Caroline Kennedy

This article is about President John F. Kennedy's daughter. For John F. Kennedy Jr.'s wife, see Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

Caroline Kennedy
Official portrait, 2022
United States Ambassador to Australia
Incumbent
Assumed office
July 25, 2022
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byArthur B. Culvahouse Jr.
United States Ambassador to Japan
In office
November 19, 2013 – January 18, 2017
PresidentBarack Obama
Preceded byJohn Roos
Succeeded byBill Hagerty
Personal details
Born
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy

(1957-11-27) November 27, 1957 (age 66)
New York City, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
​
(m. 1986)​
Children
Parents
RelativesKennedy family
Bouvier family
EducationRadcliffe College (AB)
Columbia University (JD)
AwardsGrand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2021)
Caroline Kennedy's voice
Kennedy's opening statement at her confirmation hearing to be United States ambassador to Australia
Recorded April 7, 2022

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy[1][2] (born November 27, 1957)[3] is an American author, diplomat and attorney serving as the United States ambassador to Australia since 2022. Kennedy previously served in the Obama administration as the United States ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017.[4] Most of Kennedy's professional life has been in literature, law, politics, education reform, and charity. She is a member of the Kennedy family and the only surviving child of US president John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Born in New York City, Kennedy was two years old when her father won the 1960 presidential election and spent her early childhood years in the White House during his presidency. She was five years old when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The following year, she and her younger brother John F. Kennedy Jr. moved with their mother Jacqueline to the Upper East Side of Manhattan where Kennedy continued her education. Kennedy graduated from Radcliffe College, and later attended Columbia Law School where she earned a Juris Doctor degree in 1988. She passed the New York State bar exam the following year. Kennedy worked at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, designer Edwin Schlossberg. They have three children: Rose, Tatiana, and Jack.

Early in the primary race for the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy and her uncle, Ted Kennedy, endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama. She later stumped for him in Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, served as co-chair of his Vice Presidential Search Committee, and addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.[5] After Obama selected United States senator Hillary Clinton to serve as secretary of state, Kennedy expressed interest in being appointed to Clinton's vacant Senate seat from New York, but later withdrew citing personal reasons. In 2013, President Obama appointed Kennedy as the United States ambassador to Japan making her the first female ambassador to serve in the country.[6] Eight years later, Joe Biden appointed Kennedy as United States ambassador to Australia and she took office following her confirmation on June 10, 2022.[7]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference no name change was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Larry King name was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference JFKLibrary_profile was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "United States Embassy To Japan – Former Ambassadors". Archived from the original on August 24, 2019. Retrieved May 7, 2017.
  5. ^ Gary Ginsberg on her campaigning for Obama; cited in MacFarquhar, Larissa (April 18, 2009). "The Kennedy Who Couldn't". The Age: Good Weekend supplement (pp. 12–16).
  6. ^ Landler, Mark (July 24, 2013). "Obama Nominates Caroline Kennedy to Be Ambassador to Japan". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
  7. ^ "PN1661 – Nomination of Caroline Kennedy for Department of State, 117th Congress (2021–2022)". Congress.gov. May 5, 2022.