Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (27 page)

But Diefenbaker already was sort of erratic and crazy, was he?

Oh, yes. And, you know, Mrs. Diefenbaker is such a nice woman. But—oh, we had lunch at Diefenbaker's house and he insisted on telling all these Churchill stories in accent and calling him "old Winston" or "the old boy," or something. You know, it was just painful. He didn't like Diefenbaker. And then you know the story of that—what, there was a paper that was left behind?

The Rostow memorandum.

Yeah, well, Diefenbaker really tried to blackmail Jack with that. And whatever Jack said back to him was rather clever—something of—"How did you get this paper?" You know, he never liked that man, and he always liked Lester Pearson.

You had met de Gaulle before—when he came over here.
⁸⁸

I had just met de Gaulle. Jack was campaigning in the Oregon—out in Oregon and I just met him at a reception at the French embassy and I guess I talked to him for about ten minutes.

Was he easy to talk to?

I suppose he wasn't—I just—I told him how much Jack admired him and made up some completely— But I thought he was easy to talk to when we were in France.
⁸⁹

That was a nice visit, wasn't it? To Paris.

Yeah. Because I'd ask him things of history—or all the things I wanted to know, like who did Louis XVI's daughter marry, the Duke of Angoulême, did she have any children, and this or that. Then he leaned across the table to Jack at lunch and said in French, "Mrs. Kennedy knows more French history than most Frenchwomen." So Jack said, "My God, that would be like me sitting next to Madame de Gaulle and her asking me all about Henry Clay!" So, you know, he was very pleased. But then you could ask de Gaulle so many things, again, not talking about the obvious. De Gaulle has a very—a sort of courtly, rather nice way with women. I mean, I know he was interested in me and everything and impressed by Jack. Also, Bundy was sitting right across from us at this first luncheon. You know, Bundy really looks very young, and de Gaulle said to me rather imperiously, "
Et qui est ce jeune homme?
" because he was also staring at Kenny O'Donnell. I don't know if Dave Powers was at the lunch too. And I said, "Head of the National Security Council"—I don't know if he knew what that meant—and I said he was the most brilliant young head of Harvard, so he leaned across and said something about Harvard in very halting French—you know, slow French, that you would say to someone who might not speak it. And Bundy answered in this brilliant French. I was just so proud. You know, it was strike one for our side or—yeah—or first run for our side.

LEFT:
MRS. KENNEDY IS GREETED AT THE ÉLYSÉE PALACE BY PRESIDENT DE GAULLE, 1961
RIGHT:
DE GAULLE ESCORTS MRS. KENNEDY TO DINNER AT VERSAILLES
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
U. S. Dept. of State/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

What was Madame de Gaulle like?

Well, she just looked so long-suffering, poor woman, so tired. You know, they have more state visits than anyone. So sweetly going through—very nice, but just limping through it all. At Versailles, well, the table was fantastic. You know, he'd had all the gold, there was Napoleon's inkwell or something was in front of us and the tablecloth was—it had a lot of gold embroidery on it. So Jack turned to Madame de Gaulle and said—his one attempt of talking to her because she just sits there staring ahead, she's so tired, and said, "This is the most beautiful tablecloth." And her answer was, "The one at lunch was better." And he said, "Oh," and they fell into silence again. You know, in all the foreign state visits, it's different than here, the two men sit next to each other. I always asked Jack if he'd like to do that at the White House.

Oh, really? In other words, the head of state sits next to the other head of state.

Yeah, so it would go, from right to left, Madame de Gaulle, Jack, de Gaulle, and me. And whenever you'd go to their dinners here, it would be done that way most of the time. Jack said, no, he didn't want to do it that way. He said he saw enough of them all day in his conferences.

He and de Gaulle got along well, then, didn't they? I mean it was—

Oh, I think de Gaulle was very impressed by Jack.

There weren't any premonitions then of the mischief that de Gaulle was to make later?
⁹⁰

Well, I know Jack always knew that because he said it—I know he said it before the trip or—and he'd read everything that Roosevelt said. He knew de Gaulle had this thing about the West, so I guess there wasn't anything then—problem, but I think Jack knew it would come. Oh, he asked de Gaulle about his relations with Churchill and Roosevelt. And de Gaulle said—oh, gosh, will I get it?—"With Churchill we were—I was always in disagreement but we always reached an accord. With Roosevelt I was never in disagreement and we never reached an accord." Or that's the gist of it—he said it so much better—and again, I didn't write that down.

Had you known Malraux before the trip?

No, I'd always—Nicole Alphand asked me what would I like to do in the French visit and you could see that anything you said, they'd turn the place upside down. So I said, "Please, Nicole, I don't want anything. Whatever you plan is wonderful. The only thing I'd like to do, somehow—could I meet André Malraux?
⁹¹
Do you think I could even sit next to him at some thing?" And you see how really protocol and ruthless the French are because, of course, about four days before we got there, both his sons were killed in an automobile crash. And at the first reception that first night—at the Elysée—suddenly the doors open and these two black crows come in, their faces just all white and puffy from crying through the receiving—and all Malraux's tics going at once. And the whole place just fell into a hush. But obviously, it was the one thing I'd asked and so it was— So the next day, Malraux took me to the Jeu de Paume and then after, Malmaison, and then he was fine.
⁹²
And I think it gave him, in a way—I don't know, I suppose it's good to have something to do after something like that happens. But that's when our friendship started, and just listening to him.

THE FIRST LADY AND ANDRÉ MALRAUX, MAY 11, 1962
Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Did he and the President connect?

Well, not so much then. They couldn't have that much time to see each other, but when Malraux came over here, they really did, and then they came out to the country, you know, for lunch.
⁹³
And then Malraux came back for the
Mona Lisa
and again we had another evening of just us and then the Alphands. But you know, it's funny, as we were walking from the dinner at Versailles to the theater I was first with de Gaulle, and Jack was behind with Madame de Gaulle and Malraux. And there are all these statues down the long hall and Jack said to Malraux, "Who's that?" And Malraux said to the interpreter, "Tell the President he has picked the only one that isn't a fake." Which was true. And I thought again—that's what I said about Jack's eye. You know, that really impressed Malraux.

Had the President ever read Malraux? Any of the novels or—

I think he'd read
Man's Hope
, but you know, he knew—

Could you—an attractive man, but can you understand his French easily?

Well, he talks so fast, but I can. Or else he repeats—it's like being taken over this incredible obstacle course at ninety miles an hour. You know, what he makes your mind jump to, back, forth. He is the most fascinating man I've ever talked to. But again, he's rather disillusioning because he sort of admires the simplest things. I mean, that dinner at the White House, he—well, his most impressive moment was when they took the color—you know the color flags—the Honor Guard—downstairs. And then, who was it? Oh, Irwin Shaw told me his greatest moment in life was when he was head of a brigade or something, in the Maquis.
⁹⁴
And he worships de Gaulle like, I don't know, some cocker spaniel adores its master. I mean, he seems to have this incredible intellect and then certain sort of blind spots. And very old-fashioned France and
la gloire
and flags, and—but anyway—

How were he and de Gaulle together? Did you see them?

No, I didn't see them together very much, but you know, he was de Gaulle's lieutenant all through those years. Oh, de Gaulle—well, de Gaulle was rather grand with him, especially as I wanted to talk to him—he was always sort of leading you away. You know, in public he's very—he treats him like some servant, like Nehru treats the man who sleeps outside his door, or something.

Jim Gavin was our ambassador.

Yes.

His was always a rather puzzling appointment. I know the President wanted to do something for Jim, who certainly is a fine man. Do you know why he was—did you ever—did the President ever say why?

Why he was appointed? I think he asked him to do something else, didn't he? Which he wouldn't do. I don't know why. Oh, he thought they'd like Gavin because of—

Ah, yes. General.

Yeah, he thought they'd like him because of the war, but then I know he was rather disappointed when Gavin's cables would come back. Jack used to quote Winston Churchill—"Never trust the man on the spot." And you know, that he'd gone so—I remember Malraux saying about him, "Oh, yes, Gavin,
il est Gaullist
." And you know something else nice that Jack did? This is the same sort of thing that he did about Allen Dulles and the Wrightsmans. When the
Mona Lisa
came over here, Gavin was no longer ambassador. He'd had to resign for money reasons. The Alphands
⁹⁵
came to dinner one night, we were discussing who they would have at the French Embassy and the
Mona Lisa
dinner. She could only have a hundred and two and I think she was up to ninety-nine or something—Jack put Dick Goodwin on the list because he wanted to show how much he thought of him.
⁹⁶
But also he said, "But you don't have the Gavins here." And Nicole said, "No, no, why should we have the Gavins?" And Jack said, "Well, I think you better ask them." And when they'd gone home, Jack said, "Can you believe it?" He said, "But there was Gavin, who was the most pro–de Gaulle ambassador they ever had. And they're probably one of our ambassadors that they liked the best. And then he's out and they weren't even going to ask him to the dinner." He was disgusted.

As you say, ruthless.

[whisper]
I'm sort of running out.

How did he like Hervé?

Oh, old Hervé? You know, he'd get amused by him sometimes. And then—amused and sort of irritated the way, you know, Hervé has that phobia about protocol. But then, as he always said, de Gaulle never spoke to Hervé. You know, it was very hard for Hervé. And every time we'd see David Gore or Caroline would go to play with Alice Ormsby-Gore, or something, you'd hear Hervé moaning all around Washington. But he enjoyed—Hervé could be funny sometimes.