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John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the
junior United States Senator from
Massachusetts, in his fourth term of office. 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. He is a Vietnam Veteran, and was a spokesman for
Vietnam Veterans Against the War when he returned home from service.
Before entering Senate, he served as a District Attorney and Lt. Governor of Massachusetts under Michael Dukakis, also a future Democratic Presidential nominee.
Family history and childhood years
John Forbes Kerry was born in Fitzsimons Army Hospital in
Aurora, Colorado, outside Denver,[1] where his father,
Richard Kerry, a Second World War Army Air Corps test pilot, had been undergoing treatment for
tuberculosis.[2] Kerry's family returned to their home state of Massachusetts two months after his birth.
Family background
Kerry 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 years
Kerry has said that his first memory is from when he was three years old, of holding his crying mother's hand while they
walked through the broken glass and rubble of her childhood home in Saint-Briac,
France. This visit came 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.
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. Massachusetts' senior senator
Ted Kennedy also attended the Fessenden School, although several years prior to Kerry.
The following year, he enrolled at St. Paul's School in
Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from there in 1962. Kerry learned skills in
public speaking and began developing interest in politics. In his free time, he enjoyed ice hockey and lacrosse, which he played on teams captained by classmate Robert S. Mueller
III, the current director of the FBI. Kerry also played
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][2] 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.[2]
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."[7]
Over four years, Kerry maintained a 76 grade average and received an 81 average in his senior year.[8] 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 United States Navy Reserve 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.[6] 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 Gridley
On February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the Naval
Reserve.[9] 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. [10][11]
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."[12] 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."[13] 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.[12]
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.[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 honors
During the night of December 2, 1968 and early morning of
December 3, 1968, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating
near a peninsula north of Cam Ranh Bay together with a Swift boat (PCF-60). According to
Kerry and the two crewmen who accompanied him that night, Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis, they surprised a group of men
unloading sampans at a river crossing, who began running and failed to obey an order to stop. As
the men fled, Kerry and his crew opened fire on the sampans and destroyed them, then rapidly left. During this encounter, Kerry
received a minor wound in the left arm above the elbow. It was for this injury that Kerry received his first Purple Heart.[15]
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.[16] 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.[17][18]
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 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.[19][20][21]
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.[22]
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.[23]
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.[24]
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 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.[25]
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.[26] Kerry had agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation from December 1969 to August 1970 in
order to perform Swift Boat duty [27][28] , 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 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. Kerry 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 awards
-
As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 200 Vietnam veterans formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), subsequently renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which held press conferences, ran ads and endorsed a book
questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards. Defenders of John Kerry's war record asserted that some organizers of
SBVT had close ties to the Bush presidential campaign and that SBVT's accusations were politically motivated and false.
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,[29] VVAW was considered by some (including the administration of President Richard Nixon) to be an effective, if controversial, component of the antiwar movement. [citation needed]
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 U.S. Navy Reserve, holding the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade. Wearing green fatigues and service ribbons, he spoke for nearly two hours with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in what has been named the
Fulbright Hearing, after the Chairman of the proceedings, Senator J.W. Fulbright.
Kerry began with a prepared speech, in which he presented the conclusions of the Winter
Soldier Investigation, and then went on to address larger policy issues.
The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with 800 other veterans in which he and other veterans
threw their medals and ribbons over a fence 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, 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." [30] The documentary
film Sir! No Sir! includes archival footage of Kerry at the demonstration: he is one of
several young men seen throwing things over the fence.
Media appearances
Because Kerry was a decorated veteran who took a stand against the government's official position, he was frequently
interviewed by broadcast and print media. He was able to use these occasions to bring the themes of his Senate testimony to a
wider audience.
For example, Kerry appeared more than once on The Dick Cavett Show on
ABC television. On one Cavett program (June
30, 1971), in debating John O'Neill,
Kerry argued that some of the policies instituted by the U.S. military leaders in Vietnam, such as free-fire zones and burning noncombatants' houses, were contrary to the laws of war. In the Washington Star newspaper
(June 6, 1971), he recounted how he and other Swift boat officers
had become disillusioned by the contrast between what the leaders told them and what they saw: "That's when I realized I could
never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam."
On NBC's Meet The Press in 1971, Kerry was asked
whether he had personally committed atrocities in Vietnam. He responded:
- "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as
thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and
interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against
people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare,
all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the
government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free
fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law,
the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals."
Operation POW
Kerry's prominence also made him a frequent leader and spokesman at antiwar events around the country in 1971. One of
particular note was Operation POW, organized by the VVAW in Massachusetts. The protest got its name from the group's concern that
Americans were prisoners of the Vietnam War, as well as to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam.
The event sought to tie antiwar activism to patriotic themes. Over the Memorial Day
weekend, veterans and other participants marched from Concord to a rally on
Boston Common. The plan was to invoke the spirit of the American Revolution and Paul Revere by spending successive
nights at the sites of the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the
Battle of Bunker Hill, culminating in a Memorial Day rally with a public reading
of the Declaration of Independence.
The second night of the march, May 29, 1971, was the occasion
for Kerry's only arrest, when the participants tried to camp on the village green in Lexington. At 2:30 a.m. on May 30, 1971, local and state police awoke and arrested 441 demonstrators, including Kerry, for trespassing. All were given
the Miranda Warning and were hauled away on school buses to spend the night at the
Lexington Public Works Garage. Kerry and the other protesters later paid a $5 fine, and were released. The mass arrests caused a
community backlash and ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.[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 Congress
In February 1972, after Kerry previously passed on an opportunity to run in another district, his wife, Julia bought a house in Worcester. Residence there would
have required Kerry to run for Congress against an incumbent
Democrat, Harold D. Donohue.
Instead however, the couple rented an apartment in Lowell. The incumbent in that
district, F. Bradford Morse, was a Republican who was thought to be retiring.
Counting Kerry, the Democratic primary race in 1972 had 10 candidates. One of these was State Representative Anthony R. DiFruscia of Lawrence. Both Kerry's and
DiFuscia's campaign 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.[31]
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. 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.[32]
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[citation needed]. 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.[33]
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 Senate
The junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas, announced in 1984 that he
would be stepping down for health reasons. Kerry decided to run for the seat. As in his 1982 race for Lieutenant Governor, he did
not receive the endorsement of the party regulars at the state Democratic convention. Again as in 1982, however, he prevailed in
a close primary. In his campaign he promised to mix liberalism with tight budget controls. As the Democratic candidate he was
elected to the Senate despite a nationwide landslide for the re-election of Republican president Ronald Reagan, 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)
An earlier Senate portrait of Kerry
See also: Legislation sponsored by John 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.[34]
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 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 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."[35]
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."[36]
