Caroline Kennedy has been asked to serve President Obama’s second administration as Ambassador to Japan, confirmed Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, on Wednesday.
As first reported by Mitchell last spring, Kennedy was tapped for an ambassadorship in April, with the country assignment due to be confirmed at a later date.
This will be Kennedy’s first posting overseas. She previously considered running for the New York Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton in 2008, but ultimately withdrew her name from consideration in January 2009, citing personal reasons.
Along with her uncle, the late Democratic Sen.Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Kennedy lent Obama’s 2008 run for the White House renewed energy and star power with a pivotal endorsement during the heated democratic primary against then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Historically, the high-profile post in Japan has been held by boldfaced names in politics, including Former Senate Majority Leaders Mike Mansfield and Howard Baker, Former House Speaker Thomas Foley, and Former Vice President Walter Mondale, among others.
Presidential historian Robert Dallek told Mitchell last April that Kennedy’s celebrity status “gives her a cache the minute she lands in Tokyo.”
The ambassadorship is contingent upon senate approval, and Kennedy is expected to be easily confirmed.
NBC Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell contributed reporting.
Erin Delmore