The Good Son_JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved Read online

“Everyone thought Jackie was this very aristocratic personality,” Baldrige said, “and she certainly could be absolutely regal when she wanted to be. She also took the job of being a mother very seriously—actually more seriously than most women of her generation, I think.” Around the children, however, she was “a very different, more lighthearted person. There was this marvelous little girl inside of her that came out when she was around Caroline and John.”

  Jackie may have been a more earnest mother than most because of her own unhappy childhood. Growing up in Manhattan and in the moneyed Long Island enclave of East Hampton in the 1930s, Jackie and her little sister, Lee, were caught in the crossfire between their domineering mother, Janet, and their swashbuckling playboy father, “Black Jack” Bouvier. The marriage ended in divorce, and soon after the Bouvier girls went to live with Janet and their new stepfather, the wealthy Hugh D. Auchincloss II. Jackie called him “Uncle Hughdie.”

  With their mother’s remarriage, Jackie and Lee suddenly found themselves adjusting to life with a new set of stepsiblings. One of them was Gore Vidal, Hugh Auchincloss’s stepson by a former marriage. According to Vidal, Janet had rushed Auchincloss into marriage “because she had to. She was a financially desperate social climber with two small daughters to raise.”

  Jackie’s privileged upbringing continued without interruption at Merrywood, the Auchinclosses’ palatial forty-six-acre estate outside Washington, and at Hammersmith Farm, the family’s lavish, twenty-eight-room “summer cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island. Jackie grew particularly fond of her stepbrother Hugh “Yusha” Auchincloss, and the two children her mother had with Hugh Auchincloss—her stepsiblings Janet and Jamie.

  At fifteen, Jackie was shipped off to Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, one of the finest finishing schools in New England. Yet even then she was never allowed to forget that she was only a poor step-relation of the rich and influential Auchincloss clan. “Jackie and I were in the same boat,” Gore Vidal explained. “We were brought up in style, allowed to live in their very comfortable, rather Jamesian world. But the money was theirs. We—Jackie, Lee, and I—were penniless, and were made painfully aware of the fact.”

  Even as first lady, Jackie was plagued by feelings of insecurity and inadequacy—feelings that, her Bouvier cousin John Davis once suggested, “stemmed from her parents’ terribly bitter, unhappy marriage. And then to never quite know where she stood with her stepfather . . . it left her feeling abandoned emotionally at a very young age.”

  Of course nothing compared to the pressures brought to bear on the wife of the American president. Public expectations were high, and Jackie admitted she was “panic-stricken” at the thought of disappointing her husband. Behind the scenes, John’s parents were also dealing with their own medical issues—and the mounting tensions in their relationship caused by his flagrant infidelity.

  Still, there was a general consensus among their friends and those working in the White House that Jackie went to great lengths to shield John and Caroline from the strains in their parents’ marriage. In the end, Jack and Jackie “enjoyed each other,” insisted Jackie’s stepbrother Yusha. “That’s what John grew up with. He was born into a house filled with love and fun and laughter, just like millions of other children.”

  Well, obviously not exactly like millions of other children. The public could not get enough of the adorable tots who inhabited the Executive Mansion, and no one understood the political value of that better than the president. He made sure national publications like Newsweek, Life, Look, and Time were filled with heart-melting photos of John playing with his toy helicopter; Caroline astride Macaroni; Jackie helping her son into his pajamas; the two Kennedy children merrily dancing in the Oval Office while Daddy looked on; and John and Caroline cavorting with their cousins at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port.

  To satisfy her husband’s need to placate the Washington press corps, Jackie grudgingly signed off on a handful of these carefully circumscribed photo shoots. But for the most part, she made it her mission to block access to the children. “She didn’t want them exploited in that way,” Pierre Salinger said, “and the president did. That always left me holding the bag, because as soon as Jackie’s back was turned, he told me to invite the photographers in.” It was understood that, once the photos ran, Salinger would take the rap. “It was a part of my job,” he said, “that I could easily have done without.”

  “Jackie Kennedy was the most warm and delightful woman you could ever imagine,” said legendary Life photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt, echoing the sentiments of his colleagues. “But if you even pointed a camera at John or Caroline without her permission, it was over. You could not cross her when it came to the children. If you did you were done, out.”

  Jack still had ample opportunity to work his magic, particularly since Jackie spent long stretches of time at Glen Ora, the family’s retreat in the heart of Virginia’s horse country. What photographers often found themselves treated to was a glimpse of the growing bond between the young president and his little boy.

  JFK delighted in tickling his son, leaning down at staff meetings so that the boy could babble in his ear, or tossing him into the air—regardless of the often painful consequences. John famously hid under his father’s desk while the president teased, “Is there a rabbit in there?” But the game father and son played most frequently was “Going Through the Tunnel,” which simply involved scampering between the president’s legs and back again. At some point, JFK would gently spank John’s behind or playfully grab the boy as he tried to make it through.

  All the while, the president took obvious delight in simply touching the boy—a connection that Jackie and others called “sensual” in nature. “He would nuzzle John the way a bear nuzzles its cub,” Baldrige observed, “pausing for a moment to inhale his smell and feel his skin. It was really very moving, because President Kennedy was very reserved otherwise. You never saw him hugging or kissing anyone in public, not even his wife.” The children gave JFK a “chance to behave just like any other loving, affectionate American dad,” Baldrige added. “It began with Caroline, but it was really John who opened up the president’s heart.”

  Stanley Tretick, the Look magazine photographer who took some of the most memorable White House shots of JFK and his children, remembered that JFK’s “interest in the boy was incredible . . . And you know, it was a genuine thing between the two of them. The boy also sensed his father. I think it would have really grown . . .”

  No one was more delighted than Jackie, who often watched silently on the sidelines as her husband tumbled around on the floor with their son. “You could tell how thrilled she was,” said Baldrige, who on more than one occasion caught Jackie spying on the two Kennedy men. “Jackie got such a kick out of watching them enjoy each other. The weight of the world was on this man’s shoulders. He was trying to keep us from getting into a nuclear war with the Russians, among other things. But for a few moments he could roll around with John and forget all that. Jackie was proud she could provide him with a happy family life. She felt it was the most important part of her job as his wife.”

  From the very beginning, there was also the palpable sense that John, not his big sister Caroline, would someday be the Kennedy standard-bearer. “No question about it,” said writer George Plimpton, an old friend of Jackie. “Everyone loved Caroline and we all knew she was exceptional, but great things were expected of John. I think Jackie in particular believed the world of politics was a man’s world.”

  Given the fact that JFK was the first president to be born in the twentieth century, expectations regarding John’s future—not Caroline’s—made sense in the context of the times. “The Kennedys were already a dynasty, so the sky was the limit for John,” veteran Washington journalist Helen Thomas said. “Back then, every boy was told he could grow up to be president. Well, John-John was no ordinary American boy.”

  “People forget that Jackie detested politics,” Gore Vidal ob
served, “but she loved being in close proximity to power. Daughters were raised for the express purpose of marrying rich and powerful men, which is what Jackie did—spectacularly. Sons carried the torch.”

  For the time being, aviation—not politics—was foremost on the mind of young John Kennedy Jr. At thirteen months, he took his first public steps at the Palm Beach airport, seeing his father off to Washington. Less than a month later John was scampering up and down the center aisle of Air Force One, playing peekaboo with members of the White House press corps.

  Soon newsreels and photos captured John jumping up and down with anticipation as his father’s helicopter set down on the South Lawn of the White House. “Nothing got him more excited than that helicopter,” Salinger said. “President Kennedy would get off and lean down to scoop John-John up, and the boy would run right past him with his toy helicopter in his hand. As much as he missed his father, John-John really wanted a ride in that chopper.”

  When a real helicopter wasn’t around, John simply became one, spinning around in circles with his arms outstretched until he collapsed on the ground. “The president thought this was hysterical,” Chuck Spalding said. “He even came up with a new nickname name for John. He started calling him ‘Helicopter Head.’ ”

  “He was absolutely determined to spoil John from the beginning,” George Smathers said. “He could not deny that boy anything. If the President was talking to a cabinet member or some head of state, it didn’t matter—he’d stop everything if John came skipping into the Oval Office.”

  If JFK had one concern about his son, it was that John was being seduced by the trappings of war—the marching bands, the wreath layings at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, not to mention the twenty-one-gun salutes and flyovers that often greeted visiting dignitaries. John was “right there,” the president said, whenever “guns, swords, or anyone wearing a uniform” were involved.

  White House photographer Cecil Stoughton had a simple enough solution: stop letting the boy watch the parades and ceremonies that seemed to take place there several times a week. That wasn’t going to be easy. Jackie, whose father had served as an Army major during World War I, had always been fascinated with the military. “A man in uniform always seemed to get to her,” said Baldrige. “She had immense respect for soldiers and was terribly kind to the Marine guards and the military aides at the White House. They loved her.”

  It was the first lady who actively encouraged John’s interest in military pageantry, making sure he had an unobstructed view whenever a marching band or honor guard was on the premises. “John loved it because she loved it,” Baldrige said. “And don’t all little boys love that sort of thing anyway?”

  By October 1962, when U.S. intelligence discovered the presence of offensive Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, Jack was, according to Oleg Cassini, “in many ways a changed man. Caroline and John had really opened him up emotionally. He was worried about all children, and what might happen if he made the wrong decision. Can you imagine carrying that kind of burden?”

  Over those perilous thirteen days in October, JFK was consumed with the task of pulling the world back from the brink of nuclear war. For a full week, top State Department and Pentagon officials secretly met around the clock with the president to hammer out a response to the Soviets’ blatantly provocative act. Even White House staff members were kept in the dark. So as not to arouse suspicion, key advisers were smuggled in through service entrances and slept behind closed doors on couches and cots.

  Somehow, JFK still managed to eke out some time to spend with Caroline and John, who had taken ill and was now in bed with a 104-degree temperature. Jackie reassured her husband that Dr. Travell had already seen the boy, and that it was a run-of-the-mill case of the flu.

  “Jackie didn’t want anything adding to his burden,” Salinger said. “She loved the fact that he was a devoted father, but she was also a very smart woman who respected the fact that he was doing the world’s toughest job. She was a real team player in that sense—and never more so than during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

  For her part, Jackie had refused to be sent off to a bomb shelter with the wives of other top administration officials, vowing instead to perish along with her husband on the lawn of the White House if that’s what it came to. In the meantime, she arranged a number of small dinner parties at the White House to lighten her husband’s mood.

  “Jack was reflective, even melancholy,” recalled Cassini, one of those invited by Jackie to cheer up her husband. “He felt a nuclear war with the Soviets was inevitable, whether now or later.” The first couple took several quiet strolls on the White House grounds during this period, and at one point JFK confessed his fears to Jackie. “We’ve already had a chance,” he said. “But what about all the children?”

  Hours later, JFK addressed the nation. He had ordered a naval blockade of Cuba, and now it was up to the notoriously belligerent, saber-rattling Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, to make the next move. After thirteen tension-filled days, Soviet ships carrying missiles bound for Cuba turned back on October 24, 1962. “We’re eyeball-to-eyeball,” said Secretary of State Dean Rusk, uttering the most memorable phrase to come out of the Cuban Missile Crisis, “and I think the other guy just blinked.”

  That same day, John’s fever broke. Within twenty-four hours, he was peering from behind pillars, scampering down hallways, and twirling like a helicopter. “Overnight, things were back to normal,” Baldrige said. “It’s hard to describe the sense of relief everyone felt. I mean, just hours before people were heading for the fallout shelters and saying goodbye to loved ones. We really thought it could be the end—Armageddon. Then suddenly, everything was going to be OK. We were getting a new chance at life. The president had saved the day.”

  Now that John was feeling better, Jackie started making plans for the children to go trick-or-treating—the first time John would be permitted to accompany his sister on her appointed rounds. On Halloween night, Arthur Schlesinger opened the door of his Georgetown house to find several goblins hopping up and down. “After a moment a masked mother in the background called out that it was time to go to their next house.” The voice was unmistakably Jackie’s. They had already stopped at the homes of former New York governor Averell Harriman and noted columnist Joseph Alsop. Former secretary of state Dean Acheson was next.

  “The children must never feel vulnerable or frightened,” Jackie later told another friend, Kitty Carlisle Hart. “It’s a mother’s job to make them feel secure, no matter what’s going on in the larger world.” With things now somewhat back to normal, the first family celebrated Thanksgiving with the rest of the raucous Kennedy clan at Hyannis Port. As usual, John careened wildly about the living room, at one point bumping into the wheelchair of Grandpa Joe Kennedy, who by this time had suffered a debilitating stroke. The elder Kennedy took it all in stride, never happier than when he was surrounded by his tribe of children and grandchildren.

  Only days later, Jackie oversaw a joint party celebrating her children’s birthdays—Caroline’s fifth and John’s second. Creamed chicken, cake, and ice cream were served, and then Jackie helped them blow out the candles on each of their birthday cakes.

  The Marine Band provided the entertainment, and at one point John grabbed a pair of maracas and joined in. Once they finished opening their presents, Caroline and John led their guests to the White House movie theater for an afternoon of cartoons. “Too bad Daddy isn’t here,” Caroline said of the kids-only affair. “Cartoons and cowboy movies are his favorites.”

  With JFK’s popularity still soaring in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a sense of euphoria permeated the air that Christmas of 1962. At the Kennedy mansion in Palm Beach, Jack and Jackie fully embraced the holiday spirit by surrounding themselves with family and friends.

  Certainly no one was the wiser on January 8, 1963, when the most famous painting in the world, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, was unveiled at Washington’s National Gallery of Art. Alm
ost solely because of his deep personal affection for Jackie, French minister of culture André Malraux agreed to have the masterpiece taken down from its wall in the Louvre and lent personally to the president of the United States. Wearing a bejeweled, strapless mauve gown to the opening, Jackie caused a bigger sensation than the painting itself.

  A week later, Jackie announced to Tish Baldrige that she was “taking the veil”—cutting back drastically on her official schedule and, for the foreseeable future at least, devoting herself to her family. She did not tell them the real reason for her decision, but they guessed it just the same. Jackie was pregnant.

  As much as JFK adored Caroline, John had awakened something in the president that surprised Jackie. Jack now seemed more committed to his family—and to his marriage—than he had ever been. “What he wants more than anything else in the world,” Jackie told her friend Roswell Gilpatric, “is another wonderful little boy.”

  This time, Jack and Jackie were not about to take any unnecessary risks. With a miscarriage, a stillbirth, and two difficult pregnancies behind her, Jackie decided to take the advice of her obstetrician, Dr. John Walsh, and stick close to home.

  Jack did his part, as well. To spare his wife any unnecessary emotional distress that might trigger problems with her pregnancy, the president systematically put an end to his extramarital affairs—several of which he had been carrying on for years right under his wife’s nose. One of those women, White House intern Mimi Beardsley, realized that the president was “winding things down” by January 1963. Jack told Mary Meyer, the sister-in-law of his longtime journalist pal Ben Bradlee, that their clandestine affair was over during a dinner dance at the White House on March 8.

  Jackie confided to United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson, the two-time Democratic presidential nominee, that she appreciated what her husband was doing. “The new baby was going to be a turning point for them,” Smathers said. “She was absolutely convinced of that.” Although there was no way of determining the child’s sex—this was decades before the use of ultrasound for that purpose—Jackie was also convinced she was carrying another son. “She called the unborn baby ‘he’ all the time,” Salinger said. “With a wink, of course, but she believed it.”