Jackie Kennedy

A Captivating Guide to the Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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Captivating History

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Introduction

Chapter One: Childhood and Early Education

Chapter Two: College and Early Career

Chapter Three: Relationship with John F. Kennedy

Chapter Four: Motherhood

Chapter Five: Campaign for Presidency

Chapter Six: First Lady

Chapter Seven: Kennedy Assassination

Chapter Eight: Life Following the Assassination

Chapter Nine: Coming to an End

Chapter Ten: Ongoing Iconic Figure

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Introduction

Without a doubt, the name Jackie Kennedy draws multiple thoughts to mind; she is, perhaps, most well-known in her service as the first lady of the United States, as her husband, John F. Kennedy, took office as the president, and her role in restoring the White House. Then, of course, other people remember Jacqueline for her role in the fashion industry, particularly her pink Chanel suit and matching pillbox hat, which became a symbol of her husband’s assassination. Jackie is so renowned and beloved that she ranks as one of the most popular first ladies. In fact, Jacqueline was named in 1999 on Gallup’s list of Most Admired Men and Women in twentieth-century America. While she made major impacts on the White House, Jackie was much more than her title as first lady.

First of all, she was a mother. Not only that, but she was also a mother in the spotlight in the 1960s. People rushed to ask Jacqueline about her ideas on various parts of motherhood and her position as a wife in the White House. In reality, the family was privileged but not that much different from others of their wealth level. Later, her son said, “It’s hard to talk about a legacy or a mystique. It’s my family. It’s my mother. It’s my sister. It’s my father. We’re a family like any other. We look out for one another. The fact that there have been difficulties and hardships, or obstacles, makes us closer.” [1]

Jackie held a tight grip on her role in her personal life and government. John F. Kennedy goes as far as to say that his wife was the reason he won re-election to Senate. She was somehow both charismatic and shy, appealing to a broad range of the public. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger visited the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port in July 1959 and said that he found Jacqueline to have “tremendous awareness, an all-seeing eye, and a ruthless judgment.” [2]

Jackie kept people on the edge, and the media never quite knew what to expect from her both within her husband’s presidency and removed from it. She was quite the polar opposite of first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Rodham Clinton when it came to involvement in her husband’s presidency and policies. In fact, she baffled news reporters when she admitted that she did not even know the date of her husband’s inauguration. Jacqueline replied “Acapulco” when asked what she thought would be a suitable venue for the next Democratic convention. This part of her personality was probably due to her dislike of the media, though. She felt no need to parade her knowledge or her family in front of the cameras and often chose to stand to the side instead of engaging, whereas her husband loved interacting with the press and did so much more often than she would have liked.

Although she seemed a bit out of the loop at times, Jackie was not ditsy or clueless about her husband’s responsibilities in the political realm. Rather, she was a first lady at a point in time when many American citizens did not appreciate the idea of a president’s wife being too involved in his politics and policies. The more people actually study this particular first lady, though, the more the American public knows about her real place in the White House. Like many wives of presidential marriages, Jacqueline appeared to have little to no influence on the presidency, but she held a good bit of power beneath the surface. In fact, the Kennedy Library holds the first lady’s oral history, which displays her opinions of everyone within John F. Kennedy’s administration, ideas which she clearly shared with her husband. The people she praised in her oral history tended to gain promotion under President Kennedy, and those she disliked did not gain much ground within the White House.

For the most part, Jacqueline was a strong force her entire life, including her time in the White House. She swept the public and the media off their feet with her fashion choices and her personality, and she warmed the White House with her care for its people and its structural integrity, alongside its function as a home for her children. In all, Jacqueline’s contributions to the United States are not to be underestimated.

Chapter One: Childhood and Early Education

On July 28, 1929, Jackie was born as Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Southampton, New York, in Southampton Hospital. Her mother was Janet Norton Lee (1907 –1989), and her father was John Vernou “Black Jack” Bouvier III (1891 – 1957). Janet Norton Lee’s ancestry was of Irish descent, while John Vernou Bouvier III’s family hailed from France, Scotland, and England. Soon after her birth, Jacqueline was baptized at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan. A few years later in 1933, the Bouvier family welcomed a new member, Caroline Lee Bouvier, who would later be Caroline Lee Radziwill-Ross. Both sisters were reared strictly in the Catholic faith.

As a young child, Jackie was establishing her independence and quick wit, and it was noticeable to everyone who interacted with her. While on a walk with her nanny and little sister, Jackie wandered away from the small group. When a police officer stopped her, worried about a young girl alone, she told him, “My nurse and baby sister seem to be lost,” effectively displaying that she did not blame herself for the situation. [3] Her take-control attitude followed her throughout her entire life.

Jacqueline spent much of her early childhood between Manhattan and Lasata, which was the Bouviers’ country estate in East Hampton on Long Island. She and her father formed a very close relationship that often excluded her sister, Lee, much to the younger sister’s disappointment. John Vernou Bouvier III claimed that Jackie was the “most beautiful daughter a man ever had.” [4]

In her childhood, Jacqueline dabbled in multiple hobbies, as many children do. She exceeded all expectations with her mastery of horseback-riding. In fact, her mother placed her on a horse when she was only one year old. By the time Jackie turned twelve years old, she had a few national championships under her belt. In 1940, The New York Times wrote, “Jacqueline Bouvier, an eleven-year-old equestrienne from Easy Hampton, Long Island, scored a double victory in the horsemanship competition. Miss Bouvier achieved a rare distinction. The occasions are few when a young rider wins both contests in the same show.” [5] She continued to compete successfully in the sport and lived on as an avid equestrienne for the rest of her life. [6]

She did not stop her hobbies at horseback-riding. Additionally, Jackie spent long hours buried in books, took ballet lessons, and developed a passion for learning languages. French was a particular favorite and was emphasized in her childhood education. [7] These developed language skills helped Jacqueline as she entered her husband’s political realm. Whereas John F. Kennedy often needed a translator in foreign countries and with foreign dignitaries, his wife could often speak their language fluently.

Before she even began school, young Jackie read all the books on her bookshelves. She loved Mowgli from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book , Little Lord Fauntleroy’s grandfather, Robin Hood, Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind , and the poetry of Lord Byron. Her mother often wondered if she would one day make a career of writing. [8] Near a childhood Christmas, she penned the following poem:

“Christmas is coming

Santa Claus is near

Reindeer hooves will soon be drumming

On the roof tops loud and clear.” [9]

Referring to reading as a child, Jackie said, “I lived in New York City until I was thirteen and spent the summers in the country. I hated dolls, loved horses and dogs, and had skinned knees and braces on my teeth for what must have seemed an interminable length of time to my family. I read a lot when I was little, much of which was too old for me. There were Chekhov and Shaw in the room where I had to take naps and I never slept but sat on the windowsill reading, then scrubbed the soles of my feet so the nurse would not see I had been out of bed.” [10] Jacqueline had a thirst for learning, and she never quite quenched it.

After attending kindergarten, Jackie enrolled in Manhattan’s Chapin School in 1935. The Chapin School, an all-girls independent day school, presented a space for young Jackie to learn everything she needed to know from grades one to six. [11] Although she was quite smart, Jackie often found herself in trouble at school. Her teacher said that she was “a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of the devil.” [12] She was a very mischievous child and found herself sent to the headmistress, Miss Ethel Stringfellow, many times. Stringfellow wrote on Jacqueline’s report card: “Jacqueline was given a D in Form because her disturbing conduct in her geography class made it necessary to exclude her from the room.” [13] Like most parents, Jackie’s mother made excuses for her daughter’s actions, saying that Jackie finished assignments early and acted out in boredom. [14] Janet Bouvier once asked her daughter, “What happens when you’re sent to Miss Stringfellow?” Young Jackie replied, “Well, I go to the office and Miss Stringfellow says, ‘Jacqueline, sit down. I’ve heard bad reports about you.’ I sit down. Then Miss Stringfellow says a lot of things—but I don’t listen.” Cool and calm, she was unwilling to admit guilt.

Biographer Sarah Bradford says, “Jackie was already a rebel, unsubdued by the discipline at Miss Chapin’s. She was brighter than most of her classmates and would get through her work quickly, then was left with nothing to do but doodle and daydream. All the teachers interviewed by Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer twenty years later remembered her for her beauty and, above all, her mischief.” [15] Even then, Jackie was creating a name for herself. She would not be forgotten easily.

Nothing in Jackie’s life was smooth. Jacqueline’s father had a reputation for cheating on his wife and partaking in too much liquor too fast. By the time young Jackie was born, John Bouvier was involved in several affairs already. Jackie’s mother attempted to give the marriage another chance, encouraging her husband to focus on his job as a stockbroker, which had thus far produced no positive results. [16] She grew embittered with her husband and quickly realized she wanted out of the marriage. She still had her children to consider, though. It bothered Janet Bouvier to no end that her children obviously preferred their father’s company over hers. She had a tendency to overreact to situations and occasionally hit her girls, which only made them prefer their father even more.

In a 2013 interview, Lee, Jackie’s sister, said that her mother was too concerned with her “almost irrational social climbing,” but when referring to her father she said, “He was a wonderful man … He had such funny idiosyncrasies, like always wearing his black patent evening shoes with his swimming trunks. One thing which infuriates me is how he’s always labeled the drunk black prince. He was never drunk with me, though I’m sure he sometimes drank, due to my mother’s constant nagging. You would, and I would.” [17]

During Jacqueline’s time at the Chapin School, her parents were experiencing another bout of marital issues. On top of her father’s extramarital affairs, he was also an alcoholic. To boot, the family drowned in financial instability after Wall Street crashed in 1929. Although her father built some of the most distinguished apartments on Park Avenue in New York, his loss of money was excessive. He made too many bad investments and did not spend well, in general. Jacqueline later said that she was afraid that her father would not be able to pay her tuition to school.

In 1936, Jacqueline’s parents separated and were granted a divorce four years later. Janet Bouvier hoped that the time apart—the separation—would show her husband that he needed to learn family responsibility. During their separation, the press published all the gory and intimate details of their personal lives. Detailed photographs showed evidence of John Bouvier’s dalliances, which embarrassed his wife no end. [18] Lee said, “There was such relentless bitterness on both sides. Jackie was really fortunate to have or acquire the ability to tune out, which she always kept … It was like for the years from ten to twenty never hearing anything [from your parents] except how awful the other one was.” [19]

Apparently, Jackie learned at a very young age how to conceal her true feelings. Her cousin John H. Davis said that she had a “tendency to withdraw frequently into a private world of her own.” [20] Although she was able to restrain her opinions as a younger woman and child, the truth of it all came out later: she was deeply affected by the divorce and the media attention that came along with it. For the rest of her life, Jackie would hate the press and would try at all costs to control the narrative they were printing. Often, she would seek journalists who would print what she wanted, such as Theodore White, the man who printed her story of Camelot she invented the week after her husband’s assassination.

Jacqueline’s mother remarried later to Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr., the heir of Standard Oil. [21] The Bouvier sisters had three new stepsiblings from the wedding, offspring of Auchincloss’ previous two marriages. Additionally, Jacqueline’s mother and Auchincloss had two more children together.

After the marriage, the Bouvier sisters moved their primary residence to Auchincloss’ Merrywood estate in McLean, Virginia. They also spent a good deal of time at their new stepfather’s other estate, Hammersmith Farm, in Newport, Rhode Island, and in their father’s homes in Long Island and New York City. Jackie began to see her stepfather as a source of stability; he was able to provide monetary funding and a pampered childhood, which her father could never do on quite as grand a scale. Although Jacqueline felt at home with her new family, she was a bit of an outcast within their new social circle. Many of her new family’s friends were white Anglo-Saxon protestants (WASPS), and her position as a Catholic left her as an outsider with her religion and her status as a child of divorce, which was an uncommon trait in the elite social group. [22]

Jacqueline grew very fond of her stepfather, regardless of the issues of social anxiety and distance. At the age of twenty-three, she wrote a series of poems that highlighted things in her life made possible by her mother’s marriage to Auchincloss. In an introduction, she wrote: “It seems so hard to believe that you’ve been married ten years. I think they must have been the very best decade of your lives. At the start, in 1942, we all had other lives and we were seven people thrown together, so many little separate units that could have stayed that way. Now we are nine—and what you’ve given us and what we’ve shared has bound us all to each other for the rest of our lives.” [23] Jacqueline truly appreciated the stability granted to her by her mother’s divorce.

When Jackie finished six years at the Chapin School, she moved on to the Holton-Arms School in Northwest Washington, D.C., which she attended from 1942 to 1944. Here, she grew fond of Miss Helen Shearman, the Latin teacher. She claimed that the instructor was demanding, “But she was right. We were all lazy teenagers. Everything she taught me stuck, and though I hated to admit it, I adored Latin.” [24]

Jacqueline transferred to Miss Porter’s School, a boarding school for girls in Farmington, Connecticut, attending from 1944 to 1947. Along with a rigorous academic schedule, the school emphasized proper manners and the art of conversation. At Miss Porter’s Jacqueline felt she could distance herself from her mother’s new family, allowing her to pursue independence and college preparatory classes. [25] Here, she began learning to function on her own, something she would have to do at various points in her life whether she wanted to do so or not.

Jackie did well at Miss Porter’s School. Upon graduation, Jacqueline was listed as one of the top students of her class; she received the Maria McKinney Memorial Award for Excellence in Literature. [26] Her senior class yearbook claimed that she was known for “her wit, her accomplishment as a horsewoman, and her unwillingness to become a housewife.” She even wrote in the class yearbook under the Ambition in Life section: “Not to be a housewife,” but Jacqueline grew worried about her future prospects eventually. [27] She later wrote to a friend: “I just know no one will ever marry me and I’ll end up as a house mother at Farmington.” [28]

Chapter Two: College and Early Career

After finishing her career in early education, Jacqueline enrolled in Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Here, she gained a good bit of notoriety. She had preferred to attend Sarah Lawrence College, but her parents forbade her to do so. Therefore, she avoided the social life at Vassar, but she participated heavily in the art and drama clubs and wrote for the newspaper at the college. [29]

Rather than remaining active with her classmates, she returned to Manhattan on the weekends. Before entering college, Jacqueline was introduced into society, and her face henceforth became a common feature in New York social functions. In fact, columnist Igor Cassini called her the “debutante of the year” after her formal “coming out” party, a title which she tried not to carry around with her. [30] Charlotte Curtis, Jackie’s next-door neighbor in the Main Hall, said, “I knew about her Deb of the Year title, but I don’t remember her ever bringing it up. I think it rather embarrassed her.” Curtis’ roommate said that Jacqueline was:

“intellectually very curious. She constantly asked me about my family. I was of Lebanese extraction and had grown up in a small town in Tennessee. These aspects of my life fascinated Jackie. She wanted to know all about how my father stowed away on a boat as a young boy to come to America She wanted to know about Lebanon. I had pictures of my family in my room and Jackie would scrutinize the faces and ask questions about various members of the family, almost like a reporter gathering material for a story. She had a way of focusing on a person that left one dazzled. It was most flattering.”

It seems that even this early in life, Jacqueline was learning to make others love and care for her the same way she did for them. She was learning how to charm the pants off people, and it was working.

At this point in her life, Jacqueline began dating, as well. She entered that confusing realm of college dating and completely took control of it. Her title of “Debutante of the Year” had suitors lining up at her door even as her stepbrother, Yusha, who was an upperclassman at Yale, was setting her up with friends from Ivy League schools. More than anything else, she was testing the water. Later, her stepbrother said, “It was a transitory period of her life. She liked playing the field, meeting a variety of types—varsity swimmers at Yale, Harvard pre-med candidates, up-and-coming New York lawyers and stockbrokers.” She took none of these men seriously and referred to them as “beetle-browed bores.” [31] She made it quite obvious that she just wanted to have a fun time.

Although she learned a lot at the school, Jackie spent as much time away from Vassar as possible. Wishing to engage in a study-abroad experience, she spent her junior year of college in France at the University of Grenoble and at the Sorbonne in Paris. Here, she lived with the well-to-do de Renty family at 76 Avenue Mozart. She vacationed with Claude de Renty, daughter of her landlady, while living in Paris and wrote of the trip they took together in 1950: “I had the most terrific vacation in Austria and Germany. We really saw what it was like with the Russians with Tommy guns in Vienna. We saw Vienna and Salzburg and Berchtesgaden where Hitler lived: Munich and the Dachau concentration camp … It’s so much more fun traveling second and third class and sitting up all night in trains, as you really get to know people and hear their stories. When I traveled before it was all too luxurious and we didn’t see anything.” [32] During the trip, they spent a good bit of time in southern France, a place Jacqueline came to love dearly:

“I just can’t tell you what it is like to come down from the mountains of Grenoble to this flat, blazing plain where seven-eighths of all you see is hot blue sky—and there are rows of poplars at the edge of every field to protect the crops from the mistral and spiky short palm trees with blazing red flowers growing at their feet. The people here speak with the lovely twang of the ‘accent du Midi.’ They are always happy as they live in the sun and love to laugh. It was heartbreaking to only get such a short glimpse of it all—I want to go back and soak it all up. The part I want to see is la Camargue—a land in the Rhone delta which is flooded by the sea every year and they have a ceremony where they all wade in on horses and bless it—La Bénédiction de la Mer—gypsies live there and bands of little Arab horses and they raise wild bulls.” [33]

Jackie relished her time abroad. Later, she wrote: “I loved it more than any year of my life. Being away from home gave me a chance to look at myself with a jaundiced eye. I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide, and I came home glad to start in here again but with a love for Europe that I am afraid will never leave me.” [34] Her family still thought of her while she was gone, especially her very protective mother. Jacqueline once told her stepbrother, Hugh Auchincloss, “I have to write Mummy a ream each week or she gets hysterical and thinks I’m dead or married to an Italian.” [35] Near the end of her stint in France, Jackie’s reputation was that of a society party girl. She attended countless parties overseas, much to the chagrin of her father who thought that her reputation was growing ill. He tried to convince her time and time again to stay away from men and to return home to him where he could protect her.

When she returned to the United States, she spent some time at Smith College in Massachusetts, then transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Jacqueline graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature in 1951 with distinction and honors, never having lost her love of education; early in her marriage to Kennedy, she continued to take courses in American history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

While attending George Washington University, Jacqueline won a twelve-month junior editorship at Vogue magazine in which she continued her passion for writing that she developed and fed at Vassar. In this coveted position, she was to work in the magazine’s New York City office for six months and spend the rest of the time in Paris. [36] She never reached fruition in this editorship, though. On the first day of her job, the managing editor suggested that she leave the job and return to Washington, D.C. At the age of twenty-two, Jackie was beyond the appropriate age for a woman of her status to marry, and the editor was worried that the job would hinder her social position. Jackie followed the advice and returned home after only one day with Vogue. [37]

Soon afterward, Jacqueline found a job as a part-time receptionist at the Washington Times-Herald . Although her mother was married to the heir of Standard Oil, his money did not extend heavily to Jackie and her sister. Therefore, her job was not only for experience but also from her need for a salary to support herself and her spending habits. She quickly grew bored with her position and approached the editor, Frank Waldrop, to ask for harder work. After much back-and-forth arguing, he agreed to give her a new position.

Jacqueline began functioning as the Inquiring Camera Girl . In this position, she popped smart, witty questions to random people on the street, took their pictures, and wrote a short snippet about their responses to be published alongside their pictures in the newspaper. [38] Additionally, she wrote some of the included interest pieces. Jacqueline particularly enjoyed interviewing children, saying that “they make the best stories.” [39] One of her interviewees was Tricia Nixon, daughter of Richard Nixon, who she interviewed a few days after her father took the vice presidency in the 1952 election. Her question was, “What do you think of Senator Nixon now?” [40] Jacqueline was ecstatic for her work. She wrote to newspaperwoman Bess Furman: “I’m so in love with all that world now—I think I look up to newspaper people the way you join movie star fan clubs when you’re ten years old.” [41]

While Jacqueline was working for the Washington Times-Herald , she was briefly engaged to John G. W. Husted, Jr. A lot of fuzzy details surround this time. Since Jacqueline was such a private woman, it is unclear as to how the relationship began or ended or what happened between those times. She accepted his proposal around Christmas of 1951. Many people think they dated only a month before publishing the announcement of their engagement in The New York Times in January 1952. After three months, Jackie changed her mind, determining that Husted was “immature and boring.” [42] He came to visit her at Merrywood, and Jacqueline placed her engagement ring in the pocket of his suit jacket when she dropped him off at the airport. Husted recalls, “She didn’t say much and neither did I. There wasn’t much you could say.” [43]

Chapter Three: Relationship with John F. Kennedy

In May 1952, journalist Charles L. Barlett introduced United States Representative John F. Kennedy to then Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at a dinner party. The two hit it off but did not really engage with one another until the next time they met. They found similarities in their religion, their loving relationships with reading, and their experiences abroad. They started dating around May 8, 1952 after another dinner at Charlie Bartlett’s house. At the time, Kennedy was running for the United States Senate. Kennedy and Bouvier, later Kennedy Onassis, bonded heavily during this time and grew more serious after the November election.

Senator John F. Kennedy took Jacqueline Lee Bouvier to the President and the First Lady’s Inaugural Ball on January 20, 1953, formally presenting their status as a couple to the public and to all of his political friends. Their relationship grew stronger and stronger, and Bouvier began searching for ways to introduce the Senator to her family. She arranged a date for her suitor to meet her father who was living in New York at the time. Soon after, Kennedy proposed to her, but Bouvier waited a short bit to accept. She was determined to remain devoted to reporting on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, her biggest job yet at the paper; therefore, she traveled to London for The Washington Times-Herald and didn’t accept the marriage proposal until returning to the United States after a month in Europe. Upon her arrival, Kennedy slipped a two-carat diamond and emerald engagement ring on her finger, and she agreed to the marriage proposal. On June 25, 1953, the engagement was officially announced: “Senator Kennedy to marry in fall, son of former envoy is fiancée of Miss Jacqueline Bouvier, Newport Society Girl.” [44] After claiming acceptance, she resigned from her position at the newspaper. [45] She officially devoted herself to her husband’s political campaigns, spending all of her time in this manner.

The Kennedys married in St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 12, 1953 during a mass led by Boston’s Archbishop Richard Cushing. [46] Considered the largest social event of the season, the wedding had somewhere around seven hundred guests at the ceremony and upwards of three thousand at the following reception held at Hammersmith Farm. After the wedding, the couple spent a honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico, before returning to their new home, dubbed Hickory Hill, in McLean, Virginia, which was conveniently close to Washington, D.C. Here, Jacqueline spent long hours reading congressional records in an attempt to familiarize herself with her husband’s work so that she could provide as much assistance as possible. [47] Additionally, she enrolled in an American History course at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Their marriage was not a particularly easy one. As early as two weeks into their marriage, JFK was looking for ways to be with other women. Margaret Coit, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, admitted in 1966, “I had designs on John F. Kennedy. Everybody in Massachusetts did. He was the golden boy, the most eligible bachelor in new England.” Coit was only one of the many women who have admitted to having been involved with the president in some way or another. All the Secret Service agents were, of course, privy to the comings and goings of his suitors after he became president of the United States, and it is thought that Jackie had a few affairs of her own, though none so overt as President Kennedy’s dalliances. Thankfully and tragically, Jackie was accustomed to men who prowled, being her father’s daughter. According to most records, she did not think much about her husband’s infidelity. She had other things to occupy her mind.

Furthermore, President John F. Kennedy suffered from Addison’s disease in addition to his chronic back pain left over from a war injury. He underwent two spinal surgeries in late 1954, and each was near fatal. [48] It got to the point where a priest was summoned to administer the last rites to Senator Kennedy. Jacqueline sat by her husband the entire time, holding his hands and keeping him up to date on what was happening in the news. [49] She was nothing if not the perfect future first lady. JFK began to show signs of recovery and was discharged from the New York hospital. He spent the next while in Palm Beach, Florida, and had a second operation on February 15, 1955. [50]

On top of all these difficulties, the couple experienced trouble having children; Jacqueline had a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn daughter in August 1956. Finally, Jackie gave birth to Caroline on November 27, 1957 after a grueling Caesarean section. With their new daughter, the couple posed proudly for the cover of the April 21, 1958 issue of Life .

Around this time, JFK was campaigning for re-election to the Senate. Jacqueline went anywhere her husband did. By Kennedy’s side at many rallies stood his wife and daughter, and he soon began to realize that Jacqueline added positive value to the campaign trail. American political consultant Kenneth O’Donnell said that Jacqueline’s presence meant that “the size of the crowd was twice as big,” and she was “always cheerful and obliging.” When JFK gained re-election to a second term in November 1958, he credited his wife’s visibility. In his words, she was “simply invaluable.” [51]

During that year, JFK traveled across fourteen states. Jacqueline and Caroline were sometimes in attendance, and sometimes they were on long breaks away from the political realm. Regardless of where Jackie happened to be physically, she provided invaluable support to her husband in preparation for his intended presidential campaign. For example, to help Kennedy garner Louisiana’s support, she traveled to the state to visit Edmund Reggie, an American Democratic politician who served as a city judge in Louisiana.

Chapter Four: Motherhood

Although Jacqueline would have healthy children, her luck was not always with her. On August 23, 1956, Jacqueline gave birth to a stillborn child, which she named Arabella. Those around her say she handled it calmly and did not ask her husband to return from his cruise in the Mediterranean. She had almost recovered from her melancholy when she was further saddened by her father’s death on August 3, 1957. Although he was a troublesome father, they still had a good relationship. Jacqueline immediately went to him and planned his funeral, herself. She still had motherhood in the back of her mind, though.

Her luck began to look up when she gave birth to a daughter named Caroline Bouvier Kennedy on the eve of Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1957. Archbishop Cushing baptized the new Kennedy baby on December 13, 1957. The paparazzi were somewhat interested in the Kennedy family at this point, and Jackie was annoyed with them and their insistent meddling: “Nothing disturbs me as much as interviews and journalists. That’s the trouble with life in the public eye. I have always hated gossip-columnists, publicity about the private lives of public men. But if you make your living in public office, you’re the property of every taxpaying citizen. Your whole life is an open book.” [52]

John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon, his Republican opponent, on November 8, 1960, thus becoming the new president-elect. Two weeks later, Jacqueline gave birth to John F. Kennedy, Jr., in a Caesarean section on November 25, 1960. The next two weeks she spent in the hospital, and she was watched carefully by the media. The birth turned out to be the Kennedy family’s first bout of national media attention. While they told the press that the mother and child were happy and healthy, their son was actually suffering from an undiagnosed respiratory ailment. He spent the first six days of his life in an incubator, and it took months for them both to recover from the ordeal. [53] When JFK saw his son, he said, “Now, that’s the most beautiful boy I’ve seen. Maybe I’ll name him Abraham Lincoln.” [54] When asked what he planned for his son, Kennedy answered that he wanted young John to enter politics because it was a fulfilling place, but he quickly followed with “I want him to do whatever makes him happy—whatever that is.” [55]

Jacqueline spent two weeks after her son’s birth in bed, and her son was not faring too well, either. He was rapidly losing weight, crying nonstop, and struggling to breathe. Later, they discovered he was suffering from the same illness that killed his younger brother. She later said, “John’s health really wasn’t doing so well. There was, thank God, this brilliant pediatrician in Palm Beach who really saved his life, as he was going downhill.” [56] To satisfy their daughter, the Kennedys told her that the baby was her birthday present, as he was born only two days before she turned three. Caroline fell in love with her new brother and believed that he was a splendid present. In fact, the children’s nanny said that “Caroline thought for a long time that he belonged to her.” [57]

Jackie became pregnant again in 1963, which led her to step away from her duties as first lady. Five weeks ahead of her due date, she went into labor on August 7, 1963, giving birth to Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in an emergency Caesarean section at Otis Air Force Base. At birth, his lungs were not fully developed, so he was quickly transferred from Cape Cod to Boston Children’s Hospital. Two days after she gave birth, he died from hyaline membrane disease, which is a syndrome in premature infants when they develop lungs that are structurally immature. [58] While Jacqueline remained at Otis Air Force Base to recuperate, JFK traveled to Boston to be with their son and was there at his death. On August 14, 1963, he returned to take his wife home.

Soon after her son’s death, Jackie entered a deep depression. She had experienced a great deal of grief already in the past few years, and this tragedy tipped her over the edge. Interestingly enough, the death brought the Kennedy couple closer in their grief. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy always “regarded Jacqueline with genuine affection and pride,” but their marriage “never seemed more solid than in the later months of 1963.” [59]

Kennedy began to think that his wife may need a little time away from the White House and looked for vacation options. It was soon after her child’s death that Jacqueline joined Aristotle Onassis, the man who would later be her second husband, on a yacht trip. Jacqueline’s sister, connected them together. President Kennedy was wary but thought that time away would be “good for her.” The general public and many people within the Kennedy administration deeply disapproved of this time away from the White House. When the first lady returned, she said she regretted being away for so long but said she was “melancholy about the death of [her] baby.” [60]

Jackie did not let anything come between her and the future well-being of her children. In his book The Good Son: JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved , Christopher Andersen tells a story of how Jacqueline was watching out for her children even in her most grievous moment: “With her eye undoubtedly on John’s future, Jackie bent down and instructed the three-year-old to deliver history’s most famous salute as his father’s horse-drawn casket passed before him—in that moment securing his place forever in the national consciousness.” [61] She kept her concern close to her heart, only intervening in her children’s lives when she deemed it necessary.

It is too easy to forget that Jackie was not only the president’s wife but that she was also a mother. In fact, she held a few groundbreaking ideas on parenting. Pamela Keogh, author of Jackie Style , describes Jacqueline as an “extremely hands-on, very involved” mother, especially for her class position. Often, wealthy women left their children with a nanny all the time and thought nothing of it. Keogh tells People Magazine that “Jackie was—there” for Caroline and John Jr., her two children. “She was there playing with them and reading to them and painting with them—all kinds of stuff. She was a young mother but she wasn’t phoning it in, and she was very involved. That’s why her two children were beautifully raised.” [62] Keogh says that although the family kept a nanny, Maud Shaw, Jacqueline was always there to oversee everything that happened. Jackie said, “I’ll be a wife and mother first, then first lady.” [63] She allowed her children to have independence. She wanted them to forge their own paths, taking risks and making their own decisions, but she wanted to be there every step of the way in case they needed her for anything.

The children, of course, had every luxury they could imagine while living at the White House, but Jacqueline thought it was important that her children remained “modest, humble, and down-to-earth … They had to pick up their own clothing. She made sure that the Secret Service agents were not maids. The Secret Service agents could not fetch the children anything.” [64] She tried to make the White House as close to a normal house as she possibly could. Jacqueline said, “If Jack proved to be the greatest president of the century and his children turned out badly, it would be a tragedy.” [65]

Jacqueline’s former Secret Service agent Clint Hill recalls that the Kennedy parents “insisted on their children being respectful, acknowledging people and having good manners … but at the same time they wanted them to have a lot of fun and be happy.” [66] Former Secret Service agent Tom Wells told People Magazine , “When [the Kennedy children] were at the White House, there was a privilege involved there but still they weren’t isolated … Ms. Shaw used to take them to the park to meet their friends. They went to other friends’ houses from time to time, and their friends would also come to the White House. They were engaged in lots of activities.” [67] Keogh says that Jackie wanted to help her children gain independence, even in their intense privilege: “If they got themselves into a scrape, they had to get themselves out of it.”

Additionally, Jackie acted as the disciplinarian in the family since she spent the largest amount of time with her children. Keogh says, “Jackie ran a tight ship … She checked the homework and she made sure they were dressed properly. If John was acting up, she made him go stand in a corner. It wasn’t a tough house, but there were expectations.” [68] Jackie was also a playful mother, though. She attempted to teach her children about all of her favorite hobbies, encouraging them to pursue things that made them happy and brought them joy. “She was fun,” said Keogh. “You can see the pictures. She was running with the kids and playing with them.” Clint Hill said Jacqueline particularly enjoyed trying to teach Caroline to ride horses. In 1962, Jacqueline had a brief run-in with the British press when they claimed she was putting her daughter in danger by trying to teach her to waterski without safety gear. Ever confident, Jackie simply laughed and brushed it off. She mothered her children as she wanted and took ill words from no one.

Jacqueline continued mothering her children as they grew into adulthood, as well. She was proud of their achievements, although she did not live to see them all. John F. Kennedy, Jr. passed the New York bar exam and eventually founded the political magazine George . Caroline Kennedy attended Harvard University and Columbia University. She worked for the Obama administration first as a campaign manager and then as the twenty-ninth United States Ambassador to Japan.

Upon discovering that her son was pursuing a pilot’s license, she begged him to cease: “Please don’t do it. There have been too many deaths in the family already.” [69] For some reason, the Kennedy family had very bad luck with airplanes. The eldest of John F. Kennedy’s uncles, Joe Kennedy, Jr., died when his plane exploded into pieces over the English Channel in the midst of World War II. Then, only a few years later, Kennedy’s Aunt Kathleen Kennedy died when her plane crashed into France’s Cévennes Mountains. Jackie’s fears were obviously not unfounded.

Her worries did not simply end with their conversation about flying. Jacqueline had begun having a series of premonitions about her children, the strongest of which involved her son crashing and dying at the controls of his own plane. Even on her deathbed, she made her son swear that he would not pursue the life of a pilot; he did, indeed, die in a 1999 plane crash, but Jackie did not live to see it. Maybe the “Kennedy Curse” lived on. Maybe it is a myth. Either way, the Kennedy men had ill luck and died young.

Chapter Five: Campaign for Presidency

After four years of President Dwight Eisenhower’s reign in the White House, many Americans felt it was time to move on to a Democrat administration in 1956. Among those looking for change, John F. Kennedy was included. Jacqueline fully supported her husband’s intentions to try out his hand at higher politics. If nothing else, Kennedy would run for vice president alongside Adlai Stevenson. In the end, Kennedy did not win the vice-presidential slot, but he did get his name out there. [70] Jackie’s dislike for the media may have begun its obvious downward spiral at this point. Maxine Cheshire, a journalist, followed Jacqueline at the Democratic Convention, seeking a quote about her husband’s endeavors, but she was having none of it. Onlookers say the very pregnant woman “hiked up her dress and broke into a run” to escape. [71] This reaction was not very professional, but it made people laugh and somehow added to Jackie’s charm.

Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency on January 3, 1960, thereby launching his campaign. In the beginning of the campaign, Jackie attended events with her husband, but her appearances grew less common when she discovered that she was pregnant. Due to her previous high-risk pregnancies, she decided to stay at home in Georgetown to watch after her health. [72] She asked her husband numerous times to come home to spend a bit of time with her and their daughter, but JFK was reluctant to do so, arguing that he needed to focus entirely on his campaign.

The media gathered around their house, putting additional stress on Jacqueline during her pregnancy. Although she was not in the hot seat, she remained in the eye of the media. All of the couple’s hard work paid off on July 13, 1960, and John F. Kennedy was nominated at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles as the proffered candidate for president of the United States. Due to her pregnancy, Jacqueline did not attend the event. She was growing more and more nervous about her pregnancy.

Kennedy flew home for a brief moment to have Thanksgiving with his family, but he had to fly back to Palm Beach that same night. When her due date was only three weeks away, she asked her husband to stay close: “Why can’t you stay here until I have the baby and then we can go down together?” [73] JFK replied that he could not do so. Their friend Bill Walton said that three weeks “might as well have been six months to him. He was not about to put everything on hold just because Jackie was a little nervous. He had a country to run.” [74] He left an upset wife behind him as he headed back to Palm Beach. His plane had barely lifted off the ground when Jacqueline was rushed to an emergency Caesarean section. As soon as he landed, he immediately turned around and rushed back to his wife and newborn son.

Although she was an exhausted mother, Jacqueline tried her best to maintain support of her husband’s candidacy from home. In a weekly newspaper column called Campaign Wife , Jackie answered submitted questions and gave interviews. [75] Additionally, her fashion choices drew a good bit of attention from the media. Before she gave birth, she wore maternity clothing that emphasized her pregnancy, rather than trying to hide it. This was a new idea for the American public, and they were a bit flabbergasted. The coin had two sides, though: she was admired for her personal style but criticized for her preference for expensive French clothing. She was named as one of the twelve best-dressed women in the world at one point. [76] Jacqueline was not overly pleased with this attention; she often refused to discuss her wardrobe and instead drove the conversation toward the work she was doing for her husband’s campaign. [77]

Chapter Six: First Lady

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at thirty-one years old became the third youngest first lady in American history. The Kennedy family presented the American public and the White House with a dramatic change from the Eisenhowers—they were young, affiliated with another political party, and involved with the media in different ways. Tina Sani Flaherty, in her book What Jackie Taught Us: Lessons from the Remarkable Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis , says, “Together they symbolized a poignant time in our nation’s history, when its innocence and optimism promised that anything was possible. They gave us hope and made us feel that each of us would be the best we could be.” [78] Gil Troy, historian, says the Kennedy family “emphasized vague appearances rather than specific accomplishments or passionate commitments,” relaying a “cool, TV-oriented culture.” [79] Jacqueline Kennedy did not feel very cool, though. She felt like she was being ogled at every moment of her life. Jacqueline said, “[It’s] as though I have just turned into a piece of public property. It’s really frightening to lose your anonymity at thirty-one.” [80]

Just as Jackie was noted for her fashion experiences before her husband’s presidency, she also gained a good bit of media fame after he was sworn into office. Jacqueline said at one point, “All the talk over what I wear and how I fix my hair has me amused, but it also puzzles me. What does my hairdo have to do with my husband’s ability to be president?” [81] As the first lady, Jacqueline attempted to do what the United States public wanted and hired American designer Oleg Cassini to design her wardrobe instead of continuing to buy more French couture. [82] About Jacqueline, Cassini said, “The common misconception about her is that she wanted to become a fashion trendsetter. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jackie basically had her own carefully directed style. She dressed for herself. She wanted to be noticed, not copied. But it was clear from the beginning that anybody with Jackie’s exotic beauty and high visibility was bound to have a profound influence on fashion.” [83] Between 1961 and 1963, Jacqueline worked with Cassini on her most well-remembered ensembles. She actually spent $455,446 more on fashion than her husband’s presidential salary of $100,000 in 1961. [84] These spending trends were not the beginning; rather, it was an old issue. Jackie’s mother recalls having dinner at her daughter’s house and marveling at her spending:

“We were having dinner there one night and Jack didn’t get home until quite late, after we had finished dinner. He was having dinner on a tray. At that moment the room was entirely beige: the walls had been repainted a week or so before, and the furniture had all been upholstered in soft beige, and there was a vicuna rug over the sofa … And let’s see—rugs, curtains, upholstery, everything, was suddenly turned lovely different shades of beige. I knew how wildly expensive it is to paint things and upholster things and have curtains made, but I can remember Jack just saying to me, ‘Mrs. Auchincloss, do you think we’re prisoners of beige?’” [85]

The pocketbook of Jacqueline knew no limits, and she was reluctant to live a life in which it needed to do so.

Jacqueline was also the first presidential wife to hire a press secretary. Her new hire, Pamela Turnure, helped her to manage media contact and to control how often and in which manner the presidential children and the Kennedys’ daily activities were photographed. [86] Although Turnure was President Kennedy’s prior (and probably continuing) lover, she did her job well, capable of dealing with the press in a way that pleased Jacqueline. Jackie told Turnure, “You will be there as a buffer. My press relations will be minimum information given with maximum politeness … I won’t give any interviews, pose for photographs, etc. for the next four years. Pierre [Salinger, John F. Kennedy’s press secretary] will bring in Life and Look or Stan [Tretick] a couple of times a year and we’ll have an okay on it.” [87] Jacqueline thought that she could control what the media did while she was in the White House; she was mostly wrong.

In the media’s eyes, Jackie was the perfect, ideal woman. Maurine Beasley, an academic scholar, claims that Jacqueline “created an unrealistic media expectation for first ladies that would challenge her successors.” [88] This media attention, although she did not want or appreciate it, allowed Jacqueline to gain positive attention on a global scale, gaining allies for the United States government and its Cold War policies. [89]

At this point in time, female reporters were often limited to providing information only on events and news involving the first lady. For this specific reason, Jacqueline was a godsend to the livelihood of female reporters, although she despised their attention. Everything she did was an opportunity for a news story. She traveled often, she hosted elaborate parties at the White House with big entertainment and extravagant decorating, she dressed in photo-worthy outfits daily, she ensured that her children and pets were presentable at all times, she rode horses and went boating, and she often visited the various Kennedy homes; all these occasions provided chances for good articles for all audiences. A reporter named Thomas said, “The irony is that Jackie Kennedy unwittingly gave a tremendous lift to me and many other women reporters in Washington by escalating our beat … to instantaneous front-page news … One biting quip form Jackie or a spill from a horse could launch a thousand headlines.” [90]

While Jacqueline made front-page news with her fashion statements, she is perhaps best known to many people for the time she dedicated to American history and art preservation. She hosted a multitude of events at the White House with the goal of bringing together elite politicians with artists to encourage mingling between the two groups. She wanted to found a Department of the Arts, a goal that remained unrealized, but she instead contributed to the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, both of which are programs which continue to function and help the art programs and various artists to continue to prosper in the United States of America.

In all, Jacqueline’s primary contribution to the Kennedy government was her project that aimed to restore and replenish the White House. Before her appointment as first lady, Jackie visited the White House twice—once as a tourist in 1941 and once as a guest of Mamie Eisenhower right before John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. [91] Her vision began growing during her second visit; she made a plan. Jacqueline wanted the White House to relay its historical importance, and she wondered why the furniture and décor did not display any significance whatsoever. Therefore, she made it her first major project as first lady to restore glory and historical character to the White House. She poured her entire self into the project. Lady Bird Johnson said that Jackie “was a worker, which I don’t think was always quite recognized.” Upon her visit to the White House after John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960, Jacqueline was displeased to find that the state rooms resembled the lobby of a dreary Statler Hotel, which was no coincidence. In an attempt to save money, Harry Truman hired the New York department store B. Altman to provide furnishings for the mansion’s main floor after the White House was gutted and reinforced with steel framing during a remodel in his presidency. Jackie was not pleased whatsoever with that choice of interior design.

Jacqueline met with interior decorator Sister Parish on her first day in the White House. Her plan was to make the family quarters more suitable for family living, as she felt there was an extreme lack in that department. Henceforth, she wanted a kitchen on the family floor and new rooms for her children. She was budgeted fifty thousand dollars for the project, and the money was soon gone. Letting nothing stand in the way of restoration, Jacqueline established a fine arts committee to direct the process as she spoke to Henry du Pont, an American furniture expert, for advice on some of the details. [92] Soon, an excellent opportunity presented itself: the restoration teams would sell a White House guidebook to fund the White House restoration. [93] The guidebook became something of a relic. People bought it not because they needed it but rather because it would be helpful for a cause and it could later serve as memorabilia or an antique.

Jacqueline was a busy woman during her time in the White House. Not only did she work on the White House itself, but she also took part in redesigning and replanting the White House Rose Garden and East Garden with Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon—American horticulturalist, gardener, philanthropist, and art collector. Along with these tasks, Jacqueline assisted in halting the destruction of historic homes in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. She felt they were an integral part of the capital’s history and wanted them to continue holding role in the nation’s history. [94] Therefore, she helped jumpstart a restoration project to take the place of the destruction.

The new first lady was particularly miffed when she discovered a long-standing tradition among former presidents. Before the Kennedys arrived in the White House, other presidential families formed a habit of taking furnishings and other items from the White House upon their departure, which led the historical structure to have a severe lack of historical items. Jacqueline took it upon herself to track down some of these thieved items, and she personally wrote to the previous White House families and other donors, asking that they return old pieces and provide new pieces if possible. Additionally, she initiated a Congressional bill that allowed the Smithsonian Institution to claim ownership of items in the White House so that future presidential families could not keep any of the furnishings when departing. In addition to these efforts, Jackie founded the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, the position for a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust. [95]

Jacqueline’s passion for the restoration project only grew during her time living in the White House. Reluctantly but hyperaware of the film’s necessity, she took American television viewers on a virtual tour of the White House on 14 February 1962 as Charles Collingwood of CBS News followed alongside her. Jackie said, “I feel so strongly that the White House should have as fine a collection of American pictures as possible. It’s so important—the setting in which the presidency is presented to the world, to foreign visitors. The American people should be proud of it. We have such a great civilization. So many foreigners don’t realize it. I think that this house should be the place we see them best.” [96] Over fifty-six million people in the United States watched the virtual tour, and the video later made its way to 106 other countries, as well. [97] At the Emmy Awards in 1962, Jacqueline won a special Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Trustees Award, which Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson—Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife—accepted on her behalf. Jackie was the only first lady to win an Emmy. [98]

During the same time period that she was redesigning the White House, Jackie was also working on the exterior of Air Force One, transforming the Oval Office into a space that resembled a living room, and altering the rituals for South Lawn arrival ceremonies and state dinners. All of her changes remain mostly intact after over fifty years. Jacqueline wrote once as a young woman that her goal was to become the “art director of the twentieth century.” Many people claim that she achieved this dream through her role in the White House.

Although she spent a good amount of time in the White House, Jackie was up in the air and overseas for extended periods, too. Since she appeared popular among international dignitaries, the Kennedy administration took advantage of her position. [99] For example, she impressed the French public with her ability to speak their language and her knowledge of French history. [100] After her trip, Time magazine noted jokingly, “There was also that fellow who came with her.” Laughingly, President Kennedy said, “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris—and I have enjoyed it!” [101] , [102] By herself or with her husband, she made more official visits to other countries than any of the preceding first ladies. [103] Her name grew larger across the world, and her fame bloomed. In fact, when the Kennedys visited Vienna, Austria, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev said, “I’d like to shake her hand first,” obviously referring to Jacqueline when asked to pose for a picture with President John F. Kennedy. Later, he sent her a puppy, the offspring of Strelka, which was the dog that had gone to space during a Soviet space mission. [104]

Throughout her husband’s presidency, Jackie continued to impress foreign dignitaries. The president of Pakistan, Ayub Khan, presented her with a horse named Sardar during her tour of India and Pakistan. [105] Referring to the first lady’s visits, Anne Chamberlin of Life magazine wrote that Jacqueline “conducted herself magnificently,” but she did not draw the same massive crowds that Queen Elizabeth II and President Dwight Eisenhower had gathered on previous occasions. [106] Jackie let nothing slow her down, though. In addition to the previously named countries, she traveled to Afghanistan, Austria, Canada, Colombia, England, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Chapter Seven: Kennedy Assassination

If the general public knows nothing more about the life of Jacqueline, they have a shared, connected memory of the John F. Kennedy assassination and all the ill feelings that go along with the recollection. They remember the pink Chanel suit and the pillbox hat she wore when her husband was shot beside her. They remember the pictures, the newsreels, the articles. They remember the video of Jacqueline scrambling out of the back of the car, possibly reaching for pieces of her husband’s skull.

John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline left the White House on November 21, 1963 for a trip to Texas. It was a relatively normal affair. The president was to speak at a lunch at the Trade Mart, and they had planned a 9.5-mile motorcade to take them there. In the back seat of the presidential limousine sat the Kennedys with Texas governor John Connally and his wife Nellie seated in front of them, while vice president Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird followed behind them in another car. [107]

Lady Bird Johnson said in her diary that “It all began so beautifully. After a drizzle in the morning, the sun came out bright and clear … The streets were lined with people—lots and lots of people—the children all smiling, placards, confetti, people waving from the windows.” Everything was normal until a sharp sound rang over the crowd. Jackie recalled that she thought she heard a motorcycle backfiring after the motorcade turned onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza. She did not realize the sound was a gunshot until governor John Connally screamed. Lady Bird Johnson wrote: “There had been such a gala air about the day that I thought the noise must come from firecrackers—part of the celebration. Then the Secret Service men were down in the lead car. Over the car radio system, I heard, ‘Let’s get out of here!’ and our Secret Service man, Rufus Youngblood, vaulted over the front seat on top of Lyndon, threw him to the floor, and said, ‘Get down.’” [108] That one shot acted as a warning that the Kennedys did not register quite in time.

Within less that ten seconds, two more shots were fired, one of which hit John F. Kennedy in the head. In a panic, Jacqueline began climbing out of the back of the limousine. Secret Service agent Clint Hill ran toward her, urging her to move back into her seat. In this moment, Associated Press photographer Ike Atgens snapped one of the most iconic photos, which included Hill standing on the vehicle’s back bumper. The photo was featured on the front page of newspapers across the world. The moment was a blur for everyone involved. Clint Hill later said that he thought Jacqueline was attempting to reach for a piece of her husband’s skull. [109] Jackie later said that “[I saw pictures] of me climbing out the back. But I don’t remember that at all.” [110]

Lady Bird Johnson wrote: “Senator Yarborough and I ducked our heads. The car accelerated terrifically—faster and faster. Then, suddenly, the brakes were put on so hard that I wondered if we were going to make it as we wheeled left and went around the corner. We pulled up to a building. I looked up and saw a sign, ‘HOSPITAL.’ Only then did I believe that this might be what it was. Senator Yarborough kept saying in an excited voice, ‘Have they shot the President? Have they shot the President?’ I said something like, ‘No, it can’t be.’” [111] She recalls, “I cast one last look over my shoulder and saw in the President’s car a bundle of pink, just like a drift of blossoms, lying in the back seat. It was Mrs. Kennedy lying over the President’s body.” [112]

President John F. Kennedy was quickly taken to Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. Jacqueline requested to be in the operating room, and she stood watching as the doctors operated on her husband diligently. Afterward, Jacqueline refused to remove her blood-stained clothing and said she regretted washing the blood off her face and hands. She told Lady Bird Johnson that she wanted “them to see what they have done to Jack.” [113] In the face of such tragedy, Jacqueline was strong and angry.

Lady Bird Johnson recalls, “I looked at her. Mrs. Kennedy’s dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked, it was caked with blood—her husband’s blood. Somehow that was the one of the most poignant sights—that immaculate woman exquisitely dressed, and caked in blood.” [114] Jackie kept the pink Chanel dress on as Lyndon B. Johnson took the presidential oath on Air Force One. Robert Caro, Lyndon B. Johnson’s biographer, said that Johnson wanted Jacqueline to be present in order to demonstrate to John F. Kennedy’s supporters that he was a legitimate leader. [115] In 1964, the unwashed pink Chanel outfit was donated to the National Archives and Records Administration, but Caroline Kennedy, the Kennedys’ daughter, asked that it not be displayed until 2103.

Jacqueline played a large part in planning her husband’s state funeral. Modeled after Abraham Lincoln’s service, the casket was closed, which Jacqueline wished, overruling her brother-in-law, Robert, who wanted an open casket. [116] They held the funeral service at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., and buried President John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. At the procession, Jackie led on foot and lit the eternal flame at the gravesite. “Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people … one thing they have always lacked: Majesty,” reported Lady Jeanne Campbell. For the first time in public, Jacqueline sobbed as Cardinal Cushing intoned the pontifical requiem. [117] Clint Hill gave her his handkerchief and Lee Bouvier gave her a blue pill. [118] She had both Arabella and Patrick’s caskets brought to be buried beside their father, and she would later be buried there, as well.

President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission a week after the assassination. The Warren Commission’s single goal was to investigate the murder, and Chief Justice Earl Warren led the efforts. After ten months, the Commission determined that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy alone with no partners. [119] Jacqueline was relatively disjoined from the efforts, saying that the investigation would not bring her husband back to life. After the burial, she stepped away from the public view. She appeared once at a ceremony in Washington that honored Secret Service agent Clint Hill who had climbed on top of the limousine to shield the Kennedys from the attacker.

Chapter Eight: Life Following the Assassination

The Dallas shooting followed Jacqueline for the rest of her life, but she slowly grew accustomed to the large switch in life trailing the tragedy. A week later, she said in an interview for Life magazine, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot. There’ll be great presidents again … but there will never be another Camelot.” [120] The president often played Lerner and Loewe’s music before bed, Jackie said, and she utilized Queen Guinevere’s words from the musical to express her feelings of loss. [121] For this reason, the Kennedy administration is referred to as the Camelot Era. Many historians and scholars say that Jacqueline thought of this idea and plotted a way for her family to be remembered. By connecting the Kennedy family to the legend of Arthur Pendragon, she made it seem as if her family ruled the United States as if they were aristocracy devoted to their kingdom. The thought has stuck around, so her idea must have held some wit and finesse.

A fortnight after the assassination, Jackie left the White House. She asked her Secret Service drivers to avoid routes that would take her within eyesight of the White House and visited only once again after leaving. In 1971, she and her children took an unphotographed, secretive trip to see Aaron Shikler’s portraits of the Kennedy couple. At the time, the White House was under the rule of Richard Nixon, and she wrote him later to say, “A day I had always dreaded turned out to be one of the most precious ones I have spent with my children.” She appreciated her time in the White House but found it necessary to remove herself from its presence.

On numerous occasions, the newly inaugurated president Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to “do something nice for Jackie.” He knew how much she loved France and offered her an ambassadorship for the country, then for Mexico and Great Britain, as well, but she turned him down every time, wanting to remain removed. A week after her husband’s death, she did request that the space center in Florida be renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center, which the government humbly obliged. Later, Jacqueline said Johnson was kind and welcoming in her time of distress. [122]

Jackie spent much of 1964 in mourning, making few appearances in public, although she did make a televised appearance on January 14, 1964 to thank everyone for the “hundreds of thousands of messages” they had sent to her since the tragedy befell her family. She attended a few memorial dedications to her husband over the following years and maintained a pivotal role in the establishment of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which is near the University of Massachusetts in Boston. [123]

Even after her husband’s death, Jacqueline served a large role in the American government, especially in foreign relations, whether she wanted it or not. In November 1967, during the Vietnam War, Life magazine called her “America’s unofficial roving ambassador.” Along with David Ormsby-Gore, the former British ambassador to the United States, she packed her bags and traveled to Cambodia to visit with Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk at the religious complex of Angkor Wat. [124] Historian Milton Osbourne called her visit “the start of the repair to Cambodia-US relations, which had been at a very low ebb.” [125] Additionally, in April 1968, she attended Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral services in Atlanta, Georgia, although she was nervous about the surrounding crowds and her likely flashbacks to her own husband’s death. [126]

After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Jacqueline closely bonded with her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy. She said he was “least like his father” out of all the Kennedy brothers. Early in her marriage, Robert Kennedy supported the couple when they had a miscarriage, and he stayed with her in the hospital. [127] Rumors say that something more happened between the two, just as many rumors say that she had an affair with Ted Kennedy, as well. Regardless of whatever may have happened, after Kennedy’s death, his brother became a father figure to the Kennedy children and stayed close to them until he had to return to his own family and responsibilities as attorney general. [128]

Their relationship was a familiar one if not an intimate one, and Robert Kennedy credits Jackie for encouraging him to remain in politics and supporting his 1964 run for the United States Senate as a representative of New York. [129] After 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson lost popularity during the Tet offensive, Robert Kennedy’s advisors encouraged him to enter the upcoming presidential race. Many people were curious about this turn of events, wondering if he would follow in his brother’s footsteps within politics. When asked about his intentions, Kennedy said, “That depends on what Jackie wants me to do.” [130] He did not want to pursue the presidency if it was going to offend her. Jacqueline still held a pit of worry in her stomach and was concerned that Robert Kennedy would fall into the same ending as her husband. She said that there was “so much hatred” in the United States. Although she was worried, Jackie campaigned for her brother-in-law and gave him all her support in his endeavor. A few times, she even said that she hoped the Kennedy family would be able to serve the White House again. [131] Those moments were her most hopeful throughout the campaign.

For a while, the Kennedy train was trekking along smoothly, but on June 5, 1968, just after midnight, Robert Kennedy faced the same trauma as his brother. He was shot and mortally wounded soon after he and his supporters celebrated his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary. [132] He was rushed to a hospital where Jacqueline and his other family members joined, but he did not regain consciousness and died only twenty-six hours after the shooting. [133] And thus, another Kennedy fell to the “Kennedy Curse.”

After her brother-in-law’s death, Jackie fell into yet another deep depression, similar to the one she experienced after her husband’s assassination. She was drenched in fear: “If they’re killing Kennedys, then my children are targets … I want to get out of this country.” [134] For a while, she achieved that goal. She married her friend (and possibly her prior lover) Aristotle Onassis on October 20, 1968. He was a wealthy Greek man who could provide security and privacy for her family. According to Hunt and Batcher, “For the most recognizable woman in the world, a man who owned an airline and a private Greek island was a sensible choice. Their marriage gave her the freedom to travel, live, and spend as she desired.” [135]

The wedding was on Onassis’ private island, Skorpios, in the Ionian Sea. With this marriage, Jacqueline lost her right to Secret Service protection, which is given only to widows of United States presidents. This fact made her nervous, but she felt that her trade-out would also ensure security. Leaving her past behind her, she officially changed her name to Jacqueline Onassis. Her marriage brought a good bit of ill publicity around her family. Aristotle Onassis was divorced, but his ex-wife was still living, and the public speculated that Jacqueline may be excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church for her sin of marrying a divorced man. Some of the Kennedys even pushed for that result, thinking that she had betrayed their family.

During this time, the paparazzi began following her everywhere again, waiting for a scandalous story. They nicknamed her “Jackie O.” [136] The marriage soured after a couple of years, and they began to live separately for much of the time. When Aristotle Onassis’ son Alexander died in a plane crash in 1973, his health began deteriorating quickly, and he died in Paris at age sixty-nine of respiratory failure on March 15, 1975. It seemed as if Jacqueline did not have much luck when it came to male lovers and friends.

Chapter Nine: Coming to an End

When her second husband died, Jacqueline returned to the United States and lived on and off in Martha’s Vineyard, Manhattan, and the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Though she suffered long stints of severe depression, she attempted to keep herself busy with work, her children, and the rest of the Kennedy family.

Although Jackie presented herself as a woman who did not quite lean toward feminism during her husband’s presidency, her opinions changed over time. She did not remain the iconic woman of the pre-feminist era in the early 1960s. In her oral history, Jacqueline said that women should avoid politics because they are “too emotional” and should instead be subordinate to their husbands in the “best” marriages. After the death of her second husband, she altered that mindset and geared toward becoming a career woman.

She began working as a New York editor at Viking, followed by another editorial job she took at Doubleday. In her line of work, she published art books, memoirs, and histories, among other things. She steadily grew a reputation as a genuine colleague who was not afraid to do the dirty work in line editing. In this space, she grew as a person during the time when many American women were redefining their roles in the workplace and the home. She said, “What has been sad for many women of my generation is that they weren’t supposed to work if they had families … What were they going to do when their children were grown—watch the raindrops coming down the windowpane?” She believed in keeping busy, in entertaining the mind and the heart with goals and deadlines. Jacqueline addresses the problematic societal standards at their core, a call for American women to take control of their own lives.

For two years, she held a consulting editorial position at Viking Press. She resigned in 1977 when The New York Times falsely accused her of collaborating with Viking to produce the Jeffrey Archer novel Should We Tell the President? , a fictional novel which described a time in which Ted Kennedy was elected as president and laid out an assassination plot against him. [137] Jacqueline was horrified with the thought and considered it best to distance herself. At Doubleday, Jackie worked for John Turner Sargent, Sr., as an associate editor. She edited quite a few books for the company, including titles such as Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon History of the Universe , all three volumes of the English version of Naghib Mahfuz’s Cairo Trilogy , and autobiographies for ballerina Gelsey Kirkland, singer-songwriter Carly Simon, and the fashionista Diana Vreeland. She also encouraged Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance and her neighbor at Martha’s Vineyard, to complete The Wedding , a novel that outlined a multi-generational story about wealth, power, race, and class in the United States.

Jacqueline kept herself busy in other ways, as well. Continuing her passion for preservation and American history, she took part in many cultural and architectural preservation projects. Perhaps most notably, she oversaw a historic preservation campaign to save and renovate New York’s Grand Central Terminal. She loved New York City and held its culture close to her heart. She fought hard to preserve part of its history. The terminal holds a plaque that acknowledges her role in the endeavor. Furthermore, she played a large part in protesting the building of a skyscraper that would have engulfed Central Park in shadow. The building project was cancelled, although another took its place in 2003.

The press never quite lost its obsession with Jacqueline. Ron Galella was notorious for following her around, taking pictures of her everyday activities and being a general pest, in her opinion. Without her permission, he snapped countless photographs. Eventually, she had to obtain a restraining order against him, which brought the issues of paparazzi photography to the forefront of concerning problems in the United States of America. Americans were asking questions. Should paparazzi be allowed to infiltrate others’ lives? Do the American people need to know the private facts about their politicians’ lives? Who is to make that decision?

She avoided political events for almost an entire decade but attended the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Here, she surprised everyone as she appeared in the visitors’ gallery. [138] Along with her mother-in-law Rose Kennedy, Jackie appeared at Faneuil Hall in Boston two years later. Here, Ted Kennedy announced that he would be challenging incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination for president. [139] Jackie participated in the campaign, supporting Ted Kennedy, but the endeavor was unsuccessful. [140]

This instance was not the end of her play with politics. Jacqueline supported Bill Clinton in the early 1990s and contributed funds to his presidential campaign. She met with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton’s wife, after he won the presidency and chatted with her about rearing children in the cutthroat environment that was the White House. Under Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary Clinton invited Jacqueline to visit the White House, but she declined, saying she appreciated the gesture but would rather not be in that space. After Jackie’s death, her son John wrote Hillary Clinton to say, “Since she left Washington, I believe she resisted ever connecting with it emotionally—or the institutional demands of being a former First Lady. It had much to do with the memories stirred and her desires to resist being cast in a lifelong role that didn’t quite fit.” In her memoir Living History, Hillary Clinton wrote that Jacqueline was “a source of inspiration and advice for me.” [141] Democratic consultant Ann Lewis said that Jacqueline interacted and supported the Clinton family “in a way she has not always acted toward leading Democrats in the past.” [142]

Later in the same year, Jackie began to experience health issues. During a fox hunt in Middleburg, Virginia, in 1993, her horse threw her off its back, and her comrades rushed her to the hospital, afraid that she was hurt badly. [143] The doctor found a swollen lymph node in her groin, which he thought was an infection, but Jacqueline developed new symptoms, including a stomach ache and swollen lymph nodes in her neck, within the next month. Upon a new visit to the doctor, she was diagnosed with anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. [144] In January 1994, Jacqueline began chemotherapy and announced the diagnosis publicly. Although she was undergoing a plethora of treatments, the cancer spread to her spinal cord and brain by March and to her liver by May. Accepting that it was time for her to go, she left New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center on May 18, 1994 and died the next night in her home at 10:15. Jacqueline was only sixty-four years old at the time of her death. [145]

Jackie’s death hit the nation pretty hard, especially the Democrats who still believed in her husband’s policies. She was remembered in the fashion community, the architectural community, historical societies, political circles, academic institutions, and more. Needless to say, her name will not soon be forgotten.

When speaking to the media after his mother’s demise, John F. Kennedy, Jr. said, “My mother died surrounded by her friends and her family and her books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in her very own way, and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that.” [146] The funeral was held near Jackie’s home at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola at the same parish where she was baptized in 1929 and reached confirmation as a teenager. Her life came full circle. Jacqueline was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, next to her husband, President John F. Kennedy, and their two children, Patrick and their stillborn daughter Arabella. At her service, President Bill Clinton gave the eulogy, a great honor for her family.

At the time of her death, Jacqueline was survived by her children Caroline and John, Jr., three grandchildren, her sister Lee Radziwill, her son-in-law Edwin Schlossberg, and her half-brother James Lee Auchincloss. She was able to take comfort in the fact that her children had avoided the infamous “Kennedy Curse.” [147]

Chapter Ten: Ongoing Iconic Figure

Jackie became a global fashion icon during her husband’s presidency, but she was well known for a long while afterward. Since she preferred French couture but needed to conform to American design, she wrote to fashion editor Diana Vreeland and asked for American designers who could replicate the Paris look with “terribly simply, covered-up clothes.” Vreeland thought on it for a while and recommended Norman Norell, who produced simplistic and high-quality work; Norell was known as America’s First Designer. Additionally, she mentioned Ben Zuckerman, an American designer who often reproduced Paris couture, and Stella Sloat, another American designer who sometimes produced Givenchy look-alikes. [148] Jacqueline was thankful for the recommendations, as she wanted to keep her personal style that she adopted from Paris but also wanted to conform to the first lady that the American people wanted.

In her position as first lady, Jackie wore simple, clean-cut suits with modest skirts that fell to the middle of her knees, sleeveless A-line dresses, three-quarter sleeves on notch-collar jackets, gloves that rose above her elbows, pillbox hats, and low pumps. [149] If nothing else is to be said, Jacqueline was quite proper and covered in her clothing most of the time. One would never guess upon first glance that her family could hold any scandalous secrets. Kenneth Battelle, or Mr. Kenneth as he is more commonly known, was famous for his work with women’s hair; he created Jacqueline’s bouffant hairstyle and worked for the first lady from 1954 to 1986. [150] The hairstyle he created for the first lady was often scathingly referred to as a “grown-up exaggeration of little girls’ hair” with the amount of poof it contained.

After her years in the White House, Jackie’s fashion altered a bit. She began wearing large lapel jackets, gypsy skirts, wide-leg pantsuits, silk head scarves and rounded dark sunglasses. People were a little shocked when she started wearing jeans in public. One of her signature looks consisted of white jeans with no belt, accompanied by a black turtleneck that she chose to pull down over her hips instead of tucking in her pants. Somehow, although covering, these clothes showed more of Jackie’s body. They were not the clothing of the aristocracy. Rather, she wore common clothing that looked glitzier than normal. She looked more like a high-fashioned, average woman than the president’s wife.

Jacqueline was also well known for her jewelry collection. Designed by American jeweler Kenneth Jay Lane, a triple-strand pearl necklace was her signature piece of jewelry when she served as first lady in the White House. Another piece she often wore was a strawberry brooch—often called the “berry brooch”—that was composed of two clustered strawberries made of rubies with stems and leaves of diamonds; this piece was designed by a French jeweler by the name of Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co. President John F. Kennedy presented it to his wife a few days before his inauguration in January 1961 as a gift for their new life. Jackie held other pieces by Schlumberger, as well. In fact, she wore his gold and enamel bracelets so often that the press called them “Jackie bracelets” in the early and mid-1960s. Additionally, she wore his gold and white enamel “banana” earrings often. Although she appreciated the jewelry aforementioned, she was perhaps most fond of jewelry designed by Van Cleef & Arpels, which she wore throughout three decades—the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Almost every day, she wore the Van Cleef & Arpels wedding ring President Kennedy gave her. It was her most sentimental piece of jewelry, and she was reluctant to leave it out of her sight for long.

In 1965, Jacqueline was granted entry to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. [151] Even now, quite a few of her outfits are held and preserved at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited pieces from the collection in 2001; the exhibition focused on her time as first lady and was called “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years.” [152] Most of the pieces are representative of her most important days in the White House, pieces she wore to important events and meetings both in the United States and overseas.

Jacqueline’ name lived on long after she died and seems still to hold a high meaning. In 1995, a high school in New York City was dubbed Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers. In Central Park, the main reservoir was renamed as the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in her honor. [153] The Municipal Art Society of New York has a Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal that they present to individuals whose influence, work, and deeds have contributed outstandingly to the city of New York. The medal was named thus due to Jackie’s preservation efforts in regard to New York City’s architecture. At George Washington University, Jacqueline has a residence hall named after her. Additionally, the Kennedy couple’s names were included on the list of people aboard the Japanese Kaguya mission as part of The Planetary Society’s “Wish Upon the Moon” campaign, while their names were also listed aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. [154] These instances are simply a few of the honors that have been given to Jacqueline both prior and post her death.

Jacqueline was a powerful woman who will not be forgotten easily. She stood her ground in both the public and private spectrum, advising her husband secretly and providing a role model for the public. Not only did she serve as first lady, but she also worked long and hard hours as a mother within the White House and raised her children as a single parent after the death of her husband. She put so much of her effort into restoring parts of the United States’ history from creating a lasting legacy at the White House with her renovating of everything within its four walls to her work with the New York Grand Central Station as she fought to keep it alive and running to the best of its ability. She was a busy woman. Over her life, she grew as a person, taking new ideas in her stride and becoming a strong, independent idol for other women in the United States and across the world. Much can be said about the scandalous acts that happened within the four walls of the White House, but we can all be sure of one thing: the legacy of Jackie Kennedy will live on forever.

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Preview of World War 2

A Captivating Guide from Beginning to End

Introduction

The Second World War was one of the most traumatic events in human history. Across the world, existing conflicts became connected, entangling nations in a vast web of violence. It was fought on land, sea, and air, touching every inhabited continent. Over 55 million people died, some of them combatants, some civilians caught up in the violence, and some murdered by their own governments.

It was the war that unleashed the Holocaust and the atomic bomb upon the world. But it was also a war that featured acts of courage and self-sacrifice on every side.

The world would never be the same again.

Chapter 1 – The Rising Tide

The Second World War grew out of conflicts in two parts of the world: Europe and East Asia. Though the two would eventually become entangled, it’s easier to understand the causes of the war by looking at them separately.

Europe’s problems were rooted in centuries of competition between powerful nations crammed together on a small and densely populated continent. Most of the world’s toughest, most stubborn, and most ambitious kids were crammed together in a single small playground. Conflict was all but inevitable.

The most recent large European conflict had been the First World War. This was the first industrialized war, a hugely traumatic event for all the participants. In the aftermath, Germany was severely punished for its aggression by the victorious Allied powers. The remains of the Austro-Hungarian empire fell apart, creating instability in the east. And the Russian Empire, whose government had been overthrown during the turmoil of the war, became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the first global power to adopt the new ideology of communism.

From this situation of instability, a new form of politics emerged. Across Europe, extreme right-wing parties adopted ultra-nationalistic views. Many of them incorporated ideas of racial superiority. Most were strongly influenced by the fear of communism. All relied on scapegoating outsiders to make themselves more powerful.

The first to reach prominence was the Fascist Party in Italy under Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was a veteran soldier, gifted orator, and skilled administrator. He rallied disenchanted left-wingers and those who felt put down by corrupt politicians and forceful trade unions. Using a mixture of persuasion and intimidation, he won the 1922 election and became prime minister. Through a series of laws, he turned his country into a one-party dictatorship. Most of his achievements were domestic, bringing order and efficiency at the price of freedom, but he also had ambitions abroad. He wanted Italy to be a colonial power like Britain or France, and so in 1935-6 his forces conquered Abyssinia.

Mussolini was surpassed in almost every way by the man who reached power in Germany a decade later—Adolph Hitler. A decorated veteran of the First World War, Hitler was embittered at the Versailles Treaty, which imposed crushing restrictions upon Germany in the aftermath of the war. He developed a monstrous ideology that combined racism, homophobia, and a bitter hatred of communism. Like Mussolini, he brought together oratory and street violence to seize control of Germany. Once elected chancellor in 1933, he purged all opposition and had himself made Führer, the nation’s “leader” or “guide.” He then escalated the rearmament of Germany, casting off the shackles of Versailles.

Hitler and Mussolini intervened in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9. Rather than have their nations join the war, they sent parts of their armed forces to support Franco’s right-wing armies, testing new military technology and tactics while ensuring the victory of a man they expected to be an ally—a man who would in fact keep his nation out of the coming war for Europe.

Meanwhile, Hitler was playing a game of chicken with the other European powers. In March 1936, he occupied the Rhineland, a part of Germany that had been demilitarized after the war. Two years later, he annexed his own homeland of Austria, with its large German-speaking population. He occupied parts of Czechoslovakia that fall and finished the job off the following spring. At every turn, the rest of Europe backed down rather than go to war to protect less powerful nations.

Meanwhile, in Asia, the Chinese revolutions of 1911 and 1913, along with the Chinese Civil War that broke out in 1927, had triggered a parallel period of instability. Nationalists and communists battled for control of a vast nation, destroying the regional balance of power.

Japan was a nation on the rise. Economic growth had created a sense of ambition which had then been threatened by a downturn in the 1930s. Interventions by Western powers, including their colonies in Asia and a restrictive naval treaty of 1930, embittered many in Japan, who saw the Europeans and Americans as colonialist outsiders meddling in their part of the world.

The Japanese began a period of expansion, looking to increase their political dominance and their control of valuable raw resources. They invaded Chinese Manchuria in 1931 and from then on kept encroaching on Chinese territory. At last, in 1937, the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek gave up on his previous policy of giving ground to buy himself time. A minor skirmish escalated into the Second Sino-Japanese War.

From an Asian point of view, the war had already begun. But it would be Hitler who pushed Europe over the brink and gave the war its Western start date of 1939 .

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Preview of Winston Churchill:

A Captivating Guide to the Life of Winston S. Churchill

Introduction

As a British politician who was well known for serving twice as prime minister for the United Kingdom and as an infamous war organizer, leader Winston S. Churchill filled his long life with achievements and recognition plotted throughout every modern history book. Most famously, he led Great Britain into victory over Nazi Germany during World War II in his first run as prime minister and played an essential role in negotiating peace once the war reached an unsteady end. Commonly, his name is associated as one of the “Big Three” alongside United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin. In unity, the three men helped lead the world to a resolution from the violence and terror that reigned in World War II.

Winston Churchill was more than a military and government leader, though. He lived an entire life full of accomplishments that defined him as a singular person, rather than a government and military leader. In 1953, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” [155] Although he maintained a somewhat monotone voice over the radio, Churchill excelled in speaking to live crowds as he imparted encouraging words and recounted tales of his life adventures. On top of these accomplishments as a writer and a trailblazer, Churchill is famous for his endless reserves of energy and his need for little sleep, which allowed him to pursue many projects and hobbies outside of his governmental duties. [156] Among many other possible descriptions, Winton Churchill categorizes as a father, a husband, a painter, a war hero, a politician, a soldier, a smoker, a gambler, and a philosopher.

Any general biography of Winston Churchill will provide an overview of his greatest achievements, but Churchill had other goals and desires that are often ignored and forgotten. What were they? Churchill had a family—a childhood and children of his own—and a political career that began at a young age. He spoke with and entertained some of the biggest names in the world, within both the political and social realms. How did he interact with Franklin D. Roosevelt? With Mahatma Gandhi? Beneath the accolades and accomplishments lies one important question: Who was Winston Churchill out of the spotlight? What were his struggles and personal goals? Was he an average man in some ways? The following book is an outline of Churchill’s life that not only gives a brief overview of his best-known feats but also provides a glimpse into who he was as a person.

Chapter One: Churchill’s Personal Life

Often, people feel they know much about Winston Churchill as a servant to his country from easily attained and general information, but they know little about Churchill’s personal life. Churchill was a husband, a father, a painter, and a historian, among many other things. While he also maintains the status of a war hero and prime minister, he was much more in life. His aspirations and desires were a large part of who he was and how he attained his goals.

An important part of every story lies within the family unit. In 1904, Winston attended a ball in Crewe House—the home of the Earl of Crewe and his wife, Margaret Primrose—where he met Clementine Hozier, the granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. [157] In 1908, they found themselves drawn together at another event, hosted by Lady St. Helier. Imaginably, they were instantly compatible because Churchill proposed to Clementine Hozier at Blenheim Palace, his childhood home, later that year, and they married shortly after. [158]

Over the course of their marriage, Winston and Clementine Churchill had five children: Diana, Randolph, Sarah, Marigold Frances, and Mary. Unfortunately, Marigold grew fatally ill just short of three years after she was born, and the family buried her in the Kensal Green Cemetery . [159] Their other children did not suffer the same fate but provided very interesting personalities and habits which the Churchills had to accommodate on very individual levels. Diana was rather flippant and brought her parents great duress. After two failed marriages and three children, Diana committed suicide in 1963. Randolph, after failing to enter parliament several times, finally found acceptance as a Conservative member of parliament for Preston between 1940 and 1945 and continued to become a successful journalist who began Winston S. Churchill’s official biography in the 1960s. [160] Like his sister, Randolph had two unsuccessful marriages. Additionally, he had two children. Sarah took a career in dramatics, which worked well for a while, but she had the same luck with her love life as her siblings in that she entered two marriages, which ultimately failed, and was then widowed after a third marriage. Mary was the only child who caused her parents little worry or grief. She provided heavy support for them both, especially her mother. Mary’s husband, Christopher Soames, was an Assistant Military Attaché in Paris who later found success in parliament. They had five children, and Nicholas, the eldest, was a prominent member of the Conservative Party in his own time.

Although they spent long periods of time apart from one another, Winston and Clementine Churchill maintained a successful marriage, or, rather, as successful as most long marriages prove, generally. As all couples, they had their faults, fights, and failings. In one instance, Clementine hurled a dish of spinach at Churchill, which reportedly missed and splattered behind him. Additionally, she never quite forgave Churchill for buying Chartwell without expressly involving her in the purchase decision, and she brought up her resentment from time to time with a bitter grudge. As stated by Churchill College at Cambridge, “Clementine was high principled and high strung; Winston was stubborn and ambitious,” a volatile combination of personality traits within a married couple. [161]

Churchill spent a good portion of time away from his family, both on business and on holiday. It was a well-known fact that Winston Churchill put work first, but he was devoted to his children, regardless, although he enjoyed spending time abroad with friends and acquaintances much more than his wife and left his children at home; Clementine Churchill often “found the company tedious” and refused to accompany him. [162] Occasionally, the family would take holidays together, but more often than not, they began taking vacations apart. Churchill holidayed with regularity, visiting wealthy friends in the Mediterranean and cruising with Aristotle Onassis, Greek millionaire ship-owner . [163] In all, they took eight cruises together. Once when they passed through the Dardanelles, Onassis instructed his crew to pass quietly and during the night so as to avoid drudging up Churchill’s bad members of the location.

Winston Churchill’s close friends included Professor Lindemann, along with Birkenhead, Beaverbrook, and Bracke—cheerfully dubbed “the three Bs”—of whom Clementine Churchill was never particularly fond. Although Clementine did not often travel with Churchill, the two entertained often as a couple, and their guests included the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, and Lawrence of Arabia.

In addition to entertaining both his friends and family members, Winston Churchill engaged quite a few personal hobbies. As an amateur artist, Churchill enjoyed painting and employed a special gusto after resigning in 1915 as First Lord of the Admiralty. [164] Paul Maze, a friend of Churchill’s whom he met in World War I, taught him to paint early during Churchill’s career while providing both companionship and influence. Throughout his painting career, Churchill’s skills grew stronger. Churchill is particularly known for his impressionist landscape paintings, and he composed many of these works of art while on holiday in Egypt, Morocco, or the South of France. Not wanting to paint under his own title, Churchill utilized the name “Charles Morin” as a pseudonym and reached the point where he rarely left his home without his painting supplies. Any time he traveled, he tried to slip away for a few moments so that he could spend time with his paints and canvas. Even when Churchill was touring France’s Maginot Line in 1939, he still managed to paint with his friends near Dreux. [165]

Painting was only one of many hobbies Winston employed to pass his free time. Maybe unexpectedly, one of Churchill’s greatest vices was a slight gambling addiction, and he lost a small fortune when the American stock market crashed in 1929. Although he maintained a famous name and arose from an upper-class family, Churchill did not believe his income supported his established lifestyle, and the 1929 crash didn’t help cushion his ever-slimming pockets. Churchill’s income while out of office arrived primarily from book sales and opinion pieces; therefore, he wrote often and well. Winston Churchill has a small library under his name, which includes a novel, two biographies, three volumes of memoirs, and several historical works. In 1953, he gained the Nobel Prize for Literature, and two of his most famous works brought international fame: The Second World War, his six-volume memoir, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples , a four-volume history covering the period from Caesar’s invasions of Britain to the beginning of World War I. Additionally, many of Churchill’s speeches are in print, such as Into Battle, published in the United States under Blood, Sweat, and Tears, which Life Magazine included as one of the 100 most astounding books published between 1924 and 1944. [166]

In his spare time at home, Churchill also constructed buildings and garden walls at his house in Chartwell. A few major works he undertook at the country home were building a dam, a swimming pool, and a red brick wall to surround the vegetable garden, as well as retiling a cottage at the end of his garden. In addition to these home improvements, Churchill bought an adjoining farm in 1946 and took up farming. [167] On the side, he also bred butterflies, an interest left over from his time in India. [168] Moreover, Churchill found great interest in science and technology, delving into a stint of writing popular-science essays on evolution and fusion power. In Are We Alone in the Universe? , a mostly forgotten piece of writing, Churchill investigated in an unpublished manuscript the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

To top it all off, Churchill began dabbling in horse-racing in 1949 and took advice from his son-in-law, Christopher Soames, on his first purchase, a three-year-old gray colt named Colonist II, the first of many thoroughbreds. In 1950, Churchill was initiated into the Jockey Club, which much pleased him. [169]

All in all, Winston S. Churchill had a personal life full of odds-and-ends hobbies, similar to that of any common person. Historians pay close attention to his feats and follies, hoping to gain more insight into the mind of Winston Churchill, the fascinating man who left his mark on history in a way unlike any other. Churchill was a normal man, too, though. He cared for his family, enjoyed the small things in life, and felt that his efforts could be used in many ways.

Chapter Two: Winston S. Churchill’s Mental Health

Scholars have long debated the topic of Winston Churchill’s mental health, and a wide variety of opinions scatter in several places in accordance to the public figure’s mindfulness. Some claim that he had clinical depression while others argue that he suffered from bipolar disorder. Still others suggest that he suffered from no mental disparity; instead, this group of scholars believe he was a powerful man who sometimes needed personal space and tended to think reflectively.

With the 1966 appearance of Lord Moran’s memoirs, which describe his years as Churchill’s doctor, came a greater understanding of Winston Churchill’s mind. Moran claims that Churchill casually utilized the nickname “Black Dog” for his long fits of strenuous depression. [170] From this small bit of information, many scholars find it safe to speculate that Churchill suffered from clinical depression at various points in his life.

Anthony Storrs—English psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author—analyzed and developed theories on Churchill’s mental state based upon Moran’s writings. Unfortunately, Moran did not keep updated or accurate notes on Churchill. Rather, he primarily based his writings on his own memory and on secondhand sources. A poor note-taker, Moran arbitrarily dated entries and wrote down claims from people other than Churchill. For example, one of the “Black Dog” entries, labeled as August 14, 1944, was based on a conversation with Brendan Bracken who said in 1958 that Churchill seemed to be falling into “the inborn melancholia of the Churchill blood” at the end of World War II.

Although Churchill did not receive medication for his presumed depression, Moran notes that he prescribed amphetamines for big speeches after the autumn of 1953 to battle against the lasting effects of Churchill’s stroke. During his lifetime, Churchill himself wrote about “Black Dog” only once. In a letter to his wife in 1911, he writes that a relative found successful treatment for depression at the hands of a German doctor. In his book Painting as a Pastime, Churchill notes that he suffers from “worry and mental overstrain [experienced] by persons who, over prolonged period, have to bear exceptional responsibilities and discharge duties upon a very large scale.” [171]

If the words of Lord Moran are to be believed, Winston often found joy in whiskey, soda, and his cigar. His book illustrates that Churchill fell into foul moods after military defeats, but these reactions are surely normal for any human who experiences a range of feelings. As many people with and without depression often do, it seems as if Churchill found methods of distraction, such as his many hobbies that led him to labor outside, paint, and travel.

During the war, Churchill grew feebler in regard to his physical health as well. In December 1941, he had a heart attack while at the White House and again in December 1942 when he had pneumonia. Disregarding the state of his body, he traveled over 100,000 miles under the pseudonym Colonel Warden during the war to meet with the Allies and other leaders. [172] Some scholars speculate that Winston S. Churchill’s mental illness could partially derive from physical illness, but that theory is mere speculation as with all the other evidence.

Carol Brekenridge, who worked for twenty years in outpatient mental health, presents a few different opinions on Churchill’s depression. She suggests that Churchill exhibited no particular signs of severe depression or bipolar disorder. She proposes instead that he had attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD-H). According to Brekenridge, “Bipolar Disorder is a severely disabling mental illness. Without medication victims have difficulty maintaining relationships or employment. Their lives are chaotic, and often unproductive. They are unable to focus and lack the energy to martial their thoughts even to write a convincing letter to the editor, much less fifty books. They are not likely to create 500 paintings or support a family of five in an upper-class way of life, or become one of the world’s most highly paid journalists.” [173]

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) created nine criteria for “Major Depressive Episodes,” which the DSM notates cannot be due to a medical condition: depressed mood, diminished interest or pleasure, significant weight change, insomnia or hypersomnia, psychomotor agitation or retardation, fatigue or loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness/inappropriate guilt, diminished concentration/indecisiveness, and recurrent thoughts of death. Winston Churchill maintained very few traits that fit into any of these categories. Rather, he was an overachiever who lived within a high-stress environment for most of his life. Therefore, he experienced some high-stress situations that led to anxiety, but he handled them well for the most part. Almost acting as an opposition to the outlined categories for depression, Churchill was active, curious, and excited for hobbies and side-projects.

From current information, it is near impossible to determine a diagnosis for Churchill’s mental health. What historians and psychiatrists do know, however, is that Churchill never let his “Black Dog” keep him from achieving or pursuing anything in life.

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Preview of Franklin Roosevelt:

A Captivating Guide to the Life of FDR

Introduction

As the thirty-second president of the United States of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (30 January 1882—12 April 1945) is a common household name in both his home country and the world. Known as the man who led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II, Roosevelt was a leader and a statesman, a scholar and a politician. Beginning in 1933, he served as president until his death in 1945, and the general public knows much about this time in his life, with the exception of his poor health, of course, which he kept carefully hidden. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only president to have served for three consecutive terms, and voted in for a fourth, a fact that allows him to stand out among the long list of American presidents. Notable events during his presidency include the end of the banking crisis; the enacting of the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Social Security Act; the long epidemic that was World War II; Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech; the Lend-Lease Act with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union; and the Yalta Conference, among many others. [174]

Outside of his role as president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt lived a full life. He was a father and a son, a husband and a career man. He was a bank officer and attended prestigious universities—Harvard University and Columbia University Law School—before practicing law. Additionally, he served as vice president for the Fidelity and Deposit Company. Perhaps most famously, Roosevelt served as governor of New York and president of the United States while he suffered from polio. Instead of allowing the disease to keep him from living a full life, he went above and beyond, training himself to walk without the power of his legs so that his voters would not know that he suffered in any capacity. What this book aims to do is determine who Franklin D. Roosevelt was as a person outside of the spotlight. This book wants to answer questions about this man. How did he interact with his wife and family? What were his exploits and his vices? His favored hobbies?

The following is an outline of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s life that not only gives a brief overview of his best-known feats but also provides a glimpse into who he was as a person. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt said, “This nation asks for action, and action now,” and he delivered until his last written words: “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”

Chapter One: Childhood and Education

On January 30, 1882, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, named for his mother’s uncle Franklin Hughes Delano, [175] was born the only child of James Roosevelt and Sara Ann Delano in the Hudson Valley of Hyde Park, New York, at the Roosevelt estate that overlooked the Hudson River, seventy-five miles north of New York City. When his son was born, James Roosevelt wrote in Sara’s diary: “At quarter to nine my Sallie had a splendid large boy, but was unconscious when he was born. Baby weighs ten pounds without clothes.” [176] For a moment, the family was in a tight spot. The mother and child came very close to dying, as the doctor administered too much chloroform due to Sara’s intense labor pains. Franklin was not breathing at birth.

Soon overcoming the birth issues, Roosevelt grew up healthily in a privileged family. The estate had been in the family’s possession for one hundred years. Both his parents derived from very wealthy and old New York families of English descent. American businessman and horse-breeder, James Roosevelt I worked primarily in the coal and transportation businesses, and he served as vice president for the Delaware and Hudson Railway and also served as president for the Southern Railway Security Company. As the inheritor of a good bit of wealth and a man who held a distaste for the business world, he retired early to the family estate and focused on his health, which was not always well. His family was Dutch, first appearing in America in 1654. Sara Ann Delano was James Roosevelt’s second wife, and she devoted her life to caring for her son. Her family was Flemish and arrived in Massachusetts earlier than the Roosevelts appeared in New York. Their families had close ties over the years. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s parents were related long distance as sixth cousins. [177]

At the Roosevelt estate, Franklin spend most of his time with his mother; he grew up in a very patriarchal household. Sara was very protective of her son, while James was relatively absent, although biographer James MacGregor Burns notes that he was more involved than many of his fellow fathers. [178] Regardless, Roosevelt’s mother remained his primary caretaker and influencer for his formative years, neglecting other life and wife duties. Over the years, she formed what some may consider an unhealthy relationship with her son and grew jealous of anyone who held his attention. First and foremost, she wanted to be the most important person in his life and shunned away others, including family. Sara is cited as saying, “My son Franklin is a Delano, not a Roosevelt at all.” [179]

As many of his status, Franklin did not lack the benefits of his family’s privilege. As a five-year-old, Roosevelt visited the White House with his father where President Grover Cleveland told him, “I have one wish for you, little man, that you will never be president of the United States.” Little did President Cleveland know that Franklin would hold the record for the most terms in office. In the summers, Roosevelt and his mother spent their days in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, at the Delano Homestead, and every year, Roosevelt’s family would travel to Europe where he grew fluent in German and French and the family toured churches, museums, and palaces. [180] , [181] During this time, Roosevelt began formulating opinions on other countries and their people. Franklin loved France, along with the people who lived there. On the other hand, he claimed that Germany and its citizens were rude and that they constantly said they were better than everyone else. There is a possibility that he inherited his opinions on Germany from his parents who thought that the people were “filthy … German swine.” [182]

During his formative years, Roosevelt dabbled in many sports and hobbies. He learned to shoot, row, ride horses, and play lawn tennis and polo. In his teenage years, he took up golf and learned to sail. [183] As befitting the son of a wealthy household, Roosevelt received a sailboat named New Moon from his father when he turned sixteen. [184] In his early childhood, Roosevelt received his education at home from private tutors. During this time, he learned varying amounts of French, German, and Spanish, as this was the time that his family traveled often.

Many young men began their boarding schools at twelve, but that idea made Sara incredibly nervous. When he reached the age that his mother considered appropriate, which was fourteen years old, Franklin enrolled in an Episcopal boarding school, Groton School, in Groton, Massachusetts, known as the “bastion of the elite,” and he learned alongside students from many other wealthy families. [185] In fact, ninety percent of the attendees were on the social register, a United States document, now outdated, that provides a directory of prominent American families. The document includes members of the social elite who lived within the boundaries of the American upper class, those of “old money” who identify as White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).

Here at Groton, Franklin formed a bond with Endicott Peabody, the headmaster who encouraged Christians to engage public service and provide assistance to those less fortunate than them. He said, “If some Groton boys do not enter political life and do something for our land, it won’t be because they have not been urged.” [186] Peabody was a champion of independent thought, stating that he held no opinions but instead upheld his beliefs, which he claimed were always true and beyond question. [187] Of Peabody, Roosevelt later said, “It was a blessing in my life to have the privilege of [his] guiding hand.” [188] He went as far as to write Peabody a letter after gaining presidency, saying, “For all that you have been and are to me I owe a debt of gratitude.” [189] Peabody remained in Franklin’s life, serving as the officiate at his wedding and paying a visit to Roosevelt during his presidency. [190]

Although he formed a great bond with the headmaster, Franklin gained little attention while in school. The other students thought he was showy, too eager to gain teachers’ attentions. In an attempt to fit in, Franklin purposely garnered demerits in the classroom for small offenses, such as whispering during class time. [191] His best work was elsewhere, though. While Franklin did not excel in baseball, he stood out as an excellent manager, which helped his leadership skills flourish. In addition, he was a good orator, which allowed him to go far in the debating society. Peabody claimed that Roosevelt was “a quiet, satisfactory boy of more than ordinary intelligence, taking a good position in his form but not brilliant.” [192] Recalling little about him that stood out, another classmate said he was “nice, but completely colorless.” [193] What others did notice was that Roosevelt was the only student who self-identified as a Democrat, which followed a family tradition.

Along with many of his classmates, Franklin began Harvard College in 1900 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, [194] where he joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity [195] and the Fly Club, [196] along with the Signet Society and the Hasty Pudding Club. He majored in history and political science while in college but showed no express interest in college work itself, and often cut classes. In fact, he escaped out a window during one lecture and climbed down a fire escape while the professor had his attention elsewhere. Therefore, he kept a “gentleman’s C” in most classes, which means that he barely managed to pass. Just as at Groton, Roosevelt’s classmates at Harvard held various opinions on him. One of his cousins, Alice, said, “He was a good little mother’s boy whose friends were dull, who belonged to the minor clubs, and who never was at the really gay parties.” [197] In light of such, Franklin had to earn his name elsewhere.

Roosevelt gained the titles of president and editor of The Harvard Crimson , Harvard’s daily newspaper, during his last year. In this position, he learned leadership and responsibility while developing a taste for ambition. The staff members said that he was “a king of frictionless command,” a trait that followed Roosevelt throughout the rest of his life. [198]

Looking back on his classes, Roosevelt said, “I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong.” [199] He graduated in 1903 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. In 1904, Roosevelt gained entry into Columbia Law School but decided to quit in 1907 after he passed the New York State Bar exam. In 1929, Franklin received an honorary LL.D. from Harvard, [200] and he received a posthumous J.D. from Columbia Law School. [201]

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