Kennedys’ Ship of Public Service Resumes Course

To hear the speculation, you would almost think some small country had suffered a sudden realignment, or that the power structure of some elite corporation had abruptly been rearranged.

Barely had the group of what once numbered 29 first cousins begun to absorb its latest tragedy when the questions began: Who would carry the Kennedy torch? Who would step forth as the next great hope of Camelot? Who would emerge as the clan’s next chieftain?

The guessing about the future of the country’s best known political dynasty began only days after paterfamilias Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, 67, led the family in a sad, private farewell last week to 38-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. and his 33-year-old wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.

There was special focus on Patrick Kennedy, the 32-year-old Democratic congressman from Rhode Island, and on Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend--at 48, the eldest cousin--who is expected soon to declare her intention to run for governor. Their cousin Mark Shriver, 35, is a Maryland state legislator. Patrick Kennedy is pushing him hard to run for Congress.

‘There Are So Many Ways to Serve’

But this generation has also explored a striking array of less traditional activist avenues. With such a range of attainments, many people within the family and close to it say it is silly to single out any one cousin as cream of the Kennedy crop.

“There are so many ways to serve,” said Kerry McCarthy of St. Augustine, Fla. Political and public service consultant McCarthy, 46, calls herself a “peripheral” Kennedy cousin--a third cousin of the 29 famous grandchildren of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy. The cousins are the offspring of six of the couple’s children.

Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 44, runs Riverkeeper Inc., a nonprofit organization involved in 30 legal actions against alleged polluters in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Rory Kennedy, 31, whose wedding was postponed by John F. Kennedy Jr.’s fatal plane crash, makes documentary films about social issues such as rural poverty and drug-addicted mothers.

Maria Shriver, 43, is a newscaster for NBC in Los Angeles. Her brother Tim, 40, is president and CEO of the Special Olympics, founded by their mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Another brother, 34-year-old Anthony Shriver, started a Miami group to help the mentally handicapped called Best Buddies. Robert Shriver III, 45, directs the West Coast office of the Special Olympics.

Connecticut lawyer Teddy Kennedy Jr., 38, started a program called Facing the Challenge, which provides self-help programs for the disabled. Douglas Kennedy, 32, founded the New York-based Third Millennium, aimed at involving young people in national issues. Robin Lawford, 38, is a wildlife conservationist. Max Kennedy, 34, works with the Watershed Institute of Boston, protecting urban ecosystems. Forty-year-old Kerry Kennedy Cuomo founded the R.F.K. Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington. As a board member of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Christopher Kennedy, 36, helps feed the hungry.

Acquitted on rape charges after a lurid 1991 trial, Dr. William Kennedy Smith, 39, co-founded Physicians Against Land Mines. Burned out after the death of his brother Michael and a brief, unsuccessful stab at the Massachusetts governorship, Joseph P. Kennedy II, 47, is once again running Citizens Energy Corp., which provides inexpensive heating oil for poor people around Boston. Courtney Kennedy Hill, 43, is a human-rights activist, especially for her husband, accused Irish Republican Army terrorist Paul Hill.

A Wide-Ranging Group of Cousins

“When you think of the family, what is now called the ‘next generation,’ you have to look at the range of what they’re doing,” McCarthy said. “They don’t have to do these things. They don’t have to do a damned thing. But they do.”

Author Laurence Leamer, who wrote “The Kennedy Women” and is at work on a sequel, “The Kennedy Men,” said it demeans the cousins to pigeonhole them.

“It’s not a steeplechase, and they’re not all racing the same race,” Leamer said. “Are we only going to define their achievements by how many of them get into the halls of Congress?”

As it happens, only one cousin currently holds that distinction. Two days after the family’s memorial service on July 23 for John and Carolyn Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy was back at work, blasting an Indiana insurance company looking for a health-care foothold in his adopted home state.

The third-term congressman from Providence also thanked constituents who filled two condolence books in his Rhode Island office with 2,700 messages of sympathy. The third-youngest member of Congress also made a formal visit of thanks to a Coast Guard vessel that aided in the search for Kennedy’s plane.

Among this group of cousins, “Patrick Kennedy is the political crown prince of the next generation in the sense that he is the best positioned to assume the mantle of political leadership,” said Brown University political science professor Darrell West, whose biography of Patrick Kennedy will be published next year.

Elected to the Rhode Island Legislature at 21, Patrick Kennedy enjoys enormous popularity in the state he made his home after graduating from Providence College. Grandmothers in the heavily Italian Federal Hill district of Providence often worry that he is not yet married, and sometimes hand him pots of pasta as he campaigns.

When Rhode Island Sen. John H. Chafee, a Republican, announced that he would not seek reelection next year, the job was considered a shoo-in for Patrick Kennedy. But aides say he will stick by his vow to remain in the House and help regain control for his party. Kennedy is a power fund-raiser, they note, and ranks No. 5 in the House Democratic leadership.

As for his cousin Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, whose name has been whispered as a distant, dark-horse Democratic vice presidential possibility, “Patrick has an advantage in terms of rank and experience. He is at the national level,” West pointed out, “and she is going to be at the state level for the next five years.”

Townsend failed in her first attempt at elected office, a 1986 congressional bid. With her law degree from the University of New Mexico, she worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington before accepting Parris Glendening’s 1994 invitation to join him in a race for the Maryland statehouse. While she has not yet stated her intention to run for governor, it is no secret among Maryland Democrats that Townsend hopes to succeed Glendening in 2002.

As lieutenant governor, Townsend has initiated several juvenile justice programs and launched an effort called Hot Spots, concentrating police attention in troubled neighborhoods.

Personally, Townsend was hit last week by a kind of triple emotional whammy. Barely had she begun to assimilate the shock of her cousin John’s demise when she learned of the death of her friend Michael Hooker, the president of the University of Maryland. Then on July 25, another good friend, Democratic advisor Dad Dudtko, was killed in a bike accident in Colorado. An aide said Townsend would return to a full schedule in Annapolis on Tuesday.

Within the family, too, Patrick and Kathleen play key roles. With her strong marriage to a college professor, her four children and her law degree, Kathleen--named for her late aunt--is said to be an important role model, particularly for the younger women in her family.

Townsend also serves as the cousins’ official memory bank. “More than any other cousin, she has the memory of her father and her uncle,” said a friend who asked to go unnamed. “She is the one the younger cousins and siblings go to when they want to know about John or Bobby.”

It was Kathleen, after all, who received a letter from her father, Robert, two days after President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The note summed up what might be the family mandate as it chastened the 12-year-old that she had a special responsibility. “Be kind to others,” her father wrote, “and work for your country. Love, Daddy.”