John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry dated Janet Auchincloss, the half-sister of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, when he was at Yale University.

In 1970, he married writer Julia Stimson Thorne and the couple had two daughters together—Alexandra Forbes Kerry, who was born on September 5, 1973, and Vanessa Bradford Kerry, who was born on December 31, 1976. While Alexandra is a documentary filmmaker, Vanessa is a physician and health care administrator.

Kerry and Julia divorced in 1988. Julia eventually re-married Richard Charlesworth, an architect, and settled in Montana. She died of cancer in 2006.

John Forbes Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado, on December 11, 1943 to Richard John Kerry, a Foreign Service officer and lawyer, and Rosemary Isabel Forbes, a nurse and social activist. He has three siblings—elder sister Margaret, younger sister Diana, and younger brother Cameron.

When his father was discharged from the Army Air Corps, his family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1949, and Richard became a diplomat in the State Department's Bureau of United Nations Affairs.

During his school days, Kerry was very religious and was an altar boy at one point of time. He prayed all the time and thought that he would become a priest.

He attended the Fessenden School in Newton, Massachusetts, and later went to St. Paul's boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire as his father was posted at the US Embassy in Oslo, Norway at that time. At St. Paul's he started developing an interest in politics. He founded the John Winant Society at St. Paul's, which still exists today.

In 1962, he joined the Yale University and graduated in 1966 with a bachelor's degree in political science. At Yale, he played on the varsity Yale Bulldogs Men's soccer team. He also played hockey and took flying classes.

John Forbes Kerry, a Democrat, made his first attempt to enter politics in 1972, but failed to acquire a seat in the Congress. He was upset with his setback and had to figure out how to make a living outside politics.

He joined the Boston College Law School in 1973, and simultaneously worked as a radio host on WBZ. In 1974, he became the executive director of Mass Action, an advocacy association in Massachusetts.

He received his Juris Doctor from Boston College in 1976, and entered the Massachusetts bar in the same year. Immediately, he became a full-time prosecutor in the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County, John J. Droney. A year later, he was promoted to First Assistant District Attorney.

He quit his job in 1979 and departed with his assistant DA Roanne Sragow to set up their own law firm. Simultaneously, he worked as a commentator for WCVB-TV and co-founded the Kilvert & Forbes bakery with businessman K. Dun Gifford.

In 1982, when incumbent Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts Thomas P. O'Neill III refused to run for a third term, Kerry declared his candidacy, and won the nomination with 325,890 votes. He served as the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts under Michael Dukakis.

John Kerry has always been concerned about the global environment. In April 2016, he signed the Paris Climate Accords at the United Nations. In November 2016, he visited the Antarctica and held meetings with researchers. This made him the first US Secretary of State to do so.

In September 2015, he initiated the policy called ‘Global Connect’ that promises to provide internet access to over 1.5 billion people across the world by 2020.

Kerry’s meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was significant as it was for the first time in years that such high-ranking officials from the US and Iran were meeting to talk. This also helped the US and Iran to reach an agreement in which Iran pledged to curb its uranium program.