Just Jackie by Edward Klein (web based ebook reader txt) 📗

little runt.’ She started telling me all kinds of strange things about Bobby. At the same time, she was telling Bobby about me. Bobby and I became close because of Jackie.”

As time went on, however, Jackie and Warnecke realized that their relationship was maturing into something more profound. This both surprised and alarmed them. They began to take precautions so as not to arouse Bobby’s suspicions. They used private code words, and arranged to meet alone when no one else was around. The need for discretion added a new dimension to their budding romance—the delicious aura of secrecy.

DUMPING THE SECRET SERVICE

The leaves were a brilliant red and gold along Ocean Drive, the boulevard of Gilded Age dreams in Newport, Rhode Island. John Warnecke turned his car up a long gravel driveway, past a herd of prize Black Angus cattle grazing on a vast lawn, and to the porte cochere of Hammersmith Farm, the Auchinclosses’ shingle-style Victorian manor.

A maid greeted him at the door and escorted him into the foyer, where she left him to examine a wall hanging with the Auchincloss coat of arms, which included the motto Spectemur Agenda (Judge Us by Our Action). It struck Warnecke as ironic that Jack Kennedy, the President who had unlatched the door of opportunity for so many millions of Americans, had married the stepdaughter of Hughdie Auchincloss, a man who epitomized the tradition of WASP exclusion.

In a few minutes, Janet Auchincloss came down the broad, red-carpeted stairway. She gave Warnecke a long, friendly hug.

“Dear Jack,” she said, holding him at arm’s length by his broad shoulders and looking him square in the eyes, “it is sooo good to see you.”

“I could never understand those people who put down Janet,” Warnecke said. “They described her treating Jackie like a person whipping a horse. I never saw any of that. Janet had real sparkle, and great spirit. She liked me, and I adored her, and thought she was attractive. Quite frankly, I always felt that she favored the relationship between me and Jackie.”

Janet had been thinking a lot about Jackie’s future. Her daughter’s year of mourning was almost up, and it was time for her to get on with her life. Jackie needed a husband. And as far as Janet could see, Jack Warnecke was made to order.

He was forty-five years old and at the zenith of his personal and professional powers. He was tall and handsome, though not too handsome, the way Jack Kennedy had been. Warnecke was not as rich as the Kennedys, either, but he could afford to keep homes on two coasts. He led the life of a rich man, and he appeared to be in a financial position to care for Jackie and her children.

What was more, he was well-spoken, had good manners, and made the right impression in society. He was not mixed up in politics, which Janet always considered a dirty business. He was a creative person, and he shared Jackie’s passion for design, architecture, painting, and nature. They both had an eye for color, shape, and form. They had that most important ingredient for a good marriage—common interests.

If Warnecke harbored any doubts about Janet’s feelings toward him, they were dispelled on this visit to Hammersmith Farm. Motioning with the curved index finger of her right hand, Janet led him up the grand staircase to a large bedroom with a view of Narragansett Bay.

“This is where the President used to stay when he came to visit us,” she told him. “I want you to sleep here tonight in his bed.”

The symbolic meaning of Janet’s gesture was not lost on Warnecke. Over the past several months, he had made a great effort to replace Jack Kennedy as the man in Jackie’s life. This goal was not as far-fetched as it might have seemed. Wamecke was often described in magazine profiles as a contextual architect, which meant that he designed buildings that fit into their environment, but he could just as accurately have been called a contextual person. He had the capacity to put himself into the place of others, to feel their emotions. His talent for empathy was just what Jackie needed at this time.

“In order to work full-time on the grave site memorial, I had moved my office from San Francisco to Washington, and set up my operation in Georgetown, within a block of Jackie’s house on N Street,” he said. “I moved three of my four kids east for the summer. We were all together that summer of nineteen sixty-four—my family and Jackie’s family. We went to Williamsburg together, and visited Civil War battlefield sites.

“Meanwhile, all kinds of people—Jack’s friends, and family, and political associates—were visiting my office to look at the design of the grave. Jackie came frequently. Her sense of grieving was always there. The passion we were beginning to feel for each other was all mixed up with the sorrow. We were going through a terrible experience together. I remember, Bobby would come to my office, and just stand there with his mouth open, not able to talk.

“By the end of the summer, I was ready to choose the stone that I would use for the engraved words of Jack’s Inaugural Address. I needed a great stone carver, because I did not want any joints in the stone. I found one living in Newport, and hired him. That’s why I had come back to Newport just a few weeks before the assassination anniversary, to get final approval of the stone from Jackie.”

The next day, Jackie drove down to Newport from Hyannis Port with two Secret Service agents. After lunch, Warnecke took her to inspect the stonecutter’s work. She loved it. The approval of the stone meant a great deal to both of them.

“It was really the turning point in our relationship,” Warnecke told the author of this book. “Now I could schedule a press conference, and formally announce that the design had been approved before the first anniversary