These Few Precious Days

by Christopher Andersen

  More than once when she felt her back was against the wall, Jackie took action. “Jackie put up with the situation because she loved him, in her way,” Gore Vidal said. “However, she would not accept being humiliated—and he was very careful that she not be humiliated.” However, “when things started to leak out, when she became threatened, she sent him a message.”

  One of those times occurred, George Smathers remembered, after Jackie found a pair of panties peeking out from under a pillow in JFK’s bedroom. “Would you please shop around and see who these belong to?” she asked him. “They’re not my size.”

  In Palm Beach, Jackie was overheard firing off another zinger when she returned from the beach. “You’d better get down there fast,” she told Jack. “I saw two of them you’d really go for.”

  JFK confided in Smathers that, more than once, Jackie—“the only person during the whole time in the White House who ever told Jack off”—asked him flat out if the stories were true. “Jackie,” the president replied in one instance, “I would never do anything to embarrass myself.”

  “Well,” she shot back angrily, “you’re embarrassing me!”

  JFK’s Air Force aide, General Godfrey McHugh, had dated Jackie before she met Kennedy and was well aware of the president’s extramarital activities. Early on, McHugh said, “Jackie knew about his women.” Her friend Ralph Martin agreed. “You know, in the end Jackie knew everything. Every girl. She knew her rating, her accomplishments …”

  That didn’t mean she took Jack’s cheating lightly. “She didn’t like Jack’s fooling around. She was damn mad about it,” Smathers conceded. “But she was willing to look the other way as long as he was careful.”

  As it happened, Jackie was never really satisfied with this “arrangement,” and had taken steps to do something about it. Unbeknownst to even their closest friends, the first lady was regularly sharing the most intimate details of her marriage—including the devastating emotional toll of her husband’s rampant infidelity—with someone far outside the Kennedys’ social orbit. In May 1961, after spraining her ankle playing touch football with Bobby’s brood at Hickory Hill, Jackie was treated by RFK’s neighbor, a young, square-jawed cardiologist and professor of medicine at Georgetown University named Frank Finnerty. Jackie was so captivated by Dr. Finnerty’s bedside manner that she asked if she could call him every now and then just to talk about things that had been troubling her.

  Flattered, Finnerty agreed. For the rest of JFK’s presidency, Jackie essentially treated the physician as her therapist, calling twice a week to unburden herself about problems in her relationships with friends and family, the stresses of living life in the public eye, and—most alarmingly—her complicated marriage.

  “She wanted me to know she was not naive or dumb, as people in the White House thought,” Finnerty recalled. “She did know what was going on.” She did not, he added, want people to think she was “strange and aloof, living in a world of her own.”

  Jackie conceded that her husband was so promiscuous and his extramarital conquests so numerous there was no way either she or he could possibly identify them all. She had no compunction about listing the names she did know, confident that they would mean nothing to Finnerty. The mention of one name, however, took the thirty-seven-year-old doctor’s breath away. More than any of JFK’s other lovers, Marilyn Monroe “seemed to bother her the most”—in large part because Marilyn was a loose cannon who could go public at any time, causing a scandal that would obliterate her husband’s reputation, destroy her marriage, and hold her up to public ridicule. (Even after JFK’s assassination, Jackie confessed to the Reverend Richard T. McSorley, a Catholic priest, that she was still deeply troubled and confused by her husband’s affair with Marilyn.)

  Over a period of weeks and months, Finnerty listened as Jackie calmly outlined her theory about Jack’s philandering—that he had inherited this “vicious trait” from Joe Kennedy, that he was simply driven by hormones, and that he had no real feelings for any of these women. Motivated less by jealousy than by frustration and despair, Jackie had no illusions about getting Jack to stop. But she did wonder if her own sexual inadequacies had pushed Jack away.

  To a gob-smacked Finnerty, Jackie described her husband’s usual modus operandi in bed: “He just goes too fast and falls asleep.” Was there something she could do to change that? There was, and after some understandable hesitation Finnerty spelled out in clinical detail how foreplay could be used to improve their sex life.

  It was essential that, in trying to persuade Jack to change his approach in bed, no mention be made of Jackie’s unconventional therapist-patient relationship with Dr. Finnerty. So Jackie concocted a tall tale that she told her husband over dinner at the White House. It began with Jackie confessing to her priest that something was lacking in her sexual relationship with her husband. The priest, she went on, then referred her to her obstetrician, who recommended several illustrated books on the subject. As a result, Jackie was now full of new information about how they might spice things up in bed. Surprised and obviously pleased at his wife’s newfound expertise—and, said Finnerty, that she would “go to that much trouble to enjoy sex”—Jack happily obliged.

  The ploy worked, and Jackie informed her co‑conspirator that relations between the president and first lady had improved significantly—although not enough to stop Jack’s skirt-chasing. If nothing else, from this point on Jackie had no reason to blame herself for her husband’s sexual compulsions.

  As Jackie’s Grecian idyll drew to a close in June 1961, she was on the phone with Jack every night consoling him about his badly injured back. Apparently his Palm Beach interlude, punctuated by long swims in the Wrightsmans’ heated saltwater pool with Fiddle and Faddle, did nothing to alleviate the agonizing pain. On his return to Washington, Jack was not even capable of climbing down the stairs of the presidential aircraft on crutches. In a dramatic and humbling turn of events, JFK had to be lifted off Air Force One on a cherry-picker.

  To be sure, the papers were full of stories about JFK’s back troubles. But the public remained largely unaware of just how crippling those problems really were. “People don’t understand just how bad off Jack was during his presidency,” Smathers said. “He could barely stand up much of the time, much less walk. He leaned on Secret Service agents all the time.”

  “Look closely at the photographs,” Jacques Lowe said. “He tried to avoid it when someone was taking a picture, but occasionally he is caught off guard, leaning. He was always leaning—on tables, on desks, on windowsills, the backs of chairs.” According to Tish Baldrige, JFK “had this uncanny knack of leaning up against a wall and going to sleep. He could sleep standing up, which always astounded me.” Moreover, Jack “had this little trick,” she continued. “He would put on his sunglasses, and people thought he was watching a parade or whatever, and the whole time he’d be sleeping behind those glasses! I’d catch him doing it all the time.”

  Although no one ever heard him complain, there were times when, according to Salinger, JFK would “wince, or go absolutely white.” It was at moments like those, he said, that “you knew he was feeling pain that would make anyone else scream. Not a word of complaint about his health or how he was feeling, ever.”

  There were many times when the pain was so severe the president “could hardly dress himself,” Smathers recalled. Just prior to attending a political banquet in Miami, the Florida senator had to put JFK’s shoes and socks on for him. Like Franklin Roosevelt, who hid the fact that he was wheelchair-bound from the general public, Jack successfully concealed the extent of his crippling back trouble. What made this achievement even more remarkable is that, unlike FDR, he accomplished this subterfuge without the cooperation of the press. “Jack even managed to hide it from them,” Smathers said.

  That first summer of his presidency, JFK spent long weekends in familiar surroundings at Hyannis Port, seeking what respite he could from mounting crises both foreign (Khrushchev’s shocking dec
ision to build a wall dividing East and West Berlin, mounting tensions in Cuba and Southeast Asia) and domestic (civil rights protesters attacked and beaten in Alabama). “The Cape was his escape hatch,” said Ted Sorensen, who admitted that during this period JFK was “agitated and deeply disturbed” by the belligerence of the Soviet leader. “Hyannis Port was where he felt most at home, and where he could regroup mentally and physically.”

  For Jackie, life at their four-bedroom “cottage” in the Kennedy compound offered such a welcome escape from the pressures of being first lady that she planted herself there for the entire summer and early fall. With the exception of a few forays back to Washington, usually to check on the restoration or host an official dinner, Jackie, Caroline, and John would not return full-time to the White House until late October.

  Until then Jackie enjoyed unnerving her Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, by showing off on water skis behind Ambassador Kennedy’s fifty-two-foot cabin cruiser, the Marlin. (She pushed the envelope even further by having four-year-old Caroline ski with her.) There was also swimming in the surf and Joe Kennedy’s pool, tennis matches, golf at the nearby Hyannis Port Club, nude sunbathing, and the inescapable rough-and-tumble of Kennedy-style touch football.

  During the week, after the president’s sprawling entourage departed and she was finally alone with the children, Jackie liked to paint on a small easel set up on the porch while listening to chamber music. Other times, she grabbed one of the books recommended by the erudite Arthur Schlesinger and lolled poolside wearing a skimpy bikini and oversized dark glasses, her hair tied back with a brightly colored kerchief. “She was gorgeous,” their neighbor Larry Newman said. “It made you sad seeing her there all alone, knowing what he was up to back in Washington. Why Jack bothered to look at any other woman, I’ll never know.”

  AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER 1961, Jack joined Jackie in retreating from the pressures of Washington. This time, they spent ten days together at Hammersmith Farm, taking leisurely cruises on Narragansett Bay aboard the ninety-two-foot presidential yacht, the Honey Fitz (renamed by Jack in honor of his colorful maternal grandfather, legendary Boston mayor John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald). “We sit for hours on the terrace just looking at the bay and drinking in the beauty and all one’s strength is renewed,” Jackie wrote to her mother, who was traveling with Uncle Hughdie in Europe. “You would never guess what this vacation has done for Jack. He said it was the best he ever had.”

  JFK returned to the Oval Office looking tanned and rested, but it would not take long for the aura of well-being to fade. Early in September 1961, United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash. In a blatant move to increase their influence over the international body, the Soviets moved quickly to replace the secretary general with a troika made up of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the theoretically non-aligned nations.

  JFK flew to New York to make America’s case for scrapping the Soviet plan before the UN General Assembly, but on the eve of his speech he was stricken with laryngitis—the apparent result of a steady diet of stress and cigars. When Max Jacobson arrived at Jack’s Carlyle Hotel suite, he found the president still dressed in his pajamas—and virtually mute. “So, Max,” Jack whispered as he pointed to his throat, “what are you going to do about this?”

  “I can cure your laryngitis in time for the speech, Mr. President. But only if I inject the drug in your neck, directly below the larynx. I’m afraid,” he added, “it may be very painful.”

  “Do what’s necessary,” Jack shrugged. “I don’t give a hoot.”

  There would be other, similar emergencies where Dr. Feelgood would be called upon to work his magic: for example, just before an important reception in the East Room during the Steel Crisis (“Now I can go downstairs to shake hands with several hundred intimate friends”) and the day National Guard troops were called in to help desegregate the University of Mississippi (“Wasn’t that a ball breaker?”). Later, Dr. Max (who referred to JFK as “the Prez” when talking to his wife and staff members) would do multiple duty injecting the president, first lady, and members of their inner circle at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  Apparently even Jacobson, aware that Dr. Travell and other physician treating the president vehemently objected to his methods, entertained doubts about whether his was the right approach. Even after JFK assured him that the regular four-times-weekly injections weren’t interfering with his work, Jacobson handed Jack his letter of resignation. JFK tore it up.

  “The President was very fond of Max Jacobson, and it wasn’t just because of the boost he was getting from those shots,” conceded Pierre Salinger, who claimed JFK often urged him to avail himself of Dr. Feelgood’s services. “He came to rely on Max to bolster Jackie’s spirits. The quicksilver changes in her mood were getting pretty hard for him to take.”

  “Jackie could be absolutely giddy and enchanting,” her half brother Jamie Auchincloss said, “and then you’d turn around, and for no apparent reason, she’d just turn off as if someone had flipped a switch.” These shifts could spell the abrupt end of even a long friendship. “She was one of the most emotionally self-sufficient people ever,” Jamie marveled. “You’d be in her life one moment, and out the next. Gone. And it really didn’t seem to bother her one bit.”

  Oleg Cassini could understand Jack’s frustration in dealing with his wife’s shifting moods. “She might be very warm one day and freeze you out the next,” he said. “She did this to everyone, even her closest friends. “You never really knew where you stood with Jackie. I never quite knew on which foot to dance.”

  Dr. Max’s magic bullets may have helped Jack and Jackie cope in the short run, but Dr. Travell and her colleagues grew increasingly concerned about how they might interact with the dozen or so other drugs Jack was taking for his Addison’s-related problems (cortisone, testosterone, Florinef), chronic colitis (paregoric, Metamucil, Lomotil), recurring urinary tract infections (penicillin), allergies (antihistamines), and of course his back (Novocain, procaine).

  Travell and Salinger both pleaded with the president to get rid of Jacobson, but to no avail. Even Gore Vidal, who had been a patient of Jacobson’s, was “horrified” to learn he was treating Jack. “Watch out,” he warned Jackie. “Stay away from him. I know him well. Max drove several people mad.”

  The man who introduced Max to the Kennedys, Chuck Spalding, was also having second thoughts. At one point, Jacobson’s bizarre behavior and his own dependence on the injections made Spalding “very frightened … The whole thing had gotten so completely out of hand.”

  With nowhere else to go, Salinger turned to Jack’s brother Bobby. Even though he had also sampled Dr. Feelgood’s wares, RFK intervened in his capacity as attorney general, demanding that Jacobson hand over samples to the Food and Drug Administration for testing. Since neither amphetamines nor steroids were officially determined at the time to be either addictive or harmful, the FDA gave Dr. Max’s pick-me-up cocktails its seal of approval.

  Not that it mattered to the president. “I don’t care if there’s panther piss in there,” JFK said, “as long as it makes me feel good.”

  The last time Max Jacobson treated Jack was on the eve of his fateful trip to Dallas. Until then, the doctor and his shiny black medical bag would make dozens of trips to Washington, New York, Hyannis Port, the Kennedys’ weekend retreat in Virginia, and Palm Beach on behalf of his friend “the Prez.” Chuck Spalding, who himself was trying to get off the drugs, watched warily from the sidelines, “praying that Jack wouldn’t get so hyped up he’d accidentally start World War III. If you’re President, I suppose you should be more careful. But at the time we all needed a boost.”

  For all the energy she poured into her official duties, Jackie unhesitatingly described herself as “a wife and mother, first and foremost.” J. B. West agreed that the most glamorous first lady in American history was “never more animated or happy” than when she was spending time with Caroline
and John.

  In addition to the elaborate playground Jackie had built for the children—including the trampoline concealed by evergreens (“All they’ll be able to see is my head, sailing above the treetops”)—there were also doghouses for Pushinka and Charlie, the Kennedys’ feisty Welsh terrier, Clipper (a German shepherd given to Jackie by her adored father-in-law), and an Irish wolfhound with the unimaginative name Wolf, a gift to JFK from a priest in Dublin.

  Eventually, Jackie provided pens for lambs, guinea pigs, ducks, and a beer-guzzling rabbit Caroline named Zsa Zsa. Bluebell and Marybell, the children’s hamsters, lived in Caroline’s room with her favorite pet, a canary named Robin. Far and away the most famous first family pet was Caroline’s pony Macaroni, who shared temporary stalls on the White House grounds with Leprechaun, the pony Jackie purchased for John. Unfortunately, it turned out that John, like his father, was intensely allergic to horses. As far as Daddy was concerned, the growing menagerie was fine—as long as the animals kept a respectful distance.

  Jackie felt much the same way about the Secret Service. In a confidential memo, the head of the Kiddie Detail relayed the first lady’s wishes to Secret Service chief James J. Rowley. “Mrs. Kennedy feels strongly, though there are two children to protect, it is ‘bad’ to see two agents ‘hovering around.’ If Mrs. Kennedy is driving the children, she still insists the follow-up car not be seen by the children.”

  Jackie, the memo continued, was “adamant” that the agents “not perform special favors for John Jr. and Caroline or wait upon them as servants.” That meant agents were “not to carry clothes, beach articles, sand buckets, baby carriages, strollers, handbags, suitcases, etc., for Caroline and John Jr., and the children must carry their own clothing items, toys, etc.” She asked that agents “drift into the background quickly when arriving at a specific location, and remain aloof and invisible until moment of departure.” The bottom line was that she felt it was “bad for the children to see grown men waiting upon them.”