Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (61 page)

from which Ethel would now draw for expenses, three months went by without any money for Ethel from the Kennedys. Jackie was appalled at the way Ethel was being treated. “With all of those children?” she said. “This should never happen.”

Jackie knew what Ethel was up against; the Kennedys had put her on a strict budget as well after Jack died. It was an ongoing annoyance in her life that the Kennedys’ New York office constantly questioned her expenses, and it was espe- cially embarrassing when Rose involved “the help.” Rose’s chauffeur, Frank Saunders, recalled that just a year earlier (in 1967), Rose had a discussion with him about Jackie’s ex- penses.

“Are you doing food shopping for Jacqueline?” she wanted to know. Her tone was one of great suspicion. She had heard a rumor that her chauffeur was shopping for Jackie and charging the Kennedys’ account for the former First Lady’s groceries. Frank explained that he wasn’t actu- ally doing any major shopping for Jackie but that when her maid needed “a few things” he would go to the store and fetch them. Perhaps, all told, it added up to about fifty dol- lars a week.

“And you’re then charging that to the Kennedys’ ac- count?” Rose asked, her temper rising.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I want a stop put to that immediately,” Rose said with controlled rage.
“I don’t want Jacqueline putting her food on our bill.”

Frank said he would do as he was told. “We must keep these things separate,” Rose reminded him.

Now Rose—who routinely ran around the Hyannis Port home shouting at the servants, “Lights out! Lights out!” in

an effort to save on the electric bill—was on a roll about her former daughter-in-law’s spending ways. “And Jacque- line is going to have to cut back on her personal staff, too. This cannot continue. She’s just going to have to learn to manage within a budget. Mr. Kennedy’s [Joe’s] office can- not pay for every whim of Jacqueline’s, you know. And, by the way, those people are always wanting raises,” Rose continued, speaking of Jackie’s staff. “And they always want overtime. The maid and her secretary. Overtime! Can you imagine?”

It’s always been reported that Jackie spent the Kennedys’ money freely and without regard after Jack’s death, but it would seem that she only did what she felt she must to live the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed, without gouging the family—and the country—for every cent she could get. For instance, on January 12, 1967, Jackie wrote a letter to the President about the financing of her office space in New York. She had it delivered to LBJ from Ted’s office, by messenger.

In her letter, Jackie noted that for the previous three years, “Congress has been most understanding and generous in granting me the funds to maintain an office for my official business.” She explained that this office had made it possi- ble for her to handle the volume of mail that she received after Jack’s death. “As you know, in the fall of 1965, I felt that the volume of business and mail was such that my staff and expenses could be cut back,” she wrote, “and I asked that the appropriation be reduced accordingly. Now, the work at my office, although still considerable, has dimin- ished enough so that I can personally assume the burden of my own official business. Therefore, I no longer wish a gov- ernment appropriation for this purpose.”

“She basically only wanted what she felt she needed when it came to financing,” said George Smathers. “No more. No less. She spent a lot, don’t get me wrong, a whole hell of a lot—which was always a problem for JFK who thought she was out of control. But after his death, she wasn’t inconsiderate about it, as has been painted in the past. The Kennedys were pretty cheap.”

In order to assist Ethel during this troubling time, Jackie lent her $50,000. Though she signed a promissory note, Ethel never paid back the loan. Many years later, in 1974, Jackie’s attorneys demanded payment in a strongly worded letter to Ethel, to which they attached a copy of the promis- sory note. Ethel refused to remit, however, saying that she did not have the funds. When Jackie learned that her lawyers had confronted Ethel without her authorization she was ex- tremely angry with them.

“It’s completely uncalled for,” she wrote to one of them. “Please do not allow this matter to become an issue between me and Mrs. Kennedy. It is now my direction to you to write her back immediately and tell her that the loan I gave her in 1968 is now a gift. Also, please send me a copy of the cor- respondence to Mrs. Kennedy, so that I may be sure that it is properly worded.”

P A R T T E N

Ted Negotiates Jackie’s Nuptials

“
Y
ou know, Mrs. Kennedy is not just an ordinary woman,” Ted Kennedy said, thoughtfully. “In fact, you might say she’s a saint.”

Aristotle Onassis looked at Ted from the other side of an imposing mahogany desk. “A saint?” he repeated, bemused. “Like the Blessed Mother.”

“The Blessed Mother is not a saint,” Ted said, correcting him. “She is the Blessed Mother.”

“That she is,” Onassis said, chuckling.

It was August 1968, and the men were in Onassis’s office on Skorpios negotiating the terms of Jackie’s impending marriage to the Greek businessman. Jackie had asked Ted to go with her to Skorpios to negotiate the possible union. Though he did not approve of the marriage, Ted decided that he should be the one to make the deal. So, at Jackie’s insis- tence, they told the other Kennedys what they would also tell the press: that Onassis had extended the invitation as a gesture to take the two away from the strain that followed Bobby’s assassination.

While on this trip, Jackie hoped to acquaint herself with

Ari’s children, eighteen-year-old Christina (whom Jackie had previously met) and twenty-year-old Alexander. At first, Ari insisted that they call her “Mrs. Kennedy,” but Jackie in- sisted that they call her by her first name. Over the years, as it would happen, they would both call her many names, but seldom “Jackie.”

“They resented her from the start,” says Onassis’s per- sonal assistant, Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos, “because they were always thinking one day that their mother and father would be together.”

Despite the fact that Jackie had indicated she wanted to be involved in the negotiations, she decided to go on a two-day shopping trip to Athens and let Ted handle the business at hand. Because Ari thought of Ted as nothing more than a pretender to the throne in the wake of his brothers’ deaths, and because Ted was oblivious to those feelings, the ensuing negotiations bordered on the ludicrous, according to what Ted and Ari both later told friends and associates, which cor- roborates what has previously been reported about the meet- ing.

“Look what she went through in Dallas,” Ted continued. “You must understand that because of that alone she is one of the most revered people in our country. And for Ameri- cans to accept her being married to you would take a leap of faith. Her image could be forever tarnished. That has to be worth
something.
”

“Of course,” Onassis said, with a patient smile. “Such a thing surely must have value.”

Ted went on to point out the obvious: that if the marriage occurred, Onassis would be stepfather to Caroline and John Jr. Without wanting to be offensive, he observed that Amer- icans who still felt great affection for Jack Kennedy would

be unhappy by the paternal replacement in his children’s lives. “And that, too, has to be worth
something,
” Ted said. Not the least bit offended, Ari smiled. “One would imag-

ine . . .”

“And what about security?” Ted pushed on, adding that if Jackie married Onassis she would lose her Secret Service protection.

Ironically, Jackie so loathed the Secret Service protection that by 1968 she would desperately try to get it reduced from what she felt was a completely unreasonable number of eight agents on duty protecting her and her children, to just three (and, when in Greece, only one, agent John Walsh). In a lengthy letter to Secret Service Director James J. Rowley, she complained, “The children are growing up. They must see new things and travel as their father would have wished them to do. They must be as free as possible, not encum- bered by a group of men who will be lost in foreign coun- tries, so that one ends up protecting them rather than vice versa.” She further wrote that while in New Jersey, the agents lost track of the children for two hours because they had followed the wrong car out of the driveway, “and the mother of nine had to leave her children just to bring mine home!” She also complained that an agent had “forcibly dragged” her children home for supper even though she had given them permission to dine at a friend’s. Rowley re- sponded by saying that the FBI was still receiving letters from mentally ill people threatening Caroline and John, and that there was the “ever-present threat of a kidnapper.” Be- cause Jackie persisted, a compromise was eventually reached in security measures reducing the number of agents, at least while in Greece. So she would not have been at all pleased to hear Aristotle Onassis tell Ted Kennedy, “Why,

my army of security will dwarf in size whoever is presently guarding Mrs. Kennedy.” Onassis further explained that Jackie would have around-the-clock security by what he viewed as the best trained agents in the world for her, her children, her maids, her butlers, and anyone else she cared about. Not only that, Onassis continued, but Jackie would also have German shepherd police dogs at her disposal.

“I might also note that if Jackie marries you, she will lose her income of $175,000 from the Kennedy trust,” Ted cau- tioned, seriously.

Finally, as Ari would remember it, he had to reveal his true feelings in a laugh so loud and hard he almost lost his breath.

“You mean to tell me that you are giving this saint, as you call her, only $175,000 a year?” Onassis asked. “Why, I could give her more money than she could ever dream of.” He said that he would give her what he felt was her true value, “and it would be much more than $175,000 a year.”

“Well, don’t forget that she’s going to lose her $10,000 annual widow’s pension plan,” Ted added, perhaps not un- derstanding the weakness of his position.

Onassis laughed again. He spent that much a week on shoes, he said.

The negotiation went on like this for an hour, until a rough deal was finally struck for Jackie as if she were an ex- pensive racehorse.

“One-point-five, that’s a fair price,” Ari said. “And we can work out the other details later. But if she marries me, Mrs. Kennedy will get one-point-five million.”

“I believe that’s a fair deal,” Ted said as he rose to shake the Greek businessman’s hand.

“I agree,” Ari said.

Later that day Onassis said he felt strongly that the nup- tials should occur in America. He obviously wanted the pub- licity and credibility that such a service in that country would bring to him. But Ted was against the idea. “That would mean that mother, Joan, Ethel, and all of us would have to attend,” he said, “because if we didn’t, how would that look? And we can’t. It would be completely inappropri- ate. It would be a nightmare. I won’t be moved on this point.”

“Then, fine,” Onassis said. “We’ll leave it as it is. One- point-five.”

“One-point-five,” Ted agreed.

By the time Jackie returned to Skorpios with a dozen pairs of shoes and matching handbags, the deal—such as it was—seemed to be in order. Everyone was satisfied. One- point-five it would be.

Or would it?

A few weeks later, Aristotle Onassis sent the proposed agreement to Ted for signature, who then forwarded it to André Meyer, Jackie’s financial adviser. In the deal draft, Jackie was described only as “the person-in-question.” Be- cause Meyer had “some problems” with it, Onassis ended up having a contentious meeting with him about the “acquisi- tion” on September 25, 1968, at Meyer’s apartment at the Carlyle.

Meyer felt that Onassis should pay at least $20 million to marry Jackie. Onassis thought that was a preposterous amount of money for a former First Lady, saint or no saint. In fact, the price was so high that it had the potential to hurt the feelings of all concerned, he said, “and might easily lead to the thought of an acquisition instead of a marriage.”

In the end, after much haggling, Onassis agreed to pay

three million dollars for the privilege of marrying the former First Lady, which was twice the amount for which Ted had almost sold her. Jackie could take the three million dollars outright, or the money could be used to buy nontaxable bonds. Also, each of her children would receive a million dollars, and the annual interest on that money would go to Jackie. In the event of Onassis’s death, Jackie would receive

$200,000 a year for life.

While Jackie was satisfied, it was said that Onassis was struck by buyer’s remorse and had agonized over the matter for some time, wondering if he had paid too much for Jackie Kennedy. One day, as the story goes—and it was probably concocted by Onassis—it came to him that he could actually buy a supertanker for that amount. However, he then real- ized that, considering the cost of such a supertanker’s fuel, maintenance, insurance, and other extras, he probably made a good deal in buying Jackie instead.

Lynn Alpha Smith, who was the executive secretary to Constantine (Costas) Gratsos (director of Ari’s New York operations), remembered, “We used to call Jackie ‘super- tanker’ around the office. Onassis didn’t mind. It made him laugh. ‘It’s supertanker on the line,’ I’d announce whenever she called. In my eyes, and in the eyes of many people, Jackie was an acquisition, nothing more or less. The dowry system was acceptable in Greece, only in this case it was Onassis who had to pay the dowry.”

But Ari had the last laugh.

Under the laws of Greece, Jackie would have been enti- tled to at least 1.5 percent of Onassis’s $500-million estate in the event of his death: roughly $62.5 million. It’s difficult to imagine, yet astonishingly true just the same, that with all of their combined business acumen, Ted and the other attor-

neys who worked out this “deal” somehow neglected to re- alize that Jackie didn’t need a prenuptial agreement and, moreover, that the existence of one all but guaranteed her less money than she would otherwise receive at Onassis’s death. Moreover, the payment Jackie would receive at the time of her marriage meant that she had legally renounced her right to any future money, other than what was stipulated in the agreement.