Kenneth O'Donnell

Kenneth Patrick O'Donnell (March 4, 1924 – September 9, 1977) was an American political consultant and the special assistant and appointments secretary to President John F. Kennedy from 1961 until Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. O'Donnell was a good friend of President Kennedy and his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy. O'Donnell, along with Larry O'Brien and David Powers, was part of the group of Kennedy's advisers dubbed the "Irish Mafia".

O'Donnell also served as an aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1963 to 1965. He later served as an adviser to Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign.

O'Donnell was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and raised in Boston. Both of his parents were Roman Catholics of Irish descent. He was the son of Cleo Albert O'Donnell, who was the football coach at the College of the Holy Cross Crusaders for two decades, and later athletics director for all sports activities. O'Donnell's older brother, also named Cleo, was a football celebrity at Harvard University's Harvard College during the 1940s.

O'Donnell graduated from high school during World War II and then served in the U.S. Army Air Forces (1942–1945), where he flew 30 missions as a bombardier in a B-17 squadron before being shot down over Belgium. "He was imprisoned, escaped, and emerged with the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal with Four Oak Leaf Clusters." After the war, he studied at Harvard College (1946–1949) and met Robert F. Kennedy, where they were roommates as well as teammates on the Harvard football team; O'Donnell became team captain in 1948. The two remained good friends until Kennedy's assassination in 1968.

Following graduation from Harvard, O'Donnell attended law school at Boston College from 1950–51. He later worked as a salesman for the Hollingsworth & Vose Paper Company and then the Whitney Corporation, both in Boston, from 1951 to 1952. O'Donnell later worked in public relations from 1952 to 1957.

O'Donnell's friendship with Robert Kennedy resulted in his involvement with the Kennedy family's political careers. In 1946, Robert Kennedy enlisted him to work for the first congressional campaign of his elder brother, John F. Kennedy. In 1952, O'Donnell and Robert Kennedy campaigned together to get John elected to the U.S. Senate. O'Donnell then served as John Kennedy's unpaid political observer in Massachusetts, until 1957, when he became assistant counsel to the Senate Labor Rackets Committee, where he worked for Robert Kennedy, who had been appointed chief counsel of the Committee.

In 1958, O'Donnell became a member of Senator John Kennedy's staff, where he was later a major organizer and adviser during Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960. The next year, he became President Kennedy's special assistant and Appointments Secretary. He later advised the President during the preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion and during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

O'Donnell arranged President Kennedy's visit to Dallas in November 1963 and was in a car just behind the president's limousine when Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy's death was greatly troubling to O'Donnell, who long claimed that he blamed himself for the assassination.