On each trip I make in the car these days, I listen to Jacqueline Kennedy talk about her life with JFK. She is talking with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. in the spring of 1964, scarcely four months after JFK’s horrific death in Dallas. The recording was made as a part of an oral history project on the life and career of John F. Kennedy.
At the time of the interviews – there are eight conversations recorded over a period of a few weeks – Jacqueline asked that they be put in “the vault” and not be released for fifty years. It was ultimately daughter Caroline who agreed that the time was right for publication as part of the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of JFK’s presidency. Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic “Conversations with John F. Kennedy was released last year in both book and CD versions. To me, it is hearing her talk that is so revealing!
I was a little leery, at first. I wasn’t sure that I could take all those hours of listening to Jackie’s breathy, Marilyn Monroe-ish voice. But that hasn’t been the way of it at all. In fact, I have to remind myself that she isn’t one of my East Coast private schooled cousins or friends – the intonations and cadence, even her verbal expressions, are so similar. My thoughts flew to Willard’s daughter Freddy who married George Plimpton and, in those years, spent time with Bobby and Ethel and the rest. There is now no doubt in my mind that she would have fit right in — I can almost hear Freddy’s laugh and wry remarks as I listen.
Jackie’s commentary, especially on the movers and shakers of the time – Adalai Stevenson and Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, J. Edgar Hoover and Charles deGaulle and so many more – is candid and refreshing. Her memory for people and places was amazing – plus she was an inveterate note-taker from the very first year of her marriage to JFK.
It was Mrs. Rose Kennedy who advised her to keep a diary and though she followed that suggestion, Jackie didn’t always agree with examples set her mother-in-law. On the other hand, she adored her father-in-law, always referred to as “Mr. Kennedy.” And she is forthcoming about other members of the family and their interactions, as well.
For those of us who came of age during the White House Camelot years, the conversations are especially meaningful and poignant. My admiration and respect for Jacqueline Kennedy has increased immeasurably. I recommend the book and especially the tapes without reservation.
Thanks for the recommendation! I considered reading it when it first came out and then was distracted with other books and promptly forgot. I’ll put it on my list!