Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy (born January 11, 1965), better known as Max Kennedy, is an American lawyer and author. He is the ninth child of Robert F. Kennedy and

Ethel Skakel Kennedy Ethel Kennedy (' Skakel; born April 11, 1928) is an American human rights advocate. She is the widow of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy, and the sixth child of George Skakel and Ann Brannack. Shortly a ...

Early life

Max Kennedy was born in New York City's Roosevelt Hospital on January 11, 1965, the ninth child of the eleventh children of Robert F. Kennedy and

.Martin Weil
Ethel Kennedy's Son, 13, Hurt in Elevator Mishap
''Washington Post'' (January 29, 1978). Kennedy was baptized as a Catholic by

William Jerome McCormack William Jerome McCormack (January 24, 1924 – November 23, 2013) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York from 1987 to 2001. Biography William Jerome McCormack was born i ...

at St. Patrick's Cathedral in front of a crowd of 200 people. He is named after General

Maxwell D. Taylor Maxwell Davenport Taylor (August 26, 1901 – April 19, 1987) was a senior United States Army officer and diplomat of the mid-20th century. He served with distinction in World War II, most notably as commander of the 101st Airborne Division, ni ...

, then U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam. Kennedy was hospitalized in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 12 after he suffered an injury in an elevator accident at the Rockville home of his uncle and aunt,

Sargent Sargent or Sargents may refer to: People * Sargent (name), includes a list of people with the name Places *Sargent, California *Sargents, Colorado *Sargent, Georgia * Sargent, Scott County, Missouri * Sargent, Texas County, Missouri *Sargent, Ne ...

and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Described as "wild in his youth," Kennedy was expelled from

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

. He graduated from Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island in 1983, and achieved sobriety in 1985. Kennedy graduated from Harvard College. He then graduated from the

University of Virginia School of Law The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law or UVA Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as part of his "academical v ...

.Susan Salter Reynolds
A Left Coast Kennedy
''Los Angeles Times'' (March 14, 1999). In 1991, he married Victoria Anne Strauss, the granddaughter of

Maurice "Moe" Strauss Maurice "Moe" Strauss (1897–1982) was one of the four founders of the Delaware Valley-based automotive parts retailer Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack. Biography He was born on March 21st, 1897. After mustering out of the Navy in 1921, Straus ...

Career

Kennedy was formerly an assistant district attorney in the Philadelphia DA's Office,Deborah Sontag
Struggling to Please the Father Who Died
''New York Times'' (June 15, 2001). where he prosecuted felonies and worked in the juvenile crime unit. After three years in the prosecutor's office, he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived in Brentwood, and interrupted his legal career to compile a book on his father. The work, ''Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy and the Words That Inspired Him'', was published by Harcourt Brace in 1998. Kennedy later returned to the East to lead the Water-shed Institute at

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

, an environmental nonprofit group, and was chairman of the re-election campaign of his uncle,

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

Ted Kennedy, in 2000. Kennedy also taught English at Boston College for a time. In 2001, Kennedy explored a campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, a seat vacated by Democrat Joe Moakley, and moved from Cambridge to the 9th district in preparation for a possible run. Kennedy never declared his candidacy, citing his desire to spend time with his family, including his three children under the age of 10. Kennedy later moved to California. Kennedy wrote ''Danger's Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her'', which was released by Simon & Schuster in 2008. The book examines the story of the ''Essex''-class aircraft carrier USS ''Bunker Hill'' during the Japanese naval assault of May 1945, in the final chapters of the Second World War. ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' said of the book that Kennedy "describes that attack and its aftermath in scarifying detail that is not for the squeamish" and assessed it as "useful to students of the last months of the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

, though less so than" preceding works on the kamikaze by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney and David Sears. Kennedy endorsed Senator Barack Obama in the

2008 Democratic presidential primaries From January 3 to June 3, 2008, voters of the Democratic Party chose their nominee for president in the 2008 United States presidential election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was selected as the nominee, becoming the first African Amer ...

, and campaigned for Obama. In June 2008, Kennedy introduced Obama at a dinner in

Hickory Hill Hickory Hill may refer to several places: United States (by state) * Hickory Hill, Arkansas * Hickory Hill, Florida * Hickory Hill (Thomson, Georgia), National Register of Historic Places listings in McDuffie County, Georgia, listed on the NRHP i ...

, the McLean, Virginia homestead of his mother Ethel Kennedy. In October 2009, Kennedy endorsed

Alan Khazei Alan Khazei (; born May 28, 1961) is an American social entrepreneur. He served as chief executive officer of City Year, an AmeriCorps national service program he co-founded with Michael Brown, his friend and roommate at Harvard College and Har ...

in the January 2010 special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat of his late uncle, Ted Kennedy. Kennedy was nominated by President Obama to serve as a member of the Board of the Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote in October 2011. He served as a board member from 2011 until January 2018. In 2004, along with his mother and siblings, Kennedy supported the demolition of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (the site of his father's 1968 murder) in order to make way for a new public school complex. Kennedy said that a school was "a fitting memorial" for his father and that no part of the hotel site should be retained as a memorial, writing, "The Ambassador Hotel has nothing to do with who my father was or what he tried to do with his life." In 2021, after his father's assassin Sirhan Sirhan was recommended for parole, Kennedy was one of six surviving Kennedy children to oppose the proposed release; two other surviving children supported parole for Sirhan.

Personal life

Kennedy married Victoria Anne Strauss on July 13, 1991 at the

Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, head church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is located at 18th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, on the east side of Logan Square in Philadelphia. It was built between ...

in Philadelphia. They have one son, Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy Jr. (b. 1993), and two daughters, Caroline Summer Rose Kennedy (b. 1994), and Noah Isabella Rose Kennedy (b. 1998). When Max and Edward Kennedy Jr. were children, grandmother Rose would tell them the story of how their uncle, President John F. Kennedy, saved a member of his PT boat crew in World War II by towing him to an island. Max visited the Solomon Islands in 2002 with Robert Ballard to revisit the scene of the story of John F. Kennedy's '' PT-109''; they met Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, the native

coastwatcher The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II t ...

scouts who found the missing Kennedy and his crew.

Books

* ''Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy'' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998) * ''Danger's Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her'' (Simon and Schuster, 2008),

References

External links

*
A Kennedy on Kamikaze

Danger's Hour

Maritime Excavations

Interview
on ''Danger's Hour'' at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, Matthew Maxwell Taylor 1965 births Boston College faculty Harvard College alumni American people of Irish descent

Max Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...