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

her and the Greek shipowner. Every morning at breakfast, there were feverish conversations among Princess Irene Galitzine; Arkadi Guerney, Jackie’s old friend from her student days in Paris; and Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., who had been sent along by Jack Kennedy to watch over his wife.

“Maria Callas wasn’t [on board] for the first time in four years,” Roosevelt recalled. “Jackie’s sister brought Stas Radziwill along, but Stas left during the trip. We began to look like a boat full of jet-setters, and President Kennedy didn’t want that image.”

Between times with Ari, Jackie sat in the sun reading Greek history. One of her favorite books was The Splendor of Greece, by Robert Payne, who wrote:

This naked rock is bathed in a naked light—a light unlike any other light on the surface of the earth. It is a light that can be drunk and tasted, full of ripeness; light that filters through flesh and marble; light that is almost palpable. It fumes and glares, and seems to have a life of its own. It is in perpetual movement, flashing off the sea onto the rocks, flashing from one mountain to another and back again, spilling over the valleys.

The ancient Greeks, Jackie read, were the first to develop the arts, and to live a full and free life of personal freedom—just the kind of life that Jackie yearned for. Homer’s hero in the Odyssey reminded Jackie of Ari; they were both great fighters, wily schemers, ready speakers, and men of stout heart. Little by little, the salt air, the warm Ionian sun, the opulence of life aboard the Christina, the myths of the ancient Greeks, the stories of Ari’s youth—all this began to work on Jackie. Myth, legend, saga, and story became jumbled in her mind.

“[Jackie and Onassis] got along famously, speaking voraciously in English, Spanish and French,” Frank Brady wrote. “[Onassis] all at once offered to be her friend, provider, companion, father confessor and possible lover…. She was amused and fascinated at his seemingly unending supply of anecdotes, and she was impressed that even on the cruise he was able to constantly conduct and control business throughout the world. Cables and telephone calls arrived from heads of state and the presidents of the world’s largest corporations, and Onassis, sometimes even between dinner courses, dictated replies and returned calls that had multimillion-dollar implications. Whereas Jack Kennedy ruled a country, Onassis seemed to rule the world.”

On the last night of the cruise, Ari presented Jackie with a magnificent diamond-and-ruby necklace.

“Ari has showered Jackie with so many presents, I can’t stand it,” Lee joked in a letter to President Kennedy. “All I’ve got is three dinky little bracelets that Caroline wouldn’t even wear to her own birthday party.”

THE PRIZE

Onassis was in Hamburg, Germany, overseeing the construction of a new tanker, the Olympic Chivalry, when he heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot. He immediately contacted Lee, who was still under the impression that he was going to ask her to marry him. Lee insisted that Ari accompany her to Washington.

There, he presented himself at the gate of the White House and demanded to be admitted. Angier Biddle Duke, the chief of protocol, who was in charge of all foreign dignitaries, balked at letting Onassis in. Duke checked with the Kennedy family, and to his amazement, he was instructed to admit the Greek shipowner.

“My job was to keep the foreign guests penned up in Blair House, and a Greek getting through my fingers bothered me,” Duke recalled. “Later, of course, I came to realize that Jackie was making all the decisions about the funeral, and this Greek wouldn’t have gotten near the Family Quarters without her say-so.”

A kind of Irish wake was taking place in the White House as Onassis made his entrance. Ted Kennedy was doing imitations. Robert McNamara was wearing one of Ethel Kennedy’s wigs. After dinner, Bobby Kennedy came down from the third floor, where Jackie was resting, and started to badger Onassis about his yacht and all his wealth. The puritanical Attorney General did not like the sybaritic Greek.

“I have never made the mistake of thinking it is a sin to make money,” Onassis said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of people, and they haven’t always been scouts. It’s impossible for an entrepreneur, a man like me, not to tread on somebody’s toes. All profit is an injustice to somebody. I’ve made a lot of enemies … but what the hell! No excuses. I’m as rich as I know how to be, and rich I know about.”

Bobby drew up a bogus document stipulating that the Greek shipowner would give away half of his wealth to the poor of Latin America. Playing along, Onassis signed the document in Greek.

His good humor and patience were rewarded when the phone rang with a call from Jackie. She asked that Onassis come upstairs for a private chat. He was the only visitor outside of family and a few heads of state to be accorded such a special honor by the widow of the slain President.

When Onassis entered the Yellow Oval Room of the Family Quarters, he found Jackie sitting on a sofa. He took a place beside her, and immediately started speaking. He did not ask her any questions—not how she felt, nor if she was all right, nor if there was anything he could do for her. He knew how to talk to a woman. He loved words, had a huge storehouse of facts at his disposal, and possessed a keen intelligence. He consoled Jackie with his facts, and wooed her with his native charm.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been dead for less than two days.

After the assassination, and Jackie’s move to New York, huge bunches of red roses began arriving at her apartment every morning with cards in Greek signed “Aristotle Onassis.” In the evening, identical bunches of roses were delivered with the same good wishes. Ari behaved like a man who had nothing better to do than