Just Jackie (29 page)

S
everal days later, Senator Edward Kennedy was deposited by helicopter on Skorpios like a deus ex machina. The sudden appearance of Jackie’s surviving brother-in-law gave rise to a number of rumors. According to one story, Kennedy had come all the way to Greece to prevent Jackie from being carried off by Onassis like a modern Helen of Troy. Another story portrayed Jackie as the instigator of Kennedy’s visit. It was said that she had summoned Teddy to Skorpios to help her wheedle a huge prenuptial settlement from Ari.

That was the story that gained the widest circulation and made its way into subsequent magazine articles and books about the marriage. In this version of events, Teddy was acting as a spokesman for Jackie’s team of lawyers in America, and spent several days on Skorpios haggling with Ari over the terms of the prenuptial agreement.

According to sources who were never named, Teddy argued that the marriage would cost Jackie her status as John Kennedy’s widow, and with that loss, her $200,000-a-year income from JFK’s trust. She needed to have money of her own. It was said that Teddy even threatened to take Jackie back to America unless Ari agreed to give her an obscene amount of money—$20 million was the figure most frequently mentioned—as well as lump-sum payments for each of her children, a monthly stipend for her of $30,000, and written assurances regarding their sleeping arrangements, the frequency of their sexual relations, and Jackie’s right not to have a child.

Ari reportedly balked at the $20 million figure and the written assurances about sexual relations, or any other kind of relations, for that matter. Teddy returned to America a defeated man. All that he succeeding in extracting from Ari was a measly $3 million.

It was a gripping tale of suspense, starring Ari as the plucky underdog. The only trouble was, the story was made up of whole cloth by Ari, and did not contain a shred of truth.

Ari wanted the world to believe that he had made a fabulous deal when he married Jackie. As always, a deal meant an opponent, and Ari concocted the story of a confrontation between himself and Teddy Kennedy to prove that he had outwitted the Senator and the best legal minds in America.

The facts were quite different.

“There was nothing in any written prenuptial agreement about money for Jackie’s children,” said Stelio Papadimitriou. “And there was nothing about a monthly stipend for Jackie.”

In fact, Kennedy had come to Skorpios more to lend moral support than to act as Jackie’s financial adviser. Indeed, die idea of a prenuptial monetary settlement had not been Jackie’s at all. It had originated with Ari,
and was prompted by his concern over Greece’s inheritance laws.

Under that country’s laws, the spouse was entitled to 25 percent or at least to a compulsory 12.5 percent of the deceased spouse’s estate. Since Ari was worth about $500 million at the time (or about $2 billion in today’s money), Jackie would have been entitled for her minimum 12.5 percent, an amount of $62.5 million (or $250 million converted into current dollars) in the event of his death.

Ari had put his lawyers to work on the problem, and they came up with a creative solution. They had discovered that under
American
law, Jackie could renounce her inheritance rights as long as she received reasonable consideration for doing so.

“If I die,” Ari told Jackie, according to Papadimitriou, “you will automatically inherit a large part of my estate under Greek law. That will put you in competition with my children. This is something I do not want. In order to keep my children satisfied in matters of inheritance, I want you to sign a document renouncing your rights to my estate.”

“Jackie agreed to Onassis’s request,” Papadimitriou told the author. “Jackie was victimized by the press, which portrayed her as avaricious, but it was her behavior in this matter that made me dead certain that she was not marrying Onassis for his money.

“Just look at the facts,” Papadimitriou continued. “First, Jackie agreed to renounce her inheritance rights under Greek law, thereby forfeiting a huge financial windfall in the event of the death of Onassis, who was sixty-two years old, and not in the best of health. She did not have to do that.

“Second, she did not demand any money. It was something that we in the Onassis camp insisted on giving her because it was required under American law for a valid renunciation.

“And third, the money she agreed to was ridiculously low given the size of Onassis’s fortune. She got less than the $3 million that has been widely reported. Much less in fact. It was between $2 million and $3 million. And there was nothing in the prenuptial contract about any other payments, either for Jackie’s monthly upkeep or for her children.

“It is true that, as the wife of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie expected to live a wealthy life. But she did not go into the marriage looking for money.

“The irony of this whole story is that it was all for nothing,” Papadimitriou said. “In my view, that prenuptial agreement was not legally binding. I advised Onassis that it would not work. I told him, ‘If you die twenty years from now, when you’re eighty-two, maybe this prenuptial agreement will hold. And maybe it won’t. But if you die any sooner, necessity will undo the agreement. We will not be able to send Jackie away without enough money to live according to her station in life as the widow of Aristotle Onassis.’ ”

It was a couple of years later that Stelio Papadimitriou advised Ari that notwithstanding the prenuptial agreement, Jackie, in the event of his death, would still be entitled to the compulsory minimum of 12.5 percent of his whole estate on the basis of the forced heirship provisions of Greek law.

Ari thought that it was unfair for a Greek national marrying a foreign national to be obliged to give part of his estate to his foreign spouse who could, however, totally exclude him from her estate. This was a matter which did not interest Ari alone, but could interest several thousands of Greeks married to foreign nationals.

On that basis, Ari convinced the government and the legal authorities of the country to change the Greek law to match the foreign law.

A
fine drizzle began to fall on the morning of the wedding, October 20, 1968. In Greece, a rainy wedding day was considered an omen of good luck. However, Artemis Garofolidis, who was as superstitious as her brother, was taking no chances. She had once discovered a hairpin with braided hair under Aristo’s pillow, placed there as a spell by Maria Callas. Concerned that Maria might be up to her old tricks, Artemis decided to slip a charm of her own beneath the mattress of the nuptial bed on the
Christina
.

When she arrived on the yacht, her brother was in the master cabin getting dressed, along with his son Alexander and the chief engineer, Stefanos Daroussos. The three men stood in front of a long mirror, inspecting themselves. Ari was very nervous, and kept adjusting the knot of his necktie. One of his wedding presents to Jackie, a gold cross made by the Greek jeweler Ilias Lalaounis, bulged in its box in the pocket of his suit. His other gifts, a pair of heart-shaped ruby earrings and a huge matching ring, which had been appraised at more than $1 million, were locked away in a safe behind the El Greco in the
Christina’s
book-lined library.

“What do you think?” Ari asked Alexander. “Do I make a good groom?”

His son was in a foul mood, and did not answer. He had agreed to attend the wedding only because his girlfriend, Fiona Thyssen, had insisted he go as a mark of respect
to his father. But true to his word, Alexander had already moved all of his belongings out of the Onassis house in Glyfada and into a suite in the Athens Hilton.

So many guests had been invited to the wedding that there was not a single available bed on the island or the yacht. However, no one had thought about accommodations for Alexander and Christina. They did not have rooms to sleep in.

After he had dressed, Alexander went to find the ship’s captain.

“Can my sister and I share your room tonight?” he asked Captain Costa Anastassiadis.

Costa was struck by the look of utter desolation on Alexander’s face.

“I said yes,” he recalled thirty years later. “But I was really helpless. Alexander and Christina felt pushed out.”

Several hundred newsmen descended on Skorpios for the wedding. To control this ravenous horde, Jackie distributed a statement to the press.

Ari hired his own small navy of patrol boats to keep away the press. In addition, the real Greek navy was called into service; it set up a blockade 1,100 yards from the island. Needless to say, none of this had the desired effect. As press helicopters swooped down over Skorpios, a flotilla of fishing boats carrying newsmen attempted an invasion on the beach. They were beaten back by more than two hundred security guards hired expressly for that purpose.

A little after five in the afternoon, Archimandrite Polykarpos Athanassiou, resplendent in a gold brocade robe, began the service in the chapel of Panayitsa, or the Little Virgin. Jackie stood a good three inches taller than the groom, noted Mario Modiano, the Athens correspondent of
The Times
of London, who was one of four newsmen allowed to witness the ceremony.

“Jackie looked drawn and concerned,” he reported. “She wore a long-sleeved, two-piece ivory chiffon lace dress with pleated skirt. Her hair was secured with an ivory ribbon. The groom looked slightly off-key in a blue suit, white shirt, and white tie—the sort of thing Onassis loved to wear. Caroline and John flanked the couple, holding ceremonial candles, dazzled and serious. Jackie’s glance kept turning anxiously toward Caroline. The Onassis children seemed grim.”

Artemis had been given the honor of being the
koum-bara
, or sponsor, of the marriage. She placed delicate leather wreaths shaped as branches with lemon buds on the heads of the bride and groom. The wreaths were connected with a white ribbon, and as the priest chanted, Artemis crossed them three times. Rings were exchanged three times. Then Jackie and Ari each kissed a silver-bound goblet and drank the red wine. The priest translated the service into English for Jackie’s benefit:

“The servant of God, Jacqueline and I, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Then the priest took Jackie’s hand and Ari’s hand, and led the couple around the altar in the concluding ritual, which was called Esiah’s Dance. Jackie looked stiff and uncomfortable, like an adult trying to imitate the latest teenage dance craze. When the dance was over, the priest declared them husband and wife. There was no kiss to mark the end of the ceremony. Not even a smile, or a clasping of hands.

Instead, Jackie took Caroline’s hand, and mother and daughter emerged from the chapel into a steady autumn
drizzle. A sullen Secret Service man with a PT-109 tie clip, commemorating JFK’s World War Two heroism, fell into step beside them. The invited guests showered the newlyweds with flower petals as they got into an open-sided mini jeep. Jackie got into the front seat, put Caroline on her lap, and held her tightly. Her sister Lee and Lee’s own daughter sat in the back with John, who had never smiled once during the entire ceremony. Ari took the wheel, and drove toward the
Christina
in the harbor one mile away.

T
hat evening, a sumptuous multicourse Greek wedding feast was prepared by the chefs of the
Christina
and served on board the yacht to the guests, including the Kennedy family, some close friends, and a few directors of Olympic Airways. Despite the music and the romantic setting, the atmosphere was surprisingly subdued, and everyone was aware of the nervous expressions on the faces of the bride and groom.

Arrangements had been made for Mr. and Mrs. Onassis to fly to New York on an Olympic Airways flight for their honeymoon. All the seats in the first-class cabin had been removed, and replaced by a large, comfortable bed. The flying bridal suite was separated from the rest of the cabin by specially designed curtains, and the nuptial bed was covered with expensive silk sheets.