I’m not sure she ever could have guessed that the persona she created would so fit the mood of the country at that time. The people who handled her in the campaign didn’t think she should be seen that much because she seemed so different from the ordinary American. But once it all worked in the White House–the reticence, coming down late, never appearing to look disheveled–that became her persona as First Lady. Her style will have a kind of permanence, even though style usually doesn’t.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN AUTHOR OF “THE FITZGERALDS AND THE KENNEDYS”
When she arrived at the White House, she had no clothes. For about 10 days, she wouldn’t go out. I remember her asking me, “Can you hurry up? Because I have nothing to wear.” The popular idea is that Jackie arrived with hundreds of dresses. The reality was that she was a photographic reporter and she’d lived with controlled simplicity. The moment she was in the White House, she was another person. She was suddenly confronted with so many things to do, and she had to play the part.
Later, Jackie called me from France and asked, “Should I have a dress made by a French designer to make the French happy?” At that time, she was very proud and very happy with her wardrobe. She asked if I would mind if she had one Givenchy dress. I said, “It’s perfectly beautiful that. you bothered to ask me.”
OLEG CASSINI FASHION DESIGNER
When Mrs. Kennedy was leaving the White House after the assassination, she took Lady Bird Johnson on a complete tour, and gave her some valuable counsel: “Don’t be frightened of this house -some of the happiest years of my marriage have been spent here. You will be happy here.” Lady Bird said she repeated that over and over “as though she were trying to reassure me.”
LIZ CARPENTER PRESS SECRETARY TO LADY BIRD JOHNSON
Even in the face of impossible tragedy, she carried the grief of our entire nation with a calm power.
PRESIDENT CLINTON
I was her guide to the Soviet Union for 10 days during the 1970s. We were having a big dinner hosted by the American consul in Leningrad, who was a stiff individual who did not like the Russians. He looked at the people I had invited–artists and some bad-ass curators–as a bunch of Tartars. One of the Russian guests made a toast and said Russians had a tradition of throwing their empty glasses at the paintings on the wall. The consul froze stiff in horror and thought there was a serious threat to one of his paintings. Jackie turned to me and whispered, “If you don’t get me out of here in five minutes I’m going to have the biggest nosebleed in Soviet history.”
THOMAS HOVING FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
I saw her for the last time two years ago in New York, when we had lunch at the 21 Club. Jackie had edited one of my novels. I reminded her that several years before, in her mother’s house in Georgetown, I had asked her when she would write her own book. She had laughed and replied, “Maybe when I’m 90.” This time, she said more. People change, she said. The person she might have written about 30 years ago “is not the same person today. The imagination takes over. When Isak Dinesen wrote ‘Out of Africa,’ she left out how badly her husband bad treated her. She created a new past, in effect. And why sit indoors with a yellow pad writing a memoir when you could be outdoors?”
I asked her how she managed to deal with the tabloid trash that was constantly being written about her. “The river of sludge will go on and on,” she said. “It isn’t about me.”
DAVID WISE AUTHOR AND WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION
