Obama nominates former first daughter Caroline Kennedy as US ambassador to Japan Japan is one of the United States' most important trading and military partners and accustomed since the end of World War II to having renowned American political leaders serve as envoy. Former U.S. ambassadors to Japan include former Vice President Walter Mondale, former House Speaker Tom Foley and former Senate Majority Leaders Mike Mansfield and Howard Baker. Thomas Berger, an international relations professor at Boston University, said some may be concerned that Kennedy doesn't have the experience to deal with thorny issues in the U.S.-Japan relationship, including the trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks and the dispute over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both Japan and China. But Berger argued that Kennedy will have an experienced staff to guide her through policy matters, while she offers other assets - celebrity appeal to the Japanese, a close relationship with Obama and her gender. "Japanese women continue to look for role models who demonstrate that it is possible to be a woman and have a successful career in politics," Berger said. I expect that many in both the United States and in Japan will want to use her to send that message to the Japanese public. Kennedy would bring a third generation of her family into the U.S. diplomatic corps. Her grandfather Joseph P. Kennedy senior was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambassador to Britain, while her aunt Jean Kennedy Smith was ambassador to Ireland under President Bill Clinton. Caroline Kennedy was five days shy of her sixth birthday when her father was killed, and she lived most of the rest of her life in New York City. She earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, got a law degree from Columbia University, married exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg and had three children. Kennedy is president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and chair of the senior advisory committee of the Institute of Politics at Harvard. She has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organisations, helped raise millions of dollars for New York schools and edited numerous bestselling books on history, law and poetry. She considered running for political office after Hillary Rodham Clinton resigned the New York Senate seat to serve as Obama's secretary of state. But Kennedy eventually withdrew herself from consideration to fill the seat, once held by her uncle Robert F. Kennedy, citing unspecified personal reasons.