John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the senior
United States Senator from
Massachusetts, in office since 1985, and
Barack Obama's nominee to replace current
Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is the
seventh most senior United States Senator and chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee
of the
Democratic Party in the
2004 presidential election, but lost to
President
George W. Bush.
The son of an
Army Air Corps veteran, Kerry was born in
Aurora, Colorado. He attended boarding school in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire and went on to graduate from
Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in
political science and became a member of the influential
Skull and Bones secret society. He enlisted in the
Naval Reserve in 1966, and during 1968-1969 served an abbreviated
four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a
Swift Boat. For that service, he was awarded combat medals that
include the
Silver Star,
Bronze Star, and three
Purple Hearts. Securing an early return to the United States, Kerry
joined the
Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally
recognized spokesman and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He
appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed
United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes."
After receiving his
J.D. from
Boston College Law School, Kerry worked as an
Assistant District Attorney and co-founded a private firm. He served
as
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts under
Michael Dukakis from 1983 to 1985, where he worked on an early
forerunner to the national
Clean Air Act. He won a tight Democratic primary in 1984 for the
U.S. Senate and was sworn in the following January. On the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he led a
series of hearings from 1987 to 1989 which were a precursor to the
Iran–Contra affair. He was an early backer of the
2003 invasion of Iraq, but became a strong opponent of the
subsequent war.
Kerry based his
2004 presidential campaign on opposition to the
Iraq
War. He and his running mate Senator
John Edwards lost the race, finishing only 35
electoral votes behind the Republican ticket headed by President
George W. Bush (and only 19 behind the 270 required for election).
Since then, he has established the Keeping America's Promise
PAC. He became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in
2009, and in 2011 he was appointed to the
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.
On December 21, 2012, President
Barack Obama nominated Kerry to succeed
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.[1][2][3]
Personal
life and background
Kerry is the child of
Richard Kerry (1915–2000), a
Foreign Service Officer and an attorney for the
Bureau of United Nations Affairs, and
Rosemary Isabel (Forbes) Kerry (1913–2002), a World War II nurse and
member of the wealthy
Forbes family. Rosemary was born in Paris, France, to American
parents. Kerry has three siblings: two sisters, Diana (born in 1947) and
Margerie (aka Peggy; born in 1941), and a brother,
Cameron Kerry (born in 1950), Cameron Kerry is the General Counsel
of the US Department of Commerce.[4]
One of Kerry's maternal great-great-grandfathers was
Robert Charles Winthrop, the 22nd Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives. The first governor of
Massachusetts Bay Colony
John Winthrop is a direct Kerry forbear.[5]
Kerry was raised as a
Roman Catholic by his Catholic father and Episcopalian mother.[6]
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.
It was discovered in 2003 by Felix Gundacker, a genealogist[7]
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[8][9]
or 1902.[10]
Fritz' elder brother Otto had earlier, in 1887[9]
or 1896,[7]
also embraced Catholicism. 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."[8][10]
Leaving their hometown
Mödling,
a suburb of
Vienna where they had lived since 1896, Fred and Ida, together with
their son Eric, emigrated to the United States in 1905, living at first
in
Chicago and eventually moving to
Brookline, Massachusetts, by 1915.[8]
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.[9]
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.[9]
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.[8]
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.[8]
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.[8]
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,[10]
nor that his
great-uncle and
great-aunt, Ida Kerry's brother Otto and sister Jenni, died in
Nazi concentration camps.[7]
On his mother's side, the
Forbes
name can be traced back to
Thomas Dudley of the
Dudley-Winthrop family who landed in
Salem, Massachusetts, on June 14, 1630, with his daughter, poet
Anne Dudley Bradstreet, and others aboard the
Arbella.
Kerry is 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) tall,[11]
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 never liked
heavy metal.[12]
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",[13][14]
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 in both his home state and elsewhere. His
staff requested recumbent stationary bikes for his hotel rooms.[15]
Kerry appeared in a cameo as himself on the April 30, 1992, episode
of the hit television sitcom
Cheers,
in the episode, "Bar Wars VI: This Time It's For Real."
In 2003, Kerry was diagnosed with and successfully treated for
prostate cancer.[16]
During the 2012 Obama reelection campaign, Kerry participated in one
on one debate prep with the president, impersonating the Republican
candidate
Mitt Romney.[17]
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
Milton Academy and
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 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.[18]
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.[19]
This assessment was based on the couple's combined assets, but Kerry and
Heinz signed a
prenuptial agreement that keeps their assets separate.[20]
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.[21]
Religious beliefs
Congressional portrait with U.S. flag in the background
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. 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."[22]
In an interview with
Christianity Today, Kerry said of his faith: "I'm a Catholic and
I practice, but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other
expressions of spirituality that come through different religions. ...
I've spent some time reading and thinking about [religion] and trying to
study it, and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences,
but a sense of the similarities in so many ways." He said that he
believed that the
Torah,
the
Qur'an, and the
Bible all
share a fundamental story which connects with readers.[23]
Early years (1943–1966)
Childhood
Kerry was born in
Aurora,
Colorado, at
Fitzsimons Army Hospital on December 11, 1943; his father was a
member of the
Army Air Corps at the time.[24]
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 an 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 of
which 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.[25][26]
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
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.[26]
In his
sophomore year, Kerry became the Chairman 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.[27]
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 also became a
member of the secretive
Skull and Bones Society. He also traveled to Switzerland[28]
through
AIESEC Yale.[29][30]
Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor
Rollin Osterweis, Kerry won many debates against other college
students from across the nation.[31]
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."[32]
Kerry, viewed as 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)
Duty on the
USS Gridley
On February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserve.[33]
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.[34][35]
Kerry's first tour of duty was as an
ensign on the
guided missile
frigate
USS Gridley in 1968. The executive officer of the Gridley
described the deployment: "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."[36]
These 50-foot (15 m) boats have
aluminum
hulls 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."[37]
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.[36]
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.[38]
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
John Kerry received a medal after the duty in Vietnam
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 shrapnel wound in the left arm above the elbow. It was for this injury
that Kerry received his first
Purple Heart.[39]
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
sutures rather than make a wide opening to remove the shrapnel.[40]
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.[41][42]
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.[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.[44][45][45]
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.[46]
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.[47]
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.[48]
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
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. The group included several members of Kerry's unit, such as
Larry Thurlow, who commanded a swift boat alongside of Kerry's,[49]
and Stephen Gardner, who served on Kerry's boat.[50]
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.[51]
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.[52]
Kerry had agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation from
December 1969 to August 1970 in order to perform Swift Boat duty,[53][54]
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,[55]
VVAW was considered by some (including the administration of President
Richard Nixon) to be an effective, if controversial, component of
the antiwar movement.[56]
According to Nixon Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, "I didn’t approve
of what he did, but I understood the protesters quite well", and he
declined two requests from the Navy to court martial Reserve Lieutenant
Kerry over his antiwar activity.[57]
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 Hearings, 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. Kerry threw some of his
decorations as well as some given to him by other veterans to throw. 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. "[58]
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 caliber 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.[59][60][61]
Kerry eventually quit the organization over differences with its more
radical leaders and members. Kerry has been criticized during his
political campaigns about his antiwar activities with VVAW, inspiring
the widely-used political pejorative "swiftboating."
Early political career (1972–1985)
1972 campaign
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.[62]
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 leaning
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.[63]
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.
District
Attorney tenure
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. 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.[64]
Lieutenant
Governor tenure
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."
Election for
U.S. 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. Congressman
James Shannon (a favorite of
House
Speaker
Tip O'Neill) was the early favorite to win the nomination, and he
"won broad establishment support and led in early polling."[65]
Again as in 1982, however, Kerry 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.
U.S. Senate tenure (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.[66]
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."[67]
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."[68]
The US State Department paid over $806,000 to known drug traffickers to
carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras.[69]
Kerry's findings provoked little reaction in the media and official
Washington.[70]
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.[71]
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.[72]
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.[73]
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.[74]
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 townhouse. Both candidates spent more than the cap, with
each camp accusing the other of being first to break the agreement.[75]
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.[76]
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.
In the 2000 presidential election, Kerry found himself close to being
chosen as the vice presidential running mate.[77]
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.[78]
Gore eventually selected Lieberman as the nominee, but Kerry continued
to campaign on behalf of the Gore-Lieberman campaign through
Election Day.
Voting record
Overall
Most analyses place Kerry's voting record on the left within the
Senate Democratic caucus.[79]
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. Kerry has stated that he opposes privatizing
Social Security, supports
abortion rights for adult women and minors, supports
same-sex marriage, 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.[80]
Since then, Kerry has attacked President Bush, charging him with
opposition to international efforts to combat global warming.[81]
On October 1, 2008, Kerry voted for
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the
TARP bailout.[82]
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
sanctions 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."[83]
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."[84]
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."
Leadership
During his Senate career, Kerry has sponsored or cosponsored dozens
of
bills. 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."[85]
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.[86]
In 1995, President
Bill Clinton normalized diplomatic relations with the country of
Vietnam.[87]
His long-time senior Senate staff included Chief of Staff David "Mac"
McKean and Legislative Director George 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.[88]
Committee
assignments
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
-
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction
Caucus memberships
Seniority
Since the beginning of the
113th United States Congress, Kerry ranks as the 7th most senior US
Senator. Due to the
longevity of Ted Kennedy's service, Kerry was the most senior
junior Senator in the
111th United States Congress. 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.[89]
In a subsequent appearance on ABC's This Week, Kerry refused to
respond to Shrum's allegation, calling it a "ridiculous waste of time."[90]
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 election 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."[91]
Kerry established a separate
political action committee, Keeping America's Promise,[92]
that raised money and channeled contributions to Democratic candidates
in state and federal races.[93]
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.[94]
"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.[95]
On January 10, 2008, Kerry endorsed Illinois Senator
Barack Obama for President.[96]
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.[97]
However, Senator
Hillary Clinton was offered the position.[98]
Kerry had been mentioned as a possible replacement for Clinton when she
retired at the end of the Obama's first term.[65]
"Stuck in Iraq" controversy
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."[99]
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.[100]
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."[101]
Kerry also responded to criticism from George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney.[102]
Kerry said that he had intended the remark as a jab at President
Bush, and described the remarks as a "botched joke",[103]
having inadvertently left out the key word "us" (which would have been,
"If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq"), as well as leaving the
phrase "just ask President Bush" off of the end of the sentence. In
Kerry's prepared remarks, which he 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." He also claimed that 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.[104]
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.[105]
Yacht
moored in Rhode Island
According to the
Boston Herald, dated July 23, 2010, Kerry commissioned
construction on a new $7 million dollar yacht (A Friendship 75) in New
Zealand and moored it in
Portsmouth, Rhode Island where the Friendship yacht company is
based.[106]
The article claimed this allowed him to avoid paying Massachusetts taxes
on the property including approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an
annual excise tax of about $500.[107][108]
However, on July 27, 2010, Kerry stated he had yet to take legal
possession of the boat, had not intended to avoid the taxes, and that
when he took possession, he would pay the taxes whether he owed them or
not.[109]
Libya
During the
2011 Libyan civil war, Kerry was one of the first members of
Congress to call for the U.S. to impose a
no-fly zone in
Libya.[110]
Afghanistan/Pakistan
Kerry "has emerged in the past few years as an important envoy for
Afghanistan and Pakistan during times of crisis," a Washington Post
report stated in May 2011, as Kerry undertook another trip to the two
countries. The
killing of Osama bin Laden "has generated perhaps the most important
crossroads yet," the report continued, as the senator spoke at a press
conference and prepared to fly from
Kabul to
Pakistan.[111]
Among matters discussed during the May visit to Pakistan, under the
general rubric of "recalibrating" the bilateral relationship, Kerry
sought and retrieved from the Pakistanis the tail-section of the
U.S. helicopter which had had to be abandoned at
Abbottabad during the bin Laden strike.[112]
Secretary of State nomination
On December 15, 2012, several news outlets reported that President
Barack Obama would nominate Kerry to succeed
Hillary Clinton as
Secretary of State.[2][113]
This came after
Susan Rice, widely seen as Obama's preferred choice, withdrew her
name from consideration citing a politicized confirmation process
following criticism of her response to the
2012 Benghazi attack.[114]
On December 21 Obama proposed the nomination,[115]
which received positive commentary. Confirmation by the Senate was
expected to be straightforward.[116][117]