Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (12 page)

That was '51–'52.

Yeah, translate all on Admiral D'Argenlieu, and Ho Chi Minh, and the Ammonites and the Mennonites.
⁴⁶
I think I translated about ten books.

Ten whole books?

No, I mean really sort of skimming through the page, but—

Summarizing. Could he not read French?

Yeah, he could read French, but you know, but not enough to trust himself for a lot of facts and things. And then he would see—we were seeing a lot of French people then, and then they'd give some book. And the same—well, I did some for Algeria. But, you know—and the St. Lawrence Seaway, again I can remember that. You know, all those things were so brave.
⁴⁷

The Algeria speech was particularly so, because the whole Council on Foreign Relations crowd in this country were all outraged by it. I happened to be in Paris when the speech came out, and an old friend of mine, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber of
L'Express
, was absolutely delighted by the speech and ran the full text and claims to be the first magazine in the world which put the President on the cover. And I remember writing to him from Paris, saying, "Pay no attention to these editorials from the
New York Times
saying how you shouldn't rock the boat. You are absolutely right. The people in France who care about it welcomed the speech."

Oh, yeah, I remember when he went to Poland, he wouldn't take me, because he thought it wasn't serious to travel with your wife. But, you know, he was always more interested—well, so interested in foreign things. And then the minimum wage, I remember—whenever that was.
⁴⁸
You know, all the things he cared about—I don't know what year. But, just as an example of him having a heart—I can remember him being so disgusted, because once we had dinner with my mother and my stepfather, and there sat my stepfather putting a great slab of paté de foie gras on his toast and saying it was simply appalling to think that the minimum wage should be a dollar twenty-five. And Jack saying to me when we went home, "Do you realize that those laundrywomen in the South get sixty cents an hour?" Or sixty cents a day, or whatever it was. And how horrified he was when he saw General Eisenhower—President Eisenhower—I guess, in their Camp David meeting before inauguration—and Eisenhower had said to him—they were talking about the Cuban refugees—and Eisenhower said, "Of course, they'd be so great if you could just ship a lot of them up in trucks from Miami and use 'em as servants for twenty dollars a month, but I suppose somebody'd raise a fuss if you tried to do that."
⁴⁹
You know, again, so appalled at all these rich people just thinking of how can you live on— Not thinking how you can live just on twenty dollars a month, but just to use these people like slaves. He was just so hurt for them, though he'd say it in a sentence. That awful—Republican sort of— Look, oh and then, another time, when you were trying to raise money for the cultural center,
⁵⁰
and a Republican friend of my stepfather said, "Why don't you get labor to do it? If you took a dollar a week out of all of labor's wages, you could have the money raised in no time at all." And he was just really sickened by that and said, "Can you think what a dollar a week out of their wages would mean to all those people?" So all those things show that he did have a heart, because he was really shocked by those things.

Oh, I think the most—of course, he had a heart and he had a—in fact, you know, it wasn't on his sleeve, and people had been so used to a certain sentimental style of expression of that kind of thing. But he was deeply affected. But he was cool also. The fact that he was, is why someone like Hubert, whom I love, who is an admirable man—nonetheless can't connect with as many people as the President could, because Hubert is still—is in an earlier phase of reaction to this kind of thing. Did the President enjoy the primaries in 1960—apart from the fact it was a lot, and a great nuisance having to go through all this, but campaigning and so on?

You don't know the exhaustion of the primaries, and he often said that the four days we took in Jamaica between Wisconsin and West Virginia were what made it possible for him to be president. Because he just worked himself into exhaustion, and then the second wind and the third wind, and when you get that tired, you don't enjoy them. And sometimes, when we were in the White House, and he'd go on some long trip, he'd get tired—sort of a campaigning trip, and he'd come home and say, "Oh, my God, I just don't see how I got through those years." You know, "I just don't see how I did it." I suppose, when you stay that tired for that long—but then he'd lose his voice—I don't think anyone enjoys working out of sheer exhaustion. And in Wisconsin, we'd go into a ten-cent store or something, three people in it. They'd back against the back wall. They wouldn't want to shake your hand. You'd have to go up and just grab their hand and shake it. Or little rallies in a town, where you'd have a band and everything there and nobody'd show up. You know, they were really hard. Wisconsin was the worst.

Worse than West Virginia?

Because in West Virginia, I was so amazed. I thought everyone would be there staring at us like—

These "Papists"?

Yeah, and all that literature they were passing out about nuns and priests and everything. But the people were so friendly. There could be a mother with three blackened teeth, nursing a baby on a rotting front porch, but she'd smile and say, "Won't you come in?" In Wisconsin, those people would stare at you like sort of animals. Jack would say, "All this talk about the rural life is really"—you know—"overestimates it." Because the people are alone all winter long, and cold, and just with animals, and they're so suspicious. Maybe it's because they're Nordic too—I don't know. But they're suspicious people there. Eww!

You feel this was because he was a Catholic, or because he was an easterner, or were they equally suspicious of anybody—Hubert, or anybody?

I think that in Wisconsin, they're just suspicious of anyone sort of gregarious. I mean, I don't think they like someone coming up, or a band, or anything. And I think they were suspicious of him for all those reasons. Whereas in West Virginia, you know, they're a bit gayer, even though they're so poor. But I loved—I never met one person in West Virginia I didn't like, except for this strange man running around with his handbills wherever we spoke. And I never met one person in Wisconsin I did like, except for the people who were working for Jack.

THE KENNEDYS CAMPAIGNING IN THE WISCONSIN PRIMARY, 1960
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

When he was exhausted, he'd snap back quickly though, wouldn't he?

Oh, yeah, you'd stumble into some hotel bed and you'd get up at six in the morning. He could snap back. He could have a day home and just sleep all through it, and you'd get all his laundry done or something in the daytime, and pack him at night, and off he'd go or off we'd both go. And he could always sleep. He could sleep in the plane, almost like a soldier. I think that's—so many people's troubles are when they can't sleep.

Clem Norton
⁵¹
—I don't know if you've heard the tape of his—said Teddy has a street personality, the President didn't have a street personality.

That's true, he didn't. I mean, at the end, you know, he had that incredible thing.
⁵²
But Teddy's more nineteenth century. He can go down and tell stories. He's more like Clem Norton, and more like Honey Fitz. But Jack never—he never said, "Hi, fella," or put his fat palm under your armpit, or, you know, any of that sort of business. It was embarrassing to him.

But he didn't actively dislike campaigning. He rather enjoyed it, didn't he?

Yeah, he enjoyed it. I mean, if you asked him his three favorite things he can do in a day, I don't think he'd say campaigning.
⁵³
But when he got caught up in it, and when it was going well, then he really liked it and responded. And the last—you know, as time went on, he was doing better and better. And he loved the people who really were glad to see him—the little old ladies, or children, or what.

DURING THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY CAMPAIGN
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

I always felt that when he went out as President on a trip and saw crowds, he'd really come back very refreshed. Didn't you feel him filled with new energy and confidence—

Yes, it was so good for him. And he'd say how good it was to get out of Washington, where it's this little group that just writes—in and in and in—you know, little correspondents hashing others. It was so good for him to get away and to see that he was adored. You know, it was great whenever he did that. And when he went to Europe this June.

L
ast time, we started talking about the convention, and the months before the convention in 1960, and the President's view of his various opponents and problems, and one of the things that always surprised me was the way in which liberals—the arguments I used to have to have with some of the older liberals and academics and so on, about the President. It sounds very odd now, because no one obviously has done more for intellectuals in the White House since Jefferson. I suppose one of the big reasons for it was the whole McCarthy business. How—you knew McCarthy?
¹

No, I didn't know him. I just went to see one of the hearings once. But Jack was sick at the time of the McCarthy thing, wasn't he?

Yes, he was.

And then they knew that his father had been a friend, or hadn't he been to the Cape once? I don't know.

He'd apparently been to the Cape once or twice and—

Never when we were there.

But he wasn't in any sense a pal or chum or anything like that—

Oh, no, never! I just went out of complete curiosity once to see those hearings, and saw that man, who was rather frightening. But I suppose they all thought that because of Mr.—again, I suppose the liberals all attributed it to Jack being his father's son or something like that?

I think that was part of it and also the fact that he didn't attack McCarthy, though, as a matter of fact, very few members of the Senate, including people like Hubert Humphrey and Paul Douglas, attacked McCarthy.
²
What do you suppose he thought of him?

You know, I think he thought it was awful. You know, the way he was flailing around and handling everything? And then he did make some statement either from the hospital, or was it just before his operation, or he would've voted to censure him but he wasn't there, was that it?

Yes. A speech was prepared for delivery before he went to the hospital. The speech was never delivered and indicated that he was for censure. I think when the actual vote came, he was pretty sick and I don't think any statement was issued at that time.

He thought of McCarthy—well, you know, poor McC—I mean, if you saw McCarthy, then you'd see a man in his last—I remember, I think he was coming in and out of the elevator when I was standing there—well, the man was just gone. He smelled of drink and his eyes looked awful. You know, I think Jack thought just what everyone thought of McCarthy. But again he was never anyone to run in a pack against— And then, of course, I suppose he had partly the political problem at home, didn't he?

Yes.

Every single one of his voters in Boston—anyone whose name was McAnything they thought was wonderful. But I think he did that quite well.

Most of them or a lot of them thought McCarthy was probably a Democrat. No, I can remember at times when I—do you remember the old John Fox—not the good John Fox, not Judge Fox, but—

Oh, the one who owned a paper?

Owned the
Boston Post.
³
At one time he started an attack on Communists at Harvard, particularly on me.
[Jacqueline laughs]
And Jack was in town and went up and explained to him that I probably wasn't a Communist, and I shouldn't be attacked. And later, he told me about it and said as a consequence of that he decided that John Fox probably thought that
he
was a Communist!

Yeah, then Bobby was against McCarthy, wasn't he, or was that later? When was Bobby's thing with Roy Cohn?
⁴

Bobby, well, that was about this time—

Was Bobby working for McCarthy then?

Bobby originally—Bobby was minority counsel. He was counsel for the Democrats on the committee but he had originally—he and Roy Cohn had worked with McCarthy and then he couldn't stand Cohn's methods—and then he was associated with Symington, Jackson, and the opponents.
⁵
He apparently was a friend of the ambassador's at some point.

Yes, not a great friend. You know, again, Mr. Kennedy was so loyal. There seems to be all these Irish—they always seem to have a sort of persecution thing about them, don't they? I notice the way Mrs. Kennedy speaks even now about—not even now but, you know we—"Is someone a Catholic?" or "Are they Irish?" As if it's—you know, I guess they've had such persecution.

Mrs. Kennedy can remember what it was like to grow up in Boston—

Yeah, but she even will say now when you say you know someone or someone's coming for dinner—"Is he a Catholic?" or "Is she a Catholic?"—as if that will make them nicer. It's really a timidity. So, I'm sure Mr. Kennedy was rather conservative—you know, he might have just liked Joe McCarthy out of—this was before everything bad happened—because he was Irish, because he was Catholic, and because everyone else was down on him. But you know, never going into anything deep in it. Because they never talked about him at home. And he certainly never told Jack—you know, to be for or against him. It was a messy situation Jack was in—putting out a censure and everything, and they hated it in Boston.

Yeah. It was a very difficult local situation on it. What about the Nixons? Did you ever see the Nixons in the senatorial days?

No. Oh, well, I used to see her at bandage rolling. You know, the Senate wives have to go roll bandages every Tuesday and the vice president's wife is always the chairman of it. She's dressed in a white nurse's uniform. That's the only time I ever saw her.

I think she'd be perfect at bandage—bandage rolling. Well, it's about 1960, the primaries, and you remember the Wisconsin primaries being the hardest. Did the President ever, at any point, seem worried about the outcome or was he too absorbed from day to day to have feelings? Was he up and down or was it a fairly—

Well, you just had to work so hard. You know, when you're really in a campaign, you don't almost have time to think of the outcome, though he'd be going over polls and the this and the that district. But I remember election—primary night in the Hotel Pfister in Milwaukee. You know, that was awful. It was so funny. We were all on—just like on nails. And then it came out sort of a draw. Well, it was just so awful because there everybody had put all they had into a fight and you were just left exhausted. And you saw it had proved nothing. And you'd have to start again. Oh, and I remember that awful man, Miles McMillin, who wrote for the paper in Madison, who is married to—the girl he's married to, Rockefeller, was married to Proxmire.
⁶
Well, he used to write all these anonymous letters to the paper, saying scurrilous things about Jack. He was a terrible man. Again, a wild-eyed liberal creature.
⁷
He came cruising through the apartment that night when we were all in there counting the returns and—oh, it was awful of me—I walked by him twice without saying hello—cutting him dead.
[laughs]
And Jack— I mean, I was so mad at him. Jack was polite.

West Virginia, like you said, was more agreeable.

Well, the people were just nicer there. And you know, you went slugging along again, but—oh, and then there, for the first time, we separated, and I'd go off with someone on my own little tour—you know, in and out of little shops or a little bar or all those little mining towns. And the people were all so nice to me. You know, just tiny, little—never more than ten or twenty people.

SENATOR KENNEDY TALKS TO COAL MINERS DURING THE WEST VIRGINIA PRIMARY
Hank Walker,
Time
&
Life
Pictures/Getty Images/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Would you speak, or just—

I'd just say hello to them all, and talk to them. You know, and tell them who I was, and I'd have someone with me. Who was it? Did I go with Franklin?
⁸
Because he was usually with Jack. Then every night, we'd be at some big rally, where Franklin would talk. But then, you see, in the middle of that campaign, I started to have John. So then I was sort of—rather sent home a bit. I just was there about the first half.

Had Franklin been an old friend, or did he become a particular friend in West Virginia?

No, he'd been a friend of Jack in Congress. You know, they—they were always running around and busy and everything, but they'd always liked each other. And then—I guess we saw them a few times when we were married. Yeah, we used to see Franklin. So he always was a friend. Not constant. But you could always laugh with him and he—you know, he amused me and he and Jack amused each other. So that's—and I went off with Franklin in Wisconsin, I remember. We went all through one colored district together and all through supermarkets where no one looked up at us. That's when he became—in Wisconsin, he helped there too. But West Virginia is where we saw the most of him and from then on, he was a very good friend.

West Virginia began to get a little bitter. I guess it was pretty bitter in Wisconsin with Hubert.

Yeah. I guess it did because what were they saying? Oh, just as Jack said, a fight always gets bitter. The Humphrey people were saying the Kennedys were buying the election and the Kennedy people—Humphrey had not been—had any military service, and I forget what else it was.
⁹
But, you know, Jack didn't say any of that. He was mostly trying to prove why he wasn't dangerous as a Catholic.

Which he did—completely, of course. He won in West Virginia three to one, as I recall. Something like that. And then after that, did—

Oh, do you want to know something interesting about the night that we won there? I guess that night was just too frightening. You know, we didn't want another night like the Hotel Pfister. So he came back to Washington and we went—we had dinner at home with the Bradlees and we went to a movie.

What was the movie, do you remember?

We had been going to some movie at the Trans-Lux, but it was half over, so we went to some strange movie on New York Avenue. Just the only movie that was sort of open that we could get in. It was some awful, sordid thing about some murder in California—really, I mean, just morbid.
¹⁰
And then we came home to our house, terribly depressed by this movie, and waited for the phone to ring. And I was in the pantry getting some ice cubes and suddenly I heard this war whoop of joy! And they'd called Jack and it was, well, you know, just fantastic in West Virginia, so then we all got in a plane and flew down there, and got there in the middle of the night. But you know, he was so nervous about it, he just didn't want to be there. So we had this strange little evening of not wanting to be by the radio, the phone, anything.

Is that the—that's the only election you ever did that, isn't it? Most of the other times you were always there.

Yeah. The other times we were always there, yeah.

This was really so much a make-or-break thing. And after this, did it seem to be clear sailing?