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In 1963 John Kerry moved in at the Jonathan Edwards campus. He had two roommates. The first was his buddy Daniel Barbiero, with whom he roomed at St. Paul's. The second was Harvey Bundy, a nephew of the famed Bundy brothers of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, William and McGeorge Bundy- two of the key architects of U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War. William Bundy would eventually become a focus in the Kerry's anger over the war.
Kerry could burn out his roommates with energy. He was often up until 5:00 in the morning, so they gave him his own bedroom with Barbiero and Bundy sharing the other one. Kerry was on the soccer and hockey teams. But his main interest was politics, continuing the discussion that began around the dinner table when he was seven years old in Washington and that continued through Berlin and St. Paul's.
Kerry was viewed as having political ambitions, and indeed presidential ambitions. Some turned this into a joke, playing a kazoo version of "Hail to the Chief" whenever Kerry appeared. But for every classmate that thought Kerry was full of himself, there were plenty who believed he had the desire and intellect to become senator or president.
Kerry fueled his beliefs by spending much of his time as a leader of the debate team and president of the famed Yale Political Union. Kerry chose to represent what the union called the Liberal Party all four years. He was treasurer of the Young Democrats.
The Political Union not only gave Kerry a chance to deliver speeches but also to listen to some of the leading political figures of the day. Much of Kerry's political and decision making style stems from his membership in the union and the debate team. Senate aides would later say Kerry's habit of walking onto the Senate floor without telling them how he would vote stems from his years of being asked to argue both sides of an issue.
By all accounts, Kerry was a champion debater. Kerry and his partner, William B. Stanberry Jr. entered a debate challenge against a McGill University team in Montreal. The Yale duo won by a stunning vote from a Canadian audience of 250 to 1. Kerry and Stanberry went on to win against a combined British Universities team in which Kerry defended the purpose of the United Nations.
Kerry was famous for engaging classmates in debate on any topic. He was not apt to settle for discussion of sports or girls. He wanted a boxing match. One such encounter took place with George W. Bush. Kerry's close friend David Thorne was with Kerry on that day and described the encounter.
Thorne said, Bush who was two years younger than than Kerry, was known around Yale as someone who tried to present himself as the Ultimate Texan. Even though Bush went to Phillips Academy in Andover Mass. for prep school and spent alot of his younger years in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, he had disdained Eastern Establishment types. At the time Bush's father lost a U.S. Senate bid, but the younger Bush expressed no interest in politics. On the day Bush met Kerry the two had a discussion about busing. Court cases involving school integration were in the news by 1965. Bush engaged Kerry, Thorne recalled. Thorne said "I remember fairly vividly, they were having the conversation about busing. John had been participating in some busing stuff, but George was very conservatively placed and thought it was crazy." Bush was always saying Kerry was crazy.
Political differences aside, George W. Bush followed Kerry into the Skull and Bones two years later. You could not apply to be a member. It worked like this: Each year, the fifteen members of Skull and Bones-all of whom are seinors-would pick fifteen members from a thousand in the junior class to replace them. The incoming fifteen often would not know each other but were expected to become friends, then lifelong friends. Everything discussed was suppose to be secret.
Skull and Bones was Founded in 1832. It was created by Willian H. Russell, whose family wealth came from opium business, according to Secrets of the Tomb, an extensive history society by Alexanra Robbinns. Skull and Bones had changed much since it's founding, but Robbins contended that it is batison for elites, dominated by a small group including the Bush, Bundy, Harrison, and Taft families. Some of the Bonesmen in the Class of 1966, familiar with some of the wild stories about their society said many of them are exaggerated or flatly untrue.
For the Bonesmen of 1966, a major attraction was that the society provided a outlet for spending hours discussing the personal as well as the political. It was not surprising Kerry would be among the Bonesmen. The debate champion, the soccer and hockey player, the descendant of the Winthrop's and the Forbes, it was perceived as a done deal. Most of the Bonesmen had significant financial status: inheritances or trust funds expected upon graduation. Although some may have thought Kerry had wealth, he was not picked on the basis of money. His great-aunt Clara paid for his education.
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