[1] Born in Chicago in 1928, Kennedy moved with his mother and two elder brothers to the Pasadena area of California in the early 1930s, where he attended a series of public elementary schools.
Upon graduating in 1950, Kennedy joined the United States Air Force as an enlisted man in the intelligence branch.
After a year's study of Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, California, he served in Korea during the Korean War and Germany.
In his 30 years in the Foreign Service Kennedy was a consular officer dealing with the protection of American citizens abroad, the issuance of visas to foreigners and assistance to the growing throng of Americans visiting overseas in Frankfurt, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, then in the war zone of South Vietnam as consul general, then in more peaceful Athens, Greece, Seoul, South Korea and finally Naples, Italy as consul general.
These efforts were barely funded and the oral history did not have much support until the creation of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in 1986 by a group of retired Foreign Service officers.