Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (54 page)

Enter “The Greek”

A
fter her husband passed away, Jackie did not share details with other members of the Kennedy family about the men she saw socially. First of all, she was a discreet woman and thought it inappropriate to give details of her personal life to the family of her deceased husband. She also must have re-

alized that most of the Kennedys would view anyone with whom she chose to share her life as an unworthy replace- ment for Jack.

But Jackie wasn’t sitting at home alone. She had a num- ber of men interested in her at the time, though no one she took seriously as a romantic partner. She was seen with the widowed David Ormsby-Gore, former British Ambassador to the United States, as well as with family friends Roswell Gilpatric, Lord Harlech, Mike Nichols, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. She was fascinated by Truman Capote and other gay men who idolized her, recognized her status as an icon, and treated her like a queen. She had also dated John Carl Warnecke—the architect she had hired to design a per- manent memorial grave for the President—on and off for the last two years. Friends of Jackie’s have differing memories of her relationship with Warnecke. Some insist she truly cared for him, while others say that he was merely a diver- sion.

As the press vigorously covered Jackie’s “romantic” li- aisons, she laughed at the way they focused “on the fanci- ful embellishments” (as she told Rudolf Nureyev over dinner one evening) while leaving “the essence still un- touched.”

It was Aristotle Onassis who was the essence of Jackie’s interest at this time. During her years of mourning, she began keeping company with the wealthy industrialist who had been so kind to her in 1963 when she visited him on his yacht, the
Christina,
after baby Patrick’s death. He encour- aged her to talk about her loss when no one else wanted her to do so, and she had never forgotten his sensitivity. He was also charming and personable, spoke fluent Spanish, French, and English as well as his native Greek, and enjoyed

poetry, music, and quiet times as much as he did wheeling and dealing, negotiating tough deals, and making money. “A strange man in many ways,” she had said, “such a rogue, but also so understanding. I was fascinated by him from the be- ginning.”

When Jack died, Onassis had been at the White House to express his sympathies, and was one of the few visitors, out- side of family and a few heads of state, whom Jackie al- lowed upstairs to the private quarters to visit her. He consoled her as she spoke to him of the terrible ordeal she was enduring at that time, and just as he had won her favor after Patrick’s death, he impressed her with his understand- ing and patience after the death of her husband. He under- stood how difficult it was for Jackie to begin her life again, and he encouraged her to be strong.

“But every day I feel I’m losing a little more of him,” she said, crying to Onassis about a year after Jack’s death. “As time goes on, he becomes more a part of my past.”

“You have done all the mourning that anyone can hu- manly expect of you,” he told her. “The dead are dead. You are living.”

The two stayed in communication; Onassis began sending Jackie roses almost daily for nearly a year, and soon they were seeing each other socially, with Jackie traveling back and forth to Greece and Ari commuting to the States. Al- though Ari was not as handsome as Jack or her father, he had the same dynamic qualities as the two men she had adored. He was attractive to women, and vice versa, an important quality to Jackie. And he was rich and generous, and she did have a need for the money.

The fact that Jackie found Onassis to be charming and sensitive made for a pleasant dating experience, but wouldn’t

have been reason enough for her to allow him into a position of prominence in her life. After all, she was a woman who had been raised to consider a man’s wealth when making a decision about her future with him, and the fact that Onassis was one of the richest men in the world no doubt helped Jackie in making certain choices about him. His money would afford her not only a glamorous lifestyle but also a sense of freedom and protection, important to her and to her children at this time.

Many of the Kennedys closest to her were unaware of how truly frightened Jackie was just to walk out onto the street in public. Crowds terrified her. The constant popping of cameras when she was in public never ceased to jolt her. Was it a bullet? she would wonder. Or just a flashbulb? The memory of watching helplessly as the lifeless body of her husband slumped into her lap had been burned into her consciousness. The nightmares had never ended; no matter how much time passed, she was still traumatized. Much to her dismay, she felt like a victim. If there was one thing Jackie Kennedy never wanted to think of herself as, it was a victim. Ari would be able to protect her and her chil- dren at this time when she felt most vulnerable. He could whisk her to far-off lands when she felt most threatened in America by paparazzi, the media, an adoring public, and worse.

Jackie’s relationship with Ari was kept from the family in the first few months because both believed that if the Kennedys knew of it, they would stop at nothing to end it. Bobby, who referred to Onassis as “the Greek,” felt he was a criminal, and nothing would change his mind about that. Even though Onassis was spending nights at Jackie’s Fifth Avenue apartment and she was flying off to Europe to be

with him, Bobby and the rest of the Kennedys really did not know that anything serious was developing between them.

Jackie happened to be in Mexico in March 1968 when she learned that Bobby had decided to run for President. For her, this was not good news. She was convinced that it was open season on Kennedys, and that if he were to become Presi- dent, his fate would be the same as Jack’s. He would leave behind ten children whose lives would be ruined, she be- lieved, and a widow who would never be able to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams. She had told Bobby of her fears but, apparently, he wouldn’t listen. So Jackie prepared a statement for the press, indicating that she “will always be with him with all my heart,” and began to hope and pray for the best outcome.

In March of 1968, shortly after Bobby announced his can- didacy, Aristotle Onassis was interviewed at a cocktail party at the George V Hotel in Paris. In comments that have been published innumerable times over the years, Onassis said that, in his estimation, Jackie was a woman who had, for years, been held up as a model of propriety, constancy, and “so many of those boring American female virtues.” He said that she was “now so utterly devoid of mystery” that she needed “a small scandal to bring her alive. A peccadillo, an indiscretion. Something should happen to her to win our fresh compassion. The world loves to pity fallen grandeur.” Ari knew his words would have a great impact not only on the media, but also on the Kennedys. “That should set the cat among the pigeons on Hickory Hill,” he said, with a snicker, after making the statement. The next morning, newspapers across the country trumpeted his critical assess- ments of Jackie.

Ethel didn’t like it when she picked up the morning paper and read Onassis’s summation of her sister-in-law. “How well does he even know Jackie?” she wondered. “Why would he say these things? How dare he?” She convinced Bobby that he should discuss the matter with Jackie. How- ever, Bobby was so angry at the report that he didn’t need much coaxing.

When Bobby telephoned Jackie to ask what she felt about Onassis’s comments, she confessed that she was ac- tually thinking of marrying him but that no decision had been made. He was upset and said so, telling her that her decision could “cost me five states.” He further cast asper- sions on the relationship, calling it a “family weakness,” alluding to Ari’s previous romance with Lee Radziwill. Jackie knew he was hurt, so she refrained from doing what would have come naturally for her at that point—hanging up on him.

Jackie still felt a close relationship to Bobby, and in the past had often tried to abide by his wishes and the wishes of the family. “But it’s time for me to live for me,” she finally told him. “Not for the Kennedys.”

After Bobby seemed to get nowhere with Jackie, it was Ethel’s idea to visit Jackie herself and to bring Joan along. Joan, who always cared about Jackie’s well-being, was con- cerned that her sister-in-law was making a terrible mistake and that she would get hurt in the process. She didn’t trust Onassis—though she didn’t know exactly why, rather it was just a sense that she had—and she felt that, based on what she read, he had underworld connections.

Ethel’s uneasiness was more specific. She wanted to know more about Onassis’s complex and allegedly illegal business dealings as much as she wanted to know the truth

about his well-publicized, volatile relationship with opera singer Maria Callas. She believed that a wedding between her sister-in-law and Onassis should be canceled or at the very least delayed, because it would most certainly jeopar- dize Bobby’s political chances.

The Appeal to Jackie

E
thel and Joan paid their visit to Jackie on a brisk, New York afternoon in early April 1968. As always, Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was alive with bustle and movement: horns braying in congested traffic, taxis screeching to a halt and then starting off again, people colliding with one another as they walked—along with an assistant of Ethel’s—to their destination. On this afternoon a small gathering of people, about fifteen in all, had congregated on the sidewalk at the entrance of Jackie’s fashionable pre–World War I apartment building at 1040 Fifth Avenue, hoping for just a glimpse of the former First Lady. Later that day, Jackie and one of the Secret Service agents protecting her at this time would walk out the front door and right into the middle of this mass of humanity. At first the fans, who had been waiting for hours, would be stunned by her sudden appearance, as if they were in the presence of a religious apparition. Then after just a moment (because she wouldn’t be with them very long), the air would be filled with applause and shouts of “God bless you” and “We love you.” Quickly, Jackie would be ushered into a waiting car and driven away from the worshipping as-

sembly, leaving each of its members feeling a bit faint in her wake.

“Will you just look at these nutcases,” Ethel muttered to her assistant as they worked their way through the group, none of whom seemed to recognize either her or Joan. “Who the heck lives here? Elvis?”

Once past the crowd, Ethel, Joan, and the assistant walked through the ornate, black, wrought-iron gate and into a small foyer with French doors, which opened into the large main lobby of 1040. The floors were black-and-white diamond- shaped marble tile. Above them hung a large, expensive- looking, crystal chandelier, beneath which stood an ornate, antique table holding a huge vase of fresh, seasonal flowers. To the left were the elevators, and to the right a fireplace in front of which sat a plush couch with end tables.

“What floor?” Ethel asked as they approached the eleva- tor.

When the three women got out of the elevator, they stepped into a long entrance foyer with gilt-framed mirrors and nineteenth-century French paintings on the walls; Jackie’s was the only residence on the floor. Ethel turned to her assistant: “That’s it for you, kiddo,” she told her. “Time for you to go.” The assistant then handed her boss a couple of coffee-table books about French art, which Ethel intended to give to Jackie as gifts and, with a disappointed look on her face, said, “Are you sure, Mrs. Kennedy, that you won’t be needing me in there?”

Ethel said no. The downcast assistant turned and walked back into the elevator, just as Ethel rang Jackie’s doorbell.

After a butler welcomed the two women into the apart- ment, Ethel and Joan walked into a parquet-floored foyer that opened into a vast rectangular gallery with fourteen

rooms radiating outward from it, including five bedrooms, three servants’ rooms, a kitchen, and a butler’s pantry. The living room, with its windows facing Central Park and its reservoir, was forty feet long and ran parallel to Fifth Avenue. The furniture, much of which came from the family’s quarters at the White House, was an eclectic mix that spoke of Jackie’s varied tastes, from dark, heavy, and formal pieces such as her most cherished possession— an ormolu-mounted Empire fall-front desk that once belonged to her father—to light and airy colored sofas and bright floral throw pillows. Striking watercolors by noted painters decorated the walls. In a corner stood a large telescope, which Jackie liked to use to watch people as they enjoyed Central Park. There were no pic- tures of Jack to be seen; the only photo of JFK in the apart- ment was a small, silver-framed one on Jackie’s bedside table in her bedroom. Outside, on the wraparound fenced terrace were large crab apple trees in wooden boxes painted blue. The whole place cried out for magazine pho- tography.

About a month earlier, Jackie had hired a Greek chef, rec- ommended to her by Aristotle Onassis, who went by the name of “Niko,” short for Nicolas (Konaledius). “I worked for her part-time for just six weeks preparing Greek foods for special occasions,” he recalls from his home in Greece, the walls of which are covered with photographs of him and Jackie from his brief employ. “I was fired, then returned again six months later for another three weeks. Then I re- turned to Greece where I worked for friends and relatives of Onassis’s.”