RFK Jr.’s Fervor Stirs Hollywood

Seven years ago, Laurie David was invited to a small breakfast at a Westside hotel with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a charismatic attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. She went in a casual conservationist who yelled at litterbugs -- and emerged a fiery environmentalist who wanted to devote her life to preserving the planet.

David, the wife of “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David, is now a Toyota Prius-driving member of the council’s board and one of the most outspoken environmental activists in Hollywood. One of her aims is simply to put Kennedy, the liberal son of the slain presidential candidate, in front of as many people as possible.

Tonight at the Wadsworth Theatre in Brentwood, Kennedy, the third of RFK’s 11 children, will give the keynote address at a resources council gala launched by David that will be so densely populated with stars -- actors Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, musicians Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson, to name a few -- that it is leaving other conservation groups green with envy.

David predicts that Kennedy will steal the show.

“The environmental movement needs a face, and he is the perfect person to take on that role. He is a star in every sense -- the real deal,” David said. “If he can convince someone as cynical as me to care about the environment, he can convince anybody. He’s my secret weapon.”

Kennedy has become a high-profile critic of the Bush administration’s environmental policies at the same time that he has begun to play a behind-the-scenes role for the administration of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the husband of his cousin, Maria Shriver -- a juxtaposition that has troubled some Republicans.

Moreover, some critics call his repeated attacks on Bush’s policies unbalanced.

Jonathan H. Adler, who teaches environmental law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and is a contributing editor to National Review Online, penned a scathing criticism of an article about Bush’s policies that Kennedy wrote last year in Rolling Stone magazine, accusing him of distorting the facts.

“It is unfortunate when someone uses their platform and their celebrity to level attacks that they know are inaccurate or misleading, and I think he did that, either for political purposes or for the fundraising benefits of his organization,” Adler said.

“The Rolling Stone piece was really designed to be an attack on the Bush administration, not to explain their environmental policy,” he added. “For someone who knows as much about environmental policy as he supposedly does, that told me that he was more interested in hitting Bush as hard as possible.”

The article accused the president of systematically dismantling years of environmental regulations. Kennedy is now writing a book on the same topic, due to be published before this fall’s presidential election.

“I think that is probably the best use of my time right now,” Kennedy said of his speeches against the Bush administration, which took him to New Mexico on Wednesday for an appearance with its Democratic governor, Bill Richardson. “I have been working at the grass-roots level for years now to protect clean air and water, but those laws I have been working on are being eviscerated.”

For Schwarzenegger’s administration, Kennedy helped assemble a team of advisors and craft an environmental platform during the recall election campaign that surprised conservationists, who said it would have been bold even for a liberal Democrat.

The Kennedy family entree is an issue that discomfits some California Republicans. Schwarzenegger’s conservative rival in last year’s recall race, state Sen. Tom McClintock, made an issue of the RFK Jr. connection, telling the Washington Post, “That’s not good company to keep.”

At 50, Kennedy is now older than his father was when, as a Democratic candidate for president, he was mortally wounded in 1968 by an assassin’s bullet at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He bears a clear physical resemblance to his father and, like former President Clinton, possesses a distinctive speaking voice that projects emotion even when he is discussing mundane matters.

Like many Kennedys, he is continually asked whether he plans to enter politics -- and he never rules it out. “If I can avoid running for public office, I will,” he said.

The prospect of a career in public life seemed exceedingly dim for Kennedy after a turbulent youth that culminated in his 1983 arrest for heroin possession. (His brother David died the following year of a cocaine overdose.)

But a year later, while on probation for his crime, Kennedy joined Riverkeeper, a group that was trying to clean up the Hudson River, and began to rehabilitate his reputation by becoming a crusading environmental lawyer. He eventually became the group’s chief attorney and joined the legal staff of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Kennedy’s rise, however, led to a power struggle that eventually resulted in the departure of many longtime Riverkeeper members, including its respected founder, Robert H. Boyle.

Some longtime members also chafed at Kennedy’s hiring of a staff scientist who had served time for smuggling rare birds.

Kennedy’s uncompromising activism landed him in jail in 2001 after his arrest for trespassing on military land on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, where he was protesting Navy bombing exercises. He named his sixth child, who was born during his incarceration, Aidan Caohman Vieques Kennedy.

But some Hollywood supporters say it is Kennedy’s involvement in smaller, less glamorous fights that has won their respect.

Director Rob Reiner recalled that when he and other entertainment figures were fighting to stop development of the Ahmanson Ranch in the Simi Hills, Kennedy phoned the chair of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, arguing for preservation of the land. It was purchased by the state last year.

“This was just a local issue that I was very concerned about, and he really responded ... ,” Reiner said. “He really does walk the walk. He knows he has that name recognition and that that helps energize people.

“But what he has shown many of us is that it is what you do with that recognition that counts. I think he is coming from a very pure place.”