What I Learned About America Working at JFK, Jr.’s Magazine The Summer He Died

When John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s plane went down, on July 16, 1999, I was a wide-eyed 21-year-old intern at his doomed political magazine, George.

John F. Kennedy, Jr.: Nov. 25, 1960-July 16,1999

“How’d you break your foot, anyway?” I said.

“Paragliding,” John replied.

“What’s paragliding?”

This might have been a forgettable exchange between a 21-year-old summer intern and his boss. Had my boss not been the only son of the late 35th president of the United States and, throughout my childhood, an unmitigated hunk perennially gracing the cover of supermarket tabloids.

This exchange between John F. Kennedy, Jr., and me, which transpired in the elevator as we headed back up to the office following our respective lunches, still might not have been so notable. Had it not been for the fact that less than nine hours later, John was dead.

As the world would learn late the following day, on the evening of Friday, July 15, 1999, the Kennedy crown prince capitulated to the family curse and crashed his plane into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. John died in this accident at age 38 along with his style-icon wife, Caroline Bes…