Marriage hits rocks as career blossoms
By Andrew Miga and David R. Guarino
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Election night, Nov. 7, 1982, was a star turn for John F. Kerry [related, bio], the brash anti-Vietnam War activist turned crime-fighting prosecutor.
Though just 38, Kerry basked in the reflected glow of Michael S. Dukakis' gubernatorial victory, sharing the ticket as his lieutenant governor.
A scant two years later, Kerry was propelled into prominence on the national stage, prevailing in a bruising battle for an open U.S. Senate seat.
An ambitious Kerry - already dubbed ``Live Shot'' for his love of the TV cameras - quickly made his mark on Capitol Hill, launching aggressive, high-profile probes into Iran-Contra, notorious Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and the BCCI bank scandal.
But Kerry's soaring political stock during the 1980s masked the turbulence that was rocking his personal life: a long, painful separation and divorce coupled with mounting financial problems.
His marriage to Julia Thorne, the daughter of a wealthy, socially connected New York family, was in tatters.
The couple separated in 1983 and finally divorced six years later.
Thorne, who remains supportive of Kerry, has since written movingly of her battle with depression.
``I found getting divorced a super-painful process,'' Kerry told The New York Times.
Kerry straddled his blossoming Senate career and helping care for his two daughters, who were being raised in Massachusetts with their mother. He shuttled back to Boston most weekends to spend time with his girls as they grew up.
Suddenly single, the Bay State senator landed ``dates'' with Hollywood stars such as Morgan Fairchild and Catherine Oxenberg, though Kerry always denied romantic links.
Behind the sheen of glamour, Kerry struggled.
The aura of East Coast establishment affluence, the Ivy League pedigree and the gilded Forbes family badge that Kerry wore with such ease, was dissolving as the 1980s unfolded and Kerry's political career took off.
Without his wife's family fortune to help pay the bills, Kerry's personal finances were strained.
Relying largely on his $89,500 Senate salary, he struggled to keep up with tuitions, child support and other bills for his two young daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra.
Kerry lost money on modest townhomes he bought and quickly sold in Washington and Boston.
Sometimes he resorted to crashing with family, friends or ex-law partner and longtime girlfriend Roanne Sragow, who now serves as a Massachusetts district court judge.
``Here he was a U.S. senator leading all these major investigations into Oliver North and the Contras, and he was literally sleeping on peoples' couches on occasion, like a college kid crashing for the weekend,'' recalled one former senior Kerry aide.
Kerry soon found himself embroiled in controversial deals, some with political supporters and top fund-raisers, involving leased cars, cut-rate housing from developers and condos.
Kerry, who denied any wrongdoing, has branded the years from 1982 to 1988 during his separation and before his divorce as his ``gypsy period,'' hopping from apartment to apartment and sleeping in guest rooms so he could be ``Mr. Mom'' for his daughters.
``Not fun, not easy, but not so abnormal for someone who is in the middle of a divorce,'' Kerry said during his 1996 re-election race against former Gov. William Weld when the issue surfaced.
As lieutenant governor, Kerry leased cars from North Shore auto dealer Bob Brest without making payments for 16 months until a reporter asked about the billing lapse.
As a senator, Kerry drew fire for his free use for three months of the $8,000-per-month Washington waterfront luxury apartment owned by Robert S. Farmer, who was vice president of Cassidy and Associates, a high-powered Washington lobbying firm. Kerry insisted he stayed only a few nights.
Kerry paid small amounts for stays spanning several months in two Boston condos owned by developers Wesley Finch and Edward W. Callan.
Farmer is now a top fund-raiser for Kerry's presidential bid.
Finch, a politically connected Boston real estate developer who was then Kerry's campaign treasurer, helped bail the cash-strapped senator out with a quickie $21,000 profit on a condo deal with no money down and an unsecured loan.
Finch later departed as Kerry's top fund-raiser after a Herald series raised questions about his government-assisted rental properties in New York and Massachusetts.
Kerry's ties to a controversial Miami savings-and-loan executive, David Paul, also generated controversy.
Kerry, courting Paul while raising money for Democrats, flew aboard Paul's jet and partied at his palatial home.
A Senate probe alleged Paul spent millions in bank money on personal luxuries such as his yacht, which Kerry used to raise money for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which he then headed.
Kerry later rebuffed Paul's solicitations for his help in amending the thrift bailout bill.
The Bay State senator's rise from lieutenant governor to hard-charging senator brought him a wave of political success and prominence on the national stage.
But the Boston Brahmin who counted Swiss boarding school, Yale and the elite Skull and Bones club as part of his privileged pedigree was still struggling to pay his bills as he recovered from a wrenching divorce.
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