Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (18 page)

Oh, did Jack go to see him?

No, that's right. He was nearby in Florida.

In some hotel.
³³

That's right. The President went over to see him.

I think that must have been when I was either in the hospital or— That must have been before, right after the election.

That's right. I guess before your baby had come.

Yeah, when I was staying in Washington. I don't remember anything about—Did Smathers
³⁴
go with Jack? Or did Smathers go another time and say how exhausted Mrs. Nixon was and that she was just lying like a cadaver in, you know, this chair, just not moving, with this bitter, desperate face and how terribly bitter she was. Somebody told Jack that. That, you know, she'd say the most terrible things and, "Let's have a recount!" and everything. I don't really remember about his conversation with Nixon. I mean, I remember him telling me about it, but now I can't remember what he said. Mrs. Kennedy told me to write everything down the first year I was married and I did, which is all just nothing—what Arthur Krock said to Dean Acheson, or something. And all the years when I should have been writing things down, I wasn't.

How did the President feel about the restoration?

The restoration?

Of the White House.

JACQUELINE KENNEDY'S PRE-INAUGURAL NOTES ABOUT THE LINCOLN BEDROOM (TOP) AND EAST HALL (BOTTOM)
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

He was interested in it. He'd always get so interested in anything that I cared about, but then he was nervous about it. I mean, he wanted to be sure it was done the right way, so he sent Clark Clifford to see me. And Clark Clifford was really nervous because he tried to persuade me not to do it, which Jack never—

Why? On the grounds of politics?

He said, "You just can't touch the White House." He said, "It's so strange. Everyone, America feels so strangely about it, and look at the Truman Balcony. And if you try to make any changes, it will just be like that." And I said, "It won't be like the Truman Balcony,"
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and then I told him all about Harry du Pont
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and all the people we hoped to get. And when I had to make my little pilgrimage to Harry du Pont. So as it went along bit by bit, and how you'd set this committee up and certain legal things and—then Clark was very good about setting up the guidebook.
³⁷
So once Jack saw it was going along with sort of good counsel, I mean, he was so excited about it.

He was terribly proud of it. He used to love to take people around and show—

THE VIEW FROM PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S DESK IN THE OVAL OFFICE
Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Yeah, when I found him that desk so early?
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Well, that was about the first thing and then—but he was riveted—and, oh, the White House television tour
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—he used to watch all the time. He was so sweet, the way he was proud of me. And then the guidebook was another thing. You saw that you could never get enough money to do it. You know, people weren't going to give up good pieces of furniture, or you'd have ninety-nine cups of tea with some old lady and she'd give you fifty dollars. So, I'd always been trying to write this guidebook. But the curator would never sit and work on it—Mrs. Pearce. She liked to have tea with other curators. It was very hard, but we got that written. But then Jack McNally in Jack's—who was sort of this happy little Irishman who was in charge of taking people through the White House and the tours—said it would be an absolute outrage and desecrate our nation's—you know, the White House—to have money exchanging hands there and everything. And a lot of people said that you couldn't sell a guidebook there. And I said you could because it would be one of such quality. And so, when I told Jack that, you know, he'd had more opinions saying not to do it, but he listened to me and said, "All right, go ahead." Which was nice of him and then it did turn out to be all right.

UNVEILING THE FIRST WHITE HOUSE GUIDEBOOK—
THE WHITE HOUSE: A HISTORIC GUIDE
Abbie Rowe, National Park Service/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

MRS. KENNEDY DURING HER TELEVISED TOUR OF THE WHITE HOUSE
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Was there ever any criticism of the things that you did in the White House in these years?

Never—no, the most incredible interest. And then the tours would start going. And every night he'd come home saying, "We had more people today"—this would be after you'd found the Monroe pier table or something—"than the Eisenhowers had in their first two years." And oftentimes he—and then the guidebook was selling a lot—he'd always be teasing McNally about it. So he was just so proud. I was so happy that I had—could do something that made him proud of me. Because I'll tell you one wonderful thing about him. I was really—I was never any different once I was in the White House than I was before, but the press made you different. Suddenly, everything that'd been a liability before—your hair, that you spoke French, that you didn't just adore to campaign, and you didn't bake bread with flour up to your arms—you know, everyone thought I was a snob and hated politics. Well, Jack never made me feel that I was a liability to him, but I was. And then I was having a baby and couldn't campaign. And when we got in the White House all the things that I'd always done suddenly became wonderful because anything the First Lady does that's different, everyone seizes on—and I was so happy for Jack, especially now that it was only three years together that he could be proud of me then.
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Because it made him so happy—it made me so happy. So those were our happiest years.

PRESIDENT AND MRS. KENNEDY IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

HEAD OF A YOUNG BOY AND A FIGURE OF HERAKLES—ROMAN SCULPTURES PURCHASED BY JOHN F. KENNEDY DURING HIS VISIT TO ROME IN 1963 AS GIFTS FOR HIS WIFE
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

He was terribly proud. And, he was proud of the knowledge that he got from you. He liked to sort of talk about furniture and paintings, which are things that he didn't—had not known a great deal about at one point in his life.

I know, and he really started to know about them. He got interested in sculpture. I forget how. Oh, Stas had given Lee a Roman head one Christmas. And then it was the first thing he saw that he really started to care about himself. And he used to go into Klejman, opposite Parke-Bernet in New York—opposite the Carlyle,
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whenever he was there—and look, and he started to buy all the Greek sculpture that you see in this room—all the Egyptian sculpture. And then he really knew his field. Of course, he loved it because anything that old he'd say, "Think, this is
500
b.c." But he had such an eye. A thing about his taste—when Boudin, the French—much more than decorator—he's really a scholar, from Jansen would be around, so many things that he'd say how to arrange a room or hang pictures,
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I'd be in doubt about. Then I'd ask Jack what he thought without telling him what Boudin thought. And Jack, about five or six different times, which I have written down, would say the same as Boudin. He had—I was so disappointed in the Blue Room when I first saw it. I thought it was too much.
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You know, Jack liked it. He really had this eye and he'd pick out the best things. He just had taste in every facet of his character—for people, for books, for sculpture, for furniture, for rooms, for houses. He bought our house in Georgetown because the doorknob was old, which he liked, and he liked the sort of old look of it. For our tenth anniversary, he was so sweet. You know, after dinner was the time for present giving. And suddenly into the room comes Provi, our little maid, with about thirty different boxes. They were all from Klejman, except for one—he knew I used to collect drawings so he had gotten a couple of drawings from Wildenstein.
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And when I think that when we were first married, he always used to give me things he liked, like a letter of Byron or a letter of John Quincy Adams or something, which was fine. And I could see the present that he wanted me to choose the most was this Alexandrian bracelet. It's terribly simple, gold, sort of a snake. And it was the simplest thing of all and I could just see how he loved it. He'd just hold it in his hand. So, you know, that was a special present and he wouldn't say which one he wanted to give me, but I could tell so I chose it.