John Kerry

John Kerry (born December 11, 1943, Denver, Colorado, U.S.) is a U.S. politician who served in the Senate (1985–2013) and who was the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2004. He later was secretary of state (2013–17) in the administration of Pres. Barack Obama.

Kerry was born in a Denver military hospital, the son of Richard Kerry, a World War II pilot and diplomat, and Rosemary Forbes Kerry, a member of Boston’s wealthy Forbes family and a descendant of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Kerry, educated in New England and Switzerland, was a successful student and athlete who nurtured a longtime interest in politics. After graduating from Yale University in 1966, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the Vietnam War as an officer of a gunboat in the Mekong delta. By the time he returned from Vietnam in 1969, he had achieved the rank of lieutenant and had been honoured with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.

Concluding his military service in 1970, he questioned the purpose and execution of the war and was a cofounder of the Vietnam Veterans of America and a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In this role he gained national attention in 1971 when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The following year he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives and enlisted in the Naval Reserve. In 1976 he graduated from Boston College Law School and became assistant district attorney in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, winning notice for his tough stance on organized crime. From 1979 he practiced law privately for a few years before resuming his political career. In 1982 he was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, and in 1984 he won election to the U.S. Senate. He was reelected three times (1990, 1996, and 2002).

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As senator, Kerry fought for campaign finance reform, investment in public education, and deficit reduction. In his freshman term he began an unofficial investigation that persuaded a bipartisan congressional committee to open hearings on the Iran-Contra Affair. He also pursued scandals in banking and, along with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, was known for helping to normalize relations with Vietnam by clearing up the status of American veterans declared POW/MIA (prisoner of war or missing in action). Kerry chaired several committees, most notably the Foreign Relations Committee (2009–13).

Kerry’s first marriage, to Julia Thorne (in 1970), ended in divorce in 1988. In 1995 he married Teresa Heinz, widow of John Heinz (a Republican senator from Pennsylvania) and heiress to the Heinz Company fortune.

After securing the Democratic nomination in 2004, Kerry chose as his running mate John Edwards, a U.S. senator from North Carolina who had contended ably for the primary nomination. Campaigning in the general election against incumbent Pres. George W. Bush, Kerry touted plans to reduce joblessness and the national deficit, increase access to health care, and roll back Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest. Kerry also called for greater diplomacy in foreign affairs and pointed to the administration’s failure to capture terrorist Osama bin Laden and to achieve peace in Iraq (see Iraq War). In an election with a huge voter turnout, Kerry suffered a narrow defeat.

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Later in 2004 Kerry formed a political action committee that was a prominent source of funding for Democratic candidates in subsequent elections. He endorsed the successful candidacy of U.S. Pres. Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election. In 2010 Kerry supported the passage of health care and financial reform bills seen as key to the Democratic agenda. In 2012 he was nominated by Obama to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. Kerry was subsequently confirmed by the Senate, 94–3, and in February 2013 he assumed the post. Among his notable achievements as secretary of state was helping draft the 2015 agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council [China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom], along with Germany), which placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the reduction of sanctions against the country. Kerry stepped down as secretary of state when Obama’s second term ended in 2017. He subsequently sought to save the controversial Iran nuclear deal, but in 2018 Republican Pres. Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement.

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In 2019 Kerry was a key figure in the creation of World War Zero, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change. He also remained active in politics and was an outspoken critic of Trump. During the 2020 presidential race, Kerry campaigned for Joe Biden, who ultimately defeated Trump. In November 2020 President-elect Biden announced that Kerry would be a member of his incoming administration, serving as the special presidential envoy for climate.

Kerry wrote several books, including The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America’s Security (1997), A Call to Service (2003), and, with his wife, This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future (2007). The memoir Every Day Is Extra was published in 2018.