Jean Kennedy Smith
Jean Ann Kennedy Smith (born February 20, 1928) is an American diplomat and a former United States Ambassador to Ireland. She is the eighth of nine children born to Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr., and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald and is their last surviving child. She is the sister of the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy and Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
Smith is the founder of Very Special Arts (VSA), an internationally recognized non-profit dedicated to creating a society where those with disabilities can engage with the arts. In 2011, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama for her work with VSA and the disabled.
As Ambassador to Ireland from 1993-1998, Smith was instrumental to the Northern Ireland peace process as President Bill Clinton's representative in Dublin. She successfully advocated for the U.S. government to grant a visa to Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams which directly led to the IRA declaring a ceasefire in 1994. Irish President Mary McAleese conferred honorary Irish citizenship on Smith in 1998 in recognition of her service to the island.
Read more about Jean Kennedy Smith: Early Life and Family Life, Philanthropy, Awards and Later Life
Famous quotes containing the words kennedy and/or smith:
“The moment when she crawled out onto the back of the open limousine in which her husband had been murdered was the first and last time the American people would see Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis crawl.... She was the last great private public figure in this country. In a time of gilt and glitz and perpetual revelation, she was perpetually associated with that thing so difficult to describe yet so simple to recognize, the apotheosis of dignity.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.”
—Alexander Smith (1830–1867)