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Grace and Power Page 28

by Sally Bedell Smith


  From the moment Parisians caught their first glimpse of the American president and his wife, they were enchanted by the Kennedys’ beauty, youth, and glamour. The chants of “Zhack-ee” and “Kenne-dee” and the massive turnout—estimated at half a million—far surpassed the enthusiasm of the Canada trip. In his public appearances Kennedy was witty (“I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris”) and refreshingly informal, bolting from his police escort to plunge into crowds of well-wishers. The French press judged him “serene,” “relaxed,” and “intelligent.” Jackie was equally impressive, fielding questions from reporters in English and “very commendable” French for forty minutes.

  Only Jackie, his physicians, and closest aides were aware of Jack’s constant pain. At every opportunity, he slipped into a gold bathtub to soak in hot water for relief as he chatted with Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers. Kennedy had arranged for Max Jacobson and his wife to fly on an Air France charter—a strange journey, since they were the only passengers on the plane. Even as Kennedy was being treated by Drs. Travell and Burkley, Jacobson would sneak into the President’s quarters to administer his injections to Jack and Jackie. When Ted Sorensen asked, “Why is he here?” he was told “it was for Jackie, for nerves, tension.” Tish Baldrige regarded Jacobson as a “slimy person,” but she felt the shots “didn’t have an impact” on the Kennedys. “I couldn’t notice any difference in their behavior.”

  Through two days of talks with de Gaulle, Kennedy established bonhomie but failed to dislodge the Frenchman from his insistence on what Time called his “do-it-yourself nuclear arms development.” Even when Kennedy promised that the United States would defend its European allies with nuclear weapons, de Gaulle refused to believe that if the Soviets invaded Western Europe, Kennedy would risk a Soviet nuclear counterattack on American cities. JFK was struck, he later told Cy Sulzberger, that de Gaulle’s “anti-American feeling and suspicions go way back and are very deep rooted.”

  Kennedy rebuffed de Gaulle’s requests for support of France’s nuclear program and his attempt to make his country an equal partner with the United States and Britain—a tripartite “directorate”—to oversee strategic planning for Europe. When de Gaulle declined to give Kennedy any help with Laos—a “fictitious” country, in the Frenchman’s view—Kennedy expressed his “fear of communist contamination of the entire Southeast Asia region.” De Gaulle did offer Kennedy some insights into Khrushchev, calling him “méchanceté,” which means “wickedly malicious.” “I can’t really translate this for you,” de Gaulle said. “You had better ask your wife to elaborate.”

  Despite the lack of progress on substance, de Gaulle was impressed with Kennedy’s “intelligence, lucidity and grasp of international affairs.” The Frenchman considered Kennedy his most agreeable presidential interlocutor. “Roosevelt and [de Gaulle] had hated each other, he despised Truman, and with Eisenhower . . . problems were never studied in detail,” noted Hervé Alphand. As de Gaulle and Kennedy wrapped up their talks, the French leader said, “I have more confidence in your country now.”

  The old general was transfixed by Jackie, who conversed with him in her “low slow French” over lunch in the Elysée palace on the first day. De Gaulle scarcely touched his food as they discussed “Louis XVI, the Duc d’Angoulême and the dynastic complexities of later Bourbons,” inspiring de Gaulle to tell JFK that Jackie “knew more French history than most French women,” according to Schlesinger. Jackie further endeared herself by giving de Gaulle a letter from George Washington to Vicomte de Noailles that Jayne Wrightsman had purchased for $90,000 (half a million dollars today). “There is tremendous value in Mrs. Kennedy’s fluent French and charming youthfulness,” veteran diplomat Charles Bohlen observed. “De Gaulle was visibly in a very good mood.”

  As Jackie toured the city’s historic and cultural sights, her cicerone was André Malraux, the celebrated writer who was the French minister of culture. Only days earlier, Malraux’s sons had died in an automobile accident, and Jackie was touched that the Frenchman rose above his sorrow to carry out his duty. Jackie had been intrigued by Malraux, a French resistance fighter, since she first heard about him from her close friend from Vassar days, Jessie Wood. Jessie’s mother was Louise de Vilmorin, an elegant but eccentric Parisian hostess and poet whose lovers included Orson Welles and Aly Khan. One member of de Vilmorin’s salon was Malraux, who first encouraged her to become a writer.

  Jackie was well versed in Malraux’s work, having read his novels Man’s Fate and Man’s Hope. She and Malraux clicked immediately, not only with their shared literary and cultural interests but because they amused each other. “What did you do before you married Jack Kennedy?” he asked Jackie. “J’ai été pucelle (I was a little virgin),” she replied. Tish Baldrige thought Jackie had an “intellectual crush” on Malraux, who became her “greatest mentor. She listened to him and wrote to him. Malraux was her prize. He advised her on various things.”

  After escorting Jackie through the Jeu de Paume’s impressionist painting collection (her favorite was Manet’s provocative reclining nude, Olympia), Malraux took her to Malmaison, the home of Empress Josephine. When Malmaison’s conservator told Jackie that Josephine had been “extremely jealous” of Napoleon, the First Lady laughed and replied in French, “She was quite right, and I don’t blame her.” Jackie was particularly interested in Malmaison because Stéphane Boudin had done some restoration work there. To Jackie, the house was the epitome of the French Empire style that influenced the design scheme for the Red and Blue Rooms in the White House. Napoleon and Josephine had employed the artisan Bellangé to make carved and gilded furniture similar to the suite he created for President James Monroe.

  De Gaulle lavishly entertained the Kennedys—and members of their inner circle as well. The entourage included Lee Radziwill, Lem Billings, Eunice Shriver, Tony Bradlee (with press credentials secured by Ben, who was covering the trip), Rose Kennedy, and what Time called a “bevy of lesser ladies in waiting.” Jack had initially resisted including his mother, but according to Billings, “There wasn’t anything he could do about it because Mrs. Kennedy was determined to be in on everything.”

  Pam Turnure and Tish Baldrige, toting two thick black notebooks, kept Jackie on her schedule and smoothed logistics, counting their bruises after encounters with the surging press corps. Jackie escaped just once from the liveried footmen and Second Empire opulence of her “Queen’s Chamber” in the Quai d’Orsay state apartments. For forty-five minutes a lone Secret Service escort drove her around at dusk on the second evening to see the Paris she had known as a college girl.

  The highlight of the visit was the final dinner in the candlelit Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, where 150 guests ate a six-course dinner on Napoleon’s gold-trimmed china. Jackie regaled de Gaulle and periodically interpreted for her husband. Afterwards, they watched the Paris Opera Ballet perform in the newly restored Louis XV theater. Surrounded by the trappings of eighteenth-century French style and culture that she adored, Jackie proclaimed, “I thought I was in heaven. I have never seen anything like it.”

  In honor of her hosts, Jackie wore a dazzling gown by Givenchy of white silk embroidered with multicolored flowers and a bell-shaped skirt. Parisian stylist Alexandre arranged her hair with “four diamond flame clips” to give her “a fairy-like air.” She earned raves (Charmante! Ravissante!) from the French press for her carefully chosen outfits and stylistic flashes such as a topknot evoking a “Gothic Madonna” from the fourteenth century. As David Bruce observed, Jackie proved herself “more valuable to United States prestige than ten divisions.”

  The mood of their two days in Vienna was as grim as the cold hard rain that greeted them on Saturday morning, June 3. Jack and Jackie brought Rose, Lem, and Eunice along; JFK counted on Eunice’s humor, Lem said, “to make the atmosphere at this meeting more pleasant.” Dave Powers was also available to jolly the President during their “tub talk.”

  The Kennedys
had barely a half hour to settle into the American ambassador’s residence before JFK’s first meeting with Khrushchev. Almost immediately, Max Jacobson was directed to Kennedy’s room. “The meeting may last for a long time,” JFK told him. “See to it that my back won’t give me any trouble when I have to get up or move around.” Jacobson administered his injection, and a tanned and youthful Kennedy was next seen bounding out of the front door “like a broncobuster sprung from his chute” and dashing down the steps “to meet his bald, fat guest,” wrote Time. Whatever it took, Kennedy was determined to present a vibrant image. “I was damned if I was going to use my crutches with Khrushchev,” JFK told Douglas Dillon’s daughter Joan several weeks later.

  After nearly five hours with the Soviet leader, Kennedy was in a state of shock. He was particularly unnerved, he later told Schlesinger, by Khrushchev’s “combination of external jocosity and internal rage.” Khrushchev had no intention of discussing a test ban, and he spent most of the time haranguing Kennedy and luring him into debates about Marxism—the very snare JFK’s advisers had urged him to avoid. In his preparation, Kennedy had focused on the Soviet leader’s character and personality, but had not steeped himself in communist philosophy.

  In a “quiet and understated” fashion, Kennedy gamely tried to press important points—his concern about the possibility of war by miscalculation, the need to find common ground while respecting each other’s vital interests. But the Soviet leader continued his verbal pummeling, managing even to trap Kennedy into admitting that the Bay of Pigs “was a mistake.” Khrushchev was “intent upon . . . gaining the psychological upper hand,” said Richard Davies of the State Department. “He got the psychological upper hand.”

  That evening during a banquet at Schoenbrunn Palace, Khrushchev ogled Jackie “like a smitten schoolboy,” and she responded coquettishly. She wore a figure-hugging “mermaid dress,” in “shimmering pink-silver” designed by Cassini, who called it “subtly seductive.” She tried to discuss the folkways of nineteenth-century Ukraine, but when Khrushchev began a pedantic comparison of contemporary education to life under the czars, she exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Chairman, don’t bore me with statistics.” Khrushchev guffawed and launched into his favorite jokes. Jackie worked diligently to please, and at one point, according to a newspaper account, “she threw back her head and laughed hard.”

  Jackie later told Arthur Schlesinger that Khrushchev reminded her of the slapstick comedians Abbott and Costello, and that at times he seemed “almost cozy.” In his own recollections, Khrushchev downplayed any mesmerizing effect on the part of the First Lady. “She didn’t impress me as having that special brilliant beauty which can haunt men,” he wrote. “But she was youthful, energetic and pleasant.” He also perceptively noted that Jackie was “quick with her tongue. . . . She had no trouble finding the right word to cut you short if you weren’t careful with her.” Chillingly, he concluded, “I couldn’t care less what sort of wife he had. If he liked her, that was his business—and good luck to them both.”

  Khrushchev’s chummy interlude with Jackie clearly had no impact on his bullying manner with Kennedy. During their meeting the next day, Khrushchev hardened his attack. The crux of his message was the status of Berlin, which Khrushchev called a “bone in my throat.” After their victory in World War II, the Allied powers had formally agreed to share the supervision of Germany, with the United States, Britain, and France overseeing the western sector, and the Soviet Union the eastern. The four nations similarly divided the capital city of Berlin, which lay 110 miles inside East Germany. It was understood that the Western powers would have unimpeded access through the Soviet zone to West Berlin, which functioned as a state of West Germany.

  There had also been a commitment among the victors to the reunification of Germany with democratic elections. Instead, the Soviets sought to consolidate their hold in East Germany, and in 1948 Moscow abruptly cut Allied land routes to Berlin. The Allies responded with the Berlin airlift, which ferried supplies to the isolated city for eleven months until the Soviets yielded. Since 1958, Khrushchev had been threatening to sign a formal treaty with the hard-line communist government of East Germany that would automatically end all Western occupation and access to Berlin.

  Now Khrushchev announced his intention to complete the treaty before the end of the year to officially recognize the existence of two German entities and shore up his country’s relationship with East Germany. Kennedy said such unilateral abrogation of the surrender terms after World War II was unacceptable, and the Soviets would be violating the principles of unification and self-determination for Germany. Khrushchev countered that if the West responded with force, he would take military countermeasures. “If the United States wants war, that’s its problem,” said Khrushchev. Replied Kennedy, “Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be war. It will be a cold winter.”

  None of the news accounts fully conveyed the gravity of Kennedy’s exchanges with Khrushchev. James Reston’s New York Times dispatch came closest by emphasizing the “split on Berlin and key arms issues” and the “hard controversy” that ended the meeting. Reston described Kennedy’s “solemn, although confident mood,” and wrote, “there were no ultimatums and few bitter or menacing exchanges.” In fact, Reston knew better, having heard a far more candid version of events from Kennedy only minutes after the meetings broke up. The “worst thing in my life,” Kennedy told the newsman. “He savaged me.” Kennedy also conceded that the Soviet leader “did it because of the Bay of Pigs. I think he thought anyone who was so young and inexperienced as to get into that mess could be taken. And anyone who got into it and didn’t see it through had no guts.” But Reston, like Joe Alsop when faced the next day with similar revelations—that Khrushchev had “asked him for surrender and threatened war”—chose to protect Kennedy from his alarming disclosures.

  Khrushchev actually had a more favorable impression of Kennedy than he let on—although he shaded his views for different audiences. To his aide Fyodor Burlatasky, he declared Kennedy “too intelligent and too weak.” U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson heard that the Soviet premier had found JFK “a modern man not cluttered up by old formulas. Kennedy had done his homework well and never once had to turn to an adviser for information.” Khrushchev told Cy Sulzberger he considered Kennedy “a worthy partner” who “formulates his own ideas” and “has a much broader outlook” than Eisenhower.

  The last stop for the Kennedys was an overnight visit in London cloaked as a social call for the christening of Stas and Lee’s daughter, Anna Christina, at Westminster Cathedral. Jack and Jackie stayed at the Radziwills’ Georgian home on Buckingham Place in the less than fashionable Victoria neighborhood of central London. Kennedy still had Max Jacobson in tow. The doctor entered the Radziwill home through the garden, and made his way through the Victorian sculptures in the foyer to treat the President and First Lady in a second-floor bedroom. On his way out, Jacobson encountered Stas—“a handsome man dressed in tails”—who would join his roster of patients.

  For Kennedy the visit was primarily an opportunity to talk intimately and frankly to Macmillan. On his arrival, Kennedy appeared “ebullient” and “fit” to David Bruce, but Macmillan saw a different man. Kennedy was “stunned” and “baffled” by the “offensive and even brutal” line taken by Khrushchev. JFK said he regretted being drawn into an ideological debate, and he conceded that “no progress was made on any issue.” Macmillan later told the queen that Kennedy had been “completely overwhelmed” by Khrushchev. The prime minister felt that Kennedy had overreacted to Khrushchev’s tactics “like a bull being teased by the darts of the picadors.” Kennedy had built a political career on his engaging persuasiveness, but “for the first time in his life,” Macmillan noted, the President had “met a man wholly impervious to his charm.”

  In honor of Jack and Jackie, the prime minister and his wife, Lady Dorothy, organized “a very gay luncheon” with “lots of nice men and pretty women.” Macmillan was “encouraged by th
e President’s buoyancy” and tried to distract him with humor. Nit-picking a newspaper article about Jackie, Kennedy said, “How would you react if somebody should say, ‘Lady Dorothy is a drunk’?” Said Macmillan: “I would reply, ‘You should have seen her mother.’” The prime minister warmed to Kennedy’s openness, noting afterwards, “Our friendship seemed confirmed and strengthened.” Kennedy later told Henry Brandon, “I feel at home with Macmillan because I can share my loneliness with him. The others are all foreigners to me.”

  JFK flew back to Washington after a dinner given by the queen at Buckingham Palace on Monday, June 5, while Jackie remained behind in London for a holiday with Lee. Still wearing his tuxedo, he boarded Air Force One close to midnight, accompanied by Bundy, Rusk, O’Donnell, Powers, and other aides as well as Eunice. Kennedy stripped down to his shorts, but he was unable to sleep, so he summoned Hugh Sidey for a talk. Sidey noticed that the President looked haggard as he hugged his bare legs and “shifted stiffly in his seat to ease the back pain.” “He remembered little things,” Sidey recalled, “like what [Khrushchev’s] hands looked like.” Trying to be upbeat, Kennedy insisted the trip was “invaluable,” the future “grim but not hopeless.”

  Sizing up both Khrushchev and de Gaulle face-to-face “helps me make up my mind when the moment for decision comes,” Kennedy told Cy Sulzberger. “You have to know the men themselves in order to be able to evaluate their words.” Vienna, more than the Bay of Pigs failure, was the real turning point for Kennedy—the first time, Joe Alsop observed, that JFK faced “the appalling moral burden” of the presidency.

  SEVENTEEN

  Having shed her official duties, Jackie spent the day after her husband’s departure shopping and socializing with Lee. When they emerged from a private tour of the Grosvenor House antique show, the sisters were “surrounded by enthusiastic bobby-sockers,” reported David Bruce. That night they attended a small dinner party at the home of Jakie and Chiquita Astor, longtime friends of Jack’s. Society photographer Cecil Beaton recorded in his journal that Jackie was “outspoken and impolitic, telling of the rough talk between Jack and Mr. Khrushchev.” Beaton, who was known for his disparaging remarks about the appearance of famous women (Audrey Hepburn: “a huge mouth, flat Mongolian features . . . a long neck, but perhaps too scraggy”), had an axe to grind with Jackie. The previous fall she had postponed and then canceled his photo shoot for Vogue, choosing instead Richard Avedon for the pages of Diana Vreeland’s Harper’s Bazaar.

 

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