Caroline: Echoes of Camelot

By Stephen M. Silverman

08/10/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Stepping out from the shadow that has shielded her from the public since her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated nearly 37 years ago, a radiant Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, 42, spoke at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles last night. On stage, Schlossberg invoked the youthful, adventurous and, yes, glamorous spirit of her father's administration. Stepping to the podium as an orchestra played "Camelot," Schlossberg -- the last surviving member of the 1961 Kennedy White House -- endorsed the Al Gore candidacy and then introduced her uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy. She also thanked "all Americans for making me and John, and all our family, a part of your families -- for reaching out and sustaining us through the good times and the difficult ones, and for helping us dream my father's dream." Schlossberg's brother, John Kennedy Jr., died in a plane crash last year. "I know that when my brother, John, and I were growing up," said Schlossberg, "hardly a day went by when someone didn't come up to us and say, 'Your father changed my life . . . I went into public service because he asked me.' "