JFK and Mary Meyer

by Jesse Kornbluth

  To this point, we marked the same stuff. Only I marked the rest:

  “The federal government is the only purposeful force—I assume wars are not purposeful—that can reduce the numbers of the poor and make their lives more bearable.”

  “To do something about this hard core, a second line of government policy would be required; namely, direct intervention to help the poor.”

  “The problem is obvious: the persistence of mass poverty in a prosperous country.”

  “The solution is also obvious: to provide, out of taxes, the kind of subsidies that have always been given to the public schools (not to mention the police and fire departments and the post office)—subsidies that would raise incomes above the poverty level.”

  When we talked, I was agitated. Waving the magazine, very much on a mission.

  - What are you going to do about this?

  - I signed a law that provides five million dollars this fiscal year for daycare.

  - For how many children?

  - About four million.

  - $1.25 for each kid! That’s nothing!

  - The best I could do!

  - What’s the federal budget?

  - $740 billion.

  - No room to do better?

  He counted off his priorities on his fingers: slums, hunger, inadequate medical care.

  - You have to do better for working mothers and their kids.

  - I did better already.

  - When?

  - My first Executive Order. The day after the inauguration I increased surplus food for poor Americans.

  - Good! Do it again! Do more!

  - With what money?

  - Taxes!

  - They’re plenty high now.

  - Tax a little more.

  - What’s your tax rate, Mary?

  I didn’t know.

  - You don’t know because you don’t have to know—whatever it is, you can pay it.

  - What if you reduced spending on defense and promoted peace?

  - A great president is a wartime president.

  - You believe that?

  - Look at the record.

  - You’d start a war?

  - You don’t have to start a war. They have a nasty way of coming to you.

  - Like Vietnam?

  - Vietnam will go away.

  - If you make it go away.

  - Not the year before an election.64

  - You can step back. You can say no.

  - And you can leave.

  - It’s like that?

  - Feel free.

  And he pointed to the door.

  I left.

  JANUARY 28

  Revolving doors: Jackie to Glen Ora.65

  Last week’s ugly moment didn’t carry over: Jack invited me over. And started the evening with a surprise.

  - If I could love anyone, Mary, it would be you.

  - Define “love,” Jack.

  - The full thing.

  - Body, heart, mind?

  - All that.

  - And if you had all that…

  - I’d be very happy.

  - Would you be faithful?

  - No.

  He laughed.

  - What’s funny?

  - It’s so nice when you can actually tell the truth.

  Jack’s “truth”—he’s a nineteenth-century Whig. He believes men are superior to women in every way, starting with intellect and ambition. Women are decorative, objects of desire. Smart women know their place—their place is in the home, at parties, in bed. Mostly, in bed: as vessels, as toys, not as partners.

  FEBRUARY 12

  Anne’s opening in NYC.

  Ten wood sculptures, painted with acrylic in dark colors. Like them all, but absolutely love the black monolith with two vertical red stripes. And the square with four quadrants, two colors. I thought: What if that was a circle?

  Newsweek: “Truitt’s work has the precision and presence of contemporary architecture.”

  So happy for Anne.

  FEBRUARY 14

  No word from TC, but a surprise invitation from RB, whose initials make me think: Replacement Boyfriend.

  No flowers, no candy, no Valentines—just dinner at the Chicken Shack. Lots of grease, a pile of paper napkins, and cheap drinks. Impossible not to have fun there. When the jukebox played “Two Lovers,” we both laughed.

  FEBRUARY 20

  Invitation from Jack and Jackie to a dinner dance on March 8.

  MARCH 6

  Jackie’s crossed my name off the guest list. Jack called to explain: It’s not personal. The dinner is in honor of Eugene Black. He wanted to invite many friends from the World Bank. He didn’t understand that he was only the excuse for the dinner. The Bradlees, Bill Walton, Blair Clark,66 and a few others were also uninvited, but we’re to come at 10 p.m. for the dancing.

  MARCH 9

  WH dinner dance.67

  Disaster. When Blair and I arrived, the guests were well lubricated. The lights had just been turned off, and only candles lit the Blue Room. Lester Lanin was playing for dancers who were moving a lot more energetically than the music called for. We went upstairs without being noticed, and we pleased each other, then Jack said this had to be the last time. This made no sense, and then it did: Jackie. I did a stupid thing and asked if I would still be his beacon light. He nodded, kissed me on the cheek, and left me there.

  I stumbled—really—downstairs, feeling like I was about to throw up. I went outside. I had no idea it had snowed until I started shivering.

  I went back in and looked for Blair. Couldn’t find him, so I went and stood against a wall. Without my saying anything, Bobby understood that I was upset, and he called for a White House limousine to take me home.

  I never believed that Jack really loved me or that I really loved him—now I see I was wrong about me.

  MARCH 12

  Gloom. I turned on the radio in my studio, and there was a song that made me feel I was on a beach in Brazil.68 I danced. Mood improved. For a few minutes.

  MARCH 13

  It’s so banal: I want to be seen. To be known. To be loved for who I am.

  MARCH 22

  I dream of new colors—colors that don’t resemble the colors they used to be.

  MARCH 23

  Cord took the boys skiing last week.

  I was supposed to take them to Palm Beach this week—half of their friends will be there—but I know what would happen: I’d make sure we weren’t anywhere near the Kennedys, and of course we’d run into them…

  We’re off to the beach and tennis club in La Jolla.

  APRIL 30

  I am back in the Oval Office a morning or two a week, just like nothing happened in March.

  Norman Cousins visited Jack today to encourage him to push for a nuclear test ban treaty.69 Jack told him that wasn’t a priority for the American people: on the White House’s weekly mail report, more people cared about Caroline’s pony than disarmament.

  When Cousins left, I couldn’t be silent.

  - You make history by being an inspiring leader, not by following the polls.

  - Do you know my approval rating?

  - Why would I?

  - Sixty-five percent—and trending down.

  - Is that awful?

  - Don’t tell me my business, Mary.

  In the courtship phase, the woman thinks she’s equal—well, more than equal, because she’s elevated and he’s rising to her; once the relationship is established, she learns she isn’t equal.

  Jack having the last word and delivering it with an edge—you say, well, he’s the president. But I feel the shift: we’re drifting into a conventional relationship.

  I remind myself we’ve had…something for a year. As far as I know, no one else has.

  I should be grateful for that.

  APRIL 16

  Jackie’s announcement: three months pregnant.

  Now I understand why Jack said we had to stop.

  MAY 2

  A p
rotest against segregation in Birmingham.

  The police arrested thousands of Negroes, many of them children.

  “Bull” Connor used fire hoses and turned police dogs loose on them—including the kids.

  First thought: Bobby looking at the news report and reaching for the phone.

  And then: How do Southerners see these photos and feel nothing—or approve? How do the Negroes have the courage to face hoses and dogs—and, as I’m sure they will, come back for more?

  And a color-field painter who used to be the president’s lover—what can she do about this?

  MAY 18

  Chuck Spalding called.70 He’d like to come over.

  - You cleared this with Jack?

  He didn’t answer.

  - What do you like to drink?

  - Black Label.

  - I don’t have any.

  - I’ll bring some.

  For a minute, I was furious—was this confirmation of Jack’s announcement he was done with me? Was he passing me on to Chuck like I’m a starlet or stewardess whose name he never bothered to learn?

  Then I had the opposite thought: Was Jack so wickedly clever he’d calculated Jackie would hear that I was seeing Chuck, and then Jackie would believe I was no longer an issue—because in her view of marriage, who would make a present of his lover who is the sister of a close friend if he intended to keep seeing her?

  What to believe? Jack didn’t give a damn? Or Jack made a brilliant chess move?

  I choose to believe Jack’s a chess master.

  Two can play…but I didn’t play with Chuck.

  MAY 29

  Jack’s birthday party, a surprise, engineered by Jackie—a dinner cruise for twenty-four on the Sequoia.

  Chuck called her to say he’d like to bring me. Five minutes later, Jackie’s assistant called to invite me. Of course I was pleased.

  It was hot and rainy, the kind of night when everybody gets drunk and behaves badly and when the party ends no one can believe it’s so late.

  A really witty present: Ethel Kennedy made a scrapbook of her chaotic home in Hickory Hill—a parody of Jackie’s White House tour.

  People were drinking their faces off —there was a lot of what my mother would call “behavior.”

  Teddy Kennedy ripped his pants. Clem Norton fell on a pile of gifts and splintered a framed picture. Ben said it was a rare engraving, a scene from the War of 1812. Jackie said, “Oh, that’s all right, I can get it fixed,” but she said it with that blank expression she puts on when she really wants to scream.

  I mostly remember the noise—the band playing “The Twist” over and over, people shouting.

  Jack ignored me, as I hoped he would. But he zeroed in on Tony. It was subtle at first—he seemed to be randomly touring the party, and she just happened to be nearby. Then she went below deck to the ladies’ room, and he zoomed after her.

  Ben had to go back to the magazine—something urgent, he said, so I rode home with Tony. She said that Jack had chased her all over the boat: “It was fun, and I was laughing, but when I ducked into the ladies’ room, I saw he was serious—he jammed his way in and put his hands all over me until I told him to stop it and pushed him away.”71

  I asked her if Jack was drunk.

  She said he wasn’t.

  I thought: Well, that’s Jack.

  And then: I sound like Jackie.

  If someone were telling me this story, I’d say: You need to leave him. However hard that may be. Drink your coffee in another city if you have to.

  What I tell myself: I’m seeing this through.

  JUNE 7

  After Jackie’s miscarriages, she’s taking no chances. Soon she’ll go to Hyannis, but for now, she’s staying close to the White House.

  Jack chafes—the only time he gets to freelance is with his assistants, in the pool, after lunch.

  JUNE 10

  Jack’s finest hour: his speech at American University.

  I wanted to go. But I could see myself, sitting in the back like a proud mom in a sea of moms—that’s my guy on the podium! And he’s giving a speech that echoed many of our conversations!

  But…I am so proud. He acknowledged the Cold War and made peace—“genuine peace…not merely peace in our time but peace in all time”—the core mission of his presidency. He humanized the Russians and positioned them as our future partners in that mission. He took a giant step toward a nuclear test ban treaty by suspending our testing of nuclear weapons.

  And he was just so eloquent…

  As soon as he returned to the White House, Jack called Joe Alsop and invited himself to dinner. And he had Joe call me and invite me.

  Joe called me again—Jack wasn’t coming. Back trouble.

  Joe called me a third time—he’d invited David Bruce as my dinner partner.

  Fourth call from Joe: Jack was coming, just for drinks.

  Jack and I sat with Bill Atwood72 and reminisced about the Choate dance when I was dating Bill and Jack kept trying to cut in. Sweet memories. Bill has no idea that, all these years later, Jack got the last dance.

  Jack was at Joe’s so long he might as well have stayed for dinner. Or asked me to meet him at the White House later. Instead, he gave Joe a bit of gossip fodder.

  Jackie’s pregnancy, his promise to her, the high moral tone of his speech today—is he conflicted? Is this a new Jack?

  Not very: he invited me to meet him tomorrow night.

  JUNE 11

  I sat in the studio and drifted back to 1936. The Choate Winter Festivities Dance…the night I met Jack.

  He was a freshman at Princeton. He wasn’t in school because he’d been sick and wasn’t strong enough for a full load of courses. But he was healthy enough to come back to Choate for the dance. And to notice me. And to tap Bill on the shoulder as we danced.

  Bill stepped aside, and I danced with Jack—briefly, because someone else cut in.

  And then Bill was back. For maybe one song. Then tap tap tap…here’s Jack again.

  The urgency of his attention was fun at first, but his persistence was unsettling—couldn’t he see that Bill was my boyfriend?

  I have to wonder: is Jack seeing me as I am now, or is he making that night right for the nineteen-year-old boy who didn’t get what he wanted from a sixteen-year-old girl the first time around?

  Jack called: no White House tonight, he’s scrambling to make a televised speech.

  The crisis in Alabama: getting two Negro students into the University of Alabama.

  George Wallace blocked the door. Nick Katzenbach told him to step aside. Wallace refused and made a speech. Jack federalized the Alabama National Guard, and Wallace had no choice—he obeyed the president’s order.

  I watched on TV.

  Two great speeches in two days—who was the last president to do that?

  I couldn’t wait until morning for the Post—I drove to the paper to get the first edition. It was even better than I could have hoped: “It ought to be possible for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color…I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments…We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can’t have that right; that your children can’t have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.”

  JUNE 12

  Turned on the Today Show expecting a discussion about Jack’s civil rights speech.

  Instead, news: Medgar Evers, head of the Mississippi NAACP, was killed.

  What kind of man shoots someone in the back in his driveway?

  I don’t understand this kind of hate, this level of hate. And this won’t be the end. Hate feeds on itself.

  Dinner at the WH.


  It wasn’t supposed to be a dinner. I was to appear at 8. A date. Just Jack and me. I called him at 2 p.m. and confirmed. Gossiped. Flirted. Then Jackie unexpectedly decided to return from Camp David.

  All Jack had to do was call me and postpone.

  Instead, he created a dinner. A party of four: Jack and Jackie, Bill Walton and me.

  A party with the most awkward, most unhappy moment right at the start, because Jackie walked into the White House five minutes before Bill and I arrived. Six months pregnant, she had to greet guests she didn’t expect, one of whom was the woman her husband had promised she’d never have to see again in their home.

  Jack finally appeared at 8, fresh from the pool.

  And while three of us played this gloomy drama to its wretched end, Jack spent the evening basking in the role of a world leader who has just delivered two historic speeches.

  Why did Jack create this farce? Why didn’t he call me and tell me to stay home? And swimming when he knew his guests had arrived—what was that?

  All the questions have the same answer: At the peak of his power, he wants to humiliate Jackie, to make her small—he wants her to know that, promise or not, he’ll see any woman he pleases.

  A terrible thing to do to her. And an awful thing to do to me—Jackie has to think Jack and I planned her humiliation together.

  I can never make this right with her.

  I can’t see a way back from this—is this the moment I say good-bye and move to New York?

  JUNE 13

  A visit from the owner of the Jefferson Place Gallery.

  Weeks ago, he called to make an appointment, and I guess I thought it was so unlikely I didn’t bother to make a note of the date. The studio was messy, and I was casually dressed to the point of sloppiness, but he seemed to feel that made my little enterprise “authentic.” He said he liked the pictures, but you can never tell with these guys.

  JUNE 14

  Jackie has left for Camp David.

  Jack has no desire to talk about the other night. I know this because as soon as I get upstairs he grabs me and takes me right to bed. And everything clicked—for both of us. After, he was invigorated, happy.

  - It does not get better than this.

  - How about…Marilyn?

  - I’m serious: It does not get better than this.