John Kerry

U.S. Senator

John Kerry is a United States senator from Massachusetts and was the Democratic candidate for president in 2004. Kerry graduated from Yale University in 1966 and joined the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He won the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Kerry returned to the U.S. as an outspoken opponent of the war, earning national attention for his testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971. He attended Boston College Law School and worked as a prosecuting attorney in Middlesex County, Massachusetts before jumping into politics. After two years as Lieutenant Governor, Kerry was elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 1984, and he's been there ever since. (Kerry is Massachusetts' junior senator; Ted Kennedy entered the Senate in 1962.) In the election of 2004 Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, lost to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Extra credit: Kerry married his second wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, in 1995. She is the widow of H. John Heinz III, who served as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania from 1977 until his death in a plane crash in 1991... Kerry's first wife was the former Julia Thorne, whom he married in 1970. The couple separated in 1982, and their divorce became final in 1988. The marriage was annulled by the Catholic Church in 1997. They have two children: Alexandra (b. 1973) and Vanessa (b. 1976)... Kerry is no relation to former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, who also served in Vietnam and lost part of his leg to a grenade wound.

Kerry joins Howard Dean in our special report on Candidates 2004.