A privileged youth, a taste for risk

It was a summer day in 1967. The sky was clear as the Golden Gate Bridge came into view. Kerry clung to the controls of the rented T-34, similar to those used for military training, and the two young Naval officers headed toward the famous span.

The plane jerked and veered. Out on the wing, the feet of an unfortunate seagull stuck out like a scene from a cartoon. Seconds later the scene flipped from Looney Tunes to Alfred Hitchcock, as more birds appeared in front of them. Suck one into an engine and a young pilot's life story could conclude right there: Yale aviator, dreamed of being president, killed on joyride.

Kerry, the son of a World War II test pilot, pulled up the nose of his small plane, ascending beyond the dangerous flock of birds.

"We were worried the wing would come off," Thorne recalled. Instead, Kerry steered the aircraft away from the bridge and toward a nearby airfield, leaving behind whatever stunts were lurking inside his 23-year-old brain.

In the coming years Kerry would take countless risks, most of them more calculated than flying a plane toward the Golden Gate Bridge. But the episode underscores a life lived on the edge, foolhardy daring matched by controlled focus. He is, too, a man defined by inner conflicts: The gung-ho Vietnam hero turned articulate antiwar protester; the shaggy-haired liberal rebel turned feisty prosecutor; a politician whose core beliefs included a skeptical view of government as a result of his combat experience.

The rap on John Kerry is that he is an aloof politician who lacks a core. Part of his personal story feeds the image: Kerry is a man without geographic roots; his youth stretched through a dozen towns across two continents. He enjoyed the cachet of illustrious family names but not always the bonds of a household. By the time he was 10 years old, he was shipped off for an eight-year odyssey at boarding schools in Switzerland and New England, where ``home'' was a dormitory or an aunt's estate.

Among the array of relatives who looked after John, none was more important to his education than great-aunt Clara Winthrop, who had no children of her own. She owned an estate in Manchester-by-the-Sea, complete with a bowling alley inside a red barn. Winthrop offered to pay for much of John's prep school education, an expensive proposition far beyond the means of Kerry's parents. ``It was a great and sweet and nice thing from an aunt who had no place to put [her money],'' Kerry said. Such a gift today might be worth about $30,000 per year, given the school's typical annual cost before subsidies.

``We weren't rich,'' explained Kerry's sister, Diana. ``We certainly had some members of the family we thought of as rich. We were the [beneficiaries] of a great-aunt who had no children. My father was on salary from the State Department, and my mother had some family money but not major.''

In 1957, after his father had become the chief political officer at the US Embassy in Norway, the 13-year-old Kerry entered the Fessenden School in West Newton, Mass. There he began a pattern of filling his family void by forming close friendships with like-minded boys, including Richard Pershing, grandson of the famed US general John Joseph Pershing. Like Kerry, the young Pershing had been educated in Europe; the intertwining of their later lives would leave a deep imprint on Kerry.

After a year at Fessenden, Kerry entered the prestigious St. Paul's School, in Concord, N.H. To step inside the school's campus is to step inside a world that seems frozen in an age of privilege. Much of the 2,000-acre campus, nestled amid white pines along the shores of Turkey Pond, features a neo-Gothic architectural style that echoes Oxford or Cambridge. Meals are served in an Elizabethan-style dining hall with flying buttresses.

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During most of Kerry's years at Yale, 1962 to 1966, his world revolved around his cozy dormitory at Jonathan Edwards College, a Gothic-style quadrangle complex. Kerry lived in a three-room suite, complete with fireplace, along with his roommates, St. Paul's buddy Barbiero and Harvey Bundy, whose uncles William and McGeorge Bundy were part of the Kennedy administration brain trust and among the most aggressive proponents of escalating the US involvement in Vietnam.

When William Bundy, then assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, came to campus to speak in support of US involvement in the Vietnam War, he was greeted as a living legacy to the slain president. After his speech, he visited his nephew's suite and talked with the roommates, including Kerry, into the wee hours of the morning. ``[We were] all drinking beer and sitting around and talking about, you know, Southeast Asia and domino [theories] and war,'' Kerry recalled. Bundy's overriding theme to the young men was this: ``We need you. We need you to go into the officer program and to go to Vietnam.''

The visit nudged the students in the direction of Vietnam. ``I don't know that he was the prime mover in us going,'' added Barbiero, ``but he was certainly an influence. He was an assistant secretary of state.''

As graduation approached, Kerry knew that he had three choices: be drafted, seek a deferment for graduate school, or join up and position himself to become an officer. ``It was clear to me that I was going to be at risk,'' Kerry recalled. ``My draft board . . . said, `Look, the likelihood is you are probably going to be drafted.' I said, `If I'm going to be drafted, I'd like to have responsibility and be an officer.' ''

At the same time, Kerry was losing interest in academics and was ready for adventure. ``I cut classes,'' Kerry said. ``I didn't do much. I spent a lot of time learning to fly.''

Kerry also had political ambitions -- and was aware of how much military service had served John Kennedy's career.

``John would clearly say, `If I could make my dream come true, it would be running for president of the United States,' '' recalled William Stanberry, Kerry's debate team partner for three years. ``It was not a casual interest. It was a serious, stated interest. His lifetime ambition was to be in political office.''

As graduation approached, Kerry knew that he had three choices: be drafted...

I wonder what Kerry would have chosen to do, if he had been looking forward to graduation in 1968 instead of 1966?

Americans suffered over 2X as many casualties per month in early 1968 than in early 1966.

1966 --Jan - 196; Feb - 208; Mar - 231;

1968 -- Jan - 498; Feb - 506; Mar - 515

Deadliest years in Viet Nam

Notice the number of deaths in 1965 (1926 deaths in the year ending 6 months before Kerry's Graduation) as opposed to the number of deaths in 1967 (11,348 deaths in the year ending 6 months before Bush's graduation)

VIETNAM WAR (ranking of the years by deaths)

YEAR -- ALL DEATHS

1968 -- 16,869
1969 -- 11,775
1967 -- 11,348
1966 -- 6,333
1970 -- 6,164
1971 -- 2,413
1965 -- 1,926
1972 had far fewer deaths because US troops were pulled from the field by August

Service in Viet Nam looked much less dangerous when Kerry was deciding what to do when he graduated.

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