These Few Precious Days (42 page)

(2) “They were both such private people,” Pierre Salinger said, “but they could be very affectionate when they thought nobody was looking.” Here are two such private moments—at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts (above), and when Jackie waited until they were in the family car to welcome her husband home from a campaign trip in 1960 (next).

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(4) She had not yet recovered from John Jr.’s birth and he was suffering excruciating back pain, but even seasoned photographers gasped when the new president and his first lady left the White House for the first of five inaugural balls.

(5) Just weeks after the inauguration, Jackie was indulging her one true passion: riding to the hounds with the Piedmont Hunt and jumping horses at Glen Ora, the Kennedys’ rented estate in Middleburg, Virginia.

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(7) Another rare display of tenderness, this time after welcoming their first state visitor, Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, at Blair House.

(8) The next day, Jack was standing in Evelyn Lincoln’s office when he spotted Jackie passing in the hallway and called to her, “Come in and watch this.” Minutes later she, JFK, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson were glued to TV coverage of Alan Shepard’s historic blastoff into space.

(9) Princess Grace of Monaco’s gaze spoke volumes when she and Prince Rainier visited the White House in May 1961.

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(11) The following week, the first couple embarked on their first official trip to Europe, where they charmed Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (above), Charles de Gaulle (previous), and Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip (next). JFK was “bowled over” by the way his wife handled herself.

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(13) With the president’s brother Bobby clutching Justice Department files, Jackie and Jack prepare to helicopter from Otis Air Force Base to Hyannis Port in late June 1961.

(14) Once at Hyannis Port, Jack and Jackie go for a sail aboard
Victura
.