WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (AFP) - Factfile on Democratic presidential contender John Kerry:
-- Born December 11, 1943 in a military hospital in Denver, Colorado. His father was a diplomat. His mother Rosemary Winthrop was a member of the Forbes family, one of the wealthiest in the United States.
-- Kerry was educated at private schools in Switzerland and New England paid for by a wealthy aunt. He went to Yale University two years ahead of George W. Bush. Both were in the secretive Skull and Bones club at the Connecticut school.
-- The Massachussets senator enjoys snowboarding, windsurfing, motorbikes and in his earlier years flying. In the 1960s, he started an attempt to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge but pulled up before reaching the San Francisco landmark.
-- Kerry volunteered to fight in the Vietnam war after graduating with a law degree in 1966. He was awarded three Purple Hearts for wounds suffered and a Bronze Star and Silver Star for valour.
-- On his return from Vietnam, Kerry joined the anti-war campaign and appeared before a Senate committee to make the now famous challenge: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
-- After a struggle to find a Congress seat, Kerry finally entered the Senate in 1985 and was soon deeply involved in investigations into the Iran Contra arms scandal and drug trafficking accusations against Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
-- Kerry married a first time to Julia Thorne, the twin sister of his then best friend, in 1972. The couple have two daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, but they split in 1982 and divorced four years later.
-- He married for a second time in 1995 to Teresa Heinz, widow of Republican senator H. John Heinz III, the head of the ketchup empire. His wife inherited a fortune and runs a fund worth more than one billion dollars.
-- Kerry's campaigns have not always been successful. In 1996 he had to inject 1.6 million dollars of his own money to ward off a strong Republican challenge to his Senate seat. In 2003 Kerry mortgaged his half share in the family home in Boston to raise more than six million dollars for his then-flagging bid to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
10/31/2004 02:35 GMT - AFP