John Kerry

John Kerry is the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. He has been a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for 19 years, and currently serves as its chairman. Since his election to the Senate in 1984, he has also served on the Committee on Finance and the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and has chaired the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. In 2004, Kerry won the Democratic Party nomination for president. Prior to serving in the Senate, he was a prosecutor in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1982. Between 1966 and 1970, he served two tours of duty in Vietnam as an officer of the US Navy, an experience that has inspired his lifelong advocacy for veterans. He is the author, most recently, of This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future (with Teresa Heinz Kerry, 2007). He is a graduate of Yale University and Boston College Law School.