Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

In the general election on November 8, 1960, Kennedy narrowly beat Republican Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. Two weeks later, Jacqueline gave birth to son John Jr. by Caesarean delivery. WhenKennedy was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961, Jacqueline became, at age 31, one of the youngest First Ladies in history, just behind Frances Folsom Cleveland and Julia Tyler.

Jacqueline Kennedy ranks among the most popular of First Ladies. She was a stark contrast from her recent predecessors, who were all much older. She was not only young and attractive, but intelligent and cultivated, and possessed an innate sense of style and elegance. Though she was sometimes criticized for her aloofness, expensive tastes, and European ways, the American public quickly took to her, and made her its idol.

Mary Barelli Gallagher was Mrs. Kennedy's personal secretary for 11 years until 1964. She wrote a book, a personal memoir of her years with Jackie Kennedy, "My life with Jacqueline Kennedy." Mary Barelli Gallagher shows a more everyday mother/wife side of Mrs. Kennedy. Gallagher drew a bath for the President himself, sat John Jr. as a toddler down in her own kitchen with Jackie during a visit and gave him a crust of Italian bread to chew on. She procured Jackie's cigarettes-Newports, a menthol brand, that incidentally shared a name with the city of the Kennedy-Bouvier wedding. Gallagher regretted her loss of contact with Jackie Kennedy after all their years together. But Jackie had to move on, shedding her past and those in it to enter new chapters of her life as she created them.

Like any First Lady, she was forced into the public spotlight, with everything in her life under scrutiny. While she did not mind giving interviews or being photographed, she was worried about the effect such treatment might have on her children Mrs. Kennedy was determined to protect them from the press and give them a normal childhood.

Jackie planned numerous social events that brought the First Couple into the nation's cultural spotlight She invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, and musicians to mingle with politicians, diplomats, and statesmen. She spoke fluent French Her appreciation for art, music, and culture marked a new chapter in American history. Jackie's skill at entertaining gave White House events the reputation of being magical.For instance, when she orchestrated a dinner at Mount Vernon in honor of Pakistan's President Ayub Khan, whom President Kennedy wanted to honor for his role in supporting the U.S. in a recent crisis, she banished large U-shaped dining tables, replacing them with smaller round tables that seated eight. Her social graces were legendary, as can be noted from the way she communicated with Charles De Gaulle in Paris and Nikita Khruschev in Vienna. The President's summit in Vienna turned out to be a disaster, but the Premier's enjoyment of Mrs. Kennedy's company was subsequently deemed one of the few positive outcomes. When Soviet Premier Khrushchev was asked to shake President Kennedy's hand for a photo, the Communist leader said, "I'd like to shake her hand first."

Due in part to her French ancestry and her educational background, Jacqueline had always felt a bond with France This was a love that would later be reflected in many aspects of her life, such as the menus she chose for White House state dinners and her taste in clothing and love of ballet. She chose French interior designer Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen to consult on the White House Restoration and decoration of the private family quarters on the second and third floors of the Executive Mansion. Mrs. Kennedy recruited a Vietnamese-born French chef to become White House chef.

On November 21, 1963, the First Couple left the /www.squidoo.com/White-House>White House for a political trip to Texas, stopping in San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth that day. After a breakfast on November 22, President and Mrs. Kennedy flew from Carswell Air Force Base to Dallas's Love Field on Air Force One, accompanied by Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie. A 9.5-mile (15.3 km) motorcade was to take them to the Trademart where the President was scheduled to speak at a lunch. Jackie was seated next to her husband in the limousine, with the Governor and his wife seated in front of them, while Vice President Johnson and his wife followed in another car in the motorcade.

After the motorcade turned the corner onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, Jackie heard what she thought to be a motorcycle backfiring, and did not realize that it was a gunshot until she heard Governor Connally scream. Within 8.4 seconds, two more shots had rung out, and Jackie had leaned in toward her husband. The final shot struck the President in the head, and she screamed out, "They've killed my husband; Jack Jack!" Jackie then climbed out of the back seat and crawled over the trunk of the car for reasons that are debated. Her Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, ran to the car and leapt onto it, directing Mrs. Kennedy back to her seat. The car rushed to Dallas's Parkland Hospital, Jackie talking to her husband and cradling his head in her arms along the way. When the limousine reached the hospital, Jackie initially refused to leave her husband, telling her Secret Service agent, who urged her to release the President from her arms, "you know he is dead" Only after his head was covered by agent Clint Hill's suit jacket did she relent and allow them to take her husband from her. Jackie ran alongside the stretcher that was transporting her husband into the hospital.

A few minutes into the President's treatment, Jackie, accompanied by the President's doctor, Admiral George Burkley, left her folding chair outside Trauma Room One and attempted to enter the operating room. Nurse Doris Nelson stopped her and attempted to bar the door to prevent Mrs. Kennedy from entering. Jackie persisted, and the President's doctor suggested that she take a sedative, which she refused. "I want to be there when he dies," she told Burkley. He eventually persuaded Nelson to grant her access to Trauma Room One, saying "It's her right, it's her prerogative".

Later, when the casket arrived, Jackie took her wedding ring off and slipped it onto the President's finger. She told aide Ken O'Donnell, "Now I have nothing left." After his death she refused to remove her blood-stained clothing, and regretted having washed the blood off her face and hands. She continued to wear the infamous blood-stained pink suit as she stood next to Johnson on board the plane when he took the oath of office as President. She told Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."

Jacqueline took an active role in planning the details of the state funeral for her husband, based on Lincoln's state funeral, including the riderless horse and Lincoln catafalque on which his coffin rested in the Capitol rotunda. She led the nation in mourning as the President lay in repose at the White House and then lay in state in the Capitol. The funeral service was held for the President at St. Matthew's Cathedral. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery and Jackie was the first to light the eternal flame at the grave site, which had been created at her request. Lady Jean Campbell reported back to "The London Evening Standard": "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people%u2026 one thing they have always lacked: Majesty."

Following the assassination, she stepped back from official public view. She did, however, make a brief appearance in Washington to honor the Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, who had climbed aboard the limousine in Dallas to try to shield her and the President
A week after the assassination, Mrs. Kennedy was interviewed in "Hyannisport" on November 29 by Theodore H. White of "Life" magazine. In that session, she compared the Kennedy years in the White House to King Arthur's mythical Camelot, commenting that the President often played the title song of Lerner and Loewe's musical recording before retiring to bed. She also quoted Queen Guinevere from the musical, trying to express how the loss felt. "Now he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man."

The steadiness and courage of Jacqueline Kennedy during the assassination and funeral won her admiration around the world. Following his death, Jackie and her children remained in their quarters in theWhite House for two weeks, preparing to vacate. Johnson made several phone calls from the Oval Office to Jackie in the residence; the two also shared several letters and notes back and forth through messengers after the assassination.

During her widowhood, Jacqueline was romantically linked by the press to a few men, notably David Ormsby-Gore and Roswell Gilpatric, but nothing came out of it. So when the news of her marriage to Aristotle Onassis broke out, it came as a total shock to the world. Her motives for the marriage are open for debate, but beyond financial security, it is reasonable to believe that at that point in her life she desperately needed an escape from the Kennedys and the United States, as she came to fear for her life and that of her children after the assassination of her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.

The wedding took place on October 20, 1968, on Skorpios, Onassis's private island in the Ionian Sea, Greece. Jacqueline gave up Secret Service protection and her Franking Privilege, to which a widow of a president of the United States is entitled, after her marriage to Onassis.

For a time, the marriage brought her much adverse publicity and seemed to tarnish the image of the grieving presidential widow, and she became the target of paparazzi who were following her everywhere much to her displeasure and dismay. Despite it all, the marriage initially seemed successful enough, the couple dividing their time between New York City, Paris and Skorpios.

Then tragedy struck when Onassis's only son Alexander died in a plane crash in January 1973. The once invincible Onassis was left a broken and disillusioned man and the marriage turned sour. His health began deteriorating rapidly and he died in Paris, on March 15, 1975. Her legacy was severely limited under Greek law, which limited how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. After two years' of legal battle, Jacqueline eventually accepted from Christina Onassis, Onassis's daughter and sole heir, a settlement of $26,000,000, waiving all other claims to the Onassis estate.


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