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

asked a local Hawaiian socialite by the name of Cecily Johnston to come to New York beforehand in order to meet Jackie. After they had been seen around town together, and had become quote best friends unquote, Cecily invited Jackie to Hawaii, and arranged for the rental of the house. Just as I had been the beard for Jack Kennedy back in the fifties, Cecily was now the beard for me.”

Even so, Jackie felt squeamish about accepting Cecily Johnston’s invitation. She asked Peter Lawford to accompany her as a kind of chaperon. Lawford agreed to provide her with additional cover, and be on hand at the nearby Kahala Hilton Hotel if she needed him.

Shortly after they arrived, Cecily Johnston gave a pool party at her home for the Kennedy and Lawford children. The singer Don Ho, who was known as the Sinatra of the Islands, was on hand to warble his favorite song.

Tiny bubbles in the wine

Make me happy, make me feel fine.

Christopher Lawford pushed his sister into the pool, and John followed suit by pushing Caroline in. Don Ho got caught up in the spirit of things. He came up behind Jackie and pushed her in, clothes and all. A Secret Service agent leaned over with a helping hand, and Jackie jerked him in.

Just as Warnecke had promised, everyone was having a good time. However, Jackie had failed to inform Peter Lawford’s estranged wife, Pat Kennedy Lawford, about the arrangements. And when Pat saw photos of Jackie and Peter getting off the plane together in Honolulu, she called Peter’s manager, Milt Ebbins.

“How dare he do that?” Pat screamed.

“Peter was planning to go there anyway,” Ebbins said, “and so was Jackie. They decided to go together. So what?”

Next, Pat called Peter directly.

“I won’t put up with this,” she said. “How dare you go away with this woman!”

“Pat,” Peter said, “we’ve got the children with us.”

“How could you go to Hawaii with her?” said Pat. “That’s where we went on our honeymoon.”

Pat was not the only one who was upset by the arrangements. Caroline and John were confused by their mother’s relationship with Warnecke. Three days after their arrival, Caroline cut her left foot on a jagged piece of coral reef while swimming in front of their Kahala guest home. She had to have five stitches. She was on crutches when the family attended the Kamehameha Day Parade in honor of the monarch who united the islands of Hawaii.

Several weeks later, while on a camping trip at Kapuna Beach on the island of Hawaii, John stumbled and fell backward into a pit of hot coals left over from a campfire. He let out a cry, then instinctively stuck his right arm down to push himself up. The hand and part of his forearm suffered first- and second-degree burns. He was flown to Honolulu, where Dr. Eldon Dykes, a plastic surgeon, treated several blisters on his arm and buttocks.

Though Jackie was concerned by these mishaps, she failed to make the connection between her children’s accident-prone behavior and her barely disguised love affair with Warnecke. When her month-long lease on the Kahala house expired in late June, she decided to extend her stay in Hawaii for another month.

She and the children moved into a luxurious guest accommodation on the eight-acre Koko Head estate of Henry J. Kaiser, the fabulously rich industrialist, who had made his first fortune building Liberty ships during World War Two, and then a second fortune manufacturing steel, aluminum, and automobiles after the war.

“The part of the estate where Jackie stayed was called the Boathouse,” recalled Michael Kaiser, Henry’s adopted son, who was home from college at the time. “It stood on a cliff and had a view of the back side of Diamond Head across the bay.”

The Boathouse was built in the shape of a horseshoe. The first level was where the Kaisers kept their fifty-six-foot motor launch, which had its own indoor berth. The next level was for storage. And the third had a living room and bedrooms that wrapped around a large oval swimming pool.

“My mother had sent her decorator, George White, all over Asia for a long period of time,” said Michael Kaiser, “and he came back with fabrics from India and Indonesia. The cushions and pillows in the Boathouse were covered in this colorful fabric, and they made a wonderful contrast with the modern furniture.”

Jackie had brought her own cook, who made breakfast and lunch. During the day, she took lessons in Chinese painting. At night, she went to the main house for dinner, and to watch screenings of the latest movies.

Mrs. Kaiser took little John to a Pacific Coast League baseball game, and introduced the five-year-old boy to Hank Allen, the batting star in the team’s 10–2 victory over Denver.

“This is John-John,” Mrs. Kaiser said.

“My name is not John-John,” he corrected her. “It’s John.”

Caroline developed a crush on Charles Kaiser, the younger son in the family, who was in his early twenties.

But for the first time since the assassination, Jackie was too preoccupied with her own life to pay much attention to her children.

“Do I have your permission to have Jack Warnecke land a helicopter on the grounds to take me out from time to time?” Jackie asked Mrs. Kaiser one night.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Kaiser.

However, when Mrs. Kaiser informed her husband about this new arrangement, she expressed concern that Warnecke, who had the reputation of being a ladies’ man, was not the most appropriate escort for the President’s widow. Perhaps, Mrs. Kaiser suggested to her husband, someone should tell Bobby Kennedy.

Henry Kaiser and the Kennedys got on well. A progressive businessman who treated his workers fairly, Kaiser had pleased the Kennedys by keeping the Kaiser Steel Corporation operating during the steel industry crisis in 1962.

Henry Kaiser called Bobby and told him what was going on between Jackie and Warnecke. As soon as Bobby hung up, he called Jackie.

“Bobby was trying to kill off a possible marriage to Warnecke,” according to Richard Goodwin.