John Kerry
John Kerry was Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, and a decorated Vietnam veteran who became one of the war's most prominent opponents. Born in Aurora, Colorado in 1943 to a foreign service officer, he was educated partly in Swiss boarding schools and at Yale, where he was in Skull and Bones. He volunteered for the Navy and commanded a swift boat in the Mekong Delta, receiving a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. He returned convinced the war was wrong, joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and in April 1971 testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asking how you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake. He threw ribbons over a fence at the Capitol in protest. He became lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1983 and entered the Senate in 1985, serving twenty-eight years. He investigated the Iran-Contra affair and the BCCI banking scandal, and worked with John McCain on normalising relations with Vietnam and resolving the prisoner-of-war question. He won the 2004 nomination and lost narrowly to George W. Bush, his war record attacked by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose claims were largely discredited but effective enough to add a verb to American politics. As Secretary of State he negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 with Ernest Moniz and Javad Zarif, and was central to the Paris climate accord that December, which he signed holding his granddaughter. He served as the first Special Presidential Envoy for Climate under Joe Biden from 2021 to 2024.
- Lived: 1943 CE – ?
- Nationality: American
- Roles: senator
