I flew to Nantucket on a July 4th weekend to meet John Kerry for the first time. His press secretary said I ha

d half an hour and no more. During the short flight I wondered what could possibly be accomplished in such a brief encounter. Not being of a political persuasion, I knew little of the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts. So to have an intelligent interview with such a figure, a politician that's even been said to have presidential aspirations, was indeed out of my league.

The first time I came across John Kerry's name was at my desk. A written gift subscription card for "Senator John Kerry" was mailed in from a person by the name of T. Heinz. There was a little note of compliment to the magazine on the side of this card, which was naturally brought to my attention. At the time, our Premier Issue had just been launched and any recognition was a welcome boost.

A few years went by and I saw the headline in a Boston paper describing the marriage of a Senator John Kerry to a wealthy Republican woman by the name of Teresa Heinz. While it had been three years since the gift subscription, I thought a letter acknowledging the kind note might bring about an interesting story on the couple. [After all, wouldn't you be dying to know whether that gift subscription to American Windsurfer was the arrow that caught the Senator's heart?]

Another year passed before I wrote the letter but within a few weeks, Senator Kerry's press secretary called and said that the Senator was open for a possible interview. Still, four months flew by before an opening cleared and schedules were coordinated for a meeting on Nantucket.

In the mean time, I had quietly geared up for the meeting and began telling people about the possible interview. Surprisingly almost everyone I spoke to knew a little bit about John Kerry. Those who had an opinion painted a distinct picture. Comments such as "We fought against Seabrook Nuclear Plant and Kerry was the only one who listened." or "Kerry took a very unpopular position on the Vietnamese Commandos and fought for their rights and their compensations - because it was the right thing to do." The more I came to know about Kerry, the more I sensed an interesting story. That morning, I wondered - "How can I possibly do it in a half hour?"

I drove up the short driveway of Teresa Heinz's understated Nantucket beach house still smarting from the $138 a day car rental. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a windsurfing sail make its way out of the garage. I studied the sail; it was a high performance rig fitted with carbon booms and mast. I had wondered how good a windsurfer Kerry was and this immaculate equipment gave me a good inkling. I followed the sail and when it came off the man's head, I instantly recognized the thick gray hair and the distinct seafaring profile of a distant descendant of a family once involved in the China Trade and the early beginnings of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

He saw me, smiled and called out "John!" To which I hailed, "John! You're a real boardhead!" We shook hands and surprisingly, his left hand reached up grabbed the back of my neck and said, "You betcha! Baby!" In that instant, I felt the embrace of friendship and became more interested in windsurfing with this man than conducting an interview with a Senator. ['Course the twenty knot wind blowing that morning was also very persuasive.] Kerry alluded to the fact that these were his last days of freedom and how dearly he cherished them. He told me of his desire to master the laydown jibe which prompted me to say, "Well! Let's go sailing!"

We sailed for two windy days on that Nantucket visit and since that weekend, Kerry and I managed to sail in Hood River, Oregon, San Francisco, Naushon, and most recently in Aruba. Each time, our schedules provided a narrow window of opportunity and amazingly, every time-the wind blew!

I went to Nantucket on a Sunday morning to interview the Senator and once again, the wind came up and we blew off the interview in favor of sailing. A week later, on June 11th, I flew to Washington hoping and determined that I would wrap up this fascinating and year long project. Incredibly, the next morning the Senator and I did sit down in his hideaway office in the Capitol building, away from the raging political demands. Here, far from the temptations of sailing, we finally put words to tape.

THE INTERVIEW
Part I

AMERICAN WINDSURFER: Let's talk about leadership. Is it possible to have a leader that can make a difference in today's political climate?

JOHN FORBES KERRY: Clearly leaders can always make a difference in whatever level of society they are in. Leaders are very, very important. But I think that there are greater limitations today at the national level. In our national politics it is difficult for one person to make the kind of difference that some people seem to anticipate. That doesn't mean that you can't make a difference. I wouldn't be in this business if I didn't think that as a Senator, you can lead and you can make a difference. One can, and I try. Sometimes you're successful and sometimes you flop right on your face, but the important thing is that you tried. I think that right across the board, I think that yeah, Clinton has made a difference in a lot of things. I think that Bush made a difference. His leadership in Desert Storm was terrific in my judgement. It was significant and he made a difference. The answer is yes, of course. You can make a difference.

AW: Would you say with all the problems we face in the country and the breakdown in morality at the highest level, that the country would seek an exceptional leader?

JK: Well, I'm not talking about one leader and I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to make any assumptions about my capacity or anybody else's capacity to do that. That's not where I'm coming from. I think that what I am talking about are changes that are going to take a broad coalition. It is going to take a lot of people stepping up to bat. My job is to try to put [the issues] on the table and to try to make sure that it is in our dialogue here in Washington as well as the dialogue of the country. I have no illusions of these battles being a one-person thing. It doesn't work that way. We've got to create coalitions and we have to create consensus and work with that. That's the role of a leader.

AW: But people are looking around and asking, "Who is the person who can put all these things together?" I recently read that Senator Ted Kennedy claimed you would be a great choice for the Democratic presidential candidate. Newsweek did an article and prominently positioned you, even though you were a long shot. They claimed you had the capacity to surprise. It was clear they seemed interested in you. What do you say to that?

JK: Well first of all, I am grateful to my colleague [Senator Kennedy] for his kind thoughts. He has fought as many battles as anyone in this country.

AW: The fact that he has gone out on the limb and taken such a position is notable.

JK: Well, I think he is very generous in his assessment of my ability to be able to mount a candidacy if I chose to. But whether the time is now or not is something I have to make a judgement about.

But I think what is important is not to be lured into believing that the mere mentioning is sufficient to make a candidacy or to put you where you need to be. I think there is a lot of preparation, a considerable amount of thought about the agenda that must be processed before you can make any judgement about a national race.

I have seen people who haven't done that and found it very difficult to achieve a platform. So, my intention is to be thoughtful about it and approach it in a sensible way that isn't so much influenced by what I hear people say but influenced by what I deem to be the national dynamic, as well as my own personal assessment of the agenda that I have to offer to that dynamic.

AW: It would seem that the national dynamic is one that would clearly need somebody who can come in and really give a sense of leadership.

JK: Sure. Absolutely! People want something clear, something truthful, something . . .

AW: It seems like a lot of fingers are starting to point at you and, and maybe you are sitting back and saying, 'Well, I don't know.'

JK: No, I'm not sitting back and saying I don't know. There's no I don't know in this. It's just a process of thinking it through and the timing is not correct to make that judgment now. I want to wait until after the 98 elections. I have things that I specifically need to do in terms of issues as well as retiring the debt from my last [Senate] campaign. I also want to be talking to people and getting a good sense of the cross section of views. I don't think you can make the decision overnight.

AW: Clearly on the Democratic side of the fence people are looking around.

JK: Yeah, I think they are looking around. But some of that is looking for a race. People like the contest, people like the concept, people want a race, the press needs it to write about it.

AW: Yeah, but the Democratic party also wants to win and they will want to push the best candidate out there who has a chance of winning and when they look around, they might look at you.

JK: OK, OK! I accept the nomination. [both laugh]

JK: Well, that may well be, but that's what I have to find out.

AW: Now, we windsurfed together several times in the past year. Between your schedule and my schedule we really don't have much time to play around with, but somehow we managed to find a day here and there. It's amazing how each time we meet . . .

JK: . . .we got the wind blowing!

AW: Yes! We got wind blowing!

JK: [laughs]

AW: It's amazing!

JK: That's wonderful!

AW: We have done this about six or seven times and each time it just blows!

JK: Lucky!

AW: And amazingly! Many of the days before and after we sailed, there were no winds at all.

JK: The force is with us, John.

AW: Now, don't you think in politics that there are forces at play, just like in nature?

JK: Absolutely. Oh, I absolutely believe that. 'Course there are! Big forces way beyond one's control that can pick you up and slap you down or give you that perfect jibe. It can work both ways. It really does. I've seen it happen. Things way beyond our control. There are those forces and it's one of those great linkages I suppose between politics and windsurfing.

AW: So, as a metaphor, are you sitting on the beach assessing the forces of the wind before venturing into the waters?

JK: Well you know, you and I never assessed the wind. We just decided we're going to go and this was going to be it. We take what we get and what we got has been good. That's not what I'm assessing. I'm assessing whether or not I have a board and a sail. It's a little different. You need a little equipment to go out there. Whatever the wind, I want to make sure that I am going to be real physically fit. That's the metaphor.

AW: Uhm-hum.

JK: I want to make sure that it's the right time to do it. I mean, I don't think I'm ready to do JAWS, [a killer wave in Maui.]

AW: So, if you do sail JAWS, [chuckles] I mean, if you do get in the White House, what kind of president do you think you'd make? What kind of leader would you describe yourself to be?

JK: Well, I am not going to at this point in time . . .

AW: . . .OK, let me retract that question!

JK: I am happy to talk about leadership.

AW: Going back to the Forces. If you look back in your life there have been a lot of forces that you've caught and that you were attuned with and . . .

JK: Sometimes I was in tune and sometimes I was out of sync with them. I mean, I've had it both ways. I lost a race back in 1972. First of all, we were in the middle of a war at that time and it was very, very contentious. We were kids and we didn't know very much. We didn't know how to respond to some of the attacks and there were a lot of them, so I suffered a loss.

I learned a lot from that. Those things are painful but then on the other hand, you should really learn something positive from it. I learned a lot about myself, about life, about mistakes, a whole bunch of things.
But I was also trying to offer leadership out of the war. I was trying to end the war. I came back from Vietnam determined that I could make a difference in ending the war, and I felt passionate about doing that because of the lives I saw being lost over there. I thought it would just go on and on-even after the voices speaking up and stepping in and suggesting otherwise. It was very contentious. It was a difficult time. There was great divisiveness that came out with people taking positions.

Back then the war and environment were my focus. I have been deeply involved in environmental issues all my life. I was involved in the earliest Earth Day. Involved as the New England Coordinator of Earth Day for the region for the 20th anniversary, and in fact, that has spilled over significantly into my work with the Senate, where I have been a leader on fishing issues, rewriting the National Fisheries Act to establish our fishing policies. Helping take the lead with Senator Ted Stevens, trying to ban drift nets and push that in the United Nations so we could seek that ban.

I rewrote the Ocean Pollution Control measures and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. I was deeply involved in the global warming issue as well as the Clean Air Act and acid rain a number of years ago.

These are things I have cared about a lot and I think I offered leadership on each of them. I've also offered leadership on other areas in national, international affairs, on the Philippines, on helping to push for democracies in Asia, in helping to normalize our relations with Vietnam and so forth. Also on issues that affect children and crime. I helped lead the fight for 100,000 police officers on the streets of America, and so I think I consider myself somebody who has prepared to take risks and will come out and fight for change and try to make things happen .

I'm not somebody who is passive about these kinds of things, I tend to be proactive and I push the envelope on something because I think that's the job, that's what I'm in it to do. It is exciting and very rewarding when you see some of these things pass and you get things done.

AW: You mention passion, I see that you have a lot of passion in everything you do...

JK: I love life. I'm excited by it. It's fun! It's exhilarating! I don't need anything extra to get me feeling very excited and challenged by every single day's offerings. I think one of the things that I've learned from Vietnam is the sense-there but for the grace of God go I - when you look at those names on the wall.
A lot of my friends share the same feelings. We were so close to being killed so many times that for those of us who came back, every day since is an extra one. It gives you a certain exuberance and capacity to soak in the days to come, as a consequence of that. That's something I've felt very, very strongly since then.

AW: Let's talk a little bit about windsurfing, since this is a windsurfing magazine. [chuckle, chuckle] JK: It is? [both laugh]

AW: How do you feel about the sport?

JK: I think it's a wonderful sport. Unfortunately I came to it late. I've always been a sailor. I love sailing, love the water and all my life I've been around the water.

JK: But I find in windsurfing there's a combination of skills as well as emotions and sensation. It's a mixture of skiing, flying, sailing, and the great challenge of walking on water. But it's also a form of meditation. It's a form of meditation because of the concentration and the mix of managing water, wind and obstacles. It all fits into that exhilaration that comes from the combination of all these forces coming together. It's just very, very dynamic and at the same time it is amazingly peaceful, a great sense of, as I said, meditation. I find it's really a great getaway.

AW: Uhm-hum.

JK: I love to ski. That great sense of carving and doing the moguls and the exhilarating runs. It's the same kind of thing. When it all comes together and it works and you get the sparkle on the water and the sun is out ther e and the wind is right, it's a special connection.

AW: What would you tell someone who doesn't know anything about windsurfing or thinks it is a very hard sport. I mean, why would anybody want to put themselves out there for the punishment?

JK: Well, it's a hard couple of days. But people can learn how to windsurf just as they learn almost any other sport. I think any new sport presents anybody with a certain set of challenges. You just got to get the muscle memories, got to get the essentials in and take a little time to make things happen. [Phone rings]

JK: OK! Back to where we are, windsurfing?

AW: Let's go back to politics for a second. A lot of people ask: "Why would anybody want to be president today? Why put yourself through hell?"

JK: [Laughs] It's a decision one has to make.

AW: It's a tough environment.

JK: It's a tougher environment than anything that ever was.

AW: It seems that all the good people won't even touch it.

JK: A lot of them don't. A lot of them don't. But you got to decide which fights are worth fighting and what you can accomplish, and I'm a fighter. I believe that these things are worth fighting for right now. These are important things. Our country is important. What happens to people is important. Where we are heading globally with respect to huge issues-proliferation, the environment, the technology revolution-these are going to require very significant levels of leadership.

When I say confrontation it is the confrontation of truth and realities. Look at what's happening to deforestation in less developed countries. Look at the lack of water facilities and the lack of transfer of technology. The current crisis in our oceans that are globally distressed because of overfishing, the lack of discipline. This is an ecosystem. It's related. It's all interrelated, and I couldn't rest with myself if I wasn't somehow engaged in trying to confront those forces and help abate them-whether it's on the larger stage of running nationally, or whether it's as a United States Senator or whether it's as a citizen. I mean, Teresa (his wife) is deeply involved in working on those issues and nobody has elected her.

You can do these things from all kinds of vantage points. I think it's absolutely vital that we now choose to do these things. I happen to be in this position today doing it through this office, but I did it before I got here and I will continue to do it after I leave.

AW: So if you were nominated, you would say yes?

JK: John, I don't think it comes to that, in a sense. I mean, if you decide to go after it, then clearly you've made the decision that you are going to serve. That's not the issue. We don't do that any more in America. In the politics in America there are no . . .

AW: What I am saying is, if enough people look around and say, "Yeah, this guy is the knight in shining armor," so to speak . . .

JK: Don't do that. I really - please don't use those words. I don't believe in those things. I mean, It's a much more complicated process now than anything and it's . . .

AW: You don't believe that the country might be wanting a leader in shining armor?

JK: I think what happens is you get set up and you get ripped down. It's a process of constant give and take. I've been there before and I've seen it happen and I've watched with quite a few people and I think that it's a very. . . [Pause] It's a fragile process nowadays and you have to approach it, recognizing it.

AW: So huh. When you become president can I apply for a job as your Secret Service Windsurfer?

JK: [Laughs] That's an interesting issue, isn't it? [Both laugh]

JK: I'll tell you, I have found [something] in windsurfing-and I don't have a magnifier, but I suppose that somebody
can find it on a tennis court. I mean I love to play tennis. It's a great sport.

AW: I hear you play hockey too.

JK: And I love to play hockey. Hockey is a wonderful sport. I still take my creaking bones out there and pretend that I can still skate. But it's fun. It's just great, great fun. And above all that, windsurfing happens to be a fun, exciting, wonderful sport that also has a spiritual concept- a spiritual component that is different. I can certainly see how some people can find spirituality in other sports. But the elements of wind and water, and the interaction with them allows nature to play with you in ways that nature doesn't involve itself with a hockey game. And so there is a larger force out there that's different from some of the other sports that don't engage in that same kind of interaction. And that's different. It's very different.

The size of the wave, the intensity of the winds, the complexities that change as that changes. You don't control that. It's not just you singing a racket. It's the interaction that is really toying with you, which gives you a healthy respect. So it can be very humbling and very uplifting and exhilarating at the same time. You know it's a great interaction. It's part of a special challenge.

AW: Like I said before, it sounds like politics.

JK: [Laughs] A lot of similarities. A lot of things are out of your control that lift you up and kick you down. No question about it.

AW: You mentioned spirituality with windsurfing. Tell me your views on that.

Click here to Part II

Find out more about Senator John Kerry on his web site.