✦John F. Kennedy Jr.

A Childhood in the Public Eye

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, in Washington, D.C., seventeen days after his father was elected president. He was three years old when his father was assassinated, and the image of him saluting his father's coffin outside St. Matthew's Cathedral on November 25, 1963 — his third birthday — became one of the most reproduced photographs in American history.

His childhood was conducted under an intensity of public scrutiny that few children in American life have experienced. Jackie Kennedy made deliberate efforts to give him and his sister Caroline as normal an upbringing as possible, enrolling them in regular schools and limiting their public appearances. After Jackie's remarriage to Aristotle Onassis in 1968, the family divided time between New York and the Greek island of Skorpios. Kennedy attended the Collegiate School in New York before transferring to Phillips Academy Andover for high school.

Education and the Bar Exam

Kennedy attended Brown University, where he studied history, graduating in 1983. He was a popular student known for his humor and athletic ability, and his graduation was accompanied by an extraordinary media circus — a preview of the rest of his public life. He went on to New York University School of Law, graduating in 1989.

His failure to pass the New York bar exam on his first two attempts was covered as front-page news, a reflection of both the public's intense interest in him and the peculiar cruelty with which that interest was expressed. He passed on his third attempt in 1990. The coverage prompted him to remark that he had 'done the best I could' and ask the press to remember that bar exam failures were 'quite a normal occurrence.'

Career in Law and Publishing

Kennedy worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan from 1989 to 1993, trying more than a dozen cases and achieving a 100 percent conviction rate on the cases that went to verdict. He turned down an offer to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan — speculation about his political ambitions was constant throughout his adult life — and instead pursued an entrepreneurial path into political media.

In 1995 he co-founded George Magazine, a glossy political publication that treated American politics as celebrity culture and celebrity culture as politics. The concept was genuinely original — Kennedy had identified something real about the convergence of entertainment and political life — but the magazine struggled to find a sustainable advertising base and was perpetually on the edge of financial viability. Kennedy was working to secure its future at the time of his death.

Final Flight

On the evening of July 16, 1999, Kennedy took off from Essex County Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey, in his single-engine Piper Saratoga II HP, heading for Martha's Vineyard with his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette. He was a relatively inexperienced pilot with approximately 300 hours of logged flight time, and he had recently broken his ankle in a paragliding accident, affecting his ability to use the rudder pedals effectively.

The flight took place at night over open water, conditions that require instrument proficiency. Kennedy encountered haze over the water that reduced visibility, and the plane entered a descending spiral — a phenomenon known as a graveyard spiral, in which a disoriented pilot without visual reference unconsciously lets the plane curve into a steep bank and accelerating descent. The plane struck the water at high speed approximately seven miles south of Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard, at approximately 9:41 p.m. All three occupants were killed. Kennedy was 38 years old. Their bodies were recovered from the Atlantic four days later.

Legacy

Kennedy's death prompted a national outpouring of grief that surprised even those accustomed to the Kennedy family's hold on the American imagination. He was, in many ways, the last figure onto whom the romantic mythology of the Kennedy era could be projected — young, handsome, gracious in public, burdened by a history he had not chosen but carried with visible dignity.

In the years since his death, speculation about the political career he might have had has never fully abated. Whether he would have been a significant political figure or merely a famous one is unknowable. What is clear is that he navigated an extraordinary situation — the son of an assassinated president, one of the most famous people on earth from birth — with considerable grace.

How did JFK Jr. die?

John F. Kennedy Jr. died on July 16, 1999, when the single-engine plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette also died in the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause was Kennedy's failure to maintain control of the aircraft during a night flight over water, likely due to spatial disorientation.

Why did JFK Jr. fail the bar exam?

Kennedy failed the New York State bar exam twice before passing on his third attempt in 1990. The specific reasons for his failures were never publicly stated by Kennedy himself. The intensive press coverage of his failures was widely criticized as intrusive, as bar exam failures are common even among accomplished law school graduates.

Who was JFK Jr. married to?

John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette on September 21, 1996, in a private ceremony on Cumberland Island, Georgia. Carolyn was a fashion publicist who worked for Calvin Klein. They were married for nearly three years before both were killed in the July 1999 plane crash.