Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (26 page)

Jackie always disliked celebrities who visited Hyannis Port and expected her to be gracious to them. “Being nice is what I have to do at the White House as part of my job,” she explained to one of her secretaries, “but I don’t want to have to do it here [at Hyannis]. When I’m here, I’m off.”

Judy Garland owned a summer home in the area, near the yacht club, and enjoyed visiting the Kennedys in her free time. As her teenaged children, Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft, played with Ethel and Bobby’s children, a barefoot Judy would wander from one Kennedy home to the other, a

martini in one hand and a cream cheese and olive sandwich in the other. Ethel would welcome her with open arms but, according to Frank Saunders, Rose’s chauffeur, Jackie thought of her as “that woman who thinks she can just drop in whenever she wants.” Once, when Jackie was painting with watercolors on her sunporch, Judy barged in and at- tempted to engage her in a conversation. As Judy later com- plained to Rose, Jackie said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ll have to stop talking. Watch, if you like. But no one talks to me when I’m painting.” As a disgruntled Judy rushed off, Jackie hollered after her, “Next time, Miss Gar- land, please call first.”

One weekend soon after Jack was elected to the Oval Office, Frank Sinatra came to visit. Annoyed that her hus- band would allow the singer access to their private get- away when he was well aware of her feelings about him, Jackie refused to leave her bedroom for the entire week- end. Sinatra had a basket of roses delivered to her home. When he left the compound at the end of the weekend, the basket was still on the sunporch, the roses wilted and the card unopened.

Ethel loved the Hyannis Port way of life and could often be found in Rose’s kitchen, cooking or making fresh coffee for her sisters-in-law (though she would bristle when Jackie would ask for hers to be “dusted with just a whisper of cinnamon”). Like Jackie and Jack, Joan and Ted had a home on Squaw Island (though, unlike the First Couple, they did not also have one in the compound), only about five minutes from Rose and Joseph and the other Kennedys. For Joan, never comfortable with her role as a Kennedy wife, being so close to all of those Kennedys was sometimes more than she could bear. In Hyannis Port, she

took comfort in knowing that her retreat on Squaw Island was just a short distance away when it all became too much for her.

Joseph and Rose’s home on Scudder Avenue was not the big, extravagant mansion expected by many visitors, but rather a simple, white-painted, Cape Cod–style two-floor home with a veranda that wrapped around the front and sides. Furnished simply rather than elegantly, the home boasted a pool and tennis court, which were used by all of the Kennedys. Boats were always docked in front of the main house in time for summer jaunts. Walks on the nearby beach provided not only recreation for the family but also meditation during times of difficulty.

No matter what calamity was going on in the rest of the country—or in the individual Kennedy homes—the Fourth of July was a favorite time for the Kennedy family because it marked the beginning of summer. By July 1962, Joseph Kennedy was home from the rehabilitation center, making the holiday all the more momentous.

The arrival of the President and First Lady was the much-anticipated event that kicked off the holiday festivi- ties. Also present for this Fourth of July celebration—they always seemed to be in recent years—were a number of celebrities, politicians, and, of course, members of the press with cameramen and photographers in tow. On the water in front of the main house were Coast Guard cutters, holding back pleasure boats and sightseers. The
Honey Fitz,
Jack’s yacht, and the
Marlin,
the Kennedy family’s boat, were both anchored in the Sound, bobbing up and down on calm waters. Early in the afternoon of the Fourth, the entire family—as well as governesses, nurses, garden- ers, and other employees—gathered outside of Rose and

Joseph’s home, waiting for the guests of honor: Jack and Jackie. Ethel and Bobby were there, of course, and Ted and Joan. Also present, as they were for all family functions, were the Kennedy sisters: Eunice, Pat, and Jean, and their husbands, Sargent Shriver, Peter Lawford, and Stephen Smith.

The Fourth of July in Hyannis Port, 1962

S
eventy-one-year-old Rose Kennedy, attired in her favorite shade of pale rose, waited regally in her bedroom for her son, the President, and his wife, Jackie, to make their grand Fourth of July appearance at the Kennedy compound. On her dress were safety-pinned notes containing suggestions she wished to make to her children during the day’s festivi- ties; on some days she would be covered almost head to toe in these notated reminders. As the matriarch of the Kennedy clan, she felt that Jack and Jackie should come to her rather than expect her to come to them—but that was only when they visited her at her own home. When visiting the White House, Rose stayed to herself, treating her son and his wife almost as if they were strangers.

“I never wanted to intrude on his time,” she once said, “or the time of my husband. I always thought they had a lot of responsibilities, a lot of things on their minds, and I would keep out of the way and leave them uninterrupted.” Rose treated her son very formally after he became Chief Execu-

tive, referring to him as “Mr. President” in public, always with an eye toward protocol.

(As she aged, Rose continued to see only what she wished to see. When told that Pat had a drinking problem, her response was “Impossible! Pat doesn’t drink.” When told that Joan also seemed to be imbibing too often, her re- action was, “Impossible! Joan could never keep that figure of hers if she drank.” When told that Bobby was having an affair with Marilyn, she told her secretary, Barbara Gibson, “Impossible! Bobby is much too sanctimonious to have an affair.”)

At the appointed time, the eyes of every Kennedy family member and guest scoured the skies until they finally caught the breathtaking sight of the three presidential heli- copters. They would land, one by one, on a pad that had been built at the front of Joseph and Rose’s lawn, off the cul-de-sac, as people all around cheered with excitement and delight.

The first two helicopters carried governmental aides and chiefs of staff, as well as Secret Service agents. Once landed, the officers quickly exited and then lined up in front of the third helicopter, forming an honor guard. Fi- nally, the President, his full head of hair blowing in the wind, made his spectacular entrance from the third aircraft. He stopped for a moment and waved to the tourists, ac- knowledging the people waving to him from the boats. Whistles began to blow in a wild salute, and every tourist shouted and cheered. It was clear from the loud reaction that people adored him.

On the porch, Jack’s family applauded and the staff stood respectfully at attention. Taking in the scene of adulation be- fore him, Jack eagerly bolted down the steps. Then he turned

to await Jackie, Caroline, and the children’s nanny, Maud Shaw, who was carrying John. After taking a moment to gather his family around him, he and his small brood walked through the honor guard. Then all of the children—cousins, nieces, and nephews—broke loose from their parents and swooped down across the lawn, screaming, jumping, and cheering for the President.

Flashing his trademark grin, Jack walked straight to his seventy-three-year-old father’s wheelchair. He put his hand on his shoulder and kissed the old man on the cheek. Jackie, wearing a navy-blue two-piece dress suit with matching hat and gloves, knelt down in front of Joseph and whispered in his ear with a sly conspirator’s smile. He laughed with delight at their private moment. Others began to approach Jackie respectfully, waiting for her to recog- nize them, then saying just a word or two. However, there seemed to be one dissenter: Ethel, who stood alone in a corner. She must have known that she was expected to greet Jackie, but she did not seem eager to do so. Perhaps it still bothered her that Jackie was accorded such rever- ence from relatives. She had earlier told Bobby she be- lieved that, when they were all together at the private Hyannis Port retreat, Jackie should be treated like every- one else in the family.

After a receiving line of family members was formed, with Ethel included, the First Couple greeted their relatives in a more organized fashion: Ted and Joan, Sargent and Eu- nice Shriver, Stephen and Jean Smith, Peter and Pat Law- ford. Jack and Jackie shook hands with everyone. Then they reached Bobby and Ethel.

Jack and Bobby shook hands firmly, then Jack embraced Ethel. Jackie greeted Ethel with a warm hug. Ethel, caught

up in the moment, responded with a tight sisterly hug of her own. Instead of moving along, as she had done with the rest of the family, the First Lady stopped for a moment and whis- pered something in Ethel’s ear, an honor thus far accorded only to Joseph Kennedy. Ethel’s eyes widened at Jackie’s comment, then she broke into an ear-to-ear grin. Impul- sively, she kissed Jackie on the cheek in appreciation, and then gazed at her devotedly. To everyone present, Ethel’s glowing expression indicated that even she could not resist Jackie’s charm. Clearly, she was bowled over that Jackie had deemed her worthy of even an extra moment of sisterly chatter.

Joan’s Many
Faux Pas

J
ackie and Ethel Kennedy both seemed to enjoy the public eye, and even though they often complained about the con- stant attention, in truth they thrived on it because they felt in control. Jackie and Ethel both had the kind of relationship with the press in which reporters knew which lines of pri- vacy they could not cross.

“The reporters all loved her,” recalls newsman James Brady of Ethel. “She chewed gum and called us ‘kiddo,’ and helped us get hold of Bobby for a quote when he was clos- eted with more important people. She also invited us out to the house in Virginia to play football and get thrown in the swimming pool and meet the famous jocks and pretty girls who always seemed to be hanging around. She was lively

and unspoiled, suntanned and athletic—no great beauty and no intellectual, but she was everything else the Girl Scout oath requires.”

Look
magazine’s Laura Bergquist Knebel once noted that she would edit her material when writing about Jackie and Ethel so that the two women and their powerful hus- bands would not be offended by anything that was pub- lished. Besides being good business for the magazine, it also prevented Knebel from having to endure the wrath of the two wives should she publish something they felt was too much of an invasion. Jackie, the “letter-writer” of the two, would be the first to make her feelings known in a stinging note.

Joan, however, was such a congenial person that reporters like Bergquist Knebel felt a more casual relationship with her. They could “chat” with her—tape recorder running— and every word she said was on the record, even the ones that could prove embarrassing. She was a private person liv- ing a public existence.

“I felt sorry for Joan,” says Helen Thomas. “I thought she was so gentle, so beautiful and so fragile, and being thrown into the situation she was in was difficult—not only for her to deal with, but for us to watch her do it, firsthand. She was always very gracious to us and very nice. I think she was re- ally a tragedy. You wanted to protect her, which wasn’t al- ways possible under the circumstances.”

Jackie and Ethel knew how to censor themselves in inter- views. It somehow came naturally to them to say only that which they would not later regret reading. However, when Joan had to give interviews to magazine and newspaper re- porters because her husband or one of his handlers asked her to do so, she couldn’t help but panic. After being burned by

a few embarrassing articles, it was as if every word she ut- tered had to be so carefully selected that she was almost afraid to speak at all.

For instance, in one interview, she said, “You know, Jackie talked me into wearing a wig. She has three of them, and she wears them a lot, especially for traveling. I tried one, but it just felt silly.”

Apparently, Joan wasn’t aware of the fact that much of the media had been speculating that Jackie wore wigs from time to time, a speculation that Jackie’s spokespeople had said had no validity whatsoever. “The First Lady in a wig?” Letitia Baldrige said, outraged. “Why, never!”