Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy

by Caroline Kennedy

  You feel this was because he was a Catholic, or because he was an easterner, or were they equally suspicious of anybody—Hubert, or anybody?

  I think that in Wisconsin, they're just suspicious of anyone sort of gregarious. I mean, I don't think they like someone coming up, or a band, or anything. And I think they were suspicious of him for all those reasons. Whereas in West Virginia, you know, they're a bit gayer, even though they're so poor. But I loved—I never met one person in West Virginia I didn't like, except for this strange man running around with his handbills wherever we spoke. And I never met one person in Wisconsin I did like, except for the people who were working for Jack.

  THE KENNEDYS CAMPAIGNING IN THE WISCONSIN PRIMARY, 1960

  John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

  When he was exhausted, he'd snap back quickly though, wouldn't he?

  Oh, yeah, you'd stumble into some hotel bed and you'd get up at six in the morning. He could snap back. He could have a day home and just sleep all through it, and you'd get all his laundry done or something in the daytime, and pack him at night, and off he'd go or off we'd both go. And he could always sleep. He could sleep in the plane, almost like a soldier. I think that's—so many people's troubles are when they can't sleep.

  Clem Norton51—I don't know if you've heard the tape of his—said Teddy has a street personality, the President didn't have a street personality.

  That's true, he didn't. I mean, at the end, you know, he had that incredible thing.52 But Teddy's more nineteenth century. He can go down and tell stories. He's more like Clem Norton, and more like Honey Fitz. But Jack never—he never said, "Hi, fella," or put his fat palm under your armpit, or, you know, any of that sort of business. It was embarrassing to him.

  But he didn't actively dislike campaigning. He rather enjoyed it, didn't he?

  Yeah, he enjoyed it. I mean, if you asked him his three favorite things he can do in a day, I don't think he'd say campaigning.53 But when he got caught up in it, and when it was going well, then he really liked it and responded. And the last—you know, as time went on, he was doing better and better. And he loved the people who really were glad to see him—the little old ladies, or children, or what.

  DURING THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY CAMPAIGN

  John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

  I always felt that when he went out as President on a trip and saw crowds, he'd really come back very refreshed. Didn't you feel him filled with new energy and confidence—

  Yes, it was so good for him. And he'd say how good it was to get out of Washington, where it's this little group that just writes—in and in and in—you know, little correspondents hashing others. It was so good for him to get away and to see that he was adored. You know, it was great whenever he did that. And when he went to Europe this June.

  Last time, we started talking about the convention, and the months before the convention in 1960, and the President's view of his various opponents and problems, and one of the things that always surprised me was the way in which liberals—the arguments I used to have to have with some of the older liberals and academics and so on, about the President. It sounds very odd now, because no one obviously has done more for intellectuals in the White House since Jefferson. I suppose one of the big reasons for it was the whole McCarthy business. How—you knew McCarthy?1

  No, I didn't know him. I just went to see one of the hearings once. But Jack was sick at the time of the McCarthy thing, wasn't he?

  Yes, he was.

  And then they knew that his father had been a friend, or hadn't he been to the Cape once? I don't know.

  He'd apparently been to the Cape once or twice and—

  Never when we were there.

  But he wasn't in any sense a pal or chum or anything like that—

  Oh, no, never! I just went out of complete curiosity once to see those hearings, and saw that man, who was rather frightening. But I suppose they all thought that because of Mr.—again, I suppose the liberals all attributed it to Jack being his father's son or something like that?

  I think that was part of it and also the fact that he didn't attack McCarthy, though, as a matter of fact, very few members of the Senate, including people like Hubert Humphrey and Paul Douglas, attacked McCarthy.2 What do you suppose he thought of him?

  You know, I think he thought it was awful. You know, the way he was flailing around and handling everything? And then he did make some statement either from the hospital, or was it just before his operation, or he would've voted to censure him but he wasn't there, was that it?

  Yes. A speech was prepared for delivery before he went to the hospital. The speech was never delivered and indicated that he was for censure. I think when the actual vote came, he was pretty sick and I don't think any statement was issued at that time.

  He thought of McCarthy—well, you know, poor McC—I mean, if you saw McCarthy, then you'd see a man in his last—I remember, I think he was coming in and out of the elevator when I was standing there—well, the man was just gone. He smelled of drink and his eyes looked awful. You know, I think Jack thought just what everyone thought of McCarthy. But again he was never anyone to run in a pack against— And then, of course, I suppose he had partly the political problem at home, didn't he?

  Yes.

  Every single one of his voters in Boston—anyone whose name was McAnything they thought was wonderful. But I think he did that quite well.

  Most of them or a lot of them thought McCarthy was probably a Democrat. No, I can remember at times when I—do you remember the old John Fox—not the good John Fox, not Judge Fox, but—

  Oh, the one who owned a paper?

  Owned the Boston Post.3 At one time he started an attack on Communists at Harvard, particularly on me. [Jacqueline laughs] And Jack was in town and went up and explained to him that I probably wasn't a Communist, and I shouldn't be attacked. And later, he told me about it and said as a consequence of that he decided that John Fox probably thought that he was a Communist!

  Yeah, then Bobby was against McCarthy, wasn't he, or was that later? When was Bobby's thing with Roy Cohn? 4

  Bobby, well, that was about this time—

  Was Bobby working for McCarthy then?

  Bobby originally—Bobby was minority counsel. He was counsel for the Democrats on the committee but he had originally—he and Roy Cohn had worked with McCarthy and then he couldn't stand Cohn's methods—and then he was associated with Symington, Jackson, and the opponents.5 He apparently was a friend of the ambassador's at some point.

  Yes, not a great friend. You know, again, Mr. Kennedy was so loyal. There seems to be all these Irish—they always seem to have a sort of persecution thing about them, don't they? I notice the way Mrs. Kennedy speaks even now about—not even now but, you know we—"Is someone a Catholic?" or "Are they Irish?" As if it's—you know, I guess they've had such persecution.

  Mrs. Kennedy can remember what it was like to grow up in Boston—

  Yeah, but she even will say now when you say you know someone or someone's coming for dinner—"Is he a Catholic?" or "Is she a Catholic?"—as if that will make them nicer. It's really a timidity. So, I'm sure Mr. Kennedy was rather conservative—you know, he might have just liked Joe McCarthy out of—this was before everything bad happened—because he was Irish, because he was Catholic, and because everyone else was down on him. But you know, never going into anything deep in it. Because they never talked about him at home. And he certainly never told Jack—you know, to be for or against him. It was a messy situation Jack was in—putting out a censure and everything, and they hated it in Boston.

  Yeah. It was a very difficult local situation on it. What about the Nixons? Did you ever see the Nixons in the senatorial days?

  No. Oh, well, I used to see her at bandage rolling. You know, the Senate wives have to go roll bandages every Tuesday and the vice president's wife is always the chairman of it. She's dressed in a white nurse's uniform. That's the only time I ever saw her.r />
  I think she'd be perfect at bandage—bandage rolling. Well, it's about 1960, the primaries, and you remember the Wisconsin primaries being the hardest. Did the President ever, at any point, seem worried about the outcome or was he too absorbed from day to day to have feelings? Was he up and down or was it a fairly—

  Well, you just had to work so hard. You know, when you're really in a campaign, you don't almost have time to think of the outcome, though he'd be going over polls and the this and the that district. But I remember election—primary night in the Hotel Pfister in Milwaukee. You know, that was awful. It was so funny. We were all on—just like on nails. And then it came out sort of a draw. Well, it was just so awful because there everybody had put all they had into a fight and you were just left exhausted. And you saw it had proved nothing. And you'd have to start again. Oh, and I remember that awful man, Miles McMillin, who wrote for the paper in Madison, who is married to—the girl he's married to, Rockefeller, was married to Proxmire.6 Well, he used to write all these anonymous letters to the paper, saying scurrilous things about Jack. He was a terrible man. Again, a wild-eyed liberal creature.7 He came cruising through the apartment that night when we were all in there counting the returns and—oh, it was awful of me—I walked by him twice without saying hello—cutting him dead. [laughs] And Jack— I mean, I was so mad at him. Jack was polite.

  West Virginia, like you said, was more agreeable.

  Well, the people were just nicer there. And you know, you went slugging along again, but—oh, and then there, for the first time, we separated, and I'd go off with someone on my own little tour—you know, in and out of little shops or a little bar or all those little mining towns. And the people were all so nice to me. You know, just tiny, little—never more than ten or twenty people.

  SENATOR KENNEDY TALKS TO COAL MINERS DURING THE WEST VIRGINIA PRIMARY

  Hank Walker, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

  Would you speak, or just—

  I'd just say hello to them all, and talk to them. You know, and tell them who I was, and I'd have someone with me. Who was it? Did I go with Franklin?8 Because he was usually with Jack. Then every night, we'd be at some big rally, where Franklin would talk. But then, you see, in the middle of that campaign, I started to have John. So then I was sort of—rather sent home a bit. I just was there about the first half.

  Had Franklin been an old friend, or did he become a particular friend in West Virginia?

  No, he'd been a friend of Jack in Congress. You know, they—they were always running around and busy and everything, but they'd always liked each other. And then—I guess we saw them a few times when we were married. Yeah, we used to see Franklin. So he always was a friend. Not constant. But you could always laugh with him and he—you know, he amused me and he and Jack amused each other. So that's—and I went off with Franklin in Wisconsin, I remember. We went all through one colored district together and all through supermarkets where no one looked up at us. That's when he became—in Wisconsin, he helped there too. But West Virginia is where we saw the most of him and from then on, he was a very good friend.

  West Virginia began to get a little bitter. I guess it was pretty bitter in Wisconsin with Hubert.

  Yeah. I guess it did because what were they saying? Oh, just as Jack said, a fight always gets bitter. The Humphrey people were saying the Kennedys were buying the election and the Kennedy people—Humphrey had not been—had any military service, and I forget what else it was.9 But, you know, Jack didn't say any of that. He was mostly trying to prove why he wasn't dangerous as a Catholic.

  Which he did—completely, of course. He won in West Virginia three to one, as I recall. Something like that. And then after that, did—

  Oh, do you want to know something interesting about the night that we won there? I guess that night was just too frightening. You know, we didn't want another night like the Hotel Pfister. So he came back to Washington and we went—we had dinner at home with the Bradlees and we went to a movie.

  What was the movie, do you remember?

  We had been going to some movie at the Trans-Lux, but it was half over, so we went to some strange movie on New York Avenue. Just the only movie that was sort of open that we could get in. It was some awful, sordid thing about some murder in California—really, I mean, just morbid.10 And then we came home to our house, terribly depressed by this movie, and waited for the phone to ring. And I was in the pantry getting some ice cubes and suddenly I heard this war whoop of joy! And they'd called Jack and it was, well, you know, just fantastic in West Virginia, so then we all got in a plane and flew down there, and got there in the middle of the night. But you know, he was so nervous about it, he just didn't want to be there. So we had this strange little evening of not wanting to be by the radio, the phone, anything.

  Is that the—that's the only election you ever did that, isn't it? Most of the other times you were always there.

  Yeah. The other times we were always there, yeah.

  This was really so much a make-or-break thing. And after this, did it seem to be clear sailing?

  Well, I guess it did to Jack. Because then it was to really go around and talk to people, wasn't it, and keep speaking. Well, what month would that have been?

  Well, that was May, and then in June there was President Truman's attack. Remember that?

  Oh, yeah.

  On experience. Did that upset him much or—

  Well, you know, it irri— I mean, it was just one more thing to, you know, swat down like a buzzing fly. But I remember when he answered that, because that was on his way out to the convention. So June and July, what did he do? Well, then there was the long session of the Senate.

  That was after the convention.

  Was that after the convention? Were June and July—I guess he was mostly in Washington, wasn't he? Wasn't the Senate still in session then?

  Yes, the convention was in July. It was earlier because the Democrats were out of office and then he came back and the special session began in August.

  Then whenever he'd come up to the Cape for a weekend—oh, or a day—you should have seen our little house. There'd be fifty Lithuanians arriving with folk dolls for Caroline or something at eleven in the morning, then they'd go. Then, I don't know, then Tom Mboya11 would come, and then Governor Stevenson, then Norman Mailer, then—just in and out of our house. And everyone on the street outside—I'd started to build a stockade at the convention, but I only had it half finished—that split fence. So, Lee and Stas12 were staying with us and everyone could see them getting in and out of the bathtub because they had a room on the street. It was rather close living that summer.

  About the convention, were you or the President ever alarmed by the way things were going at the convention? For example, all the Johnson efforts or the Stevenson picket line, or anything like that?

  You see, I was at home at the Cape with my mother and stepfather and Janet. I was the only person in the whole compound because I was having John.13 And I was panic-struck, reading the papers. Well, Jack would always call me up, usually terribly late at night, or say something would be all right, or not to worry, or this or that. I suppose he was worried about me worrying, having a baby. Oh, but I was panic-struck watching it. But I guess they weren't as worried out there, because Bobby told me that once he got to the convention, he knew they'd get—you know, he'd get the nomination.

  The President would call you every day—and Bobby, would he call you?

  No, no, Bobby told me that later. No, Bobby didn't call me.

  JACQUELINE BEING INTERVIEWED IN HYANNIS PORT, 1960

  Fay Foto Service/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

  So you missed, of course, the sort of business of the great Stevenson act—14

  Yeah, I just saw it on television.

  And Lyndon saying—you saw things like the debate between the President and Lyndon. You missed Lyndon's people going around saying—talking about Addi
son's disease and—15

  Oh, I remember that because when Lyndon Johnson came after the convention to our house at the Cape, we moved out of our bedroom—it was a very small house there—so that he and Lady Bird could have that room. We were sort of sleeping in a single bed in this tiny little guest room. And then we had to go over to Mr. Kennedy's, which was where all the press would meet the next day, and Lyndon plunked himself down in Mr. Kennedy's chair. I was just thinking, "Do you know what chair you're sitting in after the things you said about that man?"16 And anytime Lyndon would talk that night, Lady Bird would get out a little notebook—I've never seen a husband and a wife so—she was sort of like a trained hunting dog. He'd say something as innocent as—I don't know—"Does your sister live in London?"—and Lady Bird would write down Lee's name and "London." Just everything. I mean, she had every name, phone number—it was a—ewww—sort of a funny kind of way of operating.17