By Robert Klitzman, M.D.
Academic Director, M.S. in Bioethics
Jean Kennedy Smith, Former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland and advisory board member to Columbia's Bioethics program, died on June 17, 2020 at her home in Manhattan at 92 years old.
Smith’s first experience in national politics came in 1960, as she traveled around the country for her brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, in his campaign for the presidency. She became a political figure in her own right three decades later, when President Clinton nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland on March 17, 1993. After confirmation by the Senate, she assumed her duties that June, serving until 1998.
She took an active interest in encouraging a peaceful settlement in the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland, and one of her principal achievements was in persuading the Clinton Administration to grant a visa to Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, to visit the United States in 1994. The visit is widely regarded as a key step in the success of the peace process in the years that followed.
Her full obituary is available to read in The New York Times.
On behalf of the Bioethics program, and all of us at the School of Professional Studies, we feel honored to have been a part of Amb. Jean Kennedy Smith's life, and our thoughts are with her family and friends.
