Son of Walter J. Kennedy and Elisabeth Dean Kennedy of St. Paul Minnesota.
He graduated in 1944 from St. Paul Academy (now St. Paul Academy and Summit School) in St. Paul, Minnesota.
He served in the United States Navy. He earned his Bachelor's degree in 1949 from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1952 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
After law school in 1952, he ran as a Republican candidate against Eugene J. McCarthy in Minneapolis's Fourth Congressional District and lost. He later became a Democrat.
He is survived by his wife, Frances Hefren Kennedy (Married since 1958), their daughter, Ruth Kennedy Sudduth of Stow, Massachussetts; and a brother, John Kennedy of Boulder, Colorado.