Charles and Betty Spalding were divorced, and he moved to California. She stayed in Connecticut with their children and became an ardent feminist. “She had a difficult divorce, and she made that a cause—cases of bigamy, lack of child support,” said Nancy Tenney Coleman. At age seventy-one Betty received her bachelor’s degree from Yale. Chuck married twice more, both times to wealthy women. His principal contact with the Kennedy crowd was Red Fay, with whom he occasionally played golf in San Francisco. Chuck died at eighty-one in 1999, and Betty two years later.
Adlai Stevenson reached out tenderly to Jackie after Kennedy’s death. “I love you (which clarifies but doesn’t identify),” he wrote. “I know there is much joy and peace and fulfillment for you. As Fra Lianni said, there is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could one but see. And you can see.” He continued to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and maintained his flock of female admirers. Walking with the closest of them, Marietta Tree, through Grosvenor Square in London on a late July afternoon in 1965, he collapsed and died of a heart attack at age sixty-five. Shortly before his death, Stevenson had confided to CBS correspondent Eric Sevareid that he wished to leave his post at the UN. “For a while,” Stevenson said, “I would just like to sit in the shade with a glass of wine in my hands and watch people dance.”
Nancy Tuckerman followed Jackie to New York, where she worked for her old friend for many years, handling her business affairs and dealing with the press. They remained confidantes until Jackie’s death, when “Tucky” retired to Connecticut.
Pamela Turnure worked for Jackie for several years in New York before marrying a wealthy Canadian businessman named Robert Timmins. She ran a decorating business, and after the death of her husband moved to Colorado where she spent her time selling real estate and skiing.
William Walton continued to pursue his career as an artist. Tony Bradlee recalled “an abstract painting with a big splash of red. I knew immediately it represented the assassination.” He also returned to writing. In 1966 he wrote The Evidence of Washington, an elegant book about the capital city. He grew even closer to Jackie, serving as her escort and confidant. In 1980 as an editor at Doubleday, she published Walton’s first novel, A Civil War Courtship, which his friend Teddy White called a “marvelous roaring tender story.” Walton died in 1994 at age eighty-five.
Jayne Wrightsman reigned as one of New York’s renowned collectors, donating priceless French furniture and old master paintings (including a Vermeer, Tiepolo, El Greco, and Poussin) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she served on the board for decades. After Charles Wrightsman’s death in 1986 at ninety-one, she became an arbiter of Manhattan society, cultivating an aura of mystery and remaining aloof from the world outside her rarefied circle. “I think she learned rather a lot from Jackie Kennedy,” said one of her friends. “The less you’re available, the more exclusive you become.”
SOURCE NOTES
The story of the Kennedy administration is now four decades old and has shifted from contemporary politics into the realm of American history. As a result, nearly everyone I interviewed spoke for the record. However, several individuals requested anonymity. Any quotations not specifically cited have come from these few confidential sources.
I interviewed 142 people who were participants and observers during the Kennedy administration. Whenever possible, I spoke to those with firsthand knowledge. The cast of characters at the beginning of the book includes spouses whose intimacy with Jack or Jackie Kennedy gave them a special place in the court life of the Kennedy years. Of the twenty-eight listed principals who were alive during my research, I interviewed twenty, plus five spouses not included on the list.
Of the numerous books written about the Kennedys, I read and analyzed more than a hundred that were pertinent to my inquiry. Complete information on these works, plus others about members of the Kennedy circle, is cited in the accompanying bibliography. The most frequently mentioned in the notes are given abbreviations below. In a number of cases, one author has written several books, or two authors share the same surname. I have added Roman numerals to these citations to ensure clarity. For example:
Stewart Alsop, The Center (Alsop I)
Joseph W. Alsop, “I’ve Seen the Best of It”: Memoirs (Alsop II)
Laurence Leamer, The Kennedy Women (Leamer I)
Laurence Leamer, The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963 (Leamer II)
Also listed below are abbreviations for frequently cited individuals, publications, archives, and manuscript collections.
Between its oral histories and collections of personal papers, the John F. Kennedy Library was an invaluable resource. Most of the oral history citations in the notes are from the Kennedy Library. Oral histories from Columbia University are specifically cited by an abbreviation indicated below.
In the first reference to an oral history or an interview, the full name appears; subsequent references cite only the last name, except in the case of spouses or siblings, where the full name is repeated.
Unless otherwise indicated, all references to the dates, times, and participants in meetings and social engagements are drawn from “The President’s Appointments,” the official schedule of John F. Kennedy, as well as the Sanford Fox Social Files at the Kennedy Library. References to phone calls are drawn from desk diaries kept by John F. Kennedy’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, and found in her collection at the library. Details on the comings and goings of White House guests come from the gate logs kept by the Secret Service, also at the Kennedy Library. Other archival sources are indicated below, with abbreviations.
Frequently Cited Books
TCY: Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963
CWK: Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy
AJ: John Kenneth Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years
DOAP: William Manchester, The Death of a President
AH: Ralph Martin, A Hero for Our Time
KT: Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis
PR-JFK: Ernest May, Timothy Naftali, and Philip Zelikow, eds., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises. Vol. 1, July 30–August 1962; Vol. 2, September 4–October 21, 1962; Vol. 3, October 22–28, 1962
JWH: Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David Powers, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”
PK: Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power
ATD: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
HTF: Amanda Smith, ed., Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy
KE: Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy
LG: C. L. Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants
JKWH: Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer, Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years
RKHL: Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life
Archives
JFKL: John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library
JPKP: Joseph P. Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library
JCBC: Joan and Clay Blair Collection, University of Wyoming (taped interviews for The Search for JFK, by Joan and Clay Blair Jr.)
DBD: The Diaries of David Bruce, Richmond Historical Society
OH-CU: Oral History from the Columbia University Oral History Project
WMP: William Manchester Papers, JFKL
LBJL: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
KSLP: Katie S. Louchheim Papers, Library of Congress (1957–63)
LOC: Library of Congress
HMA: Harold Macmillan Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford University
PRO: Public Record Office, Kew, Prime Minister’s Files 1961–64
Publications
NYT: The New York Times
NYHT: The New York Herald Tribune
WP: The Washington Post
WS: The Washington Star (The Evening Star and The Sunday Star)
Selected Individuals
JFK: John Fitzgerald Kenne
dy
JBK: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy
JPK: Joseph Patrick Kennedy
RK: Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
RFK: Robert Francis Kennedy
EMK: Edward M. Kennedy
LBJ: Lyndon Baines Johnson
Organization
FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Kennedy Court: January 1961
xii “harpies”: Letitia Baldrige, A Lady First: My Life in the Kennedy White House and the American Embassies of Paris and Rome (Baldrige I), p. 175.
xii he kept a set of clothing: Lem Billings OH.
xii “a complete liberation of the spirit”: David Michaelis, The Best of Friends: Profiles of Extraordinary Friendships, p. 175.
xii “dazzling clarity and speed”: ATD, p. 208.
xii “strut sitting down”: Joan Dillon, la Duchesse de Mouchy, interview.
xiii “full of the old malarky”: Rowland Evans interview.
xiii “impertinent cables”: Mary Barelli Gallagher, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy, p. 165.
xiii Friend since college days: Lord Harlech OH. (During the Kennedy administration, he was known as David Ormsby Gore.)
xiii brainpower that JFK felt exceeded: ATD, p. 208.
xiii with whom he read poetry aloud: Robert McNamara interview.
xiii “very motherly figure”: Lee Radziwill interview.
xiv “talk the balls off a brass monkey”: RKHL, p. 353.
xiv “Wolfhound”: AH, p. 318.
xiv “Cobra”: Helen O’Donnell, A Common Good, p. 256.
xiv “Iceman”: Patrick Anderson, The Presidents’ Men, p. 240.
xiv “Good night, pal”: JWH, p. 264.
xiv fondness for poetry of: James Reed interview.
xiv “court philosopher”: Anderson, p. 213.
xv “intellectual blood bank”: Laura Bergquist Knebel OH.
xv “Billy Boy”: JKWH, p. 51.
Preface
xvii “They certainly have acquired”: JKWH, p. 247; Oleg Cassini, A Thousand Days of Magic (Cassini I), p. 53.
xvii On November 29, 1963: Four-paragraph description of JBK interview with Theodore H. White is based on “The Camelot Documents,” 1963–1964, Papers of Theodore H. White, JFKL.
xviii At an exhibit: author’s observation.
xviii “devour [stories of] the knights”: “The Camelot Documents,” JFKL.
xviii After the Wisconsin primary: DOAP, p. 623.
xviii middlebrow fondness: AH, p. 563, quoting Charles Spalding: “He loved to play the song [‘Camelot’].”
xviii in May 1962 Jackie invited Frederick Loewe: Edward McDermott OH.
xix “overdone”: John Kenneth Galbraith interview.
xix “myth turned into a cliché”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. interview.
xix “her most mischievous interview”: JFKL seminar on JBK exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, New York City, Feb. 3, 2002, C-SPAN.
xix “magic”: WP, May 29, 1995.
xix “overly sentimental” . . . “right” . . . “brief shining moment”: JBK to Harold Macmillan, Jan. 31, 1964, HMA.
xix “life-affirming, life-enhancing zest”: ATD, p. 1030.
xx “Bonapartist”: Isaiah Berlin OH.
xx “Tudor Court”: David Ormsby Gore, “The Centres of Power in the Kennedy Administration,” Jan. 23, 1962, PRO.
xx “court life”: Harlech OH. The reference was made by Richard Neustadt in one of his questions.
xxi “The place is lousy with courtiers”: Stewart Alsop to Martin Sommers, Dec. 21, 1961, Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, LOC.
xxi “Jackie wanted to do Versailles”: Oleg Cassini interview.
xxi In particular Jackie admired: Sarah Bradford, America’s Queen, p. 55.
xxi “My life here which I dreaded”: JBK to William Walton, June 8, 1962, Walton Papers, JFKL.
xxi “the cockiest crowd”: AH, p. 300.
xxi “the Harlem Globetrotters”: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys, p. 266.
xxi heated to 90 degrees: David Powers OH.
xxi grilled cheese, cold beef: Jim Bishop, A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, p. 56.
xxi Jackie, meanwhile, might be: Gallagher, p. 130; Memo, ND: “Mrs. Kennedy smokes L&M cigarettes, filter, soft pack,” Godfrey McHugh Papers, JFKL.
xxi Perhaps she would be bouncing: Letitia Baldrige interview; Bishop, p. 38.
xxii curled up with Marcus Cheke’s: Cassini I, p. 52.
xxii ducking into the White House school: Carl Sferrazza Anthony, The Kennedy White House: Family Life & Pictures, 1961–1963, pp. 175–79, 183–84.
xxii “new face”: JKWH, p. 249.
xxii Italian songs played softly: LG, p. 808.
xxii “nothing but a busy-body”: Theodore H. White memo on dinner at the White House, Feb. 13, 1963, Theodore White Papers, Harvard University.
xxii the origin of the French ambassador’s: Hervé Alphand, L’étonnement d’être: Journal (1939–1973), pp. 409–11.
xxii “nice fellow in private”: LG, p. 927. JFK also told Ben Bradlee that Nixon was “a cheap bastard; that’s all there is to it” (CWK, p. 75).
xxii “Europe wants a free ride”: LG, p. 928.
xxii waiters carried large trays: Henry Koehler interview.
xxii “They served the drinks in enormous”: George Plimpton interview.
xxii “It was Irish, which made it”: Nancy Dickerson, Among Those Present: A Reporter’s View of Twenty-five Years in Washington, p. 67.
xxii “great guns”: Marian Schlesinger OH.
xxii “Not so”: Elspeth Rostow interview.
xxii “But St. Thomas said”: ibid.
xxiii The sober atmosphere collapsed: ibid.
xxiii Jackie knew what was: Cecil Beaton unpublished diary, June 1968, Beaton Collection, St. John’s College, Cambridge, copyright, The Literary Executors of the late Sir Cecil Beaton.
xxiii Some, like her friend: Eve Fout interview.
xxiii “All Kennedy men are like that”: Joan Kennedy interview.
xxiii “She had made a bargain”: Jessie Wood interview.
xxiii “smart life”: Alistair Horne, Macmillan, vol. 2, 1957–1986, p. 307.
xxiv “adopted a comical air”: Betty Beale, Power at Play: A Memoir of Parties, Politicians and the Presidents in My Bedroom, p. 64.
xxiv “very few really had much”: Charles Bartlett OH. (Since Charles Bartlett’s wife, Martha, did not give an oral history to the JFKL, subsequent references to this oral history will cite last name only; both Bartletts gave interviews to the author and will be cited separately in those instances.)
xxiv Only two personal friends: Charles Bartlett, Paul “Red” Fay, Kenneth O’Donnell, David Powers, and Lawrence O’Brien were Catholics.
xxiv five personal friends and three: Lem Billings, Red Fay, Charles Bartlett, James Reed, Earl E.T. Smith, McGeorge Bundy, Douglas Dillon, and Robert McNamara were Republicans.
xxiv including her half sister Nina: Charles Bartlett interview.
xxiv “an elegant, mandarin tone”: William Manchester, Portrait of a President: John F. Kennedy in Profile (Manchester II), p. 106.
xxiv “cheerful, amusing, energetic”: KE, p. 378.
xxiv Nearly everyone in the Kennedy court: JWH, p. 111: “All of the Kennedys, and especially Jack, judged people by their appearance”; Jewel Reed interview.
xxiv “enjoyed . . . almost anyone from”: KE, p. 386.
xxiv “hated the suburbia-type existence”: James Reed OH. (James Reed’s wife, Jewel, did not give an oral history to the JFKL, so subsequent references to this oral history will cite last name only; both Reeds gave interviews to the author and will be cited separately in those instances.)
xxiv Even as a teenager: Jacqueline Bouvier to Lee Bouvier, ND (probably 1950), “The Way It Was,” book proposal by Lee Radziwill.
xxiv “real ping pong”: Fred Holborn interview, WMP.
xxv “terror” of boring JFK: Katharine Gr
aham, Personal History, p. 290.
xxv “My God, I said something”: Suzanne Roosevelt Kloman interview.
xxv “hated dimness”: Berlin OH.
xxv “The Kennedys were pretty tough eggs”: Marian Schlesinger OH.
xxv routinely performed “Hooray”: Paul Fay, The Pleasure of His Company, pp. 83–84.
xxv Oleg Cassini would launch: Oleg Cassini, In My Own Fashion (Cassini II), p. 325.
xxv “Kennedy knew he was a potentate”: Cassini interview.
xxv “to an exceptional degree”: ATD, p. 78.
xxv “friends came in layers”: ibid.
xxv “each had a certain role”: James Reed interview.
xxv “alter ego”: Ted Sorensen interview; Lester Tanzer, ed., The Kennedy Circle, pp. 7, 24.
xxv “That man [Sorensen] never knows”: Katie Louchheim journal, Aug. 5, 1963. All further references from Louchheim are found in this journal, KSLP.
xxv “No one—no single aide”: KE, p. 5.
xxvi Kennedy didn’t talk about women: William Walton interview, JCBC.
xxvi “determined, unrelenting and profane”: ATD, p. 92.
xxvi “prismatic”: Laura Bergquist Knebel OH.
xxvi Kennedy disliked being alone: Benjamin Bradlee interview; Jewel Reed interview; Baldrige interview.
xxvi “You’d never bleed”: Walton interview, JCBC.
xxvi “wasn’t a cozy friend”: Bartlett OH.
xxvi “He didn’t like to be with”: AH, p. 372.
xxvi Everyone in Kennedy’s circle: KE, p. 379; Ben Bradlee interview.
xxvi “his own private information network”: David Ormsby Gore, “Centres of Power” memorandum, Jan. 23, 1962, PRO. In many accounts of the period, the British ambassador’s name has been hyphenated as Ormsby-Gore. But in official documents, he appeared as “Sir David Ormsby Gore,” without a hyphen (see Sir David Ormsby Gore to Lord Home, Oct. 27, 1961). His friends referred to him simply as “David Gore” (see Harold Macmillan to JFK, Mar. 10, 1962, reference to “David Gore”).
xxvi “consistent patter of asking”: James Reed interview.
xxvi “Women never have any effect”: JPK to Lucius Ordway, Nov. 17, 1950, JPKP.
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