"Everything I do will be focused on the security and safety of our people," he said. We have tough decisions to make, but I guarantee I'll do everything I can to live up to the high standards that Secretary Clinton and her team put in place. Mr Kerry described his own childhood as the son of a foreign service officer, including how as a 12-year-old he cycled his bicycle through a Soviet checkpoint and into East Berlin. "If the tabloids today knew I had done that, I can see the headlines that say, 'Kerry's Early Communist Connections,'" he said. Although he was promptly grounded by his father, Mr Kerry said the brief venture into the "desolation" of the communist zone had taught him "a great lesson about the virtue of freedom." He told his new staff they must work "advance the cause of the nation" while also meeting "our obligations to our fellow travelers on this planet." Mrs Clinton remained out of sight on her first day as a private citizen in 30 years, leaving her husband, Bill, to go unaccompanied to the funeral of Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York. Mr Clinton lingered outside the service with Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York and one of the Democrats his wife may have to run against should she decide to make a second bid for the presidency in 2016.