Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (5 page)

Joan stopped walking. “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed. “I have nothing to wear. What will I wear?”

“Oh, the ever-so-important details,” Jackie said with a laugh. She had already started planning her wardrobe with her couturier, Oleg Cassini.

“So how’s it shaping up?” Joan asked.

“Why, it’s wonderful,” Jackie said. “In fact, I’m com- pletely overwhelmed by my own good taste.”

The two sisters-in-law dissolved into laughter. Jackie hooked her arm around Joan’s. Then, as the good friends turned and began to walk back to the Big House, Jackie nes- tled her head on Joan’s shoulder.

Jack Defeats Nixon

T
he so-called Kennedy compound, where the family had congregated to await the results of the 1960 election, was actually a triangle of large Cape Cod–style houses separated by a common, meticulously kept lawn. At one corner of the triangle was the Big House on Scudder Avenue, a large seventeen-room home with green shutters, facing Nantucket Sound, which had belonged to Joseph and his wife Rose since 1926. Their eldest living son, Jack, and his wife Jackie owned a smaller home a hundred yards away on Irving Av- enue, surrounded by hedges. Another hundred yards across Jack’s back lawn was the middle son Bobby’s home. The youngest male sibling, Ted, and his wife Joan would pur- chase a home on Squaw Island, a peninsula about a mile from the compound, in March 1961. These were all summer homes—typical white-clapboard New England structures that looked like large oceanfront hotels, which were usually closed up after the Christmas holidays. For election day, Bobby’s house had been utilized as a makeshift campaign

post, complete with telephones linked to Democratic head- quarters all across the nation, televisions, Teletype ma- chines, fourteen secretaries, and a vote-tabulating machine, all set up in Ethel’s dining room.

On the afternoon of the presidential victory, the entire Kennedy family was scheduled to go by motorcade to the Hyannis Armory, which had been converted into a press- room. There, about four hundred television, radio, and print reporters from around the world had been waiting for hours for an opportunity to share in the family’s victory and to hear the new President and First Lady speak. “There were so many of them and they were all so charismatic, it seemed even more newsworthy,” recalls Helen Thomas, who has been UPI’s White House bureau chief since 1961 and the first woman to be elected an officer of the National Press Club. “People were fascinated by them. It wasn’t just as if we had elected a man into office. In some odd way, it was as if we had given national approval to a new dynasty.”

Before the press conference, the family gathered at Rose’s for a lunch of tuna-, lobster-, chicken-, and egg-salad sand- wiches; the kinds of “simple foods” they most often favored for lunches on the Cape, all leftovers from the night before when the Mayflower Catering Service had provided a buffet at Ethel’s for campaign workers. For dessert, they enjoyed a nice assortment of petits fours, eclairs, and turnovers. After- ward, the casually dressed Kennedys would need to change clothing quickly for the media.

With his eye on the historical value of having the family together on such an important day, young Jacques Lowe— who had been Jack Kennedy’s official and personal photog- rapher since his reelection to the Senate in 1958—wanted nothing more than to take a family photograph for posterity.

“I knew that if I wanted to do it, though, I’d have to do it rather quickly,” he recalls some thirty-five years later. “You couldn’t get them all in the same room at the same time, let alone have them pose for a picture. It was all just that hectic. As they raced about, I asked this family member and that one whether we could all get together for a picture, and everyone kept saying ‘Later, Jacques, later.’ Finally, I spoke to Joe, and he agreed with me. A photo should be taken.” Joseph then ordered everyone to be suitably attired for pos- terity and to meet in the library.

Half an hour later, the family drifted in, the men (except for Peter Lawford, Jack’s sister Pat’s husband) in dark busi- ness suits with the requisite amount of white handkerchief showing in the breast pocket. The women had their own ver- sion of the uniform. Jewelry consisted of pearls, either one or two strands, and/or a tasteful gold pin worn close to the right shoulder. Earrings should be inconspicuous enough to be barely noticed. All the ladies wore black or gray long- sleeved dresses or suits, with two notable exceptions: Rose and Ethel. Rose wore a bright red short-sleeved sheath dress, which highlighted her still slim figure; it would be sure to stand out against all the dark clothes everyone else was wearing. Ethel appeared in a bright pink dress with matching sweater. Not only did the color clash with her mother-in-law’s outfit, but she also wore a shade of pink that Rose occasionally claimed as her own because it matched her name. (Rose was probably too excited by the importance of the occasion to make mention of it to Ethel, however.)

Everyone was there but Jackie. “Jackie was always late,” says Jacques Lowe, laughing. Because she had gone for an- other walk along the beach, she was delayed in getting ready for the photo session. But the wait was worth it when she fi-

nally appeared at the door, stunning in a sleeveless mater- nity dress in a shade that just matched her mother-in-law’s and made her look radiant, with two strands of pearls and a pin. “Oh, my, is everyone here already?” she said.

Jack, magnificently tanned and looking fit in his dark suit, stood up and walked to the entryway to meet his wife. Tak- ing her by the arm, he escorted her into the room, beaming with pride. As if on unspoken cue, the elderly Joseph stood up and began to applaud. Rose joined her husband, standing and applauding, then Bobby and Teddy followed suit. Soon the library was filled with cheers and whistles as the entire family gave Jackie Kennedy a rousing standing ovation, a heartfelt demonstration of their respect for her new position as the nation’s First Lady.

“Oh,” Jackie exclaimed, visibly moved by the over- whelming reception. “How absolutely wonderful.”

As everyone applauded, Jackie stood in the center of the room, looking from person to person, making brief eye con- tact with each cheerful Kennedy face. All the while she grinned broadly, shaking her head in disbelief. She went to Rose and embraced her, then to Joseph. When she found Joan, who was clapping while standing alone in a corner, Jackie walked directly to her and kissed her on the check. After whispering something in her ear, the two women hugged each other.

Then, as the applause continued, Jackie worked her way to the other side of the library, embracing the Kennedy sis- ters, Eunice, Pat, and then Jean.

During the long campaign, the women born into the Kennedy family had become impatient with Jackie’s stub- born reluctance to do press interviews and become chatty

with reporters, feeling that she was shirking her responsibil- ity as the wife of the candidate. The Kennedy sisters would do almost anything to get their pictures in the paper for, as far as they were concerned, every published article about them was helpful to their brother’s cause and served to inch him—and them—just that much closer to the White House. They took after their mother, the family’s matriarch, Rose, who, even at the age of seventy, never stopped touring the country, posing, speaking, shaking hands, and doing what was expected of all Kennedy women when their men were running for office. Rose had been the one to define the du- ties of the female members of the family by virtue of the fact that her experience as a campaigner went all the way back to her youth, when her father, the legendary “Honey Fitz,” ran for mayor of Boston. Campaigning had always been an im- portant part of the lives of these Kennedy women, and they expected Jackie to be just as excited about the traveling, the speeches (which were usually short and inconsequential), the photos—all of it.

“Those girls all looked and sounded like their brother Jack,” recalls Liz Carpenter, Lady Bird Johnson’s press sec- retary, who campaigned with Lady Bird and some of the Kennedy women, including Ethel, in six cities through Texas. “They all made speeches, used the word ‘terrific’ a lot. Everything was ‘just terrific, kiddo.’ They threw them- selves into it, the Kennedy sisters, and Ethel fit right in, with high energy. In August of 1960, this Kennedy enthusiasm— all those bucked teeth and talk of ‘vig-ah’—completely cap- tivated Texas. In fact, we ended up carrying the state. Jackie wasn’t there, though. So all you heard was, ‘Where’s Jackie? Where’s Jackie?’ ”

The one Kennedy woman people seemed to care most

about was the one who seemed the least interested: Jackie. This fact served only to exasperate further the rest of them. Poor Eunice, so politically savvy that her father Joe once said she could have been President herself if she’d only been “born with a set of balls,” found herself at political tea par- ties answering inane questions about her sister-in-law’s ever-changing hairstyles. “Well, she does change it a lot, doesn’t she?” Eunice patiently agreed with one socialite. “However, I don’t think she does it for any kind of effect, but rather because, well, she just likes her hair to be in dif- ferent styles from time to time. I’m sure you understand.” When the satisfied voter walked away, Eunice rolled her eyes.

Campaigning was difficult for Jackie, especially when she had to be in front of an audience. For instance, she had been asked to warm up the crowd before her husband made an appearance in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Completely unpre- pared to render a speech, she didn’t know what to do, only that she would have to do something, and do it quickly. “Just get ’em singing,” a campaign worker said to her as she walked nervously onto the stage.

Jackie Kennedy stood in the spotlight and, with her char- acteristic whisper, said, “Now come on, everybody, join me in this wonderful song.” She then began singing a weak, tin- eared,
a cappella
version of “Southie Is My Old Home- town.” This tune, apparently, was a popular one in Boston but nowhere else and, judging from the audience’s reaction, definitely not in Kenosha. As Jackie sang, the crowd of po- tential voters sat before her slack-jawed and bewildered.

After Jackie was finished, she acknowledged a smattering of polite applause and hastily brought out her husband, the candidate, to wild cheers. “It was the most embarrassing

moment of my life,” Jackie cried afterward. “Well, I don’t know about that,” Jack said with a grin. “I thought you sounded rather tuneful.” The next day, newspaper reporters made unkind jokes about Jackie’s “unusual concert perfor- mance.”

Luckily, because Jackie was pregnant, she was able to sit out the last few months of the campaign.

As frustrated as the Kennedy women were about Jackie, they were even more aggravated by Joan. Whereas Jackie was fully capable of doing what was expected of her but just didn’t want to, Joan seemed emotionally unprepared to han- dle the rigors of campaigning. Despite her great beauty and vivacious personality, she was too shy and self-conscious to be an effective stumper.

In September, Joan and Ethel embarked on a trip to Chicago, where they spent three days attending rallies and meetings with female voters. Ethel was in her element and found it all exhilarating: meeting the voters, answering questions, talking about Jack, Bobby, and the family. A pub- lic relations strategist by instinct, Ethel fairly dragged Joan from meeting to meeting, prompting her in her answers, coaching and cajoling her every step of the way. By the time they left Chicago, Ethel was more exhausted by her tutoring of Joan than she was by the purpose of the trip itself.

When Joan was asked to appear on a television show with Lady Bird Johnson, she declined the invitation, explaining that she wouldn’t know what to say. Ted was embarrassed by her lack of confidence and later chided her for it, which only added to her humiliation. He wanted her to satisfy his family’s criteria for the perfect Kennedy woman, which meant that she should be able to handle herself in front of people, be charismatic and personable, and, if called upon to

do so, appear on television and make it look like second na- ture.

In San Francisco, Joan joined her sister-in-law Pat at ral- lies and meetings, looking like a frightened child on the first day of grade school, while Pat displayed the kind of exuber- ance and public relations savvy for which the Kennedy women were well known.

Jean had just given birth in September to her second son, William Kennedy Smith, but that didn’t stop her from re- placing Joan at Ethel’s side in Florida during the month of October. “Ethel and I are a great team,” she told one packed audience, “because we have the same goal: to see John Fitzgerald Kennedy elected as President.” As Ethel followed Jean on the podium, she smiled appreciatively at her, proba- bly relieved to be paired finally with someone who could make an impact on voters. “Believe me when I tell you that the difference between Joan and Jean is a lot more than just a letter,” she said later.

The impromptu standing ovation the Kennedy women gave Jackie in the library on the day Jack was elected was a clear acknowledgment that whatever their frustrations about her, they now recognized that she was the First Lady and thus deserved their respect. Also, the brief and personal mo- ment Jackie shared with each of them was, in a sense, her recognition of the role they had played in her husband’s suc- cessful campaign. After kissing Joan, Eunice, Pat, and Jean, Jackie finally reached Ethel. By the time she got to her, the applause had died down.