Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author, diplomat, and attorney. She served as the United States ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017 and ambassador to Australia from 2022 to 2024. 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 President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

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 only five years old when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The following year, Kennedy moved with her younger brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., and their mother Jacqueline to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and continued her education there. She graduated from Radcliffe College and later attended Columbia Law School, earning a Juris Doctor degree in 1988. Kennedy passed the New York State bar exam the following year. She worked at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, designer Edwin Schlossberg. They married in 1986, and had 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. 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 for personal reasons. In 2013, Obama appointed Kennedy as the United States ambassador to Japan, making her the first woman to hold the position. Eight years later, Joe Biden appointed Kennedy as ambassador to Australia and she took office following her confirmation on June 10, 2022.