
Kenneth White. Winning the White House, 2004, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005. ISBN 1-4039-6881-0
- O'Neill, John E. & Corsi, Jerome R. Unfit for Command:
Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, Regnery Publishing, 2004. ISBN
0-89526-017-4