Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (47 page)

29
. D
AVID
F
INLEY
(1890–1977) was the first director of the National Gallery of Art; first chairman of the White House Historical Association, founded by Mrs. Kennedy; member of her White House Fine Arts Committee (he refused unwanted gifts on the committee's behalf); and, from 1950 to 1963, chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which oversaw the design of federal buildings and monuments in the capital. As Jacqueline wrote another official, Bernard Boutin, she found Finley "a most cultured man + preservationist—but if only he would act more forcefully—so much could have been saved." John Walker III (1906–1995) was director of the National Gallery from 1956 to 1969. After the inauguration, she was still recovering from John's traumatic birth.

30
. L
ETITIA
B
ALDRIGE
(1925– ), tall, energetic, and intense, had preceded Jacqueline at Farmington and Vassar and was a family friend of the Auchinclosses. She served in two American embassies in Europe and had resigned as a Tiffany executive to start her own public relations business in Milan when, in July 1960, Jackie called her and asked her to be White House social secretary "if Jack makes it." When Baldrige left her job in the spring of 1963, JFK told her she was the most "emotional" woman he had ever met.

31
. She was later informed that Mamie Eisenhower had told her staff to keep a wheelchair behind an ornamental screen but only bring it out if Mrs. Kennedy specifically asked for it. After flying to Palm Beach, Jacqueline spent the next fortnight in bed.

32
. J. B
ERNARD
W
EST
(1912–1983), who served as chief usher from 1957 to 1969, directing the household staff of the White House, had a close and productive relationship with Mrs. Kennedy. He welcomed and provided crucial aid to her efforts to restore the White House.

33
. The two men met in an oceanside villa near the Key Biscayne Hotel.

34
. George Smathers, Democratic senator from Florida.

35
. President Truman had been denounced in 1947 for his apostasy in adding a second-floor balcony to the mansion's south front. In March 1963, Jacqueline wrote David Finley, whose job it was to rebut complaints about some of her innovations, "The President told me you were the only person who stood by President Truman on his balcony problem!—I didn't know that—but I should have—because it is so like you." The South Carolinian replied, "I must be quite honest. . . . I agreed with the other members of the Commission that an eighteenth century Georgian house, such as the White House, should not have the line of columns broken by a balcony, as was done in the nineteenth century plantation houses." But the president had taken his objection kindly, and "Mr. Truman and I were friends." Replying to Finley's notice that he would leave the Fine Arts Commission that year, Mrs. Kennedy wrote him one of the emotive longhand notes that won loyalty and affection from so many with whom she worked: "I never dreamed that such a terrible thing could happen—while I was alive— It is inconceivable to think of existing without you—What will I do? . . . I could never find words to express all the gratitude and affection and indebtedness I will feel for you until my dying day."

36
. H
ENRY DU
P
ONT
(1880–1969), the Republican heir to a famous fortune, was a well-respected expert on American art, furniture, and horticulture, and had done much to reshape Winterthur, his family's old 900-acre Delaware estate, opened to the public in 1951, with period rooms and gardens. Du Pont chaired Mrs. Kennedy's bipartisan Fine Arts Committee of prominent Americans advising her on the White House restoration. As an Americanist, du Pont was sometimes distressed by the French-inspired improvisations of Stéphane Boudin. On some of his visits, du Pont would rearrange White House furniture, after which Jacqueline would discreetly have it moved back. When du Pont was trying to block one of Boudin's designs for the Green Room, she wrote J. B. West, "Please enclose this humble letter soliciting his approval. If we don't get it he will have the shock of me doing it anyway!"

37
. Clifford also helped Mrs. Kennedy establish the White House Historical Association, which to this day supports the upkeep of the mansion's public rooms, helps first families to acquire paintings and furniture, and publishes contemporary versions of the guidebook,
The White House: An Historic Guide,
and books on presidents, first ladies, and the White House gardens, all launched by Jacqueline Kennedy. The guidebook was purchased by a half million readers during its first six months, swelling the coffers of the new association.

38
. Among neglected White House treasures, Jacqueline discovered the Victorian desk made from the H.M.S.
Resolute
that became famous in JFK's Oval Office and has been used by every president but one since Gerald Ford.

39
. In February 1962, Jacqueline's hour-long tour of the White House restoration was seen by 56 million television viewers and won her an honorary Emmy.

40
. Mrs. Kennedy is being modest here. From the time of their grand trip to Paris of May 1961 and, especially, her vastly popular televised tour of the White House, she was not only no longer a political liability but would have been a major asset to the President when he ran for reelection in 1964. Knowing this, JFK used strong persuasion to have her agree to accompany him on planned trips to Texas and California that were to be the forerunner of that campaign. In her presence at the Rice Hotel in Houston on their final evening together, the President asked Dave Powers to compare the crowd that had greeted them that day to the one when he had come to Houston alone the previous year. Kennedy beamed when Powers said it was about the same, "but there were about a hundred thousand more for Jackie."

41
. During the White House years, the Kennedys kept an apartment at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. Parke-Bernet was an auction house and J. J. Klejman an antiquities dealer.

42
. S
TéPHANE
B
OUDIN
(1888–1967), president of the Paris design firm Maison Jansen, who had advised on restoration at Versailles, Malmaison, Leeds Castle, and other historical monuments, was quietly secured by Mrs. Kennedy to guide her on her White House project. She told one of her aides, "I've learned more about architecture from Boudin than from all the books I could have read." To avoid public controversy about employing a non-American, her staff took pains, with Boudin's consent, to keep him in the background. But privately Jacqueline thought it completely appropriate that she consult a Frenchman, because of French contributions to the American Revolution, the French talent for using architecture and the arts to convey national glory, and because, as she considered how the White House should look, she was captivated by the sensibilities of Presidents Jefferson and Monroe, both former ambassadors to Paris, who adorned the mansion with French and French-inspired artifacts, painting, and furniture.

43
. She feared a public outcry against the room's new design, which was no longer dominated by blue. But by 1980, she considered the chamber "Boudin's masterpiece," with its "sense of state, ceremony, arrival and grandeur."

44
. Wildenstein & Company was a Manhattan art gallery.

45
. S
YLVIA
W
HITEHOUSE
B
LAKE
(1930– ) had been Jacqueline's Vassar classmate and one of her bridesmaids. Her husband, Robert, was an American diplomat.

46
. In the ground-floor corner bedroom of his parents' house in Palm Beach.

47
. In what he came to call his "peace speech" at American University in June 1963, Kennedy said, "These problems are man-made. Therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants."

48
. S
AMUEL
R
AYBURN
(1882–1961) was speaker of the house until 1961 and a mentor to the young congressman Lyndon Johnson.

49
. P
IERRE
S
ALINGER
(1925–2004) of San Francisco, bon vivant, former journalist and aide to Robert Kennedy, served as press secretary during the 1960 campaign and White House years.

50
. F
RANK
S
INATRA
(1915–1998), singer and JFK friend, had organized a pre-inaugural gala featuring Hollywood performers such as singer Nat King Cole and comedian Alan King.

51
. A Washington restaurant.

52
. S
TYLES
B
RIDGES
(1898–1961) was a Republican New Hampshire senator and one of those responsible for inaugural arrangements.

53
. Not the most diplomatic comment Mrs. Eisenhower could have made sitting beside the wife of the man who was now the nation's most prominent Irish-American.

54
. During Cushing's very long invocation, smoke curled up from the lectern, due to an electrical malfunction, and when the aged poet rose to read a poem he had written for the occasion, he was blinded by sunlight and so instead recited his classic "The Gift Outright."

55
. E
ARL
W
ARREN
(1891–1974) was the governor of California whom Eisenhower had appointed as chief justice in 1953. Although a Republican, Warren had been glad to swear in Kennedy, rather than Nixon, who was a political enemy.

56
. J
ANE
W
HEELER
(1921–2008) was a Washington hostess and early Kennedy supporter.

57
. E
DWARD
F
OLEY
(1906–1982) was a well-known Washington lawyer, former undersecretary of the treasury under Truman, and chairman of JFK's inaugural committee.

58
. Refers to the Alsop house.

59
. R
OWLAND
E
VANS
(1921–2001) was a Washington reporter for the
New York Herald Tribune
. John Hay "Jock" Whitney (1904–1982) was the paper's owner and publisher.

60
. G
EORGE
T
HOMAS
(1908–1980) was an African-American from Berryville, Virginia, who was JFK's longtime valet and lived on the third floor of the White House.

61
. A
RTHUR
K
ROCK
(1886–1974) was a conservative
New York Times
columnist. Krock had once been a close friend of Joseph Kennedy's and adviser to Jack while writing
Why England Slept
, but had broken with them in 1960 over JFK's growing liberalism while seeking the presidency. An old friend of Jacqueline's grandfather, John V. Bouvier, Jr., and her stepfather, Hugh Auchincloss, Krock had helped her get her job on the
Washington Times-Herald
.

62
. Referring to the exuberant tours of the White House given by Lyndon Johnson since becoming president.

63
. H
ANS
K
RAUS
(1905–1995), an Austrian-born mountain climber, was an orthopedic expert who extolled exercise as a remedy for back injuries. When JFK's back problems grew worse in 1961, he consulted Kraus, who agreed to take on the case as long as Dr. Travell was removed from the President's case and that Kraus would be able to reach Kennedy at any time by direct telephone. Aghast that Travell had simply cured the President's pain with Novocain and let the President's chest, abdominal, and back muscles atrophy, Dr. Kraus warned him that he would soon need a wheelchair unless he began a strict regimen. Under Kraus's care, JFK was telling friends by 1963 that he had never felt better and felt hearty enough to resume golf. Dr. Travell, who was well-known to the public as the first female White House doctor, was allowed to keep her title and observe at least the fiction that she was still caring for the President.

64
. Joseph Kennedy was one of the owners of the New York restaurant Le Pavillon.

65
. An estate in Middleburg, Virginia, which the Kennedys rented in 1961 and 1962. Writing to a friend in July 1962, she called it "the most private place I can think of to balance our life in the White House." Campaigns, travels, and pregnancy had kept Jacqueline from riding regularly since her marriage in 1953.

66
. J
OHN
V
ERNOU
B
OUVIER III
(1891–1957) was the debonair father whom Jacqueline adored.

67
. In 1963, the Kennedys built a seven-bedroom yellow ochre stucco and fieldstone house, with a breathtaking view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, on thirty-nine acres in Atoka, Virginia. They named it Wexford, for the Kennedy ancestral home in Ireland.