[1] The Kennedy family left China in 1918 after George's father and brother Fred died less than a month apart.

During this time he became friends with Luther Carrington Goodrich, who later became professor of Chinese at Columbia University.

In 1932, Kennedy went to the University of Berlin, where he studied Chinese and Mongolian under Otto Franke and Erich Haenisch.

[1] During World War II, Kennedy served as the director of the Army Specialized Training Program at Yale from 1942 to 1944.

In early August 1960, Kennedy planned to return to the United States, and boarded a ship in Yokohama, Japan, bound for San Francisco.