Audrey Young: Kerry I'll be back to NZ

Secretary of State John Kerry. Photo / AP

It's usually the Terminator who says "I'll be back", but yesterday it was US Secretary of State John Kerry, a sign-off statement to reporters as he headed into bilateral talks.

When he said "I'll be back" he was meaning "to New Zealand".

He made his first visit to Wellington in 1968, aged 25, for some R and R while fighting in Vietnam. He became an anti-war activist and testified against the conflict before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a body he later chaired.

His last visit to New Zealand was in the past couple of years for a private holiday in Northland.

He fought George W. Bush for the presidency back in 2004. Had he won, he would have been the second senator from Massachusetts with the initials JFK to take the White House.

He hoped to become Barack Obama's Secretary of State in the first term but Obama gave the job to Hillary Clinton. He was hoping to get the job in the second term but Obama wanted the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to have it.

She pulled out under threat of strong opposition from the Republicans and Kerry finally got the job he wanted with strong endorsement from his Republican rivals in the Senate.

He will be 70 this year. He and his second wife, Teresa Heinz, are wealthy independently of each other. According to the Boston Globe he had a US$7 million yacht built in New Zealand in 2010. Audrey Young