Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg: CHAMPION OF CIVILITY

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Caroline refused to exploit her mother's publishing contacts for her book, but she wasn't disingenuous about her star wattage. "If my name makes more people want to read it," she told an interviewer in 1991, "that's fine." Says Vanden Heuvel: "She understands that because she is well known, she can get attention for the causes she's interested in. She is unpretentious about it, but she knows what its benefit can be." With the book's publication, Caroline stepped into a more visible role. After Jackie's death in 1994, she assumed her mother's place in the New York cultural scene, becoming an honorary chairwoman of the American Ballet Theatre and in 1997 joining the board of the Citizens Committee for New York City, which supports local volunteer service groups. She took over as president of the Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston. She rarely misses quarterly board meetings and often phones library staff members with ideas for new programs and exhibits.

She helped found, in 1989, the library's Profile in Courage Awards, an honor given to public officials for acts of political bravery. The 12-member panel meets every year for two days of vetting the nominees; in those sessions, Caroline is known for her intense preparation and affinity for discussion. She personally telephones winners and presents the awards at an annual ceremony at the library. This year's event, which honored Senators Russ Feingold and John McCain, was Caroline and John Jr.'s last public appearance together. Alan Simpson, the former Wyoming Senator who is director of the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics at Harvard, was reminded of Caroline's forebears. "When I saw her step forward to make those awards, I saw the same poise and warmth and desire to participate in politics and carry on the Kennedy name."

Few think Caroline has designs on elected office, but she has become more aggressive lately about promoting public service. In May she touted the Profile in Courage Award on the Today show "as a way of showing how important it is for people to continue to celebrate and expect political courage." In politics, Caroline picks her moments. She turned down an invitation to serve as chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention in 1992, but she stumped for Teddy and her cousin Patrick, a Rhode Island Congressman, late in the 1994 campaign. In 1998 she lent her name to the campaign against an anti-affirmative-action initiative in Washington State and gave a speech at a U.N. ceremony in which she implored the U.S. Senate to ratify an international treaty on children's rights.

Even after John's death, she will probably stay behind the curtain of the public stage, pouring her energies again into her family life. Her most recent book with Alderman, The Right to Privacy, was read by some as a veiled protest written by a woman uneasy with the public's demands on her personal space. It is actually much more--a scholarly but accessible work that aims, in some small way, to raise public understanding of a complex legal problem. "I hope it will show people there is a process for working things out," she said in 1995. "To the extent that we are all educated and informed, we will be more equipped to deal with the gut issues that tend to divide us." It's a quaint notion, perhaps more easily received in her father's time than our own. Caroline's greatest public service has come in trying to revive it.