Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (42 page)

Jackie’s Camelot

T
he former First Lady spent Thanksgiving evening alone in a melancholy mood, writing letters and making telephone

calls to people she felt particularly close to as a result of the tragedy. The murder of her husband would define a new Jackie in many ways, one of which would be the emergence of her true vulnerability. Prior to the assassination, most people really didn’t know what she was thinking. If she had problems—and she obviously did—she handled them in her solitude, in her own very discreet way. She wasn’t the type to whine, complain, or cry on the shoulders of friends and relatives during difficult times. But after the shock of Jack’s death, it was as if a reservoir holding back Jackie’s raw emo- tions was unleashed. From it came forth hurt, pain, and an- guish, as well as feelings of love and appreciation. It was a different Jackie who would allow all of her friends to bear witness to her emotional turmoil.

To Nellie Connally, who was sitting in the front seat of the car that carried John and Jackie on that fateful day, she wrote, “The thing I’m glad about is that on that awful ride to the hospital we were two women who really loved their hus- bands, those two brave men.”

She telephoned the new President Johnson and Lady Bird. “I’m so sad,” she told Lyndon. “But I’m here with all of

Jack’s things. And it’s helping. In an odd way.”

LBJ asked if she planned to join the family for dinner. “It’s best for me to be alone now,” she said.

The Johnsons were moved to hear from Jackie on this sad Thanksgiving. In a letter he wrote to her [on December 1], which he had delivered by messenger from the White House, LBJ would marvel at her strength.

“How could you possibly find that extra ounce of strength to call us Thanksgiving evening?” he asked her. “You have been magnificent and have won a warm place in the heart of history. I only wish things could be different,” he wrote.

“That I didn’t have to be here. But the almighty has willed differently, and now Lady Bird and I need your help. You have for now and for always our warm, warm love.”

Although it seemed that Jack at times had treated Jackie callously during their marriage, it was by marrying this man that many of her dreams and ambitions came true. It was through her marriage to Jack that she became the woman she had always dreamed of being. In fact, it was as if by marrying, these two ambitious people coming together cre- ated one whole. With his political savvy and her class, style, and culture, they were the perfect match. Both had created images of themselves that they projected to the world, and those images would have impact on our culture even after both were gone. Without Jack, it was as if Jackie was only half a person, or at least that’s how it felt to her once she re- alized she had to face life alone.

Although in the years following Jack’s death, Jackie sometimes may have had a tendency to romanticize their re- lationship, she was always aware of his infidelities, particu- larly his affair with Marilyn Monroe. However, she had long before accepted this flaw as part of his character and contin- ued to love him in spite of it. She knew only too well that she too had her flaws, and he had accepted her despite them. With an eye on Jack’s place in history, Jackie granted an interview with writer Theodore White to put her relationship with her husband, and what they had achieved together, in a glowing, warm light. The journalist, who was working on a story about the assassination for
Life
magazine, was driven by limousine from New York to Hyannis Port the day after Thanksgiving. To White, she said she envisioned Jack as a little boy, reading about the Knights of the Round Table, reading Marlborough, molding himself into a great hero to

whom, one hoped, other young boys would one day look for inspiration. She told White that she wished to “rescue” Jack’s memory from the “bitter people” who would one day write about him. Some skeptics would later feel that what she really wanted was to ensure that the inevitable revela- tions of Jack’s many secrets would seem sacrilegious upon their discovery, and that one way to do that would be to mythologize him. “Jack’s life had more to do with myth, magic, legend, saga, and story than with political theory or political science,” she added. She also told him that “men are such a combination of good and bad.”

Spinning a golden mythology, Jackie carefully laid out her Camelot tale to the rapt writer. To Jackie—as to many people back then and, certainly, to a lot more in years to come when this Camelot analogy took hold—the image of her husband was youth, glamour, vigor, and idealism per- sonified. “I want to say this one thing,” she told White. “It’s been almost an obsession with me. All I keep thinking about is this line from a musical comedy. At night before we’d go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records. His back hurt, the floor was so cold, so I’d get out of bed at night and play it for him, when it was so cold. And the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last scene of
Camelot.
Sad Camelot. ‘Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.’ ”

Jack did enjoy the original cast recording of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s show. (Starring Richard Bur- ton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as Guenevere, the Broadway show
Camelot
opened at the Majestic Theater on December 3, 1960, about a month after Jack was elected. The reviewer for the
Wall Street Journal
said that costar

Robert Goulet as Lancelot had a “Kennedy-like mop of hair.”) Jack had gone to prep school and college with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, and Jackie thought it would be interesting if her husband had the opportunity to meet composer Fred- erick Loewe. So she invited Loewe to the White House for an informal dinner. After the meal, and much to Jackie’s de- light, Loewe sat at the piano and played selections from his and Lerner’s shows
My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon,
and, finally, at Jack’s special request,
Camelot.
“There’ll never be another Camelot again,” Jackie told White, wistfully. Her choice for an analogy was actually a good one, for the Camelot story is a fable about how ideal- ism and right can endure in spite of human frailty and envy, even after the flawed heroes of the story are de- stroyed. White didn’t mind Jackie’s wanting him to incor- porate the Camelot analogy in his story, considering what she’d been through. However, during a telephone call White placed to the
Life
magazine editorial offices, the ed- itors balked at what they saw as a trivialization of presi- dential history. Jackie stood her ground, though, and insisted that the Camelot references remain. “So the epi- taph of the Kennedy administration became Camelot,” Theodore White would write, “a magic moment in Ameri- can history when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers and poets met at the White House, and the barbarians be-

hind the walls were held back.”

The Camelot mystique would actually live on long after Jack’s death. In fact, the romantic notion of Camelot would go on to encompass the full Kennedy experience in the 1960s, the family’s greatest time of power and influence— and high drama—when it seemed that every waking mo-

ment of those who were a part of the house of Kennedy was of the most potent interest to the world at large.

“Let It All Out”

I
n the midst of all the postassassination turmoil in her life, Jackie Kennedy had gone ahead with plans for the birthday parties of her children. Since they were born in the same week three years apart, it was decided that it would be eas- ier to combine their celebrations. John’s earlier party (the evening of the funeral) had been marked by so much sad- ness that Jackie thought it only fair for him to have another with his sister. Concentrating on the planning of such a party would be a much-needed distraction for Jackie, but more important, she wanted the children to be as happy as possi- ble during this dark time. Already the loss of their father had robbed them of so much; both children were emotionally devastated, reacting to the news in their own way.

At the direction of Jackie’s mother, Maud Shaw was given the unhappy and difficult task of telling the children that their father had died. It was feared that they would hear the news from elsewhere before Jackie’s return from Dallas if Shaw didn’t act quickly.

“I can’t help crying, Caroline, because I have some very sad news to tell you,” the nanny began. “Your father has gone to look after Patrick. Patrick was so lonely in heaven. He didn’t know anyone there. Now he has the best friend anyone could have.”

On hearing the news, Caroline cried so violently that the nanny feared she might choke. Later when Shaw told John Jr. that his father had gone to heaven, the uncomprehend- ing three-year-old asked, “Did he take his big plane with him?”

Shaw couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, John,” she replied. “He probably did.”

“I wonder when he’s coming back,” the bewildered child then asked.

The party was held in the kindergarten that Jackie had in- stituted in the White House solarium for her daughter and her friends. “The first year, it had been a cooperative nursery school with mothers, and Mrs. Kennedy included, taking turns as teacher,” recalled Jackie’s secretary, Pam Turnure, of Jackie’s “schoolhouse.” “Their school life would be inte- grated into what was going on in the White House. If there was going to be a ceremony on the lawn, then part of the day’s activities would be to watch from the balcony.”

John and Caroline had eight childhood friends each—in- cluding a few of their cousins—seated at two tables, with two separate birthday cakes.

Jackie showed up at the noisy little affair dressed simply in a black cocktail dress, without jewelry. She appeared thinner, her shoulders, though, seemed somehow broader.

Maud Shaw remembered: “She still looked pale and drawn, but smiled for the first time since the tragedy hit her. She chuckled aloud when John took a huge breath to blow out his three candles, but the sadness was still heavy in her eyes.”

Later, Ethel, just back from her trip with Bobby, stopped by the party to give each child a wrapped gift and to pick up two of her children who were in attendance. In spite of

Jackie’s smile, Ethel immediately recognized the pain on her face, so clearly visible in the newly etched lines on her fore- head. With some trepidation, Ethel approached her.

There had obviously always been a certain uneasiness be- tween the two Kennedy wives. The boisterous, wisecracking Ethel had watched Jackie follow her in marriage into the family, and stood aside as she was eclipsed by the reserved and elegant younger woman. But Ethel saw her now not as a woman to envy but rather as one to pity because of the tragic turn of events in her life. In years gone by, Ethel had been stoic in her reaction to tragedy. Jackie recalled that even when her parents were killed, she seemed unaffected, until Jackie made a point of telling her how sorry she was for her loss. But the enormity of the tragedy that had befallen the Kennedy family was enough to break even the unflappable Ethel.

“Oh, Jackie, I don’t know what to say to you,” Ethel emo- tionally told her, in front of Maud Shaw and the others, in- cluding the kindergarten teacher, Jacqueline Hirsh. “I just wish I knew what to say, or how to help you. You know that Jack is with God, don’t you?”

Ethel realized that Jackie didn’t have her faith. Jackie was a Roman Catholic who felt that religion was really at its best with rituals. She had gone to confession after Jack’s murder, but didn’t know what to confess. All she wanted to know from the priest was why God would have done “something so terrible as to take my husband from me.” Perhaps Ethel asked that question because she was at a loss for anything else to say that might bring her grieving sister-in-law some comfort.

“I know,” Jackie murmured back. She smiled genuinely at the other Mrs. Kennedy, visibly touched that Ethel would

want to pass on to her the one thing that had never failed to help her through her own troubles—her unwavering faith. She told Ethel that they would “always be family,” even if they did have their differences.

Upon hearing Jackie’s reaffirmation of familial ties, Ethel let loose a torrent of words and tears so uncharacteristic of her it stunned everyone in the room. It was all “too terrible,” she cried. She didn’t know how she was going to go on with her life, and feared that Bobby couldn’t go on, either. “Everything has changed,” she said.

Ethel allowed herself to go on for several minutes before taking a deep breath of resolve. “But we just have to be strong, Jackie. We have no choice but to be strong, do we?”

Jackie nodded. “For them,” she agreed, motioning toward the table of laughing tots.

The two women embraced, with Ethel burying her head in Jackie’s shoulder. Then she fled from the room, so upset that she forgot to take her two children with her.

Jackie, left alone in the corner, began to cry. She looked around for her purse, but before long Maud Shaw ap- proached with a handkerchief. “I was doing fine until Ethel came,” Jackie said with an embarrassed smile. “Now look at me. What a sight.” Both women began laughing.