Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Potential unfulfilled

JOHN F KENNEDY Jr.'s fate was sealed late Friday evening when the single-engine, six-seat Piper Saratoga II HP that he was piloting plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard, killing him along with his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette.

The bodies were not immediately recovered. Coast Guard officials held a news conference late Sunday to announce that the chances of anyone surviving in the 20 degree Celsius waters were virtually nil.

Affable, athletic and attractive, Kennedy, 38, embodied the "mystique" which had long surrounded his family -- the sense of youthful vigour and invincibility that had helped propel his namesake father into the White House in 1960. Kennedy the son was not to live even as long as Kennedy the father, who was 46 when he was gunned down in Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

America, and the world, was left with a sense of potential unfulfilled, to wonder what might have been -- personally and politically -- if this short life had not been brought to such a tragic end.

A graduate of Brown University, the Hollywood-handsome 1.85-metre Kennedy did not only inherit his father's winning personality, but many of his interests as well. New York gossip pages religiously chronicled his escapades with Darryl Hannah, Sarah Jessica Jones and Madonna, among others.

But unlike his father, Kennedy Jr. deliberately stayed on the fringes of politics, even though he was constantly being hyped as a candidate for various political posts. After the death of his mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis, he finally seemed to have found his way, launching the upmarket magazine George, of which he was both founder and publisher.

(photos: AP)

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