The agents saw their role as straightforward: to shield the children from all potential threats. They soon discovered, however, that Mrs. Kennedy held a very different view of their job. She raised a basic question, and one that the service had not dealt with in modern times: At what point did the Secret Service’s responsibility to protect the family interfere with a parent’s right to decide how her children would be raised? Over the next sixteen years, Mrs. Kennedy and the Secret Service would debate this issue back and forth. Jackie believed that her parental rights superseded the service’s legal obligation to safeguard the family. In many ways, she would come to see the Secret Service as more intrusive than reporters and photographers.
After just one month in the White House, Mrs. Kennedy established specific ground rules for how she wanted the Secret Service to deal with her. When traveling by car to a publicly announced event in Washington, DC, or whenever she was in the car with her children, she wanted the agent to sit in the front right seat with the window divider raised for privacy. When shopping unannounced in Georgetown, she insisted on being accompanied only by the driver—and on those occasions, she would sit in the front right seat. If the agent could not find a parking spot near the entrance, he could drop her off, and she would walk. Once the agent parked the car, he would have to find her. “The agent,” she insisted, “will not enter small shops but will remain at a distance to observe.” If she decided to drive the children, she asked that two agents follow her in a separate car. Once they arrived at their destination, usually a playground, one agent would stay with the car and the other would “follow on foot at a very discreet distance, whereby he will not be noticed by the children or Mrs. Kennedy.”
The following year, she devised even clearer guidelines for how the Secret Service was to protect John and Caroline. The head of the service spelled out Jackie’s demands in a memo distributed to the agents in charge of their protection. She insisted that whenever she was driving the children, the follow-up car needed to remain far enough behind that the children would not see it if they happened to turn around. Furthermore, she was “horrified” to see agents doing chores for the children and nanny Maud Shaw. “Mrs. Kennedy is adamant in her contention that agents must not perform special favors for Miss Shaw and Caroline or wait upon them as servants,” the memo read. She believed that the agents were acting like caregivers, and “it is bad for the children to see grown men constantly doing things for Miss Shaw or waiting upon the children.” It was “imperative” that the agents “drift into the background quickly when arriving at a specific location, and remain aloof and invisible until moment of departure.”
She also established precise instructions for the way agents should behave at the White House, Hyannis Port, and Palm Beach. She did not want an agent with her when she took the children out for boat rides in Hyannis, nor did she want to see them in a follow-up boat when they were waterskiing. She made clear that “drowning is my responsibility.” That rule applied to all the activities that the children participated in. “She insists,” the memo read, “that the Secret Service is not responsible for any accident sustained by the children in the usual and normal play sessions; accidents and injuries while at play are the sole responsibility of Mrs. Kennedy, herself, or the attending nurse.” She did not believe the service was responsible for sheltering her children from the usual challenges of childhood, but rather for “preventing kidnapping, abduction, molestation, rape, all crimes of violence, and undue infringement of her children’s privacy by the general public.”
“She was difficult,” Hill reflected. “She wanted us to be almost invisible.” He recalled that her top priority was that “the children not be spoiled or treated any differently than any other child.” But that demand proved unrealistic: they were not like other children. Their father was the president, they lived in the White House, the public was fascinated by them, and the constant threat existed that someone might harm them. “But,” he pointed out, “the guys really made an effort to follow her wishes and allow John to grow up as normal as possible, have friends, and go through the bumps and trials and tribulations of childhood like every other kid.”
Mrs. Kennedy’s orders—specifically the contention that “drowning was my responsibility”—were put to the test shortly after she announced them. On June 28, 1961, John and Caroline attended a picnic at the home of a friend in Bethesda, Maryland. According to the Secret Service report, at eleven thirty Caroline “entered the swimming pool and pushed away from the edge” in an inflated tube. When she reached the center of the pool, she “apparently lost her grip on the tube and dropped through the tube, with her head submerging under the water.” One of the mothers jumped into the pool and pulled Caroline to safety. The agent in charge assured his superiors that there “was no need for artificial respiration,” but it was also clear that Caroline could have drowned had it not been for the immediate intervention of an adult. The agents did not see Caroline struggling because they were following Mrs. Kennedy’s instructions to remain out of sight “and approximately 50 to 75 feet from poolside.” From their vantage point, they could not see the surface of the swimming pool. “On any future occasion, this agent will try to forestall the necessity of a fully dressed, pregnant mother jumping into the swimming pool to rescue Caroline. But under existing instructions from Mrs. Kennedy, it won’t be easy to do, and the only proper way to handle the situation is to have a special agent, of the service, in a bathing suit close enough to the pool to observe all activity in and around it.”
Following the incident, the agents asked the first lady to relax some of the limitations that she had placed on them. She refused. “Mrs. Kennedy feels that the Secret Service was in no way negligent in the performance of their duties and that their actions on this occasion were in conformity with existing policy,” Agent James Jeffries wrote. “Mrs. Kennedy is not in favor of revising security measures. She insists that the Secret Service is not responsible for accidents which the children might be involved in, and that our only interest should be to protect her children from kidnapping.”
Although she left very specific guidelines about the agents maintaining their distance, Mrs. Kennedy could become irritated when they failed to control crowds. While in Hyannis that same summer, Jackie took John and Caroline to a news shop. The agents reported a few curious onlookers, but no one appeared to be a security risk, so they adhered to her demands and did not enter the store or keep her path open. The agents reported that “several elderly ladies with cameras” tried to take Jackie’s picture as she made her way back to her parked car. According to Agent Lynn Meredith, “The first lady turned a cold shoulder and refused to permit any photographs.” Afterward, she complained that the agents did not clear a path for her or prevent onlookers from trying to talk with her or take her picture.
The most dramatic test of the conflict between Mrs. Kennedy’s rules and the Secret Service’s legal obligations came during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962 an American U-2 spy plane discovered Russian offensive nuclear missile sites in Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida. JFK delivered a nationwide television address to the American people. Declaring the Russian tactic in Cuba “deliberately provocative and unjustified,” he insisted the United States must respond “if our courage and our commitments are ever again to be trusted by either friend or foe.” Kennedy then established a quarantine of the island that was enforced by a naval blockade. For days, the nation and the world teetered on the edge of nuclear war.
Amid the crisis, as Soviet ships inched closer to Cuba and no one knew whether nuclear war with the Soviets loomed, Hill counseled Jackie that in the event of a Soviet attack, she and her children would be escorted to a secure bunker beneath the White House. She interrupted him before he could finish. “Mr. Hill,” she said, “if the situation develops that requires the children and me to go to the shelter, let me tell you what you can expect.” According to Hill, she then lowered her voice into a deep whisp
er, “If the situation develops, I will take Caroline and John, and we will walk hand in hand out onto the south grounds. We will stand there like brave soldiers and face the fate of every other American.” Hill responded politely, “Let’s pray to God that we will never be in that situation.” But he also told himself that his job was to protect the first lady and the children. If necessary, he reflected later, he would have “picked her up, kicking and screaming, and dragged her into the shelter.” Fortunately, rational heads prevailed, and after a nerve-racking thirteen days, Russia backed down, and the crisis was averted.
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For Mrs. Kennedy, raising John and Caroline was her highest priority. “A mother’s responsibilities to her children are enormous, especially where they see less of the father,” Jackie told a reporter in 1963. “The insecurity of much coming and going, the irregularity of schedules, and the strange people all affect the children.” She went on to say that it was not fair “to children in the limelight to leave them to the care of others and then to expect that they will turn out all right.” Children, she continued, needed “their mother’s affection and guidance and long periods of time alone with her. That is what gives them security in an often confusing world.”
As much as Mrs. Kennedy spoke about “a mother’s responsibilities,” her idea of what constituted “raising” children reflected her own wealthy upbringing, in which daily needs were handled by nannies, maids, and nurses. In fact, Jackie traveled often—either with the president or on solo trips—and when she went abroad, she could be absent for weeks at a time. Before leaving, Mrs. Kennedy would fill out postcards to be given to Caroline and John every day that she was away. Furthermore, even when she was home at the White House, Mrs. Kennedy kept irregular hours. Whenever she woke up, whether as early as eight or as late as noon, she always requested breakfast served in bed. The only consistent time that Jackie spent with the children was in the evening, the “children’s hour,” when she would read to them and watch as they ate dinner.
Although not a constant presence in their lives, Mrs. Kennedy stayed very clear about the way she wished them to be raised. According to Letitia Baldrige, the first lady did not want them showered with praise due purely to the accidents of their birth. While she believed they should be proud of their father’s success, she insisted that they earn respect through their own accomplishments. Though they were surrounded by the trappings of wealth and power, she raised her son and daughter to be humble and unfailingly polite. “When people spoke, they listened,” Baldrige wrote. “When people gave them presents, they said thank you with grace and a minimum of prompting.” It was during his years in the White House that John developed his lifelong habit of bowing as he shook the hand of someone he deemed important—which was just about everyone he met as a child.
In actuality, the person who bore most of the burden of raising John and Caroline was Maud Shaw. The nanny changed diapers, dressed and fed them, readied them for naps, and took them to the playground. Whenever John had a restless night, it was she who would rock him back to sleep. Shaw, then in her midfifties, had started working for the Kennedys when Caroline was only eight days old. Shaw had a distinct British accent and always wore a crisply ironed white uniform. She lived simply, in a dressing room closet connected to Caroline’s room on one side and John’s on the other. “She won’t need much,” Mrs. Kennedy told J. B. West. “Just find a wicker wastebasket for her banana peels and a little table for her false teeth at night.” The rooms sat atop the portico, looking down on the lawn and gardens at the front of the house. Shaw was up at six every morning to feed John, and then an hour later, she would give Caroline her breakfast. When they finished eating, she took them to visit the president, who was served breakfast in his suite at eight fifteen.
The president was woken up every morning at seven forty-five by George Thomas, his African American valet. JFK would go into his separate bedroom and eat breakfast, allowing Jackie to sleep later. He would be sitting in a chair with his breakfast on a tray, reading briefing books, when John and Caroline came rushing into the room. They would turn on the television with the sound blasting. Sometimes they watched cartoons, but they also enjoyed exercising along with fitness guru Jack LaLanne, the host of a long-running, popular home TV exercise show. JFK sometimes would “touch his toes with John a bit,” Jackie told the historian Arthur Schlesinger in 1964. “He loved those children tumbling around him.”
Beginning in 1962, Caroline spent from nine until noon at a special school with about ten classmates, mainly the children of family friends, on the third floor of the White House. It served double duty as both a schoolroom and an indoor playground, complete with a sandbox, plants, an aquarium for goldfish, and cages for rabbits and guinea pigs.
Once old enough to walk, John would often accompany his father to the West Wing. As the president got up to leave his bedroom and head to the Oval Office, John would shout, “Don’t leave me! We’ve got to go to work!” Still in his pajamas, he would then follow along closely behind his father. John used to bombard Shaw with “his machine-gun burst of questions about everything and anything.” He had a hard time pronouncing “Caroline,” so he referred to his sister as “Canon.” For her part, she never grew tired of responding to his cries of “Canon! Canon!”
When Caroline’s class was having morning recess, the president would walk out and clap his hands to get their attention. Within seconds, he would be surrounded by children. He would often shout John’s name, saying it in rapid succession so that it sounded like “John-John.” The moniker caught on, and soon everyone in the White House, including the press corps, called him by that name. John would spend most of his adult life trying to convince passersby that, as he often repeated, “One John will suffice.”
One morning the president called John’s name, but he did not appear. The president turned to Agent Tom Wells and asked, “Where’s John?” Wells told JFK that a few minutes before, John had accidentally knocked out his front tooth and that Agent Bob Foster had escorted him to the doctor’s office. JFK hesitated a minute before asking, “It’s a baby tooth, isn’t it?” Wells responded, “Yes sir, as far as I know.” JFK seemed unconcerned. “He will be all right,” he stated. “He will grow another one.”
By 1962, Caroline had a daily schedule because of morning school, but John’s time was still unstructured. In the afternoon, following lunch, Caroline would nap for about two hours. Then, weather permitting, she would go outdoors and play, often with John. Sometimes she would return to the Oval Office to see her father in the afternoon. She would be back in her room in time for children’s hour and then eat dinner around six thirty or seven. Meanwhile, John followed no set pattern. “He eats, sleeps, and plays, all with gusto,” the White House reported.
After dinner, Shaw would bring the children down to their father’s office. They would stop by to see secretary Evelyn Lincoln, crawl around her office, and play with her typewriter while they waited for their father to finish his meetings. On some days, the president would take the children down to the indoor swimming pool for an evening dip. Afterward, John and Caroline would return to the second floor, where they played for a short while before going to bed. The president and Mrs. Kennedy would come up in the evening and give them their good-night kisses. During his time in the White House, whenever he was at home, the president never failed to see his children tucked into bed.
In Hyannis, where John and Caroline spent most of the summer, they followed an entirely different schedule. Here they would be surrounded by more than a dozen cousins, along with aunts and uncles. In addition to Jack’s younger brothers—Robert F. Kennedy, the US attorney general, and Edward “Ted” Kennedy, who in 1962 was elected to JFK’s vacant seat in the US Senate—were his younger sisters Eunice Shriver, Jean Kennedy Smith, and Pat Lawford. Jackie’s sister, Lee, used to visit occasionally. Because there were so many kids around, the adults made sure their days were struc
tured and full of activities. The mornings would begin with Caroline going horse riding with friends. While she was off riding, John, Maud Shaw, and a Secret Service agent would head to the beach, swimming and playing until lunchtime. They usually picnicked for lunch, consuming large quantities of ice cream, fruit, and soda. Normally the children were not permitted to have sweets, but in Hyannis and on holidays, they could eat whatever they wanted. The biggest bonus was that they were allowed unlimited Coke.
One afternoon, Shaw and the two children visited a neighbor’s house to play on the beach. Shaw spotted a strange woman walking toward the group of children. The Secret Service watched from a careful distance but did not deem the woman a threat. “Say, I hear the Kennedy children are coming down here today,” she told Shaw. “Do you know when they are arriving?” The first family’s nanny played dumb and told her she knew nothing. “Gee, I’d sure like to see them,” the stranger said. “I guess they must be real nice kids.” As she talked, she patted young John on the head, oblivious to who he was. On most occasions, however, whenever a stranger approached, John would blow his cover by declaring proudly, “I’m John F. Kennedy Jr.”
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The presence of children running around added a casual informality to the White House. Once, when a reporter asked three-year-old Caroline where her father was, she responded, “He’s upstairs with his shoes and socks off, doing nothing.” Baldrige remembered the White House as “full of children morning, noon, and night.” Male houseguests would use the same bathroom where JFK took his hot baths and would find rubber ducks lined up along the side of the tub. Mrs. Kennedy bought the ducks to keep John Jr. occupied when he lounged in the tub with his father, who often used the time to read newspapers and memos from his staff.
Although he lived amid the formal grandeur of the White House, there was little doubt that John was a child and often acted like one. On one occasion, the president wanted Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg to meet John and Caroline, so Shaw made them practice for the formal reception. She taught Caroline how to curtsy and John to bow. Caroline had the curtsy down, but John struggled with his gesture. Although worried about whether John would perform adequately, Mrs. Shaw sent them to the reception. Within a few minutes, she was called in to have John removed. Not only had he failed to bow, he’d also thrown himself on the floor in a temper tantrum.
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