I find him cynical, world-weary, spoiled, seeing every question from many sides and settling on none. And allergic to actual work—politics was a part-time job.
It’s revealing that this is Jack’s favorite book; Melbourne’s public life was glamorous, and the public life was all that mattered. And the public life was basically show business: Personality matters more than policy.
Isn’t that the Kennedys? In public, Jack’s proud of Jackie; in private, I’ve seen him treat her as if he’s doing her a favor. It sounds awful, but I think their deepest connection is that they’re out for themselves, and if their marriage helps them get there, she’ll endure his infidelity and he’ll put up with her snobbery.
I’m trying to say: they’re not idealists.
At his core Jack is an Irish Catholic kid who wants to be British nobility, so he can misbehave at will.
Jackie also dreams of nobility, only French. Her model—I just remembered her favorite book—is Madame de Staël.37 Not for the writing and the politics but for the salons and the clothes.
APRIL 6
Tonight, we talked about steel prices.
Jack’s obsessed with them: “Rising steel prices drive up the price of everything else.” So he’s brokered a deal: an increase in fringe benefits worth ten cents an hour for the steelworkers, and the steel companies wouldn’t raise prices.
APRIL 10
Tonight, again, there was only one topic—Roger Blough had come to see Jack.38
He handed Jack a statement announcing that the company was raising steel prices by six dollars a ton, and other steel companies would do the same.
Jack was blazing mad. He told Blough: “You have made a terrible mistake. You have double-crossed me.”
When Blough left, Jack exploded: “My father told me all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed him until now.”
The White House released that comment.
Hours later, Jack was still steaming: “U.S. Steel kicked us right in the balls. What were we supposed to do—sit there and take a cold deliberate fucking?”
APRIL 11
Jack, at a news conference: “Some time ago I asked each American to consider what he would do for his country and I asked the steel companies. In the last twenty-four hours we had their answer…A tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private profit and power showed utter contempt for the interests of a hundred and eighty-five million Americans.”
This wasn’t Jack of the Bay of Pigs, of Vienna with Khrushchev. This was heavyweight champ Jack, throwing a hard right to the jaw.
APRIL 12
I was in the Oval Office when Jack ordered the Defense Department to shift contracts to steel companies that didn’t raise prices.
He called several congressmen to start antitrust investigations.
This dazzled me: He called Clark Clifford: “Do you know what you’re doing when you start bucking the power of the president of the United States?”39
He said he’d have IRS agents check expense accounts and hotel bills of steel executives.
Very ugly. I thought of Bobby going after Jimmy Hoffa.
APRIL 13
Blough rolls back prices. In just four days, Jack has forced one of the country’s largest industrial corporations to surrender. The White House does a victory dance.
I worry: Jack acted too much like a president—he humiliated CEOs who aren’t used to losing.40
He can’t do this often, or they’ll bite back.
APRIL 15
Jack, on the phone, 5 p.m.
- What’s the gossip?
- You’re going to be, if you’re not careful.
- Tell.
- Was that you in a convertible, driving on Wisconsin last night?
- No.
- The Secret Service was right behind you.
- Couldn’t have been me.
- At ten?
- Nope.
- Jack, I was driving the other way.
- Where were you going?
- Wouldn’t you like to know?
APRIL 16
The Oval Office, reading.
Jack was standing in the doorway, talking to someone. As he said good-bye, he dropped a pencil. The man bent to pick it up. Jack stopped him.
When he closed the door, he looked at me, completely vulnerable—I’ve never seen him like that.41
I picked the pencil up and put it inside my book, like I’d dropped it, like it was nothing.
APRIL 18
Oval Office, Jack at his desk.
Dave Powers and others were there.
An intern brought in some dispatches. Jack wasn’t wearing a watch—he asked what time it was. She told him.
When she left, Dave said: “That’s so great—a clock with tits.”
Everybody laughed. I kept my head down, but it didn’t seem that anyone looked over to see my reaction.
On one hand: good, my presence is a nonevent.
On the other: Dave can be crude, and they love him for that.
APRIL 19
Jack is easily bored, so tonight I played a part, like I was someone else: a tough bitch, giving orders.
- Open your eyes. Keep them open. Look at me. Now…pretend you care.
He laughed.
- Not yet. Wait for me.
He didn’t wait for me.
APRIL 20
Like a movie scene: Unannounced, a blonde walks into a Harvard professor’s office. Timothy Leary looked at my chest and wasn’t too busy to talk.
I didn’t use my last name. I said I’d come from DC and wanted to know how to run an LSD session.
- Why?
- I’ve taken it, and talked about it, and an important friend is interested and wants to try it. And I want to give him a good experience.
- I’ll meet him. And if he’s interested, I’ll run the session.
Wouldn’t that be something: Jack walking into Timothy Leary’s office!
- That’s not possible. He’s a…public figure.
- Powerful men don’t usually make good subjects.
- I heard Allen Ginsberg on the radio say that if Kennedy and Khrushchev took LSD, they’d end the arms race. That’s my idea: to get powerful men to take LSD and see that peace is possible.
- It would be better if Kennedy and Khrushchev took it with their wives.
I thought: Maybe not with their wives, but…
- And that would be good for the world?
- Not certain. Like all sacraments that work, they demand your all—you have to live up to the revelation.
- A revelation—that’s asking a lot. What if —as a first step—it generates health and happiness? Can’t that lead to good things?
- Mary, there are no “first steps.” This is powerful stuff. The people you turn on will either fall in love with you or never want to see you again.
- Maybe it’s not a session with an important man. Maybe I should start with my friends and me.
- Men run Washington, but only women have the power to change men.
I wanted to hug him for that.
Dinner with Leary. Magic mushrooms. Music. Laughter.
Nothing happens by mistake. This felt right. I could feel the seeds of change sprouting.
I didn’t leave empty-handed.42
APRIL 22
Tea with Anne, Anne C, Cicily.
I had a pitch: Men make war. Women want peace, make peace. We have the opportunity to be the women who make their men want to make peace. The way not to do it: badger them—they won’t listen. What works: seduction.
My friends laughed at the idea they could perform Mata Hari dances in negligees and dazzle their husbands into embracing programs for the poor, integration in schools, and the end of the military-defense industry.
Yes, I said, but what if they could see what we see, feel what we feel?
Anne reminded us of a story she’d put in a piece about men in Washington: A man walks a woman from a dance to her car, kisses her, and whispers
into her ear, “You’re absolutely marvelous.” The woman confesses her feelings are mutual. “Then call me,” he says.
I said: We know those men. We married them because they were ambitious and patriotic. After a while, they only cared about power—their dreams had focus. But what if they saw how the world could be, how magical and beautiful it is, if they would just open their eyes—or if they had their eyes opened?
A wave of scorn followed.
I was naive. A hopeless idealist. Lost in long-discredited World Federalist fantasies.
When they finished, I said three letters: LSD.
Like a chorus: You’ve taken it?
- In California.
- What was it like?
- Lights flashed. An orange was holy. I understood everything. I saw God. And the man I was with…
- Do you have some?
- Maybe…
Amusing that the enthusiasm was mostly personal—my friends didn’t want to see divinity in an orange, they wanted to reconnect with their husbands.43
APRIL 25
White House. After…
- What if I told you that marijuana made sex more fun?
- I’d say…come back in 1968.
- I admire your respect for the law.
- You…take this stuff?
- Yes.
- With lovers?
- And sometimes before I paint.
- It’s better than daiquiris?
- Better than anything.
- Do you do…different things when you’re on it?
- It’s not what you do. It’s how it makes you feel.
- Do you have any?
- No. Should I ask Dave Powers to get some?
- Christ, no!
APRIL 26
A name for a picture: Bright White Light.
APRIL 30
White House. After…Jack in a mood.
- Do you know Schumann described Chopin’s Mazurkas as “cannon hidden under the flowers?”
- No.
- Jackie does. Do you know that until the late eighteenth century every titled family in Europe had a harpsichord, and then pianos came on, and the harpsichords were used as kindling?
- No.
- Jackie does. Do you know three synonyms in French for “tremble?”
- No.
- Jackie does. Do you know…
- Jack. Stop.
- Being married to her…
The first time I ever raised my voice to him: Jack! Stop it!
- I need to say these things.
- Tell Dave. Tell…Flopsie or Mopsie. But not me.44
Sullen silence.
- The baby doll voice! The Bergdorf bills! The mood swings!
- Okay, all of that. But Jackie is my friend. I can’t hear this stuff.
MAY 1
Jack, on the phone, midafternoon.
- Did you see Last Year at Marienbad?
- Yes.
- You liked it?
- Yes. And you walked out after twenty minutes.
- Who told you?
- Tony. Have Jackie get Jules and Jim.
- Tell me it’s not French.
- It is. But you’ll like it.
- Why?
- Two men in love with one woman.
- That’s a horror movie.
- Philistine!
- You’ve seen it?
- It just opened. But I want to.
- “Two men and one woman”—of course you want to see it.
- It’s better than that.
- How do you know?
- I just happen to have the Times’ review in front of me. Apparently it’s about “the perversities of woman and the patience of man.”
- Now I’m interested.
- Will you put me on the guest list?
- Not a chance.45
MAY 5
I was asked to meet the arts director of a major foundation. He said, “I see your work alongside Noland and Olitski.”
I don’t tell him I’d been Ken’s lover.
The director went on about my work. He didn’t seem to be flirting.
Why was he so excited? My best guess: the White House prodded the foundation to recognize my work.
I told the director I’ve only had one show. How did he know about me?
Anne told him. Sneaky. She never said a word to me.
MAY 15
Reading van Gogh’s letters: “The greatest work of art is to love someone.”
MAY 20
Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to Jack wearing a dress that was like a second skin.
Rumor: She called Jackie, said that Jack wanted to marry her. Jackie said, “Great, you move into the White House and be First Lady, and I’ll move out, and you’ll have all the problems.” Delicious, but totally ridiculous.
Did Jack go directly back to the Carlyle after? Doubtful.
JUNE 1
The last dinner dance of the season, in honor of Ken Galbraith, who had been so helpful in arranging Jackie’s trip to India. A smaller dinner—just six round tables, eight at a table.
I was seated at Jackie’s table. Something I hadn’t seen before: Jackie was licking her lips a lot, drinking a lot of water. And lighting one cigarette after another.46
JUNE 6
Jackie’s in New York for a few days, then Virginia, the Cape, and Italy. Add up the days away, and it’s almost three months.
Jack’s officially a summer bachelor. The girls in the press office will clock a lot of overtime.47
JUNE 21
Solstice party at the Alsops.48
Joe’s toast: “When two or three are gathered in my name, it is called cocktails.”
I love going there because he has the entire history of the world in his head. I once asked him why he was always so tough on American women. He said, “American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.” The sentence just rolled out, one brilliant word after another. Joe winked. “Somerset Maugham,” he whispered, and the way he said it sounded as if Maugham hadn’t written the line but said it to Joe over cocktails on the Riviera.
JULY 17
Marijuana with Jack last night.49
The source: TC. Who will never know. Not very powerful stuff; we smoked two joints before Jack said he felt anything. He got hungry, so he called for soup and chocolate mousse.
How did we get to playing an absurd word game—oxymorons?
He began: slow motion.
[PASTED IN “SCORECARD,” IN PENCIL]
MARY
JACK
New artifacts
Recent past
Restored ruins
Current history
Permanent loans
Private exhibits
Silent scream
Jumbo shrimp
High priest
Resident alien
Stunning regularity
Personal business
Instant classic
Adult children
Criminal justice
Ugly blonde
Brutal murder
Kosher ham
Spare change
Business ethics
Good grief
Minor miracle
Perfect copy
Catholic President
Jack chortled at “Catholic President.” I had to admit: That couldn’t be topped.
We went to bed.
As I dressed, he smoked a cigar.
I’ve never seen him calmer or kinder.
He actually complimented me: The days go easier now, knowing you’re in my nights.
- Here too.
- I give you all the credit.
- I credit you for this: You’re not collecting evidence against me.
- No one thinks like you, Mary. No one.
At home, I realized I’d left my slip.
He called in the morning.
- That thing you left? In an envelope. In the safe.
- Send it
over?
- You come and get it.
When he’s pleased with himself, he doesn’t say good-bye. He just hangs up.
JULY 22
Last night at the White House.
- I have a confession.
Please God, I thought, don’t let him tell me he’s given me a disease.
- Sometimes when I’m in bed with someone else, I find I’m thinking about you.
- That’s ironic, don’t you think, Jack? When he’s cheating, the guy usually feels guilty about his wife.
- I never think about Jackie.
- Is this where I’m supposed to say I sometimes think about you when I’m with another man?
- Yes.
In fact, I didn’t. I changed the subject.
- I bet you’d like me to tell you a story.
- Very much.
- Does it have to be true?
- Every word.
So I told him about my Italian lover.50
AUGUST 6
Marilyn Monroe found dead. An overdose of sleeping pills? That’s the probable cause.
I saw Jack tonight. If he had anything going with Marilyn, he gave no sign.
But why would he? Marilyn was a gold medal, not a relationship.
AUGUST 10
On my way to the Cape…a weekend in Wilton, Connecticut, with TC and his rich friends.
There is a wooden bridge to a little island in the center of this pool. Someone said Olivia de Havilland was married on it. It’s so hot, I float in the shade under it.
Sudden memory: A summer afternoon, when Michael and I played Tortoise and Hare, swimming across a pool and back. He was the tortoise, I was the hare. I’d take a huge lead, but at the far side of the pool, I’d say: I think I need a drink, and I’d pretend to slug down a bottle of liquor. Then I’d pretend to fall asleep. And wake up to see Michael about to touch the other side of the pool. I’d sprint across and lose by a second.
JFK and Mary Meyer Page 5