“This was maybe one of the first of many times in the years to come that something strange would occur, or Jackie would say something odd that would totally perplex Mummy. Jackie would then leave the room, and Mummy would stand there with an expression on her face that would be so comical. It was as if she was trying to figure out, ‘What in the world is that girl thinking?’”
Jackie in the White House
Not surprisingly, the first month of the Kennedy administration was an extremely busy time for the country’s new First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. As soon as the Kennedys moved into the White House on February 4, 1961, Jackie became consumed by her duties. She’d not even had the time to stay in touch with her sister, Lee, who was still ailing in the United Kingdom. By March, though, Jackie was a little more settled into her new home and beginning to adapt to public life. She thought it would a good idea to host a dinner-dance in honor of Lee to bring her out of her doldrums. This she did on March 15, 1961, the night she also brought Janet and Lee into the Oval Office for the first time.
In the months to come, as First Lady, Jackie found herself in a new, highly pressurized situation, the responsibilities of which even Janet couldn’t have completely fathomed when she first stepped into the Oval Office with Lee. Jackie responded to it by setting up so many barriers between her and her loved ones, it was almost impossible to reach her. First to go were the customary Mother-Daughter Teas. In fact, the Bouvier women wouldn’t have a single one of their familial confabs the entire time Jackie was in the White House. “Jackie often thought of her mother as a nuisance,” her secretary, Mary Barelli Gallagher, would say. Sometimes Janet would call and Jackie would tell Mary to say she wasn’t present even though she was standing right at her side! “I hated lying to Mrs. Auchincloss when I had to but, of course, my first duty was to Jackie.”
Maybe one reason Jackie wanted to distance herself from Janet at this time was that Janet, true to her nature, could be so critical about small things. “There is always room for improvement, Jacqueline,” she would repeatedly remind her. For instance, she once noticed that Jackie’s dress was too short, so much so that when she bent down, one could see the top of her garter. Rather than have a squabble with her about it, Janet asked Mary Gallagher to mention it to Jackie. Jackie wasn’t open to suggestions about her wardrobe, though, especially if she suspected they were coming indirectly from her mother. Janet later said, “I used to get a good many critical letters about Jackie’s appearance. She was in a period of more exaggerated hairdos. I used to get a lot of letters from people saying, ‘Don’t you think it would be better if she did her hair this way or that way?’ Sometimes, I made mild suggestions, and sometimes I didn’t.”
Occasionally, though, Jackie appreciated Janet’s intrusion. For example, quite often Jackie would be at a White House function smoking. If Janet happened to see a photographer hovering about, she would snatch the cigarette from Jackie’s hand and snuff it out in an ashtray lest Jackie ever be pictured smoking.
About six months into her White House years, Jackie realized that it made no sense pushing her family away, especially her mother. In fact, Janet was one of her greatest allies and Jackie was wise to depend on her. There would be many times in the next two and a half years when she would ask Janet to substitute for her at White House events Jackie couldn’t bear, such as a coffee hour for the wives of members of the New York Stock Exchange. On that day, Janet dressed in a white linen dress with a matching hat and arrived earlier than anyone else, ready for her duty. “It was fun for her,” said her son, Jamie, of Janet’s White House duties, “and she was good at it, too. I remember she stepped in for Jackie at a meeting for the International Council of Women and it was successful. Jackie was grateful. But then there was some trouble afterward. Mummy asked Jackie if she could have free copies of the White House guidebook for her friends. Jackie didn’t respond personally; she sent word to Mummy that she would have to purchase them, that there was no budget for complimentary copies. Mummy’s feelings were hurt, but what could she do other than just voice her displeasure?”
Janet never had a difficult time expressing herself to her daughter when she felt disrespected. When she did so, Jackie was usually filled with regret. She would say that the pressure of being First Lady had once again gotten to her and forced her to act without thinking. She’d explain that she was always signing documents and barking instructions and, as a result, breaches in courtesy would often occur. For instance, Jackie once hosted a tea for her mother at the White House and was more than an hour late in arriving. “Where in the world is Jackie?” Janet’s friend Eileen Slocum asked when she reached her in the receiving line. Janet said she didn’t know; she’d heard, though, that Jackie was out walking Clipper, the dog given to her as a gift by Joe Kennedy. “Walking the dog?” Slocum asked, astonished. Janet shrugged. “Apparently,” she said, annoyed. The next day she called Jackie to have it out with her about the breach in etiquette. As sometimes happened, Janet was told that Jackie was indisposed. “I am going to sit on this phone on hold all day long until you put me through to my daughter,” Janet said, fed up. Finally, Jackie came on the line, complaining that she was busy and didn’t have much time to talk. The two then had an argument, the specifics of which would only be known to the two of them—neither seems to have discussed it with friends or family.
When it came right down to it, though, Janet would always do whatever she could for Jackie and Jack during their White House years. She was so proud of them and had such respect for the power of the office, of course she would overlook any transgression. Sometimes it was the small gestures that would most matter, as when she offered Hammersmith to the President and First Lady when both seemed particularly stressed out. Since Janet and Hugh were out of the country and Jamie was away at boarding school, the Kennedys had the run of the property in September of 1961.
“You could never guess what this vacation has done for Jack,” Jackie wrote to Janet on October 1 from Hammersmith. “That said, it was the best he ever had.” She added, “Here we sit for hours on the terrace just looking at the bay and drinking in the beauty, and all one’s strength is renewed.” She also wrote that Jack was much “tireder [sic] than I ever thought.” Then, she closed with: “So, you can’t imagine what you have done for the country in allowing Jack to come here for a rest.” Though in retrospect that seems like a rather strange statement for a daughter to make to her mother, if one understands Janet’s deep sense of patriotism, it becomes obvious that Jackie was paying her what she would have considered a supreme compliment.
Having Janet and Hugh available to her, as well as Jamie, Janet Jr., Lee, and the rest of her family, helped to make Jackie’s time in the White House much easier for her to handle. “My life here, which I dreaded and which at first overwhelmed me is now under control and the happiest time I have ever known,” Jackie would write to her friend William Walton in 1962, “not for the position,” she added, “but for the closeness of one’s family. The last thing I expected to find in the W. House.”
Janet’s Appointment by the First Lady
In early 1962, Jackie was named honorary chairman of the national fund-raising committee for the building of a proposed cultural center in Washington, the National Cultural Center. Because Jackie immediately recognized that her mother would be a tremendous asset in the planning of the center, she quickly named her chairman of the Greater Washington Committee for the National Cultural Center. The Washington Post called it a “fortunate choice.” Janet accepted the nomination at a tea she hosted for the committee’s trustees at Merrywood.
“I have forgotten what I wanted to say…” Janet said when beginning her speech at Merrywood. Because she was so charismatic, she was immediately embraced by all who attended. (It should be noted that on a copy of her written speech, the first line was: “I have forgotten what I wanted to say!”) Her charm wouldn’t have gotten her far, though, if she didn’t have good ideas to back it up. She noted that it was �
�terribly important for the building that we are planning to be of good design” and added that she had inherited a flair for architecture from her father, “who, as some of you may know, made quite a mark on New York City’s skyline. Jackie has also been greatly influenced by him.” Janet then outlined her intention to raise at least $7 million in the District of Columbia, and not just because the money was necessary to build the center, she said, but also “as incentive for the rest of the nation to understand that we must support the arts. After all,” she noted, “if Washington’s residents who will most stand to benefit from the center can’t support it, then why would the rest of the country?” She said she was planning a number of fund-raisers and that she hoped to raise over a million dollars—a big commitment on her part. “That’s a lot of money, Mummy,” Jackie told her in advance. “Are you sure you want to make that promise?” Janet said yes, that she believed that if she set her intention clearly, she would somehow find a way to make it a reality.
A month later, in an article about Janet’s appointment, Vogue noted that she was “a gentle, disarming woman of both enormous distinction and careful efficiency.” The magazine even published a full-page picture of her. This kind of publicity concerned Janet, though. She wondered if she was generating attention for herself that perhaps should have been going to the First Lady. “Are you certain you want me to do this?” she asked Jackie. “Absolutely, I do,” Jackie said. Jackie noted that a nationwide fund drive for a cultural center had failed in 1958 under Eisenhower, and she knew her mother wouldn’t quit until she had the money needed to help finance the project, especially after her million-dollar oath. This endeavor was now quite a challenge for Janet, with a good deal of pressure attached to it. However, she was determined that she would not let her daughter, or the country, down.
A few weeks later, Jackie and Janet unveiled an architectural model of the arts center in the ballroom of the historic cottage The Elms in Newport. Janet was introduced and, with Jackie sitting next to her and listening intently, she told the crowd of about a thousand people, “There should be in our capital a symbol of the growing importance of the arts in American life. Washington has had almost no national or international influence [in the arts].” She said that she was planning a dinner and show at the National Armory for which 550 tickets would be sold at $100 each. There would also be $25 seats available for a buffet. She was also planning events at colleges and movie theaters across the country for tickets at $5. “If we get college kids involved, how wonderful would that be?” she asked. “For our youth to have an investment in America’s culture, it’s a dream not only of mine but, more importantly, my daughter the First Lady and son-in-law, the President.”
Soon after, Janet chaired the promised gala at the Armory, which she called “An American Pageant of the Arts.” As she had arranged, the show—hosted by Leonard Bernstein with performing artists such as Marian Anderson, Hal Holbrook, Bob Newhart, Robert Frost, Danny Kaye, and Jason Robards—was broadcast by closed-circuit telecast across the United States at local fund-raising events for the center. The President and First Lady as well as former President Eisenhower sat in the front row, with Janet at Jackie’s side. Hugh sat one row behind them. Just as she had promised, the event raised a million dollars—equivalent to more than $8 million today—after which the funds really started to pour in, including $3 million more from the Ford Foundation.
There was one moment that night Janet would never forget. It was so simple yet, like some moments that seem simple on their face, one that would forever stand out. She was standing alone in a corner of the Armory, the success of the evening filling her with personal pride. Jackie caught her eye and walked over to her. Mother and daughter then stood side by side, taking it all in, the men in sharp tuxes, the women in flamboyant gowns, all enjoying themselves … the music … the celebrities … the reporters … coming together for a good cause. “Well done, Mummy,” Jackie said, taking Janet’s hand. “You had a very good night.” It was clear from Janet’s expression of gratitude that this praise meant the world to her.
At a subsequent tea at Merrywood, Janet, now emboldened by her success, intoned, “We cannot fail. We feel now that the whole country will pull together to make the cultural center possible. I see great possibilities for us. Let’s keep this thing going!”
“For the next two years, Janet would continue to hold fund-raisers for business leaders and others at Merrywood and Hammersmith, all the way until November of ’63,” recalled Chauncey Parker III. “When the cultural center would finally open in 1971, it would be renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. At that time, one board member wrote in an editorial that ‘it was during Janet Auchincloss’ tenure of office that many people became very active in the Center and it is due to them that the Kennedy Center exists today.’ Janet would remain involved in one way or the other for many more years.”
As she found fulfillment in her philanthropic work, Janet Auchincloss certainly felt that 1962 had, thus far, been a good year for herself and her daughters, Jackie and Lee. Not only had both settled into marriages with impressive men (though these unions obviously had their troubles), they were also raising families, having given Janet four grandchildren so far. They had their challenges, of course, like most families, but things felt … settled, the future looked good. All of that was about to change, though. Things were about to get turned completely upside down with the troubling emergence of a new character in the story of their lives—one who would change the course of their family’s history forevermore.
Greeks Bearing Gifts
Because so much has been written and said about Aristotle Onassis, he’s become a character of almost mythic proportions, like one of the Greek gods he so admired as a young man. Most of the seemingly overblown accounts of Onassis’s extravagant life aren’t even hyperbolic, though; he really was one of the wealthiest, most talked-about, and most scandalous men of his time.
By 1962, Onassis was fifty-six years old. Though certainly not tall in stature—he was only about five feet five inches—he was an outsized personality with an abundance of self-confidence and charisma. He wasn’t an overtly intellectual or well-studied man; he’d had only a rudimentary education. Born in Smyrna (a town in present-day Turkey) in 1906, Aristotle Socrates Onassis immigrated to Greece as a teenager during the Greco-Turkish War. Moving to Argentina a year later, he became a successful tobacco trader and a millionaire by the age of twenty-five. He invested in the cargo-shipping business during the Depression in the United States, when most people were trying to get out of that sort of enterprise. He had great instincts and was soon one of the most respected—and often despised—men in the business world, often tangling with major world governments with a take-no-prisoners attitude. His prized possession was the Christina 0—better known as just the Christina—his sleek 325-foot yacht, the largest and most well known of its time. It became a playground for the rich and famous, providing a luxurious getaway to everyone from celebrities to royalty to presidents and prime ministers.
With the passing of the years, his business interests continued to expand beyond his ownership of the world’s largest privately owned shipping fleet with the addition of his own airline business, Olympic Airways. His business tactics remained suspect, though. For instance, during the Eisenhower years, Onassis was embroiled in a number of complex legal disputes after being indicted for fraud for not paying taxes on surplus American ships.
Onassis had an uncanny understanding of human nature and knew how to appeal to people, no matter their stations. He could engage in a lively and entertaining conversation with anyone and make that person feel as if he or she was the most important person in his life. “Onassis was a bit larger—no, substantially larger—than life, and he knew it,” recalled his personal attorney of twenty years, Stelio Papadimitriou. “While he could sometimes appear empathetic, he was actually a narcissist, caring about only that which affected him directly. He tended to view people as pawns in a g
ame meant only to enrich him, whether financially or, in the case of women, sexually. ‘Think with the head, not the heart,’ he liked to caution his two children, Christina [eighteen], and Alexander [fifteen].” Because both were in line to one day take over the family empire—Christina had more interest and business acumen than Alexander—Onassis didn’t mind that both were just as coldhearted as their father. He taught them by example to be tough and competitive, just like “Poppa.”
In 1946, Onassis had married Athina Mary Livinos—Tina—daughter of one the richest shipping moguls of the forties. He was forty. She was seventeen. Their relationship was explosive, always making headlines. By the fifties, he was famously involved in a highly publicized affair with the temperamental opera star Maria Callas. “He was the nicest man, the most successful man, but a man with the worst style,” recalled Panagiotis Theodoracopulos, better known as “Taki.” (His father, an industrialist, was an old friend of Onassis’s; Taki and Onassis’s son, Alexander, were also chums.) “He was a peasant in many ways, not a polished person. He could be a brute and, like a lot of Greeks, a complete chauvinist.” In 1960, in the midst of Onassis’s affair with Callas, his wife, Tina, divorced him.
Aristotle Onassis and Stas Radziwill were good friends, often seen socializing in the mid-1950s and early sixties at Claridge’s Hotel, where high society VIPs often mixed with big-business moguls. Stas and Lee also hosted many parties at their home in London for Onassis and Maria Callas. They all became close. “Onassis was an outstanding man, not only as a financier but also as a person,” Lee Radziwill would recall. “He was active, with great vitality, brilliant and up to date on everything. He was amusing to be with. And he had charm, a fascinating way with women. He surrounded them with attention. He made sure they felt admired and desired. He took note of their slightest whim. He interested himself in them—exclusively and profoundly.”
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