My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy

My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy

BY MARY BARELLI GALLAGHER

Smashwords edition, copyright 2014

© 2014, MARY BARELLI GALLAGHER

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-97224

In loving memory of my parents Mr. and Mrs. Peter Barelli whose unselfish love always inspired and guided me.

And with my deepest gratitude to those whose personal sacrifices and contributions played a major part in making my career possible:

My husband, Raymond

Our sons, Christopher and Gregory

My mother-in-law, Mrs. Ann Gallagher

~*~

My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy

By

MARY BARELLI GALLAGHER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

How My Book Came To Be

PART ONE

1 ~ The Most Well-Kept Secret

2 ~ Into The Kennedy World

3 ~ The Season For Weddings

4 ~ Mother And Daughter

5 ~ The House On N Street

6 ~ Wife Of The Candidate

7 ~ First Lady-Elect

8 ~ John-John

9 ~ Palm Beach

10 ~ Inauguration

PART TWO

11 ~ Into The White House

12 ~ The First Lady’s Typical Day

13 ~ Outside The Queen’s Room

14 ~ How Many Jobs In One?

15 ~ Jackie’s White House

16 ~ The Face Of Fashion

17 ~ The Kennedy Circle

18 ~ The Jacqueline Image At Home And Abroad

19 ~ Unexpected Visit

20 ~ Rome, India, Pakistan

21 ~ Idyllic Summer

22 ~ The Battle Of The Budget

23 ~ No Detail Too Small

24 ~ War Of The Wages

25 ~ You’re My Only Friend In This Impersonal White House.

PART THREE

26 ~ Houses, Houses, Houses

27 ~ Art, Antiques, Atoka

28 ~ Caught Between Blasts

29 ~ Christmas In July

30 ~ Tragedy In August

31 ~ The Grecian Isles

32 ~ Those Last November Days

PART FOUR

33 ~ We All Visit Dallas

34 ~ Would The Ghastly Day Never End?

35 ~ Last Days In The White House

36 ~ Back To Georgetown

37 ~ The Most Difficult Moments

38 ~ At Loose Ends

39 ~ The Summer Of Our Discontent

40 ~ Jackie Leaves Washington

41 ~ The Manchester Story

42 ~ Farewell To A First Lady

About The Author

PREFACE

Few books in publishing history have created such excitement in advance of publication as has My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy. A small portion of the book appearing in serial form produced a wave of press speculation throughout the world and whetted the anticipation of readers everywhere for the whole story. And only by reading the complete book can the complexities of the former Jacqueline Kennedy’s personality and life be fully understood.

This book reveals Jacqueline Kennedy as a real person — as a wife, as a mother, as a seeker of perfection in art and life. And, it describes her brilliant refurbishing of The White House, where Mary worked closely with her in the Family Quarters. For the light it sheds on crucial years in American history and on Jacqueline Kennedy, this book is unique. It takes us back to Camelot and shows the real woman beneath the goddess-figure the world’s idolatry made her.

Nearly a half century has passed since the original publication of My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy in 1969; therefore, its reissuance at this time is deemed appropriate for the benefit of all future generations in their overall understanding of this historical, interesting Kennedy Era.

HOW MY BOOK CAME TO BE

………WITHIN SIX MONTHS……….

In October, 1964, upon the culmination of my 12-year secretarial career with President and Mrs. Kennedy, I was able to resume my role of housewife and mother on a full-time basis with every 24-hour day suddenly my very own to spend with Ray and our two sons, Christopher, 8, and Gregory, 7. How strange it seemed, as we gradually adjusted to the change, that we were able to enjoy the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays free of any work-related interruptions, phone calls, etc., as in past years.

The New Year, 1965, was now upon us and, settling down to morning coffee at the kitchen table in that first week, Ray and I discussed the matter of how I could best utilize my extra free time at home. First, to fill the days while the boys were at school, I took a part-time job locally for keeping up my secretarial skills and, at the same time, began the important task of working on a personal project during any spare hours with no time restraints, looking ahead to the future.

This turned out to be a chronological account of my twelve Kennedy years (while the memories were still fresh), which took the next three years to complete. Intended strictly as a tangible record for Chris and Greg to be held for the next ten years or so upon their reaching adulthood, it was safely locked away in January, 1968…over 700 pages, in chapter form, entitled, My Legacy for Chris and Greg.

Ten months later, in October, the news broke worldwide of Mrs. Kennedy’s move to Greece and her remarriage to Aristotle Onassis. The public’s reaction of shock and consternation also brought about a quick barrage of phone calls to me from frenzied neighbors, friends and acquaintances, looking for answers and/or explanations in trying to understand Mrs. Kennedy’s actions, usually prefacing with …you were closer to her than anyone…An unlisted phone number soon became necessary and offered some relief; but, then, coping with the unavoidable, outside encounters whenever I left the house on errands, etc., became another matter that just continued for the next two months.

By the first week in December, in need of a break, I tried to spend a leisurely day at our local mall for Christmas shopping, relaxing lunch, and return home by mid-afternoon….to no avail. I had no sooner entered the very first store when I felt a tap on my shoulder by a neighbor. Expressing great delight in having run into me, she then rambled on for the next several minutes with almost a breathless spiel, bearing overtones of criticism, sarcasm, self-righteousness, etc., over Mrs. Kennedy’s remarriage. For me, it was about all I could take; I had reached the point of complete saturation. Cutting her short, I left her standing there with the excuse of rushing for time as I made a fast bee-line for the nearest exit, heading straight to my car.

Pretty much in a stupor, I could no longer concentrate on my Christmas list. My mind was reeling after this latest intrusion, and I had to think…try to find an answer to the one question I kept asking myself: How long is it going to take before the public comes to realize that Mrs. Kennedy is a human being like everyone else; that she ought to be able to live her life as she chose; that her personal affairs were her own, not theirs…why can’t they understand?

Despite all the Kennedy related books published thus far by closest aides, friend, associates, etc., endless questions about Mrs. Kennedy just continued to persist. It then occurred to me as I mulled over all this on the quick, turn-around, drive home that the personal project I had locked away in early January for the future of our two young sons actually contained a true, complete and most comprehensive portrayal of Mrs. Kennedy that showed her as a whole person like no other book had. And, like a flash of lightning, I had the answer…it would have to be edited, published and be given its more meaningful, rightful place…in the annals of history.

Within six months, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy became a reality. Excerpts in the July and August, 1969, issues of Ladies Home Journal appeared prior to its official publication date, September 8, 1969.

PART ONE

ONE FOOT IN CAMELOT

~*~

1 ~ THE MOST WELL-KEPT SECRET

Some women are born to be Queen—or its equivalent. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis is such a woman. Born to cause excitement wherever she goes, to attract all eyes. Always at the very center—and yet aloof from it.

Born to exact homage, to be a law unto herself, to be obeyed, sought after.

Born to have power, to be envied, followed, copied, watched—and to be worshipped.

That is the woman called Jacqueline—the woman who has become a living legend.

Once in a generation does a woman possess such magnetism that the world is spellbound by her, seeing only what she wants it to see. And even when the spell is broken, people still wonder; they still ask what actually happened, what is Jackie Kennedy really like? What was real, and what was the dream?

I can tell you that not everything was as it seemed.

I know, because for eight incredible years I lived in Jackie’s world as her Personal Secretary, before, during, and after John F. Kennedy entered the White House.

She remarried, and a nation awakened to find that Camelot is no more—in my mind Camelot was where she lived with a modern King Arthur, the place where dreams came true.

To me, Mrs. Kennedy was always Jackie when we were speaking in private. I never called her Mrs. Kennedy, except when speaking of her to others. And Jackie would call me Mary, or Sweet Mary if she were especially pleased with me or in a very lighthearted mood.

First Families are a part of history. I have been a part of history in my relationship with this First Family. Long after I am gone, historians will be using my recollections to understand more fully the man who was the 35th President and his life and times. I think he would want it that way.

As for my own presence in the White House, there was a curtain of silence. It was one of the many things that made even my friends and neighbors wonder, "Just what does Mary do?" They knew I had the White House phone in my kitchen. They saw it there. They knew a chauffeur driven limousine with White House license plates drove up to the house every morning and that someone held the door open while I got in. I merely told them I was Mrs. Kennedy's secretary.

Jackie did not wish it known that she had a personal secretary, and I went right along with it so as not to distress her. It seemed that she wanted the public to feel that it was having direct contact with her—the wife of the President.

So I kept out of the public eye.

In fact, when William Manchester, doing research for his much-publicized book Death of a President, was introduced to me on April 2, 1964, by JFK’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, Manchester shook my hand with disbelief. You are the most well-kept secret of the whole Administration! he said. And I understood his amazement.

As a matter of fact, I was the only member of her professional staff to be with her in the living quarters. And how I remember those days in the Treaty Room, when the table was piled so high with Jackie’s mail and folders of things to do that she would come in and hold her head at the sight of it. I was never safe from dictation. Even at night, Jackie would call me at home, saying, Oh, Mary, I just have a few things I wanted to get off my mind, and I would start writing in shorthand.

It is very amusing that in the book of Pierre Salinger (the President’s Press Secretary) he says Jackie was an inveterate memoranda writer and wrote them all in longhand. Not by a long shot.

The funniest thing that I can remember about her dictation happened the day that I finally found myself with some time off. I had decided to run off to the swimming pool of my neighborhood club in Alexandria, Virginia, near my home, and was looking forward to a day of just lolling beside the water, vegetating.

For once I felt safe. Jackie was out of Washington and surely wouldn’t need me. Still, just from habit, I did take a tiny notebook off the telephone stand at home and a pencil.

I had hardly sunk into a chaise lounge beside the pool when the lifeguard hurried over to say I was wanted on the phone.

It was Jackie with a few thoughts, and I reached for my notebook automatically. A half hour later, I was still standing in a pretzel shape there, while the manager watched amazed. My head held the phone box open, and with my left leg I was barely able to remain standing. My right knee became the desk for my notebook. With my left hand, I held the receiver of the phone as I wrote furiously away!

I didn’t break Jackie’s train of thought. It was my pride that I never asked anything over a second time. I got it down. I checked later. Soon I was signaling the lifeguard wildly for more paper. He gave me pool schedules. I turned them over.

I should have won an award just for maintaining my position without losing balance. After I was through, the worried manager said, Mrs. Gallagher, we can provide you a little office if you are going to have much work to do here. Let me show you.

No, thanks, Mr. Saunders, I said, I doubt that I’ll be spending much time here. It wouldn’t be worth your trouble. Jackie would always be that way! Or so I thought.

I was sure that I knew Jackie. I was sure that, regardless of where Jackie was, she would always be calling in with something on her mind. And, somehow, as I envisioned the years ahead, even after her husband’s assassination, I always thought that her life and activities would revolve around her role as a Kennedy and the First Lady.

When the headlines broke out about Jackie’s marriage to Onassis, I must admit that I wasn’t different from the rest of the world. Even with my inside view, it came as a complete shock to me. In fact, I couldn’t make myself believe it and waited twenty four hours for continuing reports and news stories to confirm it.

If you wonder whether I ever saw Aristotle Onassis at the White House, the answer is yes, just once—I’ll eventually get to that—but I attached not too much significance to it.

I had never thought that Jackie would remarry. I fully believed that she would remain tied to the Kennedy name for the rest of her life, devoting herself completely to the perpetuation of the President’s name and the Kennedy Library and all the works of a cultural nature connected with it.

2 ~ INTO THE KENNEDY WORLD

I really should tell how I happened to get caught up in the Kennedy world in the first place. It’s a most amusing story, looking back—a sort of name game.

In 1944, when I was a wide-eyed girl just out of high school, I was proud to be chosen for a job interview because I was top of my class in shorthand and typing. The name of the man who hired me for my first job at the Hollingsworth and Whitney paper company was—John H. Kennedy.

How could I know that for the next twenty years I would never be without a Kennedy in my life?

For 8 1/2 years, I remained with this top paper company, rising to become secretary to two men—the Vice President in Charge of Sales, J. B. Cowie, and his assistant, L. B. Abbiati.

I left because of another Kennedy, John F. Kennedy.

The man who brought this about was P. Kenneth O’Donnell, a former salesman who had left the company to work for the Senatorial candidate, John F. Kennedy. The year was 1952. It was November, in fact, when Kenny O’Donnell returned to see Mr. Abbiati. I was especially curious about his visit because three months before, when Kenny left, he had asked me to go along to work for him.

My curiosity about that visit built up until that Friday when we were leaving the office. I said, Mr. Abbiati, aren’t you going to do anything to help Kenny get his old job back? I had assumed that was what Kenny was back for.

Mr. Abbiati looked at me strangely and seemed reluctant to discuss the matter, so I dropped it.

I was just about to leave then when he suddenly said, Kenny’s visit had nothing at all to do about his job—actually he was asking about your going to Washington to work for Senator Kennedy.

I laughed, thinking he was kidding me, but he said, "I’m not joking. Kenny left it to me to decide whether or not I should mention it to you. The only reason I’m telling you now is because I know your mother and father will never allow you to go."

He was right in that we were a close-knit Italian family, but I was thrilled at the opportunity.

I’m glad you did tell me, I said. Thanks. I’ll ask my parents and see how they take it. How strange—if I hadn’t asked Mr. Abbiati about Kenny, my whole life would have been different—no John F. Kennedy, no White House.

My parents were proud. If Washington was calling, maybe I’d better answer the call.

The girls at the office were as excited as I, and on the day of my scheduled interview with the man they considered the most glamorous bachelor in Washington, they were almost as nervous.

I was to report to the Senator’s Bowdoin Street apartment there in Boston. As I climbed the flight of stairs and knocked on the door, I could feel my knees tremble a bit, but soon I was in the living room answering the girl at the desk, who asked my name.

Miss Barelli, I said. I have an appointment with Senator Kennedy.

Oh yes, she acknowledged, the Senator’s expecting you. Now my knees were trembling even more. Every chair was filled. There wasn’t a bare spot to be found anywhere—newspapers literally covered chairs, table, and every inch of the floor from one end of the room to the other. The secretary was busily clipping away, so I stood and waited. Fortunately, it was for only a minute or two.

Then the door to the next room opened, and before I knew it, I was being warmly greeted by the magnetic, smiling man who had emerged in his stocking feet and rolled-up shirt sleeves. I was amazed to see that it was the Senator himself. His hand outstretched, he shook mine tightly, and he almost shouted, Oh hi, there. How are you? Come on in.

Whether it was his handshake, his strong voice, or his extremely informal appearance, I really don’t know—but my knees suddenly steadied as I followed him into his bedroom.

He closed the door. Pointing to one of the twin beds, he offered me a seat as he sat on the other.

I was glad my parents couldn’t see all this informality. The new Senator asked several questions about my experience, but he seemed particularly interested in my aptitude for the Italian language. We all spoke Italian at home.

The interview lasted about ten or fifteen minutes. And as I left, he thanked me for coming and said I’ll have Kenny call you in a few days.

Regardless of the outcome, I thought, at least I had met our newly elected Senator from Massachusetts, who with his natural easygoing manner was so full of warmth and spirit.

Before the week was out, however, I received word that I was hired and that I should arrange to be in Washington on January 3rd.

I can see most vividly that final day when I, a secretary who had never ventured from home, said goodbye to my boss, Mr. Cowie—half wondering if I was being rash venturing into the world of politics.

His words now suddenly brought tears to my eyes. Now, Mary, I’ll let you go, but you’ll just have to promise that if after three days or three months or three years, you find you don’t like Washington, you’ll come right back here. Promise?

Dignified as he was, I could not resist embracing him with a warm hug and a little kiss.

The first thing I noticed when I reported to work on Capitol Hill was that Senator Kennedy occupied a suite of rooms in the Old Senate Office Building—Room #362— located directly across the hall from Vice President Richard M. Nixon—in Room 361.

Initially, Senator Kennedy’s staff had consisted of only four secretaries, including my roommate Lois Strode, who was in charge of veterans and military service cases.

I remember our great pride as we Original Four—Evelyn, Jean, Lois, and I—were officially sworn in to carry on our new duties.

That was a very interesting situation. Evelyn Lincoln had arrived about a week before. The whole staff was new, except for Ted T.J. Reardon, his administrative assistant, who had been with the Senator during his years as a Representative from Massachusetts.

It was decided at the outset that Mrs. Lincoln, who had past experience on the Hill, would be his personal secretary. Jean McGonigle, who had campaigned in Boston, was chosen to be receptionist. I handled immigration matters.

Ted Sorensen was hired to be the Senator’s legislative assistant, and before long, Lee White had also joined the staff to help on legislative matters. From time to time, the Senator added other aides and secretaries.

As the Senator’s popularity increased, he was more and more in demand for speeches around the country, as well as in his home state. For these excursions, it was the responsibility of Muggsy O’Leary—his chauffeur and right hand man— to get the Senator to the airport on time. O’Leary was the Senator’s jovial, cigar chomping, well padded sidekick. He would leave the car waiting out front and come up to the office.

Is the boss ready? he’d ask. Very seldom would the boss be ready. The Senator was almost always oblivious to the time, taking care of last minute details in his office, or just talking in leisurely fashion on the telephone. Sometimes it was almost too much for everyone’s nerves, waiting to see whether Muggsy could make the deadline to the airport. He would stand in the doorway, calmly chewing his cigar, while the rest of us in the office fidgeted.

But when JFK was ready, he was ready. He’d come out of his office and say, All right there, Muggsy... All set?—as if it were Muggsy who was holding up the works! Off they’d rush, leaving us all to wonder if it could be done—getting him there on time. Eventually Muggsy would return and say, We had one minute to go, or We had two minutes, and then there was one day when he came back and said, They held the plane!

Along with learning how to handle constituents’ problems, we were to master as well the knack of using the Senator’s language and style in answering his mail. We each had responsibility to carry through correspondence with any one individual from start to finish, in the Senator’s style.

I seemed to have a magic touch with immigration cases, but there was one case that absolutely defied me. It was the case of Toy Lin Chen. The Senator wanted very much to help him. The poor man would be deported unless a private bill to give him permanent status in the United States could be passed through Congress.

Month after month, the Senator and I worked over his case, keeping Toy Lin Chen in the country on temporary extensions. But each time the case came up before the full committee, there was always something more they asked for.

I wanted so much to succeed in this case because JFK had carried it over with him from his days in the House of Representatives. Even though Toy Lin Chen had meanwhile moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, the Senator continued to fight for him.

To learn the ins and outs of immigration, I sought help everywhere—from Betty Bryden of Senator Saltonstall's office, from Mrs. Rae Pittarelli of the Visa Office of the Department of State. Eventually, I came to earn the title bestowed on me, The Immigration Expert.

I was also chosen to be in charge of incoming calls. For some reason, the Senator decided, after testing us all for a friendly sounding voice, that it should be my voice to be heard on the phone first.

But I was staggered at another assignment. One day Evelyn Lincoln went from desk to desk with the Senator’s signature, asking each of us to copy this.

I copied it as the others had, and she disappeared into the inner office. When she came out, she walked directly to my desk and happily announced, The Senator thinks you’ve come closest to copying his signature and would like for you to start signing all of his official outgoing mail. The personal letters he’ll continue to do himself.

Since the Senator strongly preferred that his signature look authentic, I practiced for hours until finally I reached the point where I found it difficult to distinguish his John Kennedy from my own.

It is interesting that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not sign his middle initial, except rarely, during his Senate years, though on letters typed by his secretaries, we did use it.

Even in the White House, the President was not consistent in signing his middle initial. Before and during the White House years, some notes sent to me personally were signed with or without the F., or simply Jack.

Sometimes he would stop at my desk at the end of the day and watch for a few minutes as I swiftly wrote his name on one letter after another.

He always had a word of encouragement. You’re doing a great job there, Mary, or, even more heartening, Terrific! Or, perhaps, a smile that showed his amused approval at this bit of forgery. One afternoon I said, "Wouldn’t it be funny if you were to slip a check in here by mistake?" He laughed and walked away. It was clear he thought I would never have to worry about that!

The joke was really on both of us. We didn’t imagine that I would eventually become a part of his financial affairs and that I would indeed be signing checks with my name, to be paid out of his account.

It was amusing to us all that our very wealthy Senator never had enough money in his pockets. Stories among the campaign aides increased every day about the way the Senator was always finding his pockets empty and borrowing some quick, spending money. The men around him would pay for the newspapers, for hamburgers, or for the milk shakes that he dearly loved and be reimbursed later—if they thought of it —from Petty Cash without bothering him. After becoming President, he even borrowed a $5 bill from a Secret Service Agent, before going into church one day, to put into the collection plate.

The Senator had many idiosyncrasies. One was that the door to the outer office must be kept open at all times, to give an available feeling to his constituents. But since he drew everyone like a magnet, the girls in the building were forever peering in the door as they walked by, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man they considered the most vital, most attractive bachelor in Washington.

Even older and very married girls could fall apart over him. One particular afternoon a group of ladies from Massachusetts came into the office and asked if they might see him for a minute or two.

They couldn’t have been more thrilled when they were told that he would soon be with them.

Half sitting on the edge of their seats, they chatted gaily as they waited in eager anticipation. Before the Senator came out of his private office, however, the spokeswoman for the group, who was just too bubbly to sit still, practically danced her way over to my desk, starting with general conversation, then reciting her little spiel apparently intended for the Senator. I had the feeling that she must have felt it wise to have this little rehearsal.

Then the Senator came bounding from his office and approached her directly, offering his outstretched hand and his usual greeting: Oh, hello there. How are you? So nice to see you.

Now that it was her turn to speak, she was completely spellbound. Clutching his hand, she simply stared into his face—and though her lips were moving, she was absolutely without the voice to carry out her mission.

The Senator understood her predicament, and with his usual aplomb, he skillfully turned his conversation to the rest of the waiting group and they managed to get their message across. The Senator sorted it all out and showed sincere interest. The ladies departed, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that this had been a very great moment for all—including the Senator. He was smiling to himself as he went back to his office.

There was only one exception to the open door policy. That was whenever a favorite singer would come to the offices to visit. Then, the Senator would order the outer door closed and force his guest to give a command performance. Everyone stopped work and gathered round to listen. Once when his good friend Morton Downey sang Danny Boy, there wasn’t a dry eye in the office.

Whenever he could, the Senator would get each singer to put his all into JFK’s very favorite—Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home? That song seemed to match his own exuberance for life. Its peppy rhythm would bring a broad grin as he listened to it.

Another Kennedy talent was his ever present wit. You could get away with anything if you could turn it into a witticism, somehow.

His own humor was sometimes sophisticated, but could be very earthy, as when he would say, As the cow said to the farmer, Thank you for a warm hand on a cold morning.’ Once, when he was in a particularly jocular mood, he kept a few members of his staff in his private office entertaining them with his stories—Ted Reardon, Ted Sorensen, and a few others. They had a friendly argument over whether a particular story could be repeated in mixed company, and the Senator laughingly told the men, Let’s test it out on the most naive girl in the office. But at the last minute someone prevailed on him not to tell it, so none of the girls ever heard what that story was!

3 ~ THE SEASON FOR WEDDINGS

As I recall, the first time I saw Jacqueline Bouvier, she came into the office, looking very young, with tousled, dark short hair. She appeared poised and walked past the girls with friendly greetings.

Availing herself of the open-door policy, she simply walked into the Senator’s private office unannounced, and he must have been expecting her, because she did not come out immediately.

Years later, I was to read the memoirs of John H. Davis, Jackie’s cousin, in which he told of having lunch with Jackie during the time she was dating Jack Kennedy. I was very much amused to learn that Jackie hesitated to take him too seriously because of his outlandish ambition. Kennedy had confided to Jackie that he intended to become President.

The Senator did not talk about his romantic activities, yet everyone in the office was caught off guard when we read the announcement that it was Jacqueline Bouvier who had captured our bachelor boss.

She had not been the only glamorous girl to pass through that door.

I remember Audrey Hepburn—and I remember how the whole office was so impressed when she walked in. She was as graceful as a swan and carried a long, slim, red umbrella.

Up to that point, a few of us had been aware that the boss liked to go to movies with various girls and that his personal secretary would have to call to make the dates for him—so busy was he. But, somehow, he had managed to find the time to call Jackie himself, as I later learned from Evelyn.

However, in those days that she dated the Senator, her column in The Washington Times-Herald was peppered with her sense of humor. Jackie, The Inquiring Photographer, roamed the city getting comments to her clever and amusing questions.

She was always coming up with something different—one day asking children why Santa’s reindeer don’t come down the chimney and getting the answer, They’re too fat; another day, asking pets what they were doing at the veterinarian’s and reporting everything from treatments for gout to psychological problems.

Her column, we at the office felt, had a prominent place in her romance with the Senator. Biographers always write of the famous dinner arranged by her friends, the Charles Bartletts, in June of 1951 at which she was supposed to have met Jack Kennedy as a Congressman. But their romance did not become serious until after she interviewed him as a Senator. She asked him what he thought about Senate Pages, photographed him, and repeated the procedure with his colleague across the hall, Vice President Richard Nixon.

Her column quoted Senator Kennedy as saying, I’ve often thought that the country might be better off if we Senators and Pages traded jobs. If such legislation is ever enacted, I’ll be glad to hand over the reins to Jerry Hoobler, whom I’ve often mistaken for a Senator.

Jackie then quoted the Page as telling how Senator Kennedy was always being mistaken for a tourist or Page because of his youthful appearance. The other day, said Jerry Hoobler, he wanted to use the special phones, but the cops told him, 'Sorry, Mister, these are reserved for Senators.’

The story appeared in the Times-Herald of April 21, 1953, at which time romance might have been uppermost in her mind because her sister, Lee, had been married just three days before to Michael Canfield.

Within two months of this interview, Jackie’s engagement to the Senator was being announced in the same newspaper, on June 25th.

The story making the rounds on Capitol Hill was that at the Bartlett dinner the young Congressman leaned across the asparagus and asked the pretty girl for a date.

Jackie was the daughter of John Vernou Bouvier III, a New York stockbroker, who had been divorced from her mother when Jackie was quite young. He had not remarried.

It was surprising how many parallels there were between the Senator and Jackie’s father. Both had back trouble. Her father had suffered a slipped disk, too.

Both were considerably older. Jack Bouvier had been 14 years older than Jackie’s mother, and Jackie was 12 years younger than the Senator. Both were known for their charm and eligibility.

They were also both interested in politics—but from completely different viewpoints. Jackie’s father was an out-and-out Republican, who liked the Senator in spite of his political party.

He also liked him in spite of the Senator’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, who had been chosen by President Roosevelt to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jack Bouvier felt that many of his problems on Wall Street stemmed from the elder Kennedy’s policies.

Later I was to learn that Jackie had considerately held up her engagement announcement a few weeks until after The Saturday Evening Post could run its article on The Senate’s Gay Young Bachelor.

The Senator himself, as I recall, was not too pleased when he saw a copy of the magazine. He grasped it in his hand and frowned. The title, in itself, infuriated him because this was not the image he was trying to project.

Sure, he was a bachelor and, sure, he dated quite a few girls, but that was secondary. He was—and wanted it known that he was—a serious, hard-working Senator from Massachusetts, albeit the junior Senator, who was striving for more important recognition.

I do believe that it was Jacqueline’s wit, as much as anything, that set her apart from the crowd of girls who would gladly have married Jack Kennedy. Jacqueline has a freshness of expression and a sort of let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may attitude that can be devastating or funny, depending on which side of the joke you are on.

Busy as he was, the Senator was nice even to the girls in the office. When he would go to Merrywood, sometimes without Jackie—it was her mother’s home—he would invite all of his staff to come along on weekends, and we would swim in the pool.

At this particular time, he was not swimming himself, because of his back problems that had begun with his PT-109 experience during the war. But he thoroughly enjoyed watching others swim as he sat at the edge of the pool, dangling his feet in the water.

One Sunday, as he sat at the shallow end, I was unaware that he was watching as I tried to get up my courage to dive off the high board. It was a particularly high board. I had almost made up my mind to take the plunge when he suddenly called out loudly, Okay there now, Mary. Let’s see you do it!

That was all I had to hear!

Now that I knew he was watching, my knees started shaking —and, if I had thought I could turn around without falling, I would have crawled back. But, under the circumstances, it seemed the only thing left to do was to close my eyes, hold my nose and—jump!

With a loud splash, the water gurgled in my ears as I hit bottom and sprang up to the surface, only to be met face to face—eyeball to eyeball—by the most tremendous St. Bernard dog I had ever seen!

Everybody, it seemed, had swimming pool privileges around the Senator.

I met Ethel and Robert Kennedy when they were very young marrieds with just two children. In fact, as a single girl, I learned a little bit about married life through them.