“But now she’s his,” George said, finishing Ted’s thought.
“But now she’s his,” Ted repeated.
There was a long moment of silence as the two men rocked in their chairs, lost in their thoughts.
“We have to move forward, don’t we?” Ted finally asked.
“Well, my friend,” George responded, “I’m afraid it’s starting to look like we have no choice.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Ted admitted.
“I’ll say,” George added.
Jackie’s Thirty-Ninth
On the night of July 28, 1968, the Kennedys enjoyed a small family dinner party to celebrate Jackie’s thirty-ninth birthday at Joseph and Rose’s house on the compound. This rather informal gathering was certainly nothing like previous birthdays for the former First Lady on the Cape. For instance, two years earlier for Jackie’s thirty-seventh, the party—which would be better described as a “gala”—was hosted by Jackie’s friend Paul Mellon, a wealthy banker. The guest list was an impressive who’s who of political and entertainment notables, such as Jock Whitney—ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and one of the wealthiest men in the world—along with his wife, Betsey Roosevelt, former daughter-in-law of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. William Averell Harriman—former governor of New York as well as former ambassador to the Soviet Union and to Great Britain—was also at the Cape that weekend, along with his wife, socialite Marie Norton Whitney. William S. Paley, who founded the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), was present as well. Along with people such as Broadway producer Mike Nichols and Jackie’s hairdresser Kenneth, there were more than a hundred people present, all of them gathered to wish Jackie a happy birthday while being served the finest of seafoods and spirits. This time around, though, Rose Kennedy decided to keep it simple as family members convened in the huge backyard while busy maids served grilled fish, roasted potatoes, and, for dessert, an apple pie made especially for the occasion not by one of the cooks but by Rose herself. Certainly Rose wasn’t at her best in the kitchen, but that she at least tried meant the world to Jackie. “If I had known much farther in advance that Jackie was bringing Onassis to the Cape, do you think I would have had such a simple party?” Rose noted to her secretary, Barbara Gibson. “It’s all very pleasant, attractive, and practical, but far from elegant,” she said. “However, I think this is a side of the Kennedys he may find charming.” After the meal, the family adjourned to the home’s private movie theater to watch the Steve McQueen film The Thomas Crown Affair. Then more drinks and food were served on the porch as they all enjoyed the warm night air.
Much to everyone’s delight, Ethel Kennedy finally changed her mind and decided to join the family on the veranda, marking the first time she would meet Aristotle Onassis. As it happened, Ted went over to “Ethie’s” house and talked to her, telling her that he felt strongly that she should join the family. Ethel could never resist Ted. They had a very special relationship and she would pretty much always do exactly what he asked.
As for Ethel and Jackie, there would always be reports that they didn’t much care for each other. Why were such reports so persistent? Probably because they were such different kinds of women and likely because it was fun for people to pit them against one another, and also because Ethel did like to make fun of Jackie. But definitely not because it was true. After all, these two women shared something that no one else in the family could ever really understand, indeed, that most people couldn’t even fathom—they’d been forced to witness the brutal murders of their own husbands. It was a tragic way for fate to have bound them to one another, but bind them it did. They would always have a special relationship, no matter the gossip. “My Ethel,” Jackie wrote to her sister-in-law just weeks before this party. “I stayed up till 6:30 last night just thinking and praying for you.”
“I know you aren’t fond of Onassis,” Roswell Gilpatric told Ethel Kennedy when she arrived at the Big House, according to his memory of the night. “That’s true,” Ethel told him. “But as long as she’s happy, right?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood. At that moment, Jackie walked into the room and over to the couple to greet Ethel. According to photos taken that night and housed in the Kennedy Library and Museum, Jackie was wearing a cherry red blouse and black cigarette slacks. Her coal-black hair was pulled back from her face with a scarlet-colored beret. Even when she was dressed casually, there was something special about her. The way she held her head, the graceful way she moved her slender body—it was all very contained and regal, her dark eyes full of enormous power, as always. Yet she was also very feminine, very girly. “Ethel,” she exclaimed, “look at you! You got over your cold!” The two sisters-in-law shared a secret look, as if in recognition that not only had Ethel been fibbing, but also that it was all perfectly fine. The two embraced.
When Jackie finally introduced Ethel to Aristotle, the tension in the room was palpable. However, Onassis won Ethel over easily. He somehow found a way to make her laugh even though she had been so unbearably sad of late. Soon the two were getting along and even joking with one another. After this gathering, Ethel rarely had anything negative to say about Aristotle Onassis.
When everyone else had retired for the night, Jackie and Ted went into Rose’s living room and talked late into the night in front of a roaring fire, this despite the warm weather outside. It was then that Jackie told her brother-in-law that she had all but made up her mind: She was going to marry Aristotle Onassis. By all accounts, Ted did not try to stop Jackie or even attempt to change her mind. Like the rest of the family, he wanted the best for her, and he also must have known that Jack would have wanted him to be happy for her. Jackie said that she needed Ted’s assistance, though. “There’s something I need you to do for me,” she told him. “Would you help me, Teddy? Please?”
It was Jackie. Of course he would help her.
Some Enchanted Evening
In August 1968 Jackie Kennedy and her children, Caroline and John, and her brother-in-law, Ted Kennedy, arrived on the lush isle of Skorpios. The time had come to negotiate a deal whereby Aristotle Onassis would take Jackie’s hand in marriage. Though it may have come as a surprise to outside observers, it was only natural in the world in which Jackie lived that money would have to change hands if such a momentous merger were to take place. Wealthy people like the Kennedys and Onassis were accustomed to monetary transactions in marriages, or even just because a birthday had occurred. (For instance, each of the Kennedy children received $1 million when they turned twenty-one. Onassis gave his two children $5 million each when they turned eighteen.) It was Onassis’s idea that he would give Jackie a certain amount of money when they married. She didn’t ask for it—that wouldn’t have been like her. But she also didn’t turn it down—that wouldn’t have been like her either. Jackie was raised to appreciate affluence, and her love of luxury was well known. She’d always had money, and as she got older, she naturally became more focused on maintaining a certain lifestyle for herself and her children.
“Did she love Onassis? Yes, I believe she did,” her friend Joan Braden said.* “But she was also a practical woman with practical concerns,” Braden continued. “She said something to me like, ‘The first time you marry it is for love, the second time it is for security.’ Obviously, she was one of the most famous women in the world. She told me she was not going to end up with a plumber in New Jersey! Onassis was one of the richest men on the planet, said to be worth more than $500 million. In that respect, he was suitable for her, yes. She loved to spend money, as we all knew. Her mother, Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss, who I knew well and interviewed for her [1964] oral history [in the Kennedy Library], placed a premium on wealth, and she passed on to her daughters Jackie and Lee the sense that money mattered a great deal, so Jackie was very extravagant. But she was also pragmatic. She told me, ‘Life is all about change. The only constant we can count on is that nothing is constant and you can’t depend on anyone but
yourself, which,’ she told me, ‘I have learned the hard way.’
“Jackie said, ‘Oh, you don’t have to make a financial arrangement,’ ” recalled Arturo D’Angelo, the attorney representing Creon Broun, Onassis’s American money manager.* “And Ari said, ‘Yes, I do, my dear.’ And she said, ‘Oh, no no, no!’ And he said, ‘Oh, yes, I simply must.’ And they went back and forth with this kind of silly exchange as if there was ever any question that he was going to give her money when they married. He looked at it as a wedding gift, as did she. Of course, it would be viewed as a cold, mercenary business transaction by most people, but not by the wealthy. What always complicated matters is that once it is established that money will change hands, even as a gift, attorneys and managers and family representatives then become involved, and then it truly does become a business transaction.”
The admittedly strange marital negotiations took place on Aristotle Onassis’s cruise liner, Christina, which was docked in Skorpios. The night before Ted’s meeting with Onassis, a Greek reporter named Nikos Mastorakis sneaked aboard the yacht, posing as the manager of an Athens bouzouki band that Onassis had hired for entertainment. Mastorakis recalled Ted as acting like “a laughing cowboy from Texas. All—including Jackie and Telis [a popular nickname for Ari]—seemed pleased with their lives,” added Mastorakis. “They ate black caviar and red tomatoes. Ted drank ouzo. Jackie, who was resplendent in a red blouse and long gypsy skirt, preferred the vodka. She leaned close when Telis whispered in her ear. At dinner Onassis ate his lamb like a youth. She ate little and nibbled white grapes. But at 4 a.m. with the moon above, the sweet Mrs. Kennedy sang ‘Adios Muchachos’ with Telis. I felt they were very close.”
It had been an intensely romantic evening, and even though the scenario made for an odd juxtaposition to the business at hand, which concerned the exchange of money for a bride, there was still something beautiful, magical, and even wondrous about it. A full moon glistened over the peaceful waters. The air was cool, everyone’s spirits warm. In fact, Jackie would recall it as being one of the loveliest nights of her life. Of course, it couldn’t end without Ted breaking out in song, as he often did on special occasions. Weddings, funerals, birthdays, anniversaries, and all sorts of family gatherings tended to find Ted leading a group in song, and tonight would be no exception. The number he selected could not have been more appropriate. To the incongruous strumming accompaniment of one of the bouzouki musicians, he began to sing the song “Some Enchanted Evening.” While he certainly didn’t have what one might consider a great voice, Ted had such a sincere tone and so much heart that his singing was always hard to resist. As he sang the tune from South Pacific, Jackie looked lovingly into the eyes of the man she would soon marry. After a moment, she began to sing along with her brother-in-law, and then, one by one, everyone on deck joined in, until by the time Ted got to the bridge, just about everyone was singing.
Jackie: “The Kennedys Can’t Support Me Forever”
The next day, in his meetings with Aristotle Onassis, Ted Kennedy made it clear that Jackie Kennedy was widely considered an American treasure, especially given what she had endured with the president’s assassination and the manner in which she had handled herself at his funeral. It would take—as Ted put it, according to most accounts—“a leap of faith” for Americans to accept her as the wife of Onassis. “We love Jackie,” Ted said, “and we want the best for her.” Onassis agreed—he loved her too, he said. Rather than be insulted by Ted’s suggestion that he was not good enough for her, Onassis was bemused, especially when Ted let on that by marrying him she would be forfeiting her $175,000-a-year stipend from the Kennedy family. The shipping magnate couldn’t believe that the wealthy Kennedy family was only paying a woman they held in such high esteem a measly $175,000 a year. When Ted pointed out that Jackie would also be losing her $10,000 a year annual widow’s pension, Onassis was truly gobsmacked. The figures Ted was using were such small potatoes to the shipping magnate, he was baffled as to why they were even being discussed! He said he would pay Jackie much more to be his wife, and, after some give-and-take, the amount he and Ted eventually settled on was $1.5 million. “I believe that’s a fair deal,” Ted said. Onassis then said that he wanted the wedding to take place in America, a suggestion at which Ted balked.
Even though Ted wasn’t opposed to the marriage, he said he wasn’t going to put his family in the position of having to attend a big, well-publicized ceremony. It would be too sad. No one would have been able to get through it. “It also would be completely inappropriate,” he said. “I won’t be moved on this point.” Therefore, Onassis reluctantly agreed that the ceremony could be held in Greece.* With a deal now struck, the two men shook hands. When Ted told Jackie about the terms, she was perfectly happy, saying, “Ari is a very sweet and generous man, and I’m very lucky to have him in my life.” Ted then sent a deal memo outlining the terms to Jackie’s business manager, Wall Street investment banker André Meyer. It was then that matters got dicey.
French-born André Benoit Meyer was a close friend and business associate of the Kennedy family, first through Sargent Shriver and then as a business associate of Stephen Smith. He was also a senior partner of Lazard Frères & Co., a preeminent financial institution whose origins dated back to 1848. The firm provided—as Lazard Ltd. today still does—advice on mergers and acquisitions as well as asset management to corporations, partnerships, and individuals. Coincidentally, Meyer and the John Fitzgerald Kennedys were in residence at the Carlyle Hotel in New York in 1961 at the same time, with Meyer in a suite directly below Jack and Jackie. In October 1963, Kennedy named Meyer to a committee that was to investigate ways the country could cut its balance-of-payments deficit. A year later, Stephen Smith, who handled most of the family’s business affairs via the Kennedys’ company, which was called, innocuously enough, Park Agency, Inc., brought Meyer in to help manage the Kennedys’ huge holdings of more than $150 million. An eventual board member of the John F. Kennedy Library, Meyer also managed its $60 million building fund. A well-respected financier called by David Rockefeller “the most creative financial genius of our time in the investment banking world,” André Meyer often escorted Jackie to events after JFK’s death. Jackie viewed Meyer, thirty years her senior, more as a father figure than a possible romantic partner. That said, his friends all knew that he had a crush on her, as did most men who had anything to do with her. He was certainly as much a sounding board and confidant for her and other members of the Kennedy family as he was a business adviser. He could often be found at Jackie’s home in New York, helping John and Caroline with their homework—he was that close to the family. So when he took issue with something having to do with Jackie, it was dealt with seriously.*
Meyer was no fan of Ted Kennedy’s—that much was clear to everyone in the Kennedy family. “He felt that JFK and Bobby had the brains and maybe Ted had the good looks, but that was it,” said Mona Latham, a close friend of Meyer’s who first worked for him as a securities analyst and then as his assistant. “When he got the deal memo from Senator Kennedy relating to the Onassis-Kennedy merger, he hit the roof. He called Jackie, who was still in Greece, and said he needed to see her immediately upon her return. So about two weeks later, he and I met with her at her home on Fifth Avenue. Or, I should say, I went with him but waited in another room as the two of them met in the study.”
According to Mona Latham, when Jackie greeted her and Meyer in early September 1968, she was in a bad mood. “Everything is going wrong today,” Jackie said as she stood in the doorway with Latham and Meyer. “I don’t think I can take any more bad news today. I’m having budget problems around here, as you know.” Jackie then began to explain to Meyer that Stephen Smith had come to visit her earlier in the week to ask her to cut back on her expenses. She said that it was a humiliating conversation, but that she should not have been surprised by it. “The Kennedys can’t support me forever,” she said, “and Rose has made that very clear. They have even cut Ethel bac
k, and she has all those kids!”
Actually, cutting Ethel Kennedy back was easier said than done, and if Jackie knew how much Ethel spent on food and clothing, she might have been surprised and perhaps even upset. Mona Latham would say, years later, that she was astonished by Jackie’s financial situation, as outlined by her and André Meyer that day at Jackie’s. Apparently, JFK had left her about $70,000 in cash, plus all of his personal effects. There were two family trusts valued at about $10 million, but due to certain restrictions placed upon them, Jackie wasn’t able to access any money from them and was instead living on the annual allowance of $175,000 from the Kennedys. It had originally been $150,000, but Bobby managed to get her another $25,000 a year from the family before he died. Now Rose was pushing for Jackie to cut back on her expenses. “Tell her own mother [Janet Auchincloss] to cash in some of that Auchincloss fortune,” Rose had said. “Jackie just doesn’t know how to cut corners.”
Jackie’s household staff included two maids—one responsible only for Jackie’s needs—a nanny, a cook, and a governess for the children. Each staff member made $100 a week. Jackie also had a personal assistant, Nancy Tuckerman, who was making roughly $200 a week. The total household budget, including food, wine, liquor, and salaries as well as entertaining, came to $1,600 a month. Meanwhile, Jackie spent money on clothes and jewelry as if she were a very wealthy woman. “And that’s where all my money is going, I admit it,” she told Meyer, “but I am expected to have nice things, André, and so, yes, I buy nice things, I admit it. What can I tell you? I like nice things!”
“And you should have nice things,” Meyer told her. “You deserve nice things.”
After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family--1968 to the Present Page 4