Want a NOOK? Explore Now
Drawing from recently declassified top-secret material, as well as revelatory eyewitness accounts, Secret Service records, and Jacqueline Kennedy's personal letters, bestselling biographer Barbara Leaming answers the question: what was it like to be Mrs. John F. Kennedy during the dramatic thousand days of the Kennedy presidency? Brilliantly researched, Leaming's poignant and powerful chronicle illuminates the tumultuous day-to-day life of a woman who entered the White House at age thirty-one, seven years into a complex and troubled marriage, and left at thirty-four after her husband's assassination. Revealing the full story of the interplay of sex and politics in Washington, Mrs. Kennedy will indelibly challenge our vision of this fascinating woman, and bring a new perspective to her crucial role in the Kennedy presidency.
Bonnie Angelo The Washington Post Bona fide new material...meticulous research...achingly moving.
Deirdre Donahue USA Today Leaming paints a moving portrait of Jackie as she tried valiantly to make her marriage work and find a place for herself and her gifts.
Kirkus Reviews (starred) Likely to become the definitive biography of the Kennedy marriage.
With admirable obsession, biographer Leaming (Marilyn Monroe, 1998, etc.) has plumbed the vaults of the many official libraries (JFK's, LBJ's, Oxford's Bodleian) and consulted with Secret Service personnel, Kennedy friends, and White House log books to create a convincing day-by-day chronicle of the Kennedy marriage and presidency. Armed with a remarkable level of detail and turning an eye toward psychological anaylsis, the author briefly explores her subject's childhood, and then dives into the Kennedy's life together. In Leaming's view, the personal and political spheres of the Kennedys are inseparable. Thus, the Bay of Pigs fiasco is explained as a son attempting to compensate for his ambassador father's perceived weakness when, decades before, the elder Kennedy coundeled conciliation in the face of Hitler. The U.S. involvement in Vietnam is traced back to Jack's inability to focus on foreign affairs after the death of his newborn son. Meanwhile, Jackie's determination to be a good wife is what spurred her to enter the world's stage. Leaming paints a portrait of a political creature whose every action was premeditated, from her whispery voice designed to project a non-threatening femininity, to her decision to quit Washington every weekend in order to allow Jack to conduct his extramarital affairs out of her sight. Full of such interesting theories, Leaming is particularly convincing when arguing that Jackie was to Jack nothing so much as the perfect replacement for his beloved sister, Kick, who died very young. The standard tasty details of dress, design, and glittering social circle are not neglected; indeed, Jackie's sense of style writ large is seen as her particular genius, equally useful for charming world leaders and the crowd back home.
Admirably detailed, stunningly successful, and likely to become the definitive biography of the Kennedy marriage, with all the intimacy and international scope implied."
Author's Note
Had it not been for the fact that Jacqueline Kennedy was married to the President of the United States, it is unlikely that a single book about her would have been written. And yet, in the dozens of books about her, specific details of that presidency have been largely excluded. Even more striking, and of greater consequence, is the fact that the histories of John F. Kennedy's presidency are comparably flawed, missing as they do the story of Jacqueline Kennedy and her crucial role. In an effort to fill the gap, I have tried to tell her story in those years with as much attention to the presidency as to the events of her private life. The role of Jacqueline Kennedy is probably less understood than any other part of the Kennedy presidency; equally, her personal story cannot be grasped without seeing it in the context of the unfolding events of one of the twentieth century's most dramatic presidencies. Her life was changed by historical events in ways she had never anticipated. She, in turn, influenced certain of those events in ways that until now have remained largely unexamined.
The chronicle of any presidency is incomplete without a consideration of the president's private life. That is even more true in the case of John F. Kennedy, because his private life repeatedly put his presidency at risk. Oddly, Kennedy's detractors — those seeking to portray his so-called dark side — have largely excluded Jackie from their versions of events, every bit as much as his apologists have. I would argue that one can come to terms neither with Kennedy's darker aspects nor with his fundamental decency — nor, ultimately, with what was perhaps his most stunning unfinished achievement, his own personal struggle against unimaginable odds for a moral compass — without being intimately familiar with the unusual nature of his life with her.
What follows is Jacqueline Kennedy's story in the White House years told fully for the first time in the larger and inseparable context of the presidency. It is also, in important ways, the story of the Kennedy presidency, with a tremendous missing piece filled in. To view the presidency afresh, rather than start with published memoirs and established histories, I have reconstructed the story from scratch, using the vast documentation produced during the Kennedy administration: letters, memos, transcripts, reports, diaries, and other primary sources. Using Secret Service reports of presidential movements, appointment books, gate logs, and other records, I have tracked the President and First Lady, as well as their intimates and associates, on a day-by-day, often minute-by-minute basis. With the aid of transcripts and minutes of meetings, I listened to what was actually said, by Kennedy himself and by key participants, during the many tumultuous events that made this presidency such an exciting one. I followed the President afterward, whether upstairs to the family quarters or to the Kennedys' weekend retreat in the country, to see him unwind with his wife and close friends. I considered what certain of those friends had to say about the Kennedys, whether in letters or diaries of the period, or in interviews. And I listened carefully to Jackie's own voice, in letters and other documents.
No experience can have been more valuable to me than the opportunity to study Jackie's extraordinarily moving, uncharacteristically frank correspondence with Harold Macmillan, written after her husband's death. As I encountered the passionate, emotionally turbulent, unguarded voice in those letters, and made sense of the allusions, both hers and Macmillan's, to certain defining events in the presidency, I was struck by how little has ever really been known about Jacqueline Kennedy or her intimate life with Jack in the White House years. In telling that story, it is my hope that, as I did, the reader will come to a better and more sympathetic understanding of two flawed but good and remarkable people, both of whom, each in his or her own way, came to exemplify the virtue both valued most: courage.
Copyright © 2001 by Barbara Leaming
| Author's Note | ix | |
| Chapter 1 | Modus Vivendi | 1 |
| Chapter 2 | The Presidency Begins | 33 |
| Chapter 3 | Tell Me About Macmillan | 51 |
| Chapter 4 | A Family Drama | 71 |
| Chapter 5 | The Magic Is Lost | 89 |
| Chapter 6 | Hall of Mirrors | 111 |
| Chapter 7 | In Her Own Right | 130 |
| Chapter 8 | Goddess of Power | 173 |
| Chapter 9 | Eyes in the Portraits | 194 |
| Chapter 10 | A Critical Moment | 217 |
| Chapter 11 | Valediction | 237 |
| Chapter 12 | Indiscretion | 256 |
| Chapter 13 | Private Grief | 286 |
| Chapter 14 | A Study in Betrayal | 303 |
| Chapter 15 | Alone | 328 |
| Chapter 16 | My Dear Friend | 351 |
| Epilogue | 356 | |
| Acknowledgments | 361 | |
| Notes on Sources | 365 | |
| Index | 393 |
Author's Note
Had it not been for the fact that Jacqueline Kennedy was married to the President of the United States, it is unlikely that a single book about her would have been written. And yet, in the dozens of books about her, specific details of that presidency have been largely excluded. Even more striking, and of greater consequence, is the fact that the histories of John F. Kennedy's presidency are comparably flawed, missing as they do the story of Jacqueline Kennedy and her crucial role. In an effort to fill the gap, I have tried to tell her story in those years with as much attention to the presidency as to the events of her private life. The role of Jacqueline Kennedy is probably less understood than any other part of the Kennedy presidency; equally, her personal story cannot be grasped without seeing it in the context of the unfolding events of one of the twentieth century's most dramatic presidencies. Her life was changed by historical events in ways she had never anticipated. She, in turn, influenced certain of those events in ways that until now have remained largely unexamined.
The chronicle of any presidency is incomplete without a consideration of the president's private life. That is even more true in the case of John F. Kennedy, because his private life repeatedly put his presidency at risk. Oddly, Kennedy's detractors -- those seeking to portray his so-called dark side -- have largely excluded Jackie from their versions of events, every bit as much as his apologists have. I would argue that one can come to terms neither with Kennedy's darker aspects nor with his fundamental decency -- nor, ultimately, with what was perhaps his most stunning unfinished achievement, his own personal struggle against unimaginable odds for a moral compass -- without being intimately familiar with the unusual nature of his life with her.
What follows is Jacqueline Kennedy's story in the White House years told fully for the first time in the larger and inseparable context of the presidency. It is also, in important ways, the story of the Kennedy presidency, with a tremendous missing piece filled in. To view the presidency afresh, rather than start with published memoirs and established histories, I have reconstructed the story from scratch, using the vast documentation produced during the Kennedy administration: letters, memos, transcripts, reports, diaries, and other primary sources. Using Secret Service reports of presidential movements, appointment books, gate logs, and other records, I have tracked the President and First Lady, as well as their intimates and associates, on a day-by-day, often minute-by-minute basis. With the aid of transcripts and minutes of meetings, I listened to what was actually said, by Kennedy himself and by key participants, during the many tumultuous events that made this presidency such an exciting one. I followed the President afterward, whether upstairs to the family quarters or to the Kennedys' weekend retreat in the country, to see him unwind with his wife and close friends. I considered what certain of those friends had to say about the Kennedys, whether in letters or diaries of the period, or in interviews. And I listened carefully to Jackie's own voice, in letters and other documents.
No experience can have been more valuable to me than the opportunity to study Jackie's extraordinarily moving, uncharacteristically frank correspondence with Harold Macmillan, written after her husband's death. As I encountered the passionate, emotionally turbulent, unguarded voice in those letters, and made sense of the allusions, both hers and Macmillan's, to certain defining events in the presidency, I was struck by how little has ever really been known about Jacqueline Kennedy or her intimate life with Jack in the White House years. In telling that story, it is my hope that, as I did, the reader will come to a better and more sympathetic understanding of two flawed but good and remarkable people, both of whom, each in his or her own way, came to exemplify the virtue both valued most: courage.
Copyright © 2001 by Barbara Leaming
Three days previously in Dallas, Texas, Jacqueline Kennedy had been inches from death, as a sniper's bullet shattered her husband's head while she fought to pull him down to safety after an earlier gunshot. Still, back in Washington, she had declared that, at her husband's funeral, she would follow his coffin on foot through the wide streets, which suddenly seemed so full of menace. She had insisted that she must "walk behind Jack," despite the desperate pleas of U.S. government officials that her plan was too dangerous. Warned that further violence might erupt, she made it clear that she would not permit terror to rule. In the hours that led up to the procession, there were numerous assassination threats on the world leaders assembled in Washington. Nonetheless, Johnson, de Gaulle, and others, following her example, insisted that they wanted to "walk with Mrs. Kennedy." That morning she, whose husband admired courage above all virtues, symbolized courage to a shaken and frightened world.
To anyone who saw Jacqueline Kennedy march behind President Kennedy's coffin, it would have been hard to imagine that, three years before, she had arrived at the White House plagued by insecurity, defeated by a difficult marriage, and determined as far as possible to play no active role in the presidency. How had this young woman who, only a thousand days prior to the assassination, had been filled with trepidation that she was inadequate to her responsibilities, become the emblematic figure who offered the American people a much-needed image of strength in the face of violence, of dignity and stability in the face of chaos? How did the shy, self-doubting 31-year-old of Inauguration Day become the powerful presence who comforted and inspired a nation in its time of tragedy? That is the story I have tried to tell in Mrs. Kennedy: The Missing History of the Kennedy Years. Using letters, diaries, and a wide range of other primary documentation, as well as interviews with Kennedy friends and associates, I have reconstructed Jacqueline Kennedy's day-by-day life, both public and private, as First Lady. Her story is a shocking, often-painful journey, one I hope readers will find as fascinating and deeply moving as I did. (Barbara Leaming)
Anonymous
Posted March 22, 2002
This is a truly engaging and enlighting portrait of Jackie Kennedy, and one that has not been explored in much depth before this book. Her role as first lady and all she accomplished is explained in great detail, and one can't help but admire her more than ever. As one old enough to remember the scorn heaped on Mrs. Kennedy when she married Onassis, this book gives much background and a deeper understanding why she chose Onassis as her second husband. Her humanness as well as her amazing talents and accomplishments come to light in this book, one of the best I have ever read on Jackie Kennedy. I highly recommend it.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 31, 2002
This book does not deal with Mrs. Kennedy as one would want to believe. The author is focused on Sex and Drugs. Her interest in President Kennedy sexual affairs and the need for drugs to keep going is not backed up with suporting evidence. She fails to really talk about or discuss Mrs. Kennedy. I feel this author is using the Kennedy name in order to make a profit and that is all.
2 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 24, 2002
The book reveals the courage of a remarkable women. There is no doubt that she loved her husband very much despite his flaws. She is indeed an American queen.It also proves that Mrs Kennedy had brains as well as beauty. Besides, we can understand the political and personal transformation JFK underwent during his presidency.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 3, 2001
This story is the best book that I have read on Jackie in a long time! She goes into depth about how much JFK's womanizing hurt her, not only that, but how her mothers verbal abuse affected her for years. It also shows the deep love that JFK felt for her, yet he was in conflict with that love and what he was taught to do by his father. It also goes into depth about how Jack sought a replacement for his beloved sister Kathleen Kennedy, and he sought that in Jackie. I definitely reccommend this wonderful book! Clarissa
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 12, 2001
Outstanding research about the Kennedy marriage played out simultaneously with the American presidency. Mrs. Leaming's frank information about the Kennedy marriage, politics,sex,drugs,children,and Mary Meyers was unsettling, sad, and sometimes nice. It is a testimoney to the grit of Jackie Kennedy. The great mystery would be: if JFK had lived, would the marriage have survived the eventual presidential sex outting by the press.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 5, 2012
A very detailed book, however there seemed to be more detail about JFK's presidency and what HE was dealing with than Mrs. Kennedy. I was okay with that - since the subject interests me - however I wish there would have been more on Jackie and what she was going through all the way up to her marriage to Onassis... After all, she was "Mrs. Kennedy" until she remarried. The ending seemed a bit abrupt. Other than that, a worthwhile read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 23, 2004
If you thought that 'The Dark Side of Camelot' and 'A Question of Judgment' were one-sided diatribes against JFK, you ain't read nothing yet. The President Kennedy that emerges from these pages is sex obsessed, amoral and incompetent. Unfit to hold high office, shameless and cruel in his treatment of Jackie - a saint who bears every burden with love and fortitude. More than 150 pages are an 'expose' of the affair between JFK and Mary Meyer (a woman I have never heard off before I read this) and a thoroughly nasty sleezey business it was indeed. JFK slipping off for sex with MM again and again, doing drugs with her during the Cuban Missle Crisis, rubbing Jackies nose in it at function after function. A never ending cavalcade of decadance and filth. If it wasn't for the fact that I have studied JFK's life from more than one distorted viewpoint, I could have fallen into the trap of swallowing a load of old rubbish like this!
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 6, 2002
The last chapter and the Epilogue where what the whole book should have been like. I wanted to know about Mrs. Kennedy, who she contacted to redecorate the White House, her correspondence with them and her family and friends. What fund raisers did she have to accomplish this, who donated what? What did she do when she went to Glen Ora alone. She was a great gossip and wanted to know everything that was going on. People must have thousands of stories about her that don't contain the name Mary Meyer. If Leaming wants to do a book about M.M., don't call it "Mrs. Kennedy." There was talk she had someone else during that time, surely she could have gotten information if she had really wanted to. This book is totally sterile where Jackie Kennedy is concerned.
1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 2, 2002
I think this book is a very good book for anyone to read if they enjoy history or the Kennedys. The book portrays her life well. You get a better look at what Jackie's life was like!
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The book seemed to be more about JFK's presidency itself.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 25, 2008
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted December 2, 2011
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted August 10, 2009
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted January 11, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted December 15, 2011
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted February 24, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted August 2, 2009
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
Drawing from recently declassified top-secret material, as well as revelatory eyewitness accounts, Secret Service records, and Jacqueline Kennedy's personal letters, bestselling biographer Barbara Leaming answers the question: what was it like to be Mrs. John F. Kennedy during the dramatic thousand days of the Kennedy presidency? Brilliantly researched, Leaming's poignant and powerful chronicle illuminates the tumultuous day-to-day life of a woman who entered the White House at age thirty-one, seven years into a ...