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John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is a Vietnam Veteran and the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. As the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, he was defeated in the 2004 presidential election by the Republican incumbent President George W. Bush. Senator Kerry is currently the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Family history and childhood years
Family backgroundKerry is the second child of Richard John Kerry, a Foreign Service agent and an attorney for the Bureau of United Nations Affairs, and Rosemary Forbes Kerry, a World War II nurse and member of the wealthy Forbes family. He has three siblings: two sisters, Diana (born in 1947) and Margery Peggy (born in 1941), and a brother, Cameron (born in 1950), who is a litigator in Boston. His mother was a Protestant, but his other 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.[citation needed] Kerry spent his summers at the Forbes family estate in France, 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.[citation needed] Through his maternal grandmother, Margaret Tyndal Winthrop, John Kerry is distantly related to four U.S. Presidents, including George W. Bush,[3] to the first American female writer Anne Bradstreet[4] and to various royals in Europe.[5] Childhood yearsKerry 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 shortly 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.
The following year, he enrolled at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from there in 1962. Kerry's elderly great-aunt, Clara Winthrop, covered the costs. According to Kerry, at St. Paul's, he felt out of place because he was Catholic and liberal, while most of his fellow students were Republicans and Episcopalians. Despite having difficulty fitting in, Kerry made friends and developed his interests. He 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 electric bass 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.[6][7] In November 1960, Kerry gave his first political speech, in favor of John F. Kennedy's election to the White House. 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.[8] 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. 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."[9] Over four years, Kerry maintained a 76 grade average and received an 81 average in his senior year.[10] 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. In 1962, Kerry was a volunteer for Ted Kennedy's first Senatorial campaign. That summer, he dated Janet Jennings Auchincloss, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's half-sister. Auchincloss invited Kerry to visit her family's estate, Hammersmith Farm, in Rhode Island. It was there that 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. Military service (1966–1970)Kerry joined the Navy Reserves during his senior year at Yale. He is quoted as saying that he decided to join the Navy after he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, and the draft board refused.[7] In addition, several of his classmates were enlisting in the armed services. Upon graduation from Yale, Kerry entered active duty and served until 1970, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant. Kerry was awarded several medals during his second tour of Vietnam, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. Kerry's military record has received considerable praise and criticism during his political career, especially during his unsuccessful 2004 bid for the presidency. Commission, training, and tour of duty on the USS GridleyOn February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve. [8] He began his active duty military service on August 19 of that year. 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. 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. [9] [10] 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 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 USS 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." [11] These 50-foot 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." [12] 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. [13] On June 16, 1968, Kerry was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. On June 20, he left the Gridley for Swift boat training at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado. Swift boat dutyOn 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 to January 6. Otherwise, they were stationed at Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi. On January 30, Kerry took charge of PCF-94 and its crew, which he led until he departed An Thoi on March 26 and the crew was disbanded. [14] 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 honorsDuring 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.[11] 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 rocket-propelled grenade 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 [15]. 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 [16][17]. 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. Their mission included bringing a demolition team and dozens of South Vietnamese soldiers to destroy enemy sampans, structures and bunkers. 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 Admiral Zumwalt's original medal citation. 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 [18][19][20]. 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. In addition, the after-action report for this mission is available, along with the original press release written on March 1 1969 a historical summary dated March 17 1969, and more. All of these documents corroborate the eyewitness reports of the incident.[21] 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 [22]. 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. [23] 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. Return from VietnamAfter 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 DC. [24] On March 26, 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, 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.[12] As a condition for taking the position as an admiral's aide, Kerry agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation through August 1970. On January 3, he requested early discharge. He was discharged from active duty on March 1. John Kerry was on active duty in the U.S. Navy for three years and eight months, from August 1966 until March 1970. He continued to serve in the Navy Reserves until February 1972. He lost five friends in the war, including Yale classmate Richard Pershing, who was killed in action on February 17, 1968. Controversy over military service and awardsAs the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 200 Vietnam-era veterans formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) and held press conferences, ran ads, and endorsed a book questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards. Defenders of John Kerry's war record, including most of his surviving former crewmates, have asserted that several organizers of SBVT had close ties to the Bush presidential campaign and that certain SBVT accusations were politically motivated and false. Anti-war activism (1970–1971)Image:The New Soldier.jpg Kerry co-authored the book The New Soldier with the VVAW. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Then numbering about 20,000, [25] VVAW was considered by some (including the administration of President Richard Nixon) to be an effective component of the antiwar movement. VVAW's members, including Kerry, could speak with personal knowledge about what they had seen in Vietnam. Beyond such specifics, however, they were seen as having "paid their dues" in Vietnam and, therefore, being entitled to at least a respectful hearing. Americans who opposed the war were grateful for VVAW's work. Many Vietnam veterans saw the organization as giving voice to the views of the common soldier in exposing official deceit. Many other veterans, however, such as those who in 2004 formed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, deeply resented the VVAW's activities, feeling that their own military service was being attacked or cheapened. In a Harvard Crimson interview, dated February 18, 1970,[26] Kerry expounds on his view of how an immediate retreat would impact Southeast Asia:
He would repeat this opinion in Washington, D.C., the following year: 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. 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, where veterans had described personally committing or witnessing war crimes. Controversially referring to US servicemen in Vietnam as having been sent "to die for the biggest nothing in history," Kerry alleged that the military had "created a monster" in the form of violence-prone American soldiers, and recounted that soldiers had personally recollected stories of having "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," of Vietnamese citizens and rampaging across Vietnam "[razing] villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan". That these acts were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."[27] Most of Kerry's testimony addressed the larger policy issues. Kerry expressed his view that the war was essentially a civil war and that nothing in Vietnam was a realistic threat to the United States. He argued that the real reason for the continued fighting was political purposes: "Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, 'the first President to lose a war.'" That conclusion led him to ask: "[H]ow do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with 800 other veterans in which he and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the front steps of the U.S. 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, 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." Some have questioned whether he gave up his own medals or just his ribbons during the demonstration at the Capitol. Tom Oliphant has gone on record supporting Kerry's account.[28] Media appearancesImage:Kerrydoonesbury.gif Kerry's anti-war activities were satirized by Garry Trudeau in his comic strip Doonesbury on October 22, 1971. 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:
Image:Kerry Lennon.jpg Kerry with former Beatle John Lennon during a protest rally at New York City's Bryant Park on May 12, 1972. Operation POWKerry'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, 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, 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.[citation needed] 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 CongressIn 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 HQ's 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. [29] Although Kerry's campaign was hurt by the election-day report of the arrest, he still won the primary by a comfortable margin over 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. 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 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 (J.D.) 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 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. [30] 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.[citation needed] Election to the SenateThe 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, whom Massachusetts voted for 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)Image:JohnKerry.jpg An earlier Senate portrait of Kerry See also: Legislation sponsored by John Kerry Iran-Contra hearingsOn 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, an act which in part prompted the House to pass a larger $27 million aid package six weeks later.[13] 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. Sen. Richard G. 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 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 50 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."[14] 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."[15] The US State Department paid over $806,000 to known drug traffickers to carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras.[16] Kerry's findings provoked little reaction in the media and official Washington.[17] 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.[18] Iran-US relationFormer Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) have expressed similar opinions and shared words with each other in the 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos.[19][20] Kerry and the George H.W. Bush administrationOn 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. [31] 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. [32] Precursors to Presidential BidSee also: Massachusetts United States Senate election, 1996, United States presidential election, 2000 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. Kerry eventually broke the agreement, which led to his win in a very close race, according to Rob Gray, Mr. Weld's campaign spokesman. "John Kerry will abandon his principles to win," he said, and "Weld would have won if Kerry hadn't spent the money over the cap".[21] 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.[citation needed] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
