by John Kerry
Coincidentally, I was due to make a presentation the next morning before the daily post-chapel school assembly, arguing the case for Kennedy while my schoolmate class president Lloyd Macdonald was going to speak for Nixon. There may have been all of twenty-five Democrats at St. Paul’s, and the straw poll taken after our presentations was lopsidedly for Nixon, but we Democrats were, nevertheless, a stalwart, determined lot. My Democratic bona fides had been forged in 1952, when I dutifully followed my sister Peggy around Georgetown while she went door-to-door carrying a cup, collecting contributions for Adlai Stevenson. If my older sister was a Democrat, then I was a Democrat at age nine. I believe both my mother and father approved, he quietly since he was at the State Department. But I liked Jack Kennedy and I didn’t trust Richard Nixon even back then. I felt he was shallow and opportunistic.
With a quick decision, I purposefully missed the train and spent time soaking in the atmosphere and, most important, collecting literature that enabled me to write my speech for the next morning while traveling back to Concord. Unfortunately, the candidate was delayed and I had to leave for school before he spoke, but I have always felt it was special to be there, to feel the extraordinary excitement and pride of Massachusetts in that historic rally.
My final months at St. Paul’s were spent luxuriating in the warm spring of New Hampshire while awaiting word on admission to college. Most of my family, over many years, had attended Harvard. The notable exception in this lucky line was my father and his older brother, who were Yalies. I hoped to go to Yale because I didn’t want to be quite so close to home, and when I visited the campus, it just felt right. I was excited when Yale chose me as well. It made the last months at St. Paul’s completely carefree. My classmate Lewis Rutherfurd and I served as proctors for fourth formers in one of the small dormitory houses. When graduation finally arrived, he and Peter Wyeth Johnson took off with me to Bermuda, where we served as crew for my dad’s last leg of his transatlantic sailing voyage back to Newport. It was a wonderful ending to the constraints of boarding school and opening to the freedom of college.
• • •
WELL BEFORE PRESIDENT Kennedy was elected in November 1960, it was evident to anyone following politics in Massachusetts that Ted Kennedy, the youngest of the three living brothers, was destined to run for Jack’s Senate seat. “Destined” is probably a soft word. It was ordained and organized. It was really not a choice. It was what Teddy had to do and no doubt wanted to do. He was the easiest, most natural politician of the three brothers. Naturally gregarious, outgoing, he thought nothing of charging up a room or a crowd by bursting into a rousing rendition of “Molly Malone” or “My Wild Irish Rose.” He loved a good story, a good laugh, always tried to find a way not to take things too seriously but could bear down with amazing discipline when the moment called for it. He worked as hard as anyone around him.
The race pitted two extraordinary Irish families and political dynasties against each other. In the summer after my graduation from high school and before heading off to college, I volunteered for the Kennedy campaign. He was running against Edward McCormack, the Massachusetts attorney general and nephew of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. I started working regularly at the Tremont Street headquarters in Boston. Not to be outdone, the McCormack campaign rented an office building only a few doors down—the two biggest political families duking it out on the biggest commercial street in the city. It was a race with big stakes and national focus.
I threw myself into the campaign with all the energy and enthusiasm of an eighteen-year-old free from books and exams and about to enter the great adventure of college. Everything was new and fresh. In the beginning I worked like every other volunteer, addressing envelopes, stuffing mail, collecting signatures, running errands, sometimes pounding out hours working at one of the tables in the first-floor main entrance room. Over time I got to know some of the regular staff, particularly Terri Haddad, who worked near the volunteers on the first floor; Eddie Martin, the press secretary; Albie Cullen, who ran the volunteers; and even Ted Kennedy’s brother-in-law Stephen Smith, who was basically running the show. At this early time all of these folks loomed large in the organization and seemed out of reach to the average volunteer, a category I fell into for sure, but over time, by working hard, being present and getting odd tasks done, I earned some measure of trust. I think during the whole course of the campaign I probably shook Ted’s hand and said hello two or three times. I doubt very much that he remembered me at all, but that’s the nature of campaigns.
In a very strange juxtaposition of my life outside the campaign with my life inside it, I actually spent more time with the president of the United States, Ted’s brother John F. Kennedy, than I did with the candidate I was working for. That first meeting came about in the oddest way. Janet Auchincloss, Jackie Kennedy’s half sister, had become a friend of mine. I met her through my roommate at St. Paul’s, who had dated her for a while, but they had broken up—at least temporarily. Janet invited me to the family home, Hammersmith Farm in Newport, during the summer, and it turned out to be a weekend when President Kennedy was visiting to watch the America’s Cup yacht races.
I remember driving down from Boston and stopping to make a phone call to tell Janet I was running late. Janet said I should hurry up because the president wanted to go out sailing and they were waiting for me to arrive. What?! The president of the United States is waiting for this wide-eyed, green young volunteer in his brother’s campaign? Can’t be. . . . But I got back in the car, floored it and drove like a madman, figuring that if I got stopped I would try to make the police officer believe I was going sailing with the president. If I was pulled over, I was sure to end up in the loony bin.
I arrived at the imposing driveway to Hammersmith Farm where, believe it or not, a single Secret Service guy waved me through. I drove up to the front door under the covered entryway and told one other Secret Service agent who I was and then walked into the house—no identification requested, nothing.
There was no one in the large foyer, but off to the right I could see someone in white pants and a blue polo shirt standing by the large dining room windows with a glorious view down the lawn to the water and the narrow spit that marks the entrance into Narragansett Bay and Newport. The person turned around and walked toward me, hand outstretched to say hello. It was President Kennedy. I reached out and said, “Hello, Mr. Kennedy.” I did not know to call him “Mr. President.” That’s how fresh and naive I was. He didn’t flinch but said, “Hi,” and asked me what I was up to. I told him, “I’m working for your brother in the Senate race.” He said, “That’s terrific—I think it’s going pretty well,” or something close to that. Then he said, “Where are you going to college?” I told him Yale and rolled my eyes with a laugh as if to excuse myself that it wasn’t Harvard. He smiled and without missing a beat said, “Oh, that’s okay—I’m a Yale man myself now.” He had just received his honorary degree at Yale and made his famous comment: “I now have the best of two worlds—a Harvard education and a Yale degree.”
To this day I am grateful for the conversation we had and for the grace and ease the president showed to this young volunteer and friend of a relative of his. We spent a memorable afternoon on the Coast Guard yawl sailing around Narragansett Bay. I sat in the cockpit, eating lunch with the president, soaking in the conversation about politics, issues and the world. The president clearly reveled in the peacefulness of the moment. He lay in the sun, smoked a cigar and occasionally sat on the foredeck alone, thinking about God knows what. Later that day we enjoyed a wonderful dinner with the members of the family and then sat in the living room with music playing, some dancing and lots of conversation.
Still later, when I went back to the front office of the campaign, I had a story I was sure I couldn’t share with anyone because, first, they probably wouldn’t believe me, and second, if they did, I knew it would create a barrier between me and the folks I was working with. It was an unexpect
ed early lesson that sometimes life puts you in situations you are just better off not talking about—they are meant for you and you alone.
One of the places I never talked about a lot was a blessing hard to describe and a privilege difficult for many to digest. I was introduced to it at three years old and it would play a key role in my life—Naushon Island. Naushon is one of the five Elizabeth Islands including Penikese Island, in Buzzards Bay off the south coast of Massachusetts. Starting at Woods Hole, situated off the mainland of Upper Cape Cod, Naushon, seven miles long and a mile and a half wide, is the first island of the five, running west from there to the small island of Pasque, then Nashawena, Cuttyhunk, where there is a small town with a few year-round residents, and, finally, Penikese. John Murray Forbes purchased Naushon in 1843 (Pasque and Nashawena followed later), and ever since then, it has been a summer gathering spot for the extended Forbes family. My mother was a goddaughter of J. M. Forbes’s direct descendant William Cameron Forbes (my grandfather’s cousin after whom my brother, Cam, was named) and a distant cousin herself, so we were incredibly lucky to be able to rent one house or another of the few houses built for summer occupation at the eastern end of the island. Most of the island remains as shaped by Mother Nature, with the guiding hands and labor of Forbes work parties that clear roads, cut back catbrier and act as extraordinary stewards of history. The lion’s share of my initial passion for the environment, my involvement with the oceans and climate change, comes from lessons I learned on Naushon, the example I saw of the Forbes family’s commitment to preserve and conserve. My mother instilled in all of us not just appreciation for the beauty and mystery of wilderness, but a deep sense of responsibility to care for it. Naushon remains an extraordinary example of responsible stewardship.
It also was—and remains—a paradise for kids. There are no cars on the island. No paved roads. Only several dirt and sand roads extending the length of the island or winding through glens and fields. There is a farm with a tractor, truck and maintenance vehicle. During our early years, there were hundreds of sheep being raised on the island. Every August there would be an enormous sheep drive from the west end of the island to the farm on the east so the sheep could be shorn. It was an island-wide activity, but you had to be twelve years old to qualify for this big event called a “sheeping.” Today there is a hugely reduced, small herd of sheep, because coyotes found their way to the island and decimated the herd.
Naushon remains a place of rare beauty. The light is magical. The painter Jamie Wyeth once visited and raved to me about the quality of the light. Around every corner there is an island secret—a tree with a name, an old graveyard, a stunning beach, a grove of birches, a pasture full of horses, sheep wandering a field, a bridge over an estuary with a massive current running under it.
Throughout history, remarkable people have passed through as guests of the family. Presidents Ulysses Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Bill Clinton all visited and all left hats behind, which still reside on the island. Emperor Akihito, then crown prince of Japan, came in September of 1953. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s daughter married John Murray Forbes’s son. Oliver Wendell Holmes visited and wrote an original poem in the guest book. Herman Melville . . . Indeed, countless artists, authors, philosophers, raconteurs, musicians and military men have spent time on the island. After World War I, General Black Jack Pershing wrote his official report on the war while staying as a guest of William Cameron Forbes at Mansion House.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who led the first all-black regiment during the Civil War, spent time at Naushon and famously wrote during the war how much he wished he could be on the island at Christmastime. Soon after this letter, he was killed leading his men in an assault at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.
Visiting Naushon was a gigantic and magical step back in time. Arriving by boat from Woods Hole, family and guests would be greeted at the dock by a collection of horses and carriages waiting to take baggage and passengers to the houses. That sight alone was enough to slow the pace of life and invite you into another world. For me and my cousins, it was a place to be safe, to be free to roam, create adventures and revel in summer. We kids would walk around for a month without wearing shoes, unless we rode horses or went to the mainland to shop. We sailed, swam, caught shrimp, dug clams, collected mussels, fished, hiked, picnicked, sang at bonfires, played charades and capture the flag, aquaplaned, water-skied, raced model boats, cleared brush, jumped off a bridge into the racing current, did treasure hunts, listened to scary ghost stories from older cousins—there was limitless testing of the imagination—especially in a world without television, which it was and, for the most part, still is. As I said—paradise on earth.
CHAPTER 2
Bright College Years
I ARRIVED IN NEW Haven in my 1962 Volkswagen Beetle—the beautiful original—chockablock full of the stuff you think you need but could do without. Driving an early Bug was a unique experience. With its tiny cockpit and front end sloping away from you, it felt like an overpowered toy, leaving little between you and the road—or trucks—in front of you. It was like driving an expanded go-kart, which is why it was fun. The trip to New Haven was an exercise in momentum management. I would floor the accelerator the minute I hit the Massachusetts Turnpike and, except for the most urgent traffic situation, basically not let it off the floor until the exit for New Haven. Sometimes you felt like you needed to get out and push the car up a hill, but it was reliable and affordable. I am grateful I never tested the crash resistance.
I unloaded the car amid the chaos of parents and furniture moving onto the Old Campus, where all the freshmen lived. I was assigned to Bingham Hall, with an entryway opposite the statue of Nathan Hale, a reminder to all the hazards of rebellions. I met up with my roommate, Dan Barbiero, a friend already from St. Paul’s. Danny and I remained together as roommates throughout Yale and we have remained lifelong friends.
A steady, calm soul, Dan was a great check on some of my enthusiasm. He had grown up in North Valley Stream, Long Island, a member of a proud and close-knit Italian American family. His father was a wonderful, engaging patriarch who had worked through the labyrinth of New York politics from assemblyman to district court judge. Danny was musically gifted and had won a coveted place in the St. Thomas Choir School—a forty-boy school for St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He sang in the choir there as both he and I did at St. Paul’s. He was also a talented pianist who could play almost anything by ear. I remember he would sit for hours at the piano in the Jonathan Edwards Common Room, playing for his own pleasure. After Yale, and after the Marines and Vietnam, where he served with distinction, he took time off to decompress, during which he spent a few years working as a recording engineer in New York City, where he recorded Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions and John Lennon’s Mind Games before going on to a successful career in real estate and finance.
Freshman year flashed by. The transition from St. Paul’s was seamless. I was used to a campus and to making choices about study and play. I joined a few extracurricular activities, enjoyed the parties, learned how to make the most of weekends and occasionally studied. Sadly, I was not a hugely motivated student at that point in my life and I’m definitely not proud of that. Someone should have kicked me in the butt to remind me why I was there, but no one did. I have often wondered why I was so indifferent to the academic opportunity of Yale.
At one time I blamed it on St. Paul’s but, on reflection, that wasn’t fair. I think I just needed a strong mentor who would motivate and inspire me early on to understand and value the importance, immediacy and excitement of history or literature that seems so obvious and compelling now. Today I can’t read enough or narrow down my ever-growing list of books to be read. It’s particularly fun to pick up a book first read long ago and now notice things I missed previously or even understand better themes that once seemed remote or incomprehensible. The virtues of age and experience.
Nowadays, I find myself dueling with the
crush of time and the desire to know more than I do. I see and feel connections to history and life that I never felt while at Yale. I know that’s not unusual. What I too often saw as a chore back then, I now see as a window on the world that those college years always were, an invaluable insight into human behavior that is timeless and fascinating. I would have been the perfect candidate for what is now called a “gap” year. I kick myself to think that the time I now steal to spend luxuriating and learning by reading books and articles was available to me every day of those four years. It wasn’t until law school that my brain really switched on and I began to learn to think.
In October of freshman year, President Kennedy came to town to give a speech literally just outside our room on the New Haven Green. He was campaigning for Senator Abe Ribicoff and the Democratic ticket, helping the powerful party boss John Bailey deliver the state. We gathered on the green to listen to the speech. The president mounted a podium just below our building and spoke, the familiar accent filling the speakers, drowning out a few Republican hecklers. One heckler particularly caught my attention. I went over to ask him to quiet down and saw Danny standing with him. Danny introduced me to Harvey Bundy, nephew of McGeorge “Mac” Bundy, President Kennedy’s national security advisor, and Bill Bundy, the assistant secretary of state for Far East affairs. Evidently Harvey came from the sole Republican wing of the family. I confess I was momentarily annoyed, but it was quickly forgotten.
Harvey became a close friend of Danny’s and mine. We drafted him to be our third roommate for the next year when we moved into Jonathan Edwards College. Harvey hailed from Manchester, Massachusetts, where his family had resided for several generations. Unlike the majority of our class, Harvey seemed to have come to Yale knowing exactly what he wanted to do in life. He was whip smart, great with numbers and already tracking a career in business. I was always impressed by how clear Harvey was about the road he was on and how disciplined he was in pursuit of his choices. No surprise, he met his wife-to-be, Blakely, freshman year. He knew almost immediately—or so it seemed—this was the person for him. They pretty much moved in together—as much as one could or did back then—so that in effect there were four roommates, three from Yale and one from Wheaton. Harvey and Blakely married right after our June graduation in August 1966. That fall, the newlyweds headed off to Tuck Business School at Dartmouth, and from there, they moved to Chicago, where Blakely was raised. Harvey eventually became the chief analyst for William Blair and Company in Chicago, where he and Blakely live to this day, reveling in their grandchildren.
