Louisa L. Kennedy, 73; families’ activist during Iranian hostage crisis
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Louisa Livingston Kennedy, 73, a founder and official spokeswoman of the Family Liaison Action Group during the Iranian hostage crisis of the Carter presidency, died Aug. 19 of brain cancer at Mount Desert Island, Maine, according to the New York Times.
Kennedy, the wife of Moorhead C. Kennedy, an American diplomat who was one of the hostages, helped ensure that the plight of the Americans captured in Tehran remained in the forefront of attention in the world’s news media.
Born in New York City, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and studied theater but left after three years to marry Kennedy. According to the Times, she worked as a theater director and newspaper writer while living abroad in Yemen, Greece, Lebanon and Chile with her husband.
She became a real estate agent after her family returned to Washington in the mid-1970s.
Her husband was the third-ranking diplomat in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when militant students seized the structure on Nov. 4, 1979, and took 60 people hostage. A total of 52 Americans, including Kennedy, were held until Jan. 20, 1981.
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