Ludovic Kennedy

From Philosopedia

Ludovic Kennedy [Sir] (3 November 1919 - 18 October 2009)

Kennedy, who was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, was the son of a career Royal Navy officer, Edward Coverley Kennedy, and his wife, Rosalind Grant, daughter of Sir Ludovic Grant, 11th Baronet. His mother was a cousin of the Conservative politician Robert Boothby, later Lord Boothby.

He had three younger sisters, Morar, Edna and Katherine. Morar married the playwright Royce Ryton in 1954. Katherine married Major Ion Calvocoressi in 1947.

Kennedy was schooled at Oxford and Eton College, where he played in a jazz band with Humphrey Lyttelton. He became a naval officer aboard one of the ships, the Tartar, that pursued the crippled German battleship Bismarck, which sank in the Atlantic, under fire and orders to scuttle itself. His 1974 book, Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck, was a dramatic account of the events

His father, who was forced to retire from the Royal Navy after a seemingly unjust court-martial for condoning insubordination, was restored to command in World War II. He was given command of HMS Rawalpindi, a hastily militarized P&O steamship, known as an Armed Merchant Cruiser. On 23 November 1939, while on patrol southeast of Iceland the Rawalpindi encountered two of the most powerful German warships, the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau trying to break out through the GIUK gap into the Atlantic. The Rawalpindi was able to signal the German ships' location back to base. Despite being hopelessly outgunned, Kennedy's father decided to fight, rather than surrender as demanded by the Germans. The Scharnhorst sank Rawalpindi - of her 312 crew, 275 (including her captain) were killed. His son Ludovic was just 20 years old. Captain Kennedy was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches and his decision to fight against overwhelming odds entered the folklore of the Royal Navy.

A lifelong atheist, he published All In The Mind: A Farewell To God in 1999. The book discussed his philosophical objections to religion and the ills he felt had come from Christianity. He was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, he contributed to New Humanist, was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society, and was a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland.

He was also an advocate of the legalization of assisted suicide, becoming a co-founder and former chair of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Euthanasia: The Case for the Good Death was published in 1990.

Kennedy also campaigned, unsuccessfully, for overturning the verdict against Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was electrocuted in 1936 for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby in 1932. In his 1982 BBC documentary, “Who Killed the Lindbergh Baby?” and his 1985 book, The Airman and the Carpenter, Kennedy argued that Hauptmann, a German immigrant carpenter arrested more than two years after the abduction, had been railroaded by the police and prosecutors because America needed a scapegoat for the crime. The book was made into a 1996 HBO film, “Crime of the Century.”

Kennedy resigned from the Liberal Democrats in 2001, citing the incompatibility of his pro-voluntary euthanasia views with those of the then Liberal Democrat leader and Catholic Charles Kennedy (no relation). He then stood as an independent on a platform of legalizing voluntary euthanasia in the 2001 general election for the Wiltshire constituency of Devizes. He won 2% of the vote and subsequently rejoined the Liberal Democrats.

In February 1950 he married the dancer and actress Moira Shearer in the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace. The couple had one son and three daughters from a 56-year marriage that ended with her death on 31 January 2006 at the age of 80.

Kennedy received an honorary doctorate from the University of Strathclyde in 1985. He was knighted in 1994 for services to journalism, on the recommendation of John Major's government. Major's predecessor Margaret Thatcher had vetoed Sir Ludovic's knighthood.

Kennedy, celebrated in Scotland for his support of its independence from the crown, died of pneumonia in a nursing home in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Obituary

Kennedy's obituary in The Economist (24 October 2009) discussed his liking of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, and his humanistic views about voluntary euthanasia, rationalism, and his controversial views about "those who defended an adversarial system of justice that encouraged 'the police to commit perjury.' "

Works

Sub-Lieutenant: A Personal Record of the War at Sea, 1942

One Man's Meat, 1953

Murder Story, 1954

Trial of Stephen Ward, 1964

Very Lovely People; a personal look at some Americans living abroad, 1969

Nelson and His Captains (also called Nelson's band of brothers), 1975

Presumption of Innocence: Amazing Case of Patrick Meehan, 1976

Death of the Tirpitz (also called Menace — The Life and Death of the Tirpitz), 1979

On My Way to the Club, 1990

Truth to Tell: Collected Writings of Ludovic Kennedy, 1992

In Bed with an Elephant: Personal View of Scotland, 1995

All in the Mind: A Farewell To God, 1999