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

by Caroline Kennedy

  Terribly agreeable, and he was so—you could see he was so delighted to be in the family apartments and I think he saw the children. He was so happy. And then I guess he'd given me some present, so I wrote him a thank-you letter in my own handwriting and said, trying to be polite, because Jack made you feel how important it was that you make the Africans—how awfully everybody had always treated the Africans—how Eisenhower had kept Haile Selassie55 waiting something like forty-five minutes, and this chip on their shoulder they had anyway. So, I wrote him in my own hand and to be nice I said, "Would you send me a picture of yourself because you were our first visitor"—foreign visitor. So about two weeks later, the Ghana Ambassador in all his robes came wading in and gave me the picture, but you know, in the beginning, I liked Nkrumah. The only person I met who you knew was a bandit before he came and turned out to be all you expected was Sukarno.56

  Sukarno was as bad as—

  Again, those were sort of working visits, whatever you call them—but Jack brought him up to the West sitting room just before lunch. I think he sort of had all these little ways of doing something a little bit extra for people. So one thing was to come up and either have a drink before lunch or tea, whatever it was, with me, up there. He saw that coming into the house would mean something to them. And so I'd gotten these State Department briefing papers on Sukarno and it said that Mao Tse-tung had published his art collection, which meant an enormous amount to him. He was so flattered. So that morning I called the State Department or someone and said, "Could I please get those volumes over?" because I thought it would impress Sukarno so, if he saw them on our table. Well, they got there about twenty minutes before he did, and I hardly had time to flip through them. So I said you know, "Mr.—whatever you call him, President or Prime Minister"—I forget, but I knew—"we have your art collection here," and we started to look at the volume together, it was enormous. Sukarno was in the middle—all three of us on the sofa, and Jack and I on each side. And he thumbed through the pages and it was just a collection of like Varga girls!57

  Oh, really?

  You know, every single—Petty girls!58 Every single one was naked to the waist with a hibiscus in her hair. [Schlesinger laughs] And, you know, you just couldn't believe it, and I caught Jack's eye and we were trying not to laugh at each other. I mean, you know, trying—it was so awful, but Sukarno was terribly happy and he'd say, "This is my second wife, and this was"—But he was sort of—I don't know, he had sort of a lecherous look. And he was—he left a bad taste in your mouth.

  Anyone else you didn't like among the—

  I didn't like Adzhubei and—I didn't like him.59 He came up to the Cape. Oh, all right, it was very good what Jack did with him and Pierre arranged that, and the interview and everything. But he came up there for that interview and he's a big, brash guy. Maybe he's very sensitive underneath, but he came in the room, and John came in the living room—at the Cape—came running out of the dining room or something, having escaped from Miss Shaw as usual, and Adzhubei said, "Ah, here is your son. In a few years he and my son will be shooting each other in a war," or something. Just—

  Very funny.

  You know, the most—with a big laugh. I mean, he had that same heavy-handed humor Khrushchev had, but I thought much worse. Yet I liked enormously his wife. I didn't really like Madame Khrushchev too much, and I hated the daughter that Khrushchev had in Vienna.60 She looked like some Wehrmacht blonde who ran a concentration camp! But Adzhubei's wife61 was the only Russian woman—see, Mrs. Khrushchev and Mrs. Dobrynin—Dobrynin asked Jack specially if I'd have his wife to lunch alone, and I did—but both of them have this really gamesmanship thing.62 If you'd smoke, they'd say, "You shouldn't smoke so much. Russian women don't smoke." Or "Did you go to engineering school?" You know, always trying to make themselves seem better. I suppose it was a chip on their shoulder. But I'm trying to be polite and it didn't make it very comfortable. And Adzhubei's wife, Khrushchev's daughter, was the only one who was sort of funny who'd say, "Oh, don't you get tired of your children at the end of the day?" or "If only I could get a decent cook." You know, she'd make little jokes which—she was very shy, but she seemed sensitive. And I always wondered how she ended up with such a brash man. But maybe he's nicer underneath. Because if you notice in Bill Walton's report that he wrote about Russia when he went there after Jack was dead, Adzhubei was really impressed that a doll Khrushchev had given Caroline was in her bedroom.63 It was one of those things she loved to take apart on a little table by her bed, also with the Virgin Mary and things. You know, so obviously they're sensitive as they can be underneath.

  Madame Khrushchev—

  Well, de Gaulle said to me in Paris—we were there before Vienna—"Méfiez vous, c'est elle la plus maline"—"Watch out, it's she who is the craftiest of the two." I loved her when she was in America with the Eisenhower visit. Then I just knew her through the newspapers. I thought she had such a nice face.

  She seemed like Bess Truman—sort of a nice, comfortable—

  Yeah. She was a bit maline, I thought. I mean, I got sick of all that, those little digs all the time, though she was very shy at the palace in Vienna where we had lunch. There was this protocol thing. For some reason, I outranked her because Jack was President and Khrushchev was just chairman of the whatever it is—so she wouldn't leave the room before I did. And I didn't like to go before an older woman, and you know, she was just so hanging back, and nobody could seem to help so finally, I said—in desperation I took her by the hand and said, "Well, I'm very shy so you have to come with me." And Tish64 and some interpreter told me that she darted over to a Russian in her party on the wall and said, "Did you hear what she said to me?" You know, and she was sort of beaming. So obviously, they're all shy underneath—I mean, have their little chips. But Khrushchev with his heavy humor was—I mean, he'd say nice—he was—

  NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV AND JACQUELINE KENNEDY IN VIENNA

  John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

  Does he have any charm, Khrushchev?

  Yeah, it's just one gag after another. It's like sitting next to Abbott and Costello, or something, to get through that dinner.65 But—this is at—

  Sort of a professional jolliness?

  Yes, but it's better than, I don't know, sitting next to Kekkonen of Finland and asking him how long he walks every morning before breakfast. But then, you know, they had this ballet and all these swooping ballerinas in Schönbrunn would come swooping towards Jack and Khrushchev and me and Madame Khrushchev, and I said, "They're all dancing. They're all paying most attention to you, Mr. Chairman President. They're all throwing their flowers"—and he said, "No, no, it is your husband they are paying attention to. You must never let him go on a state visit alone, he is such a wonderful-looking young man." I mean, he'd say something sort of nice every now and then. And then like a fool—I told Jack this later—he couldn't believe it! I was running out of things to talk to that man about. And all—and Jack always said, "You mustn't talk to these great men"—I mean, Mrs. Kennedy66 would read up about Russia or the wheat crop, or something. "That's the last thing they want to hear about. Talk to them about something different." Well, I'd just read The Sabres of Paradise by Lesley Blanch, which is all about the Ukraine in the nineteenth century, and the wars and things, and the dance. It sounded to me so rather romantic, the Ukraine, so I was telling him how I loved all that and the dance, the lezginka and the Kabarda stallion, and he said something about, "Oh yes, the Ukraine has—now we have more teachers there per something, or more wheat." And I said, "Oh, Mr. Chairman President, don't bore me with that, I think the romantic side is so much"—and then he'd laugh. 67 And then all I can remember—you know, at last he could let down, too. So, God knows what we were probably talking about—the czar, I don't know. Oh, and then I knew that one of those dogs that had puppies—one of those space dogs—I knew all the names of those dogs—Strelka and Belka and Laika. So I said, "I see where—I see one of your space dogs has just had pu
ppies. Why don't you send me one?" And he just sort of laughed. And by God, we were back in Washington about two months later, and two absolutely sweating, ashen-faced Russians come staggering into the Oval Room with the ambassador carrying this poor terrified puppy who'd obviously never been out of a laboratory, with needles in every vein. And Jack said to me—I had forgotten to tell him that—he said, "How did this dog get here?" And I said, "Well, I'm afraid I asked Khrushchev for it in Vienna. I was just running out of things to say." And he said, "You played right into his hands, reminding him of the space effort."68 But he laughed.

  How did he like Khrushchev?

  Oh, well, that time in Vienna there was no—remember what he said at the end of that—their conversation. He showed me all the transcript— "It's going to be a cold winter." And he said that in really scared—then I think you'd seen just naked, brutal, ruthless power and—you know, then Khrushchev thought that—saw that perhaps he could—thought he could do what he wanted with Jack. Khrushchev could be jolly, but underneath there's a—

  He was very tough there. The President came back very concerned, I remember.

  Oh, he really was. I think he was quite dep— really depressed after that visit.

  Had he gone there with any particular expectations about Khrushchev or this was really sort of a testing out, wasn't it?

  I think he'd gone there expecting to be depressed, but I think it was so much worse than he thought. I mean, he hadn't gone there with any lovely illusions they could all work together. But then I used to tell him, for some strange reason, I liked Gromyko's face.69 But this was before the second Cuba. Because one day—it was the funniest thing—I came out for a walk and there were he and Gromyko sitting in the Rose Garden. Before we'd done it over, there was a tiny, little bench that—you know, two lovers could barely squish on to it. And he and Gromyko were sitting there on that little love seat, talking. And Jack told me later he wanted to get him out of the office and talk alone, and I walked by, so Jack called me over. And I said to them, "The two of you look so absurd just sitting in each other's laps like that." And then Gromyko smiled. People say he looked like Nixon, but he had a nice smile when he smiled.

  Oh, really? He always looked awfully wooden to me.

  Well, if he did smile, or something, I don't know. But then, you know, all the things he said to Jack before the second Cuba. That was really clever of Jack, the way he did that. And then the other time they met in the Oval Room and Jack said to him, "We don't trade an apple for an orchard in this country."70 See, I can't remember what year, why they were seeing each other then, but I know—I think Gromyko must have come three times.

  The third one was in '63.

  Maybe four.

  But the—on the whole, were state visits fun or were they a nuisance?

  Well, they were—

  Or would it vary, I suppose.

  They weren't a nuisance. I'd say they were really quite a strain. You know, the week that there was one, you'd really be tired. And you'd have to think—later on they got much better—but in the early days, you'd have to do so many things, I mean, just like you would for a dinner in your house now if you didn't have any help. You had to see about the table and the flowers—I mean, sometimes Bunny Mellon and I would be there before—just before it was time to get dressed for dinner, doing the flowers.71 You know, before you got in the people who could do them. And the food, and then we had to work out a way that it wouldn't come always cold from the kitchen. You know, there's no pantry in the White House, the kitchen is below, and there used to be these endless waits. And then the entertainment you'd have to work on and get a stage but—it was a lot of strain anticipating them and—I'd say the only one that really was hard going was the Japanese—Ikeda, who was, you know, a very nice man but neither he nor hardly anyone in his party spoke a word of English. So, that was a bit heavy going for lots of meetings. But I liked them—I liked Abboud of the Sudan, I did like Karamanlis, Madame Karamanlis especially. So many. Each one was—and what it meant to them. That was what was so touching.

  Macmillan came in April, remember?72 You'd known him before, had you, or the President had?

  The—yes—Jack had met him, what, right after in Key West and then in—he met him in London after Vienna. It was just before Vienna that he came?

  He came in April, before Vienna.

  Well, I forget if that was the time.

  He must have known him before through the Devonshires though.

  I don't know.

  Maybe not.

  But I know they'd corresponded ever since Jack was first in the White House. But, yes, then we had lunch, just Sissy and David73 and Macmillan and Jack and I, which was so nice, and they—but it was such a happy atmosphere and they would stay in and talk. That was a very rare and touching relationship between those two men. They really loved each other. And, oh, well, if you could see their letters, and—I'll show them to you someday because I can't do them all on the tape. But the one he wrote Jack by hand the summer after Patrick, when he just was through the Profumo thing.74 And how Jack went out of his way to send him some telegram when he resigned and tell David that it could be in all the papers—of all that he'd done for the West. He loved Macmillan. You know, Macmillan had a way of looking like sort of a joke. Just his face had that sort of suppressed mirth and his funny clothes and things, but, oh no, he was a—

  He was a sharp old customer—

  Yeah.

  And I think—I had the impression the President was particularly impressed by his strong feeling about nuclear—about getting the nuclear thing under control.

  Yeah, I know, I know.

  I know he used to write eloquent letters about the horror of nuclear war.

  Yes, and what did Jack say? That was one of the things he said—what Macmillan had done for the—Jack said, he really cared about the Western Alliance.

  What did—did the President like Gaitskell?

  Yes, he did. Didn't he?

  Yes, he did. Do you remember his reaction to Harold Wilson?75

  Oh, he couldn't stand him.

  There was a special relationship. But why—the President and Macmillan, what would they talk about besides politics, because obviously they had a great fund of other things? Macmillan is a publisher and loved history.

  Well, they would be so irreverent and funny. Jack would tell me some of the things they said with the men at dinner—you know, after lunch, that I don't think I should say on a tape, even. What is it? One thing was, oh, people say that the younger generation have lost all hope living with this nuclear something. Look at them, they're perfectly fine, they're twisting and—but, I don't know, just funny things. They'd amuse each other so. So then, we may—the one time I was ever together with them was that time at lunch in the White House. And when they came out, somebody said something about Nehru, and I said how Nehru put his—had given Lee a miniature of two Indians on a couch together and given me one of just a lady sniffing a rose and how he'd had his hand on Lee's thigh at the airport, or—something rather irreverent.76 He just looked shocked, but you know, it was so funny. That isn't—that doesn't describe what I mean. Jack had this high sense of mischief and so did Macmillan, so I've never seen two people enjoy each other so. Obviously all of the important things they were talking about alone, but when it ended up with Sissy and David and us and him—you know, or going down to Adele Astaire Douglass's—who'd been married to a Cavendish. Talk about a lot of family things, I guess, but always this wonderful humor underneath it all.

  The President's year—when he went to London in '38–'39—he wasn't there very much, but it obviously struck a responsive chord, didn't it?

  I always thought it was really British history that he patterned himself on more than ours. I mean, that he read, he was always—well, I told you all the speeches—Burke's "To the Electors of Bristol" and Warren Hastings and you know, Charles James Fox.77 He really gave himself a classical education through his own reading. I don't think you ge
t that in this country anymore. Mostly through being sick and having read the classics and then the English people—and then that made him pick out what he thought was best in American thought and oratory. So he had such an admiration for all—the last time we were in London together, I guess was '58, maybe—and had a dinner of all his old friends. Well, when you look at them all, it was rather discouraging. David Gore was the only one who ever amounted to anything and he was—Jack always used to say he was one of the brightest men he'd ever met in his life—he and Bundy, he used to say. But you know, the others were, well, kind of defeatist or turned into nothing or—he wasn't like Joe Alsop, who dearly loves the lord and just gets so excited at the mention of anyone English. Seeing them now really depressed Jack. Of all those young men who'd been his friends in '38 and '39—Hugh Fraser, Tony Rosslyn—78

  Well, he was in the government, but it's a disappointed life.

  Yeah.

  Did he ever know Churchill?

  William Home, that was a great friend of his.79

  Alec's brother.

  Yes. He'd liked Kick and he'd written—you know, he'd gone to prison because he wouldn't fire on civilians in a town and that's where he wrote Now Barabbas. Then he wrote The Chiltern Hundreds about Kathleen. Kathleen—she was the model for the American girl. She used to go see him in prison. And well, William was wicked and outrageous and fun. Jack always enjoyed him. But his plays got worse and worse and worse.