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 ...

Early life

Max Kennedy was born in New York City's

Roosevelt Hospital Mount Sinai West, opened in 1871 as Roosevelt Hospital, is affiliated with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. The 514-bed facility is located in the Midtown West neighborhood of New York City. The fac ...

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 The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

by William Jerome McCormack 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, n ...

, then U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam. Kennedy was hospitalized in

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which ...

, at age 12 after he suffered an injury in an elevator accident at the Rockville home of his uncle and aunt, Sargent 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, Massachusetts, Andover , stat ...

. He graduated from

Moses Brown School Moses Brown School is an independent Quaker school located in Providence, Rhode Island, offering pre-kindergarten through secondary school classes. It was founded in 1784 by Moses Brown, a Quaker abolitionist, and is one of the oldest prepara ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

in 1983, and achieved sobriety in 1985. Kennedy graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

. 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, Strauss ...

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 Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, 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 Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City ...

in 1998. Kennedy later returned to the

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

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 classified ...

, 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 power ...

Ted Kennedy Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...

, 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 Massachusetts's 9th congressional district is located in eastern Massachusetts. It is represented by Democrat William R. Keating. The 9th district is the least Democratic congressional district in Massachusetts, according to the PVI. Redistric ...

, a seat vacated by Democrat Joe Moakley, and moved from

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

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 Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...

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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. ''

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 vas ...

, though less so than" preceding works on the

kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending ...

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney ( ja, 大貫恵美子 born 1934) is a noted anthropologist and the William F. Vilas Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the author of fourteen single-authored books in English and ...

and David Sears. Kennedy endorsed Senator

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, and campaigned for Obama. In June 2008, Kennedy introduced Obama at a dinner in Hickory Hill, the

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its prox ...

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,

. 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 parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...

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 betwe ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

. 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 A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

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 Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

in 2002 with

Robert Ballard Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeolo ...

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 ...

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