Boarding school (1957-1962)
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. There he met and became friends with Richard Pershing, grandson of the famed U.S. Gen. John Joseph Pershing.
The following year, he enrolled at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from there in 1962. His father’s Foreign Service salary was not enough to pay the school’s tuition; Kerry’s childless great-aunt, Clara Winthrop, then very much advanced in age, voluntarily covered the costs. At St. Paul’s, Kerry felt like an outsider because he was a Catholic and liberal while most of his fellow students were Republican Episcopalians.
Despite having difficulty fitting in, he made friends and developed his interests. He learned skills in public speaking and he became deeply interested 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 electric bass for the prep school’s band The Electras, which produced an album in 1961. Only 500 copies were made. In 2004, one of the copies was auctioned on eBay 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 of 1960, Kerry gave his first political speech, in favor of John F. Kennedy’s election to the White House.
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Yale University (1962-1966)
In 1962, Kerry entered Yale University. There he majored in political science and graduated with a B.A. in 1966. He also played on the soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and fencing teams; in addition, he took flying lessons. To earn extra money during the summers, he loaded trucks in a grocery warehouse and sold encyclopedias door to door.
In his sophomore year Kerry became president of the Yale 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. Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor Rollin Osterweis, Kerry won dozens of debate contests 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 specter of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating.” Because of his public speaking skills, he was chosen to give the class oration at graduation. The speech was hastily rewritten at the last moment, and was a broad criticism of American foreign policy, including the war.
While attending Yale, John Kerry joined the Skull and Bones society in April 1965 at the invitation of his friend John Shattuck. Both of the Presidents Bush are also members of this invitation-only group.
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Career in law and politics (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 of 1973, he entered Boston College Law School at Newton, Massachusetts. In July 1974, while attending law school, Kerry was named executive director of Mass Action, a Massachusetts advocacy association.
He received his Juris Doctor degree 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 balanced two key roles. First, he tried cases and won convictions in both 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.
In 1979, Kerry resigned from the District Attorney’s office to set up a private law firm with another former prosecutor. He also joined with a friend to open a small cookie and muffin shop in Boston’s Quincy Market area. The partners named it “Kilvert & Forbes” after their mothers. Kerry sold his interest in the business in 1988. (The store still exists today as “Maggie’s Sweets.” The current owners, Carol Troxell and Sara Youngelson, supplied 1,000 gift bags of “John Kerry Chocolate Chip Cookies” – made with Kerry’s mother’s original recipe – to the 2004 media walkthrough at the Democratic Convention.)
Although his private law practice was a success, Kerry was still interested in public office. He decided to re-enter electoral politics by running for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. He 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.
One of the U.S. Senators 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. 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-date)
Meeting with Ortega
On April 18, 1985, a few months after taking his Senate seat, Kerry got his first taste of the Washington, DC spotlight as a politician as he 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, an act which in part prompted the House to pass a larger $27 million aid package six weeks later.
Iran-Contra hearings
In April 1986, Kerry and Sen. 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. Sen. 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 which exposed illegal activities on the part of Lt. Col. Oliver North, who they contended 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.
These parties were said to be involved in shipping cocaine and marijuana to the United States, with the profits from the sales going to pay for the Contra weaponry. The investigation, Kerry’s report said, raised “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 report generated a firestorm of controversy and marked the beginning of years of investigations, hearings, and televised proceedings, which altogether, were referred to by some as 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 because North’s testimony before Congress under immunity may have affected testimony in the trial. [9] (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/991224onthisday_big.html)[10] (http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.htm)
Other investigations
Kerry’s inquiry eventually widened, expanding its focus from the Contras to U.S. involvement in Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, Panama, and Honduras. In 1989, he released a report that slammed the Reagan administration for neglecting and undermining anti-drug efforts while pursuing other objectives in foreign policy. The report contended that the U.S. government “turned a blind eye” in the 1980s to the corruption and drug dealings of CIA-backed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had assisted the Contras. Kerry’s report concluded that the CIA and the State Department had known that “individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking…and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers.” While some critics attacked him as being a “conspiracy theorist,” the CIA inspector general released a pair of reports that confirmed Kerry’s findings ten years later.
