The Daily Telegraph

Jean Kennedy Smith

Outspoken sister of John F Kennedy who clashed with fellow ambassador­s while working in Dublin

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JEAN KENNEDY SMITH, who has died aged 92, was the last surviving sibling of President John F Kennedy and the last of her generation to achieve political prominence, when she became a controvers­ial ambassador to the Irish Republic in 1993.

Appointed by President Bill Clinton as a favour to her brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, who still wielded considerab­le clout in the Irish-american lobby, she had no profession­al diplomatic experience and a long-standing hostility to the British role in Northern Ireland.

She arrived in Dublin not long after her brother, the senator, had signed a letter attacking abuses of human rights in the province; her nephew, Congressma­n Joe Kennedy, had put his name to another, calling for a more aggressive policy towards British rule; and her niece Caroline Courtney had married Paul Hill, an Irishman convicted and then cleared of taking part in the Guildford bombing.

Jean Kennedy Smith assured reporters that she had no plans to meet Sinn Fein when she visited the north, but added: “Anything can change.” This quickly brought her into conflict with Raymond Seitz, the veteran US ambassador in London, who pointed out in a strained two-hour meeting that her responsibi­lities did not extend north of the border and that her duty was to represent the US administra­tion’s long-establishe­d policy, not her own.

When she claimed to have a personal mandate from the president, Seitz replied that she should have little difficulty persuading Clinton to overrule him but, in the meantime, she was to stick to the existing arrangemen­t, which made Northern Ireland his responsibi­lity.

While she never flouted protocol openly, her manner clearly implied that she still considered that her mandate extended to all Ireland. She made several trips to the north, where she met members of Sinn Fein and once sat in court beside the mother of a man accused of trying to murder a British soldier.

The fog of rumour that surrounds all Kennedys hinted that she made secret contact with the IRA, who knew her by the codename Speir Bhan [Woman of Mythology].

If Seitz considered her wilful and skittish, she was free with her opinion that he was in the pocket of the British government and intentiona­lly subverting Clinton’s Irish policy. The extent to which she influenced the president was uncertain.

But Conor Cruise O’brien, the writer and former Irish minister, said she had nothing to contribute because she was aligned to one side; and when, as a wealthy woman, she invited American businessme­n to contribute to the maintenanc­e of her official residence, where she gave lavish parties, it was viewed as “a low-class act”.

Although Jean Kennedy Smith’s activities always attracted publicity, a far more important factor in changing the political situation in Northern Ireland was the admission by John Hume, the SDLP leader in the north, that he believed Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, was serious about achieving an agreement at last. But Adams had still made no firm promises, and two members of the embassy staff continued to refuse him a visa.

When it was later revealed that the diplomats had been frozen out of meetings and had received unfavourab­le official evaluation­s there was some tut-tutting from The New York Times, which fell short of recommendi­ng that she be dismissed. However Warren Christophe­r, the US Secretary of

State, issued her a reprimand, and the Foreign Service Journal reported that the department­al report was “scathingly critical”.

In 1995 she was forced to deny a report that she “had long been a supporter of the republican cause” and to declare that she fully supported Clinton’s policy of a negotiated settlement, with the full consent of the people of Northern Ireland.

She also compromise­d her standing with devout Catholics by showing solidarity with the new Irish president, Mary Mcaleese, when she received Communion in Dublin’s Protestant Christ Church cathedral at Christmas.

But it took more than these pinpricks to upset the public position of a Kennedy. Her tall figure could be seen walking alone from the embassy in Phoenix Park in the mornings despite threats from Protestant extremists that they would “get that American bitch”. She gained kudos for her small part as a clerk in Neil Jordan’s inaccurate film, Michael Collins, though her two words of dialogue, “Over here”, were cut. Shortly before retiring as ambassador in 1998 she was awarded Irish citizenshi­p.

Jean Ann Kennedy was born on February 20 1928 at Brookline, Massachuse­tts, eighth of the nine children of Joseph Kennedy, a wealthy though highly dubious businessma­n who became a defeatist ambassador to Britain at the beginning of the Second World War.

She attended schools run by the Sacred Heart nuns in Roehampton, West London, and back in America, then went to the Order’s Manhattanv­ille College at Purchase, New York. There she befriended two of her future sisters-in-law: Ethel Skakel, who was to marry her brother Robert, and Joan Bennett, the future wife of Teddy.

At 18 she was chosen to launch the destroyer Joseph P Kennedy, named after her brother and godfather who was killed on flying operations during the war. She first worked in the public relations department of her father’s Chicago store, then became an aide to Fr James Keller, founder of the Christophe­rs, an organisati­on devoted to fighting communism and corruption.

In 1956 she married Stephen Smith, who converted to Catholicis­m and with whom she was to have two sons and to adopt two girls.

A New York businessma­n in a transport firm founded by his grandfathe­r, Smith showed little of the Kennedy hunger for publicity. But he was to take an increasing­ly large part in the organisati­on of her brothers’ presidenti­al campaigns and, after Joe Kennedy became infirm, running the family businesses.

Inevitably there were colourful rumours about the marriage, with suggestion­s that he had mistresses while she had an affair with the lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, conducted on a yacht. The couple remained resolutely together.

When her brother Jack launched his bid for the presidency in 1959 the entire family set to work with determinat­ion. Jean and her sisters Eunice Shriver, wife of Sargent Shriver, and Pat Lawford, married to the louche English actor Peter Lawford, toured women’s clubs on his behalf. After JFK’S victory Jean took a wellpublic­ised holiday with Eunice behind the Iron Curtain, and they visited Saigon with Lyndon Johnson, the new vice-president.

The following year she and her brother Robert’s wife, Joan, organised the premiere of Irving Berlin’s Mr President to raise money for the Joseph P Kennedy Jr Institute and the Kennedy Child Study Centre with a party at the British Embassy, where their friend Lord Harlech was ambassador. Later the president took a large family party to meet their third cousins at New Ross, Co Wexford.

When Jack was assassinat­ed in 1963 the family loyalty switched to Bobby, and the Smiths were still on the podium in Los Angeles, where he had just delivered a speech, when he was shot during the Democrats’ California primary.

As the family became mired in revelation­s about her elder brothers and Teddy’s presidenti­al prospects sank into the pool at Chappaquid­dick in which the girl who was his passenger drowned, Jean became increasing­ly visible. When Teddy led a family party of eight to South Africa in 1985 it was noticed that she was the most outspoken, even unreasonab­le.

Her husband died in 1990, and the following year the family were back in the headlines when her son, William Kennedy Smith, was tried and acquitted on a rape charge in Florida, with his mother proving an ever-supportive presence court. Although the shyest member of the family when young she had little difficulty persuading members of the Senate to endorse her appointmen­t as ambassador in Dublin.

Although by then far fewer Americans remained besotted by the Kennedy charisma and many more were conscious of the family’s arrogance, they remembered the charity work that she and her sisters had begun in memory of their sister Rosemary.

Jean’s special contributi­on was Very Special Arts, which she founded in 1974 to promote the artistic talents of mentally and physically handicappe­d children. In 2007 Jean Kennedy Smith was awarded the Gold Medal of the Eire Society of Boston, for this, as well as her peace efforts in Ireland.

In 2011, President Obama awarded Smith the Presidenti­al Medal of Freedom, for her work with people with disabiliti­es. The following year she had another film cameo, in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, as a “woman shouter”. In 2016 she published a memoir, The Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy.

Jean Kennedy Smith’s husband Stephen died in 1990, and she is survived by their two daughters and two sons.

Jean Kennedy Smith, born February 20 1928, died June 17 2020

 ??  ?? Alongside JFK in 1960: in later life she had a film cameo as a ‘woman shouter’
Alongside JFK in 1960: in later life she had a film cameo as a ‘woman shouter’

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