“That’s where we used to live, Caroline”: Shaw, White House Nannie, 165, 178–79.
Lincoln was too overcome: Leigh, Prince Charming, 84.
the president’s favorite dish: Ibid., 87.
security room in the main garage: Gerald A. Behn, “Survey Report,” February 3, 1964; Gillon v. Homeland Security, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“the grown-ups temporarily forgot the grief”: Shaw, White House Nannie, 166.
“drown my sorrows in vodka”: Gallagher, Life with Jacqueline Kennedy, 344, 349–50.
“scrambles with his uncle”: Ibid., 350; Ellen Key Blunt, “School Bells Will Ring for John-John,” The Washington Post, May 22, 1964.
“Caroline doesn’t let people get close to her”: Leigh, Prince Charming, 88–89.
his cousins Kerry and Michael: Ibid., 88–89.
“fully aware of his father’s death”: Wells, interview.
their future in the city: Hill, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, 333; Shaw, White House Nannie, 175; Winzola McLendon, “Nurse Shaw Recalls: John-John Brought His Own Tribute,” The Washington Post, January 21, 1966.
CHAPTER 3: “JOHN, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?”
Francis, not Fitzgerald: “JFKs Abound at 1040 Fifth,” The Washington Post, July 31, 1964.
“so ridiculous as asking for their autographs”: Shaw, White House Nannie, 189.
“people connected with November 22”: Bishop to Salinger, November 29, 1963, “Name File: Bishop,” LBJPL; “Beleaguered Author: William Raymond Manchester,” The New York Times, December 17, 1966, 19; “Battle of the Book,” Time, December 23, 1966.
it was published in early 1967: Gillon, Kennedy Assassination, xii –xvi.
tried to play checkers: Shaw, White House Nannie, 187.
whether John had won the fight: “John-John Is the New Boy with Punch,” Herald Tribune News Service, May 26, 1965; Christopher Andersen, The Good Son: JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved (New York: Gale, 2014), 176–78.
refer to Mrs. Kennedy as “Madam”: Kathy McKeon, Jackie’s Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family (New York: Gallery, 2017), 11–13, 15.
Mrs. Kennedy was not pleased: Ibid., 66–68.
“favorite wooden truck”: Ibid., 64.
retrieved the snake: Ibid., 172–73; Shaw, White House Nannie, 187.
“yeah, yeah, yeah!”: Christina Haag, Come to the Edge: A Memoir (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2012), 116–17.
lengthen the side: Marylin Bender, “Side-Burns Key to John-John Haircut,” The New York Times, January 10, 1967.
“set the bar for American families”: Sam Stoia, interview by author, January 10, 2019.
the correct right-handed salute: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 298.
“pitiful lack of imagination”: Ibid., 124–26.
“America the Beautiful”: Maier, The Kennedys, 478–79.
“I feel inadequate about saying anything”: Ibid., 278–80.
he asked innocently: Ibid., 479.
“London to see the Queen”: “John-John Is the New Boy with Punch.”
at the actual event: Shaw, White House Nannie, 194–95.
“one person missing”: Ibid., 195–96.
flub his lines: Tina Radziwill, interview by author, July 5, 2017.
“‘He’s absolutely safe as he is’”: Ibid.
mesmerized by the changing of the guards: Shaw, White House Nannie, 200–1.
still had their heads: Ibid., 182–83.
American royalty meets real British royalty: Leigh, Prince Charming, 102.
“Where’s the cook and butler?”: Shaw, White House Nannie, 202–3.
JFK’s legacy would remain a burden: Jackie to Mr. Macmillan, May 17, 1965, HMP-BL.
“vengeance on the world”: Jacqueline to Mr. Macmillan, September 14, 1965 HMP-BL.
Jackie gently intervened: Leigh, Prince Charming, 104.
“things were all right”: Ibid., 105–6.
“John always belonged to the sky”: Andersen, Good Son, 192; McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 124.
“You can’t die!”: Andersen, Good Son, 187.
hobbling around on crutches: “John Kennedy Jr. to Have Surgery,” The New York Times, July 3, 1966.
burned skin had to be cut away: SAIC Lardner to Rufus W. Youngblood, “Accident to John F. Kennedy Jr.,” July 6, 1966; “John F. Kennedy Jr. Burned by Hot Coals,” The New York Times, July 2, 1966.
the exclusive Bailey’s Beach: Leigh, Prince Charming, 114–16.
slapped his hand on the table: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 164–65.
“I can too!”: “John Jr. Goes Swimming After Candy Gambit Fails,” The New York Times, June 18, 1967.
hung it proudly in John’s room: Sheehan, “The Happy Jackie, the Sad Jackie.”
“Santa Claus was going to find out”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 78.
By October 1967: Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?: American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975 (New York: Doubleday, 1984), 71–74; Thomas Powers, The War at Home: Vietnam and the American People, 1964–68 (New York: G. K. Hall, 1984), 116–18.
“snot-nosed little son of a bitch”: Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 100; Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 9–12; Gillon, Kennedy Assassination, 30–33.
“quote his letter by heart”: All the correspondence can be found in the Lyndon Johnson Papers, President, 1963–1969, Messages EX ME 2/B-R, box 87, LBJPL.
RFK announced his candidacy: Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy, 845.
“fatalistic, like me”: Schlesinger Jr., Journals, 285–86.
funeral services in Atlanta: Jacqueline Kennedy, Historic Conversations, 260.
kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel: Cecil Beaton, Beaton in the Sixties: The Cecil Beaton Diaries (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), 245.
John and Caroline burst into tears: Andersen, Good Son, 221–23.
“He’ll always take care of you”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 184–85.
walked solemnly away: Judith Martin, “Kennedy Clan Keeps Quiet Vigil,” The Washington Post, June 8, 1968.
“brought quick, involuntary tears”: Leroy F. Aarons, “‘Good and Decent Man’: Last Brother Eulogizes Robert Kennedy,” The Washington Post, June 9, 1968.
“mourners lined the tracks”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 189–90.
“throwing bouquets of flowers”: Ibid., 195.
candles and flashlights: Robert J. Donovan, “Nation Pays Final Honor to Kennedy,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1968; Donna Gill, “Bobby Buried Near Brother in Arlington,” Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1968.
“I want to get out of this country”: Michael Gross, “Favorite Son,” New York, March 20, 1989.
CHAPTER 4: “IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO JOHN . . .”
One parent predicted: Enid Nemy, “Here, John Kennedy Jr. Will Be ‘Just Another Boy,’” The New York Times, August 22, 1968.
“exuberant and restless”: “John F. Kennedy Jr. to Become a Pupil at Collegiate School,” The New York Times, August 16, 1968; Gross, “Favorite Son.”
“They were not happy”: Bruce Breimer, interview by author, February 7, 2019.
She personally invited Onassis: Sam Kasher, “The Complicated Sisterhood of Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill,” Vanity Fair, May 2016.
“she’s finally free of the Kennedys”: Frank Brady, Onassis: An Extravagant Life (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977), 160–70, 172; Sheehan, “The Happy Jackie, the Sad Jackie.”
“my life was engulfed in shadows”: Sheehan, “The Happy Jackie, the Sad Jackie”; Brady, Onassis, 176.
$5,000 a month: Brady, Onassis, 176–77.
“the prospec
t of getting a stepfather”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 206–7.
The way into John’s heart: Leigh, Prince Charming, 126.
old enough to be John’s grandfather: Sheehan, “The Happy Jackie, the Sad Jackie.”
“a magnificent coastline”: Lee Radziwill, Happy Times (New York: Assouline, 2000), 118.
“He was really sweet with John”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 260; Brady, Onassis, 191; Tina Radziwill, interview.
“a special chemistry”: J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 314.
“the curse is part of our family”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 269–70.
Jackie renounce further claims: Helen Lawrenson, “Jackie at 50,” The Washington Post Magazine, July 28, 1979.
“slip in unobtrusively”: Jackie to Mrs. Nixon, January 27, 1971, Kennedy Letters, box 21, PPS 320, Richard Nixon Pre-Presidential Materials (Laguna Niguel), Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, CA (cited hereafter as RNPL).
“Congress together in 1947”: Alan Peppard, “As Friend, Foe of Kennedy, Nixon Was Near—Even at End,” The Dallas Morning News, November 19, 2018.
a rewarding afternoon: President Richard Nixon, “Daily Diary,” February 3, 1971, RNPL.
“nice seeing it all again”: John to President Nixon, February 4, 1971, Kennedy Letters, box 21, PPS 320, RNPL.
refused to attend: Jackie to Rose Kennedy, Rose F. Kennedy Personal Papers, series 3, box 57, JFKPL; Rose to Jackie, July 8, 1971, JFKPL.
“She didn’t trust the Secret Service”: Hill, interview.
“He just didn’t like the attention”: Gross, “Favorite Son”; Leigh, Prince Charming, 136–37.
whatever the case may be: “Conversation with Mrs. Jacqueline Onassis,” December 2, 1968. All references to Secret Service correspondence come from Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
protect John from threats: Hill, interview.
“rather than vice-versa”: Jacqueline to Rowley, December 11, 1968, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“will most certainly consider your suggestions in my decision”: Rowley to Jacqueline, December 13, 1968, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“unauthorized entry to the house”: “Dear Jacqueline,” draft, n.d., Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
her apartment on April 18, 1969: Rowley to Jacqueline, March 3, 1969, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
They ranged in age from twenty-three to forty-five: “Athens: Plot Aimed at JFK’s Son,” The Washington Post, July 16, 1972; Leigh, Prince Charming, 157–58.
“periodically throughout the lifetime”: Hill, interview.
let Billings decide: SA John J. List to Clinton J. Hill, December 7, 1972, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
The incident, which made headlines: “John F. Kennedy Jr., 13, Robbed of Bike in Park,” The New York Times, May 15, 1974. In September a Manhattan jury indicted a young man accused of selling the bicycle to John. Robert Lopez, twenty, was charged with first-degree robbery, third-degree grand larceny, and possession of a dangerous weapon. It said that the man threatened John with “a dangerous instrument, to wit, a stick.” On September 9 criminal court charges against Lopez were thrown out because John failed to appear for the fourth time.
“If anything happens to John”: USSS New York (SAIC J. F. Walsh) to USSS Washington (DSD Paul S. Rundle—Protective Forces), May 16, 1974, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“traditionally employed in detective work”: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to Mr. Secretary, July 3, 1974, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“the restrictive circumstances”: David R. Macdonald to H. Stuart Knight, June 5, 1974, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“developing the self-reliance”: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to Mr. Secretary, July 3, 1974, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“very difficult”: Hill, interview.
sent Mrs. Onassis a pleasant note: Knight to Macdonald, July 22, 1974; Macdonald to Knight, July 24, 1974; Macdonald to Mrs. Aristotle Onassis, July 24, 1974, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
Schlesinger once joked: Thomas Brown, JFK: History of an Image (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 50–79.
“titillated and amused”: Landon Y. Jones, “Too Many Celebrities, Not Enough Heroes,” The Washington Post, February 28, 2014.
the first of hundreds of items: Frank DiGiacomo, “The Gossip Behind the Gossip,” Vanity Fair, December 2004.
Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia: Ron Galella, Jacqueline (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1974), 9–10, 58.
“I feel threatened when he is present”: McKeon, Jackie’s Girl, 264–65; Leigh, Prince Charming, 168; Jacqueline Onassis v. Ronald E. Galella, March 1971, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
twenty-five feet and thirty feet: Galella, Jacqueline, 167, 179–80.
“He looked like an unmade bed”: William Sylvester Noonan with Robert Huber, Forever Young: My Friendship with John F. Kennedy, Jr. (New York: Viking, 2006), 20.
“Ethel’s children were raised wildly”: Leigh, Prince Charming, 186.
“reminded me of Jack with all his curiosity”: Jackie to Rose Kennedy, August 1972, Rose Kennedy Personal Papers, series 3, box 57, JFKPL.
“prison camp”: Tully to Director, “Survey Report re: Visit of John F. Kennedy, Jr. to London and Plymouth, England, July 29 through August 14, 1971,” Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“JFK . . . isn’t that an airport”: Noonan with Huber, Forever Young, 40–41.
“I’ll never allow myself to be that hungry again”: “Teens Outward Bound in Maine Wilderness,” Boston Sunday Globe, July 31, 1977.
A few days later, John showed up: John Perry Barlow, Mother American Night: My Life in Crazy Times (New York: Crown Archetype, 2018), 109–10. He recalls that John arrived in the summer of 1977, but given the clear record that John was in Maine that summer, Barlow must be mistaken.
partially flooded bunkhouse: Ibid., 111.
Such escapades: Ibid., 111–12.
readied their cameras: Noonan with Huber, Forever Young, 52–54.
“I told Billy to take the lead”: Gustavo Paredes, interview by author, January 24, 2019.
pushed to the ground in the confusion: Noonan with Huber, Forever Young, 65–68.
Jenny jumped in with John: Paredes, interview.
“you should write a note”: Noonan with Huber, Forever Young, 65–68.
overlooking Rabbit Pond: Advance to Walsh, “Preliminary Survey Report,” September 14, 1976, Gillon, No. 17-cv-02529-APM.
“platonic love of my life”: John to Alexandra (Sasha) Chermayeff, July 28, 1979, Chermayeff Papers, private.
“a facility for acting”: Leigh, Prince Charming, 199.
received a warning: Ibid., 200–1.
“He certainly wasn’t at the top of his class”: Gross, “Favorite Son.”
“Let him go”: Breimer, interview.
CHAPTER 5: “THE QUESTION IS, WHERE IS THIS ALL TAKING ME?”
“I do not enjoy being a university president”: Ben Leubsdorf, “The New Curriculum Then,” The Brown Daily Herald, March 2, 2005.
independent studies, and interdisciplinary efforts: Luther Spoehr, “Making Brown University’s ‘New Curriculum’ in 1969: The Importance of Context and Contingency,” Rhode Island History 74, no. 2 (Summer/Fall 2016): 52–71. For the best overall history of Brown, see Ted Widmer, Brown: The History of an Idea (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2015). Also useful is Janet M. Phillips, Brown University: A Short History (Providence: Office of Public Affairs, 2000).
twenty-eight courses to graduate: Fox Butterfield, “Brown Outpacing Rivals in Ivy League Popularity,” The New York Times, March 20, 1983; Neil Miller, “How Now, Brown U?,” The Boston Globe Magazine, October 23, 1987.
“doormat of the Ivy Leagu
e”: Ellie McGrath, “Keeping Brown in the Black,” Time, May 24, 1982.
Approximately 46 percent: “Special University Enrollment Needs,” February 12, 1979, Howard Swearer Papers, box 23, Brown University Archives.
John’s application materials: In 2017 the nation got a glimpse of John’s application to Brown when an autograph dealer called Moments in Time posted it on its website after acquiring it from the estate of a deceased former Brown administrator. It’s unclear, however, why a former Brown official would have had John’s essay among his personal possessions.
The Panamanian government desired a settlement: Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years (New York: Hill & Wang, 1987), 109–132; Marlise Simons, “U.S. to Retain Defense Rights in New Treaty,” The Washington Post, August 11, 1977; Edward Walsh, “Panama Treaty-Signing Here Weighed,” The Washington Post, August 23, 1977.
its flexible curriculum: Phillips, Brown University, 95; “Freshman Kennedy Gets Arrival ‘Quiz’ at Brown,” The Providence Journal, September 11, 1979. For the best account of Brown’s celebrity culture, see Daniel Golden, The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates (New York: Three Rivers, 2007). Reichley’s quote can be found on page 95.
“would be followed by other students”: James Rogers, interview by author, September 18, 2017; Golden, Price of Admission, 99.
two Beatles: Golden, Price of Admission, 94.
ambitious goal of $158 million: “Swearer to List,” press release, March 1, 1979, April 11, 1980, Howard Swearer Papers, box 23, Brown University Archives; “Admission Office Swamped; 11,600 Applications Expected,” The Brown Daily Herald, January 11, 1980; Miller, “How Now, Brown U?”
“John Kennedy goes there”: “Applications to Brown Reach All-Time High, Up Seven Percent,” press release, January 28, 1980, Howard Swearer Papers, box 23, Brown University Archives; Richard Gray Jr., interview by author, September 25, 2017.
“people began to talk about Brown”: Rogers, interview.
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