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Buy the Book
Dearest Jackie
Jacqueline Kennedy’s delicious tapes reveal her as rather snobby and snide — though maybe that was Arthur Schlesinger egging her on.
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F.
Kennedy: Interviews with Arthur Schlesinger,
Jr.
By Caroline Kennedy & Michael
Beschloss
(Hyperion, 400 pages, 8 CDs,
$60)
THIS BOOK CONSISTS of the transcripts of seven rather extensive tape-recorded conversations that Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of our 35th president, made in 1964 with court historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Their free-wheeling style and sometimes indiscreet content underscores the fact that they were intended for generations yet unborn, to be sealed for 50 years or more. The decision of the Kennedy family to allow their publication now responds not—as Caroline Kennedy disingenuously insists in the introduction to this volume—to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her father’s inauguration, but rather as part of a bargain with one of the major television networks, which was otherwise planning to release a docudrama on the Kennedy dynasty not wholly to the taste of our self-styled reigning family.
The hold that the Kennedy legend has on a large (though happily steadily diminishing) sector of the American media and public is highlighted by the fact that this book is accompanied by eight compact discs that reproduce the conversations as recorded. Quite why one needs to hear the back-and-forth between Mrs. Kennedy (as she then was) and Professor Schlesinger is not clear. In the interest of full disclosure, this reviewer has not bothered to listen to them. The printed text is more than enough.
For those too young to recall the Kennedy years, it perhaps is worth noting that the arrival of a young president and his even younger spouse to the White House in early 1961 was not so much a political as a style event. Never before—at least never before in the experience of those alive to witness it—had the presidency and the presidential family been surrounded by the aura of such film-star glamour. The Roosevelts were aristocratic, but in an understated and unstudied way; the Trumans were unapologetically dowdy; the Eisenhowers were plain people who had lived in a series of government-issued military dwellings. None made the slightest effort to differentiate themselves from ordinary Americans. As Mrs. Kennedy snidely comments in an aside, “before [JFK] politics was just left to corny old people who shouted on the 4th of July.” The Kennedys brought something entirely new to the White House—the celebrity presidency, full of glitz and flash. As both the Clintons and Obamas have since learned, it is a tough act to follow, which of course doesn’t stop them from trying.
While these conversations do not break much historiographical ground—why should they?—they are not lacking in historical interest. Mrs. Kennedy had the opportunity to know a great many important people, and some of her impressions of them are quite interesting. She quotes the daughter of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as saying, “If only I could get a decent cook!” She describes Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter, soon to be prime minister of India in her own right) as “a real prune—kind of pushy, horrible woman….It always looks like she’s sucking lemon.” Both Mme. Nhu of Vietnam and Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce are bracketed as “hating men [because] they resent getting their power through men.” Then she leans forward and whispers to Schlesinger, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lesbians”—a judgment that would astound any man who had ever met either woman.
There are slightly nasty comments on the major American political figures of the day—particularly Chester Bowles and Adlai Stevenson, both of whom were full-dress Liberal Bores for whom the president and his hard-scrabble Boston Irish gang understandably had little time. Schlesinger, who had defected from Stevenson in 1960 to join the Kennedy bandwagon, does not protest when his interlocutor describes his former idol thus: “I always thought that women who were scared of sex loved Adlai.” And then there is poor Pat Nixon. “I used to see her at bandage rolling,” Mrs. Kennedy recalls. “You know, the Senate wives have to go roll bandages every Tuesday and the vice president’s wife is always the chairman of it.” To which Schlesinger snidely interjects, “I think she’d be perfect at bandage—bandage rolling.” The other references to Mrs. Nixon are too painful to cite; they all emphasize her deplorable dress sense and hair style. Poor thing—her mother died young and she had to go to work almost immediately; she didn’t get to go to a finishing school in Paris and become elegant like Jacqueline Bouvier.
THE MOST SENSATIONAL revelation, of course, has to do with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom Mrs. Kennedy did not precisely admire, and about whom she seems to have known quite a bit, thanks to the fact that her brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy, was attorney general at the time and in close communion with J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. As is now known, the latter were eavesdropping on Dr. King’s telephone conversations. When the latter came to Washington for a freedom march, so the president told his wife, “he said this with no bitterness or anything, how he [King] was calling up all these girls and arranging for a party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy in the hotel, and everything….Since then Bobby’s told me of the tapes of these orgies they have and how Martin Luther King made fun of Jack’s funeral.” For Mrs. Kennedy, Dr. King was “a tricky person….I just can’t see a picture of [him] without thinking, you know, that man’s terrible.” Of course, this was four years before his assassination.
The critical comments on Dr. King, and also on Fidel Castro, Nehru, Sukarno, and Nkrumah, former Brazilian president João Goulart, not to mention certain remarks about effeminate (gay?) men in the Foreign Service—none of which Mrs. Kennedy would make publicly if she were alive today—show how far to the left our political culture has moved since these tapes were made. Nor would she express unhappiness with the Sullivan decision of the Supreme Court (which enables some of the mischief-making of today’s drive-by media). The frequent references to wealthy friends like Earl E. T. Smith or Charles Wrightsman (both Republicans) or the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (former in-laws of the president) underscore the fact that the Kennedys preferred the company of the Palm Beach-cum-English country house set and also the degree to which the Democratic Party now depends far more on new money rather than on old. The chumminess with writers and owners of the elite media is another change; today no president (or journalist, for that matter) would admit to such intimacy, whatever the facts.
Michael Beschloss, who provided the (sometimes inaccurate, sometimes incomplete) notes to this volume, introduces us to Mrs. Kennedy by praising her work in restoring the White House. No doubt this was a worthy endeavor, but if one did not know otherwise, one might have thought that no other first lady had ever done anything worthwhile or significant. Actually many of our first ladies have been women of considerable substance—more, indeed, if I may say so, than Jacqueline Kennedy. Florence Harding successfully ran her husband’s newspaper in Ohio and was the first to welcome African-American women socially to the White House. Lou Henry Hoover co-translated an important Latin text on metallurgy, traveled all over China with her husband in his capacity as a mining engineer, and learned to speak perfect Mandarin. Grace Coolidge taught lip-reading at a school for the deaf. And everybody knows about Eleanor Roosevelt. These first ladies were, of course, products of the pre-television age. But even if today’s media had existed a hundred years ago, it is difficult to imagine that their recollections, however worthy or interesting, would justify such a costly format as this.
About the Author
Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (29) | Leave a comment
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POST American| 11.9.11 @ 7:07AM
-----------Tavistock '60's Show' EYE-CON-----------
----------------DIS-traction and SAP OP--------------
-------------------------ALERT!--------------------------
Meanwhile BOTH the Globalist RED China
WORLD TREASON OP ---and the more immediate
issue of the FUKISHIMA world depop
op and cover up -----remain UNMENTIONED.
----------HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012----------
Moe Blotz| 11.9.11 @ 7:28AM
Compare the late Mrs. Onassis when she was Kennedy to our current "first lady" and see what you get. Moochelle is snooty and elitist as well, but from a different angle. Everyone who reads Mr. Falcoff today may have an opinion on that one.
Doctor Right| 11.9.11 @ 7:38AM
When Fat Teddy the Lech died, the power of the Kennedy family died with him.
The bloom is finally off of this rose, and it's about time.
I have always thought that Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a detestable individual, a fraud and an elitist who obviously considered herself "above" the little people.
Jackie O and Michelle Obama would get on quite well together.
Moe Blotz| 11.9.11 @ 10:09AM
I would beg to differ on that one, Doc. Mrs. O would look upon our Moochelle with disdain, both for her melanin content and taste for fried food. Moochelle would resent her counterpart for her lack of melanin and more upscale societal upbringing. Publicly, the late Mrs. O would present a better facade so that you might think they were getting on famously.
DGinGA| 11.9.11 @ 7:02PM
Jackie Kennedy was a gold-digger and her second marriage proved it!
Herb| 11.9.11 @ 9:23AM
Heh, heh, now tell us what you really think of the Kennedys!
You're right, when The Swimmer assumed room temperature the Kennedy clan began its slide into irrelevance. I hope that less-than-worshipful TV drama gets aired anyway. Now which surviving Kennedy will pick up the phone and breathe soft thunder into frightened execs' ears?
I remember when TV gabfest host Merv Griffith got into hot water when he said , "I'm not trying to insult Mrs. Kennedy, it's just that she has to take a taxi to go from one eye to the other!"
Another accomplished First Lady: Betty Ford.
Doctor Right| 11.9.11 @ 9:52AM
I think the controversial TV series is available on NETFLIX.
Occam's Tool| 11.9.11 @ 1:10PM
I think we are forgetting Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison.
PJ| 11.9.11 @ 10:23AM
How can a daughter allow such tapes to be published showing the world what a nasty airhead her mother really was? I mean couldn't Caroline edit some of the incriminating crap out of it? (If she did, would there be anything left to publish?) Or is Caroline continuing to show the world how out of touch w/reality she is in?
If this review is accurate, not only does the book show Jackie in an unflattering light but it also shows that Caroline has some unresolved mother-daughter issues along w/her warped view of reality.
skedaddle| 11.9.11 @ 10:47AM
It's possible Caroline sees nothing wrong with what her mother said or she just doesn't care because she wants the money. And maybe Jackie wasn't the type of mother a daughter cares to protect.
SusieQ| 11.9.11 @ 11:35AM
I believe Princess Caroline has already released her statement:
Jackie was just a product of her time and environment. Her snot and racism was not unusual for any woman of her background. Don't remember her as she really was; just remember her as the illusion we have so carefully manufactured.
Doctor Right| 11.9.11 @ 11:49AM
How?
Easy. The Kennedy name doesn't carry the cache' it used to...and it doesn't earn the graft it used to, either.
Fat Teddy's death left a big hole (no pun intended) in their "brand" that no one has yet been able to fill.
Caroline is a wall-flower
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is a drip and a political loser
Patrick Kennedy is an a-hole and a drunk like Ted but without the charm (sarcasm definitely intended)
Robert Kennedy, Jr., is a conspiracy-theory nut-job and a crank/shill for the left-wing cause-du-jour...whatever it is today
Rory Kennedy is a documentary film-maker...'nuff said
And Joe Jr., has apparently decided to opt out of anymore politics and live off of his trust-fund...smart move.
The families hopes were on John Jr's shoulders...Were he still alive, he'd probably be in Gov't somewhere. And it's a shame, because out of all of them, he was the only one that came across as likeable.
jd| 11.9.11 @ 12:37PM
JFK Jr. may have been voted by People Magazine as sexy, but considering he dated Daryl Hannah for years (enough said), the fact that he was not very smart (failing the bar numerous times), and his propensity for accidents (how many times did he break bones?) which ultimately led to his death and also the death of his wife and sister-in-law, let's just say that he probably would have been serving in the Obama Administration. If the Kennedy's put all their hopes on JFK Jr., that says a lot. Good riddance to all of them money-grubbing, power-seeking elitists, faux-Catholics, who think just because their name is Kennedy that they are entitled for life. That includes Maria Shriveled --- I mean Shriver as well.
k962| 11.9.11 @ 11:20AM
The Kennedy clan were a pox on the country! If they hadn't been asassinated they would have not been revered at all!
RJ| 11.9.11 @ 11:25AM
It has always been surprising at how the Kennedy image overwhelmed the Kennedy reality. Most people knew better, but the wanted to believe in the dream. Same with the Obama worship.
Oldefarte| 11.9.11 @ 12:02PM
Jackie came of her aristocracy legitimately, but she married into the Kennedy cesspool sadly. She was bought and paid for by the father for her social standing. The Kennedy family was/is nothing but typical Irish thugs, and mostly all behaved that way. She was the only bright star among her excrement in-laws tradgically!!!!!
idalily| 11.9.11 @ 4:41PM
We don't have aristocracy, and Jack Bouvier was a prize ba$tard. That aside, this interview only proves what I've always suspected. Jackie was an airhead, a snide and bigoted snob, a slave to her philandering husband, and oblivious to anything outside her privileged, Martha's Vineyard world. But she did have fashion sense and style. I'll give her that.
Pat Leath| 11.9.11 @ 5:21PM
Problem with Jackie O was that she was really, really mentally challenged. If she was the "bright star" in that degenerative group of truly dysfunctional Irish thugs, then the name " Kennedy" has deteriorate to the level of trash.
Occam's Tool| 11.9.11 @ 1:13PM
Ugarte: "You despise me, don't you, Rick?"
Rick Blaine: "I suppose I would, if I thought of you."
That's my view of the Kennedys. Daddy was a bowlegged bottlegging antisemitic pro-fascist asshole, and the kids were worse.
Oldefarte| 11.9.11 @ 4:21PM
The kids had a good teacher, especially the males. As is said, LIKE FATHER, LIKE SONS!!!!!!!!
Dave| 11.9.11 @ 1:20PM
Everyone knows she was a snob. I really don't see the fascination with a family of criminals.
cicero| 11.9.11 @ 1:37PM
During the West Virginia primary, the Kennedy campaign used my late uncle's home as it's headquarters. It cost th Kennedy campaign $400.00 per precinct to buy that primary election, which lead to his nomination. They did not get any better after that.
Oldefarte| 11.9.11 @ 4:26PM
The SENATOR was confronted by the disrespectful female inside the Ah Bar [who was later supposedly sexually assaulted at the Palm Beach compound by the nephew] and responded with DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO? That about sums up the Kennedy superior attitude!!!!!!!!!!
Herb| 11.9.11 @ 5:29PM
It still gives me the warm fuzzies to know that The Swimmer is dead and that Scotch fumes will rise from his grave for decades to come.
Geez, I'm old enough to remember Camelot and those fawning references to "America's very own royal family". Yuk! And mind, I don't hate Jacqueline Bouvier; I just could never figure out what her appeal was. Beautiful and aristocratic, that was about it. Sort of like Princess Di.
Unfortunately Ted Kennedy is getting the last laugh down in h***. His immigration bill signed into law by the evil Lyndon Johnson is a pox without end upon this land!
Juan Jose Morales-Castillo | 11.9.11 @ 6:35PM
John Kennedy? Who's he? I was nine when he was assassinated and had never even seen a portrait of him. Why should I cherish the memory of someone who left no mark in my life?
Juan Jose Morales-Castillo, Puerto Rican first, last and everything in within
Megan| 11.9.11 @ 10:01PM
Thank God that these tapes have come to light. I always thought she was an overrated lightweight. My parents (Irish immigrants) refused to vote for them because they felt they were phony. The Kennedy legacy is finally seeing the light of day....if the main stream media will let the light through...doubtful. The Kennedy name equals HYPOCRISY across the board.
POST American| 11.9.11 @ 10:59PM
--------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------
--Camelot ----becomes Ham--a--lot.
Of course there are things that bear looking
into, if not full bown investigation, regarding
the closing chapters of the Kennedy years.
That said, the Kennedy's 'Irishness', and
most certainly their 'Catholicness', is the
merest christmas wrapping.
While perhaps not in the same Luciferian
league as the 'Baptist' Rockefellers
--or the 'Jewish' Rothchilds ----the fact
remains, the Kennedy's have been warm
supporters of the most horrific aspects
of capstone 'social engineering'
(ie exterminationof the unborn, genocidal
--er' we meant 'eugenics realism' for the
'few--t--your' etc).
EVEN NOW, as the reality of economic,
political and even spiritual TREASON
viz a viz RED China is UNDENIABLE,
----------where are the 'decent' 'fearless'
'outspoken' Kennedys?
-----------------------WHERE?---------------------------
Seek| 11.10.11 @ 4:08PM
Say what you will about Jackie, but she got Martin Luther King right.
Guest| 11.27.11 @ 10:34PM
Really sad how Mark Falcoff, the gay darling of the right, takes cheap shots at dead people. He is a pathetic, old queen whose ideas are woefully out of style. Time to pull the plug.