(8 of 10)
The poem ends:
Beyond all terror, destiny in hand, Over rack and ruin, over black peaks Of rebellion, blood and communist brand, Rules a man whom no Algerian dares Blaspheme or murder--except in his prayers.
It is hard to imagine one boy writing both pieces: the education essay is pinched, passive and overloaded with empty phrases meant to lend it gravitas. The poem, while overwrought, is vivid and compelling, much like Kerry's letters and journals from Vietnam. It's as if there is a person inside Kerry with real, not calculated passion who has been buried by his cautious, public self.
*POLITICS ALL THE TIME
It's 1962, and Kerry is finally in his element. "He loved Yale from the first day we were there," says Barbiero, who also enrolled at Yale. Barbiero recalls walking around campus the first week and listening to Kerry identify the buildings and statues, the lore, the campus legends. "He knew the history of the place already. He just seemed to know where he was, where he was in history, and he wanted to be a part of it." Most important, says Barbiero, Yale was liberating for Kerry. "He became more comfortable with who he was," says his friend.
And he was fresh off a once-in-a-lifetime kind of summer. He had been volunteering on Edward Kennedy's Senate campaign and dating a girl named Janet Auchincloss, who happened to be the half sister of First Lady Jackie Kennedy. It was on a visit to see Auchincloss at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, R.I., that Kerry got to meet President Kennedy, his idol, first at a house party, and later out sailing together to watch the America's Cup.
When Kennedy came to the Yale campus that spring to give a speech, Kerry urged his buddies to go. "That was my first experience with how important all this stuff was to John," says David Thorne, who would become Kerry's close friend, his soccer teammate and eventually his brother-in-law. "He said, 'We have to go. We have to go cheer the President.'" People from that era at Yale say that even before Kerry became president of the political union and a champion college debater, they knew he would run for President one day. A classmate who would not count himself a fan goes so far as to say he remembers attending a party Kerry threw in his freshman dorm and seeing a sign on the door: JFK IN 64; JFK IN 96.
"Impossible," Kerry says flatly, when asked if he remembered any such thing. "I think that's mythology. I mean, it's just one of those things that I keep hearing about or reading about later that is just, you know, mischievous to say the least." Barbiero acknowledges that other kids viewed Kerry's ambition with some disdain. The "problem," says Barbiero, is that Kerry "is so passionate about the issues he believes in. He has a larger share [of passion] than most, and he acts on it. That can turn some people off. People think, 'Who is this guy? Who does he think he is?'" Kerry's admiring biographer, Douglas Brinkley, attributes the likability gap to a "cult of envy" that has persisted throughout Kerry's career.