Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (19 page)

EGYPTIAN SNAKE BRACELET JOHN F. KENNEDY GAVE TO JACQUELINE ON THEIR TENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

How would he have selected those? Catalogue? He wouldn't—

Oh, well, I think he had Klejman send him—he'd talk to him on the phone and had him send up a lot of things. And then he had about fifty things up in his room because he'd been through—all through dinner, he was locked in his room. And he sifted out about the fifteen he thought I'd like. And one of them was an Assyrian horse bit because it so fascinated him that—that had been used in the, I don't know, the wars against the Persians or something—Persian horse bit, maybe. Sylvia Whitehouse
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was there that evening and she laughed. It was so sweet to see how Jack loved it, and she said, "I do think we might have something a bit more sentimental for your tenth anniversary." But he wanted to take it down and try it on Caroline's pony the next day to see if it really worked.
[Schlesinger laughs]

Do you remember anything about your first day in the White House?

Yes, I do. Didn't I tell you about it?

Not on the tape.

Oh. With Dr. [Travell]—well, the next morning I was just laid out in the Queen's bed. We were living at that end of the house then because our end was being painted.

This is Inauguration Day—or day after?

The day after Inauguration. And she had my leg up in the air trying to get some kink out of it. I just couldn't walk. And who burst in the door but Jack and President Truman, and poor President Truman just turned scarlet. I don't think he'd ever seen a woman but his wife in bed in a nightgown before. And so they burst out and then Jack stuck his head in and said, "Can I bring him in?" And, you know, then we had a very jolly talk there. Then he also brought Robert Frost in that day. And then at night, we'd have supper always in the little Lincoln Sitting Room on trays. You know, I loved those days.

What about Inauguration Day? Do you remember anything about the few days before Inauguration—about the speech and so on? Was the President worried about that?

A HANDWRITTEN DRAFT OF THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS
President's Office Files, Speech Files Series, "Inaugural address, 20, 1961," Box 34/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Oh, well, I can remember him writing his speech in Florida.
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You know, all different yellow pages and then bringing in and reading you parts of it and crossing out other parts. I never heard him really read the whole thing until Inauguration Day, but each part I remember listening, knowing that I'd heard it before. We had this small bedroom in Florida and there were so many people in the other part of the house—I was in bed most of the time. And Jack would come in with his cigar, you know, puffing away, with a big pad of yellow pages and he'd be sitting—and he'd sit on the edge of my bed and he'd read me some things he'd written and then he'd flip them over, scribble something, and then he'd pile it on his desk, which was just overflowing with papers, and papers were just all around that room. Then he'd go out and have a meeting or sometimes he'd play golf. He was just so happy then—he looked so well, you know, they were such happy days for him.

Did he worry at all in the interregnum about anything, as far as you could see?

No, what he was doing then is solving everything that was coming up, he was dealing with it. And that was always when he was the happiest. He never was worried because he always said, "Someone has to do this job" —what is it?—"and it's always been done with humans." There's a very good quote of his there somewhere.
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But he knew he could do it as well as anyone else. And so he was just delighted at last to be being able to. But then at night, we'd get up for supper and then he might read some part in the library or ask his—the rest of his family or whoever was there.

Who were around then?

Well, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy. And I suppose Bobby must have come in and out a couple of times. There was always someone—then Sam Rayburn
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and Lyndon and Lady Bird came down once. I tell you, you'd go in the bathroom and you'd forget to bring your wrapper and you couldn't get out because Pierre Salinger
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would be having a press briefing in your bedroom. You'd just go mad. So then Jack would grab up those big pages and stuff them in his briefcase, I guess, when he went back to Washington. I don't know when it was written.

He came back early that week, as I recall, and you came up on Wednesday, probably.

Yes, I came up the day of the gala, whichever day that was.

The day was Thursday.

That's right.

How did you like the gala?
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Oh, it was all right. You know, it was such a festive evening and I thought that snow was so pretty. The gala—I didn't really—and I had to leave—halfway through it. I remember one—parts of it I liked—I remember one thing I thought was so awful, it was a man named—Alan King? He was telling all these horrible jokes about marriage—I mean, the wife is a shrew, and the—I just thought that's so sad when comedians do that. But otherwise, you know, everyone was excited. And then—

Where'd you sleep on Wednesday night?

At our house,
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N. And then the next morning—

Was that hard? Were you all excited?

Oh, yes!

Did you sleep all right that night?

Well, it was like children waiting for Christmas or something that night. Because I was awake when Jack came home. And I think there'd been a dinner that his father had organized at Paul Young's
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or something, later? But you know, I couldn't go to sleep, I was awake when he came home. It was just such a night to share together because that night we were, you know, in the same bed. Then the next morning getting up and getting dressed, and the snowstorm—all the excitement, leaving our house. I never thought then that I was leaving it for the last time. I mean, I never thought of sort of saying goodbye to it. And then going to the White House, and we all had coffee in the Red Room before. I remember sitting on that sofa next to Mrs. Nixon, who looked really pretty that day. You could see she could really be rather New York chic when she wanted, in sort of a black Persian lamb coat and hat. And Mrs. Eisenhower—it was very nice, you know, everybody was there drinking coffee and things. And as we left, I rode with Styles Bridges
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and Mamie Eisenhower to the Capitol. And as I was sitting in the car, President Eisenhower and Jack came out afterwards or something and she said, "Look at Ike in his top hat. He looks just like Paddy the Irishman!"
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And then I think she reali— And then on the way to the Capitol, she said that it would be the first time in her life, tonight, when she would dial her own telephone number because she'd had a switchboard for thirty years. I kept thinking how those people have been taken care of all their lives—but anyway. You know, it was rather making conversation up there. Then, all the inauguration and Cardinal Cushing and the lectern burning, and then poor Robert Frost.
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There's a marvelous picture with the expression of anxiety on your face in solicitude for Robert Frost. What happened there?

Oh, yeah. Well, you could see him, it was such a glare from the snow that he really couldn't see what was written on the paper. And then Lyndon got up and held his hat over it, but the poor man still couldn't see. And he looked like he was going to cry, he just sounded so sad, but then, thank heavens, he knew "The Gift Outright." And oh, and watching Jack when he said that and everything. And then I never had a chance—as I was sitting about three away and everyone says, "Why didn't Jack kiss you after?"—which of course, he would never do there. But you had to march out in such order that I was about eight behind him—with women, or something. And I so badly wanted to see him before the lunch, just to see him alone. I went to a room with all the ladies, where they had sherry and coffee, and he was with the men. And I caught up to him in the Capitol and, oh, I was just so proud of him. And there's a picture where I have my hand on his chin and he's just looking at me and there really were tears in his eyes. Suddenly a flash came because I didn't think there was anyone there. In the papers it said, "Wife chucks him under chin." I mean, that was so much more emotional than any kiss because his eyes really did fill with tears.
[whispers]
Just say, "Oh, Jack"—you know—"what a day!" And then the lunch in the old Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol. I remember everybody was sending their little menu card around to be autographed, it was very jolly. With Truman—I sat next to Warren.
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Then we got in the car for that parade, sort of not quite knowing how to wave. And then when we got to the White House, I guess we went in for a minute and walked out to the stand. Oh, Jack was just so happy. They had hot soup or something in that stand, and he wanted to see every single bit of that parade. He was just so proud and he was—they'd keep telling us how it would be running late and I left after a couple of hours because again, I was really so tired that day. And, but he stayed until just nightfall—I think he was the last person there, you know, and came in and there was a big reception downstairs. Again I was in bed. And that night, he was to go to a dinner for all the cabinet at Jane Wheeler's
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and I was to stay and have dinner in bed and everything, and he would come back and pick me up to go to the first ball. And about
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o'clock or something, when it was time to start getting dressed, again I couldn't get out of bed. I just couldn't move. And so I called up Dr. Travell just frantic and she came running over. And she had two pills, a green one and an orange one, and she told me to take the orange one. So I did and I said, "What is it?" And then she told me it was Dexadrine, which I'd never taken in my life—and that I never have again. But thank God, it really did its trick because then you could get dressed. And then Jack came, and he came upstairs and he brought me down to the Red Room. There were a few people—the Foleys,
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I remember. We all had a toast of champagne and he did—he liked how I looked and he said something so nice and we went off to that ball. It was so funny with the aides, because the old aide, the head of the White House aides, kept trying to be with Jack all evening and the other three were jumping in and out. And then to come into that ball, that was exciting. And there's that wonderful picture of him sort of pointing. Then we went to one at the Mayflower where Lyndon was right next to us at that one. And then we went to a third one at the Wardman Park and just on the way, it was like Cinderella and the clock striking midnight, I guess that pill wore off because I just couldn't get out of the car. And so Jack said, "You go home now," and he sent me home with that aide. And I guess he went on to all the other balls, and then to Joe Alsop's.