by the President at Nomination of Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State" , The White House, December 21, 2012. which received positive commentary. His confirmation hearing took place on January 24, 2013, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the same panel where he first testified in 1971. The committee unanimously voted to approve him on January 29, 2013, and the same day the full Senate confirmed him on a vote of 94–3. In a letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Kerry announced his resignation from the Senate effective February 1. Tenure Kerry was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1, 2013. While serving as the Secretary of State, Kerry spoke in the French language on several occasions in his official capacity.Kerry delivers a love letter to France, in French , Reuters, 2013. After six months of rigorous diplomacy within the Middle East, Kerry was able to have Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree to start the 2013–14 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks. Senior U.S. officials stated the two sides were able to meet on July 30, 2013, at the State Department without American mediators following a dinner the previous evening hosted by Kerry. On September 27, 2013, he met with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the P5+1 and Iran summit, which eventually led to the JCPOA nuclear agreement. It was the highest-level direct contact between the United States and Iran in the last six years, and made him the first U.S. Secretary of State to have met with his Iranian counterpart since 1979 Iranian Revolution. In the State Department, Kerry quickly earned a reputation "for being aloof, keeping to himself, and not bothering to read staff memos." Career State Department officials complained that power became too centralized under Kerry's leadership, which slowed department operations when Kerry was on frequent overseas trips. Others in State described Kerry as having "a kind of diplomatic attention deficit disorder" as he shifted from topic to topic instead of focusing on long-term strategy. When asked whether he was traveling too much, he responded, "Hell no. I'm not slowing down." Despite Kerry's early achievements, morale at State was lower than under Hillary Clinton, according to department employees. However, after Kerry's first six months in the State Department, a Gallup poll found he had high approval ratings among Americans as Secretary of State. After a year, another poll showed Kerry's favorability continued to rise.