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.

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 Ethel Skakel Kennedy.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 List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

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 The United States ambassador to Vietnam ( Vietnamese: ''Đại sứ Hoa Kỳ tại Việt Nam'') is the chief American diplomat to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After the First Indochina War and the defeat of the French domination over Viet ...

. 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 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. He graduated from Moses Brown School in

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 Bay ...

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.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 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 wor ...

, 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 classifi ...

, 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 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, 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 beca ...

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 pub ...

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. '' Kirkus Reviews'' 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, though less so than" preceding works on the kamikaze by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney 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 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 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 v ...

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 Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (; ar, سرحان بشارة سرحان ''Sirḥān Bišāra Sirḥān'', born March 19, 1944) is a Palestinian Jordanian man who was convicted for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy, a United States Sen ...

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 in

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. Sinc ...

. 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 b ...

would tell them the story of how their uncle, President John F. Kennedy, saved a member of his

PT boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the ...

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 ca ...

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 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) ...