Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (28 page)

Very good mimic.

Yeah, do you remember the toast he made at that party for Ken Galbraith about a Gemini? That he was a Gemini and Jack—it was just after Jack's birthday—and Jack was a Gemini. And he wished a toast—all Gemini men were virile, brilliant, kind—it was terribly funny—and he wished to congratulate his government on having chosen him, as a Gemini, to be ambassador to a Gemini President, and then he ended, "
Vive Lafayette!
" You know, just the whole parody. I always used to tease him so about Lafayette. So he can—he was all right.

W
e left off last time at the—after the meeting at Vienna, when Khrushchev brought up the whole Berlin thing in a very tough way.
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You remember the President said to him, "It looks as if it's going to be a long, cold winter." The whole Berlin business, of course, involved constant relations with the Germans. What was the President's feeling about these dealings with West Germany?

As I said before, he tried so hard not to bring problems that irritated him all day home. For himself really more than me, but that was one thing that he—that just irritated him so and he'd say, "What do you have to do to show the Germans that you care?"—that we would defend Berlin. And then it would always—it just seemed the least tiny thing could happen—some colonel drop his hat on the Autobahn and it would give—Adenauer would start flaming up all over again, and saying that we were going to pull out, and the ambassador here, Grewe, would come running in. And Jack really got irritated with the Germans. And, I remember after the missile crisis, which is much later, he got so irritated with de Gaulle because—what did de Gaulle say? That because we jumped in to take care of Cuba, it showed we only were interested in the things nearer our shores and not over there. Well, when you think of it, it wasn't until after his visit to Berlin in June '
63
that he finally did convince them. And then he was really happy after that. And then all these leaks to the—to the press. The Germans were always doing that, leaking to the press both in Germany and in Washington, little things of lack of confidence. Adenauer, something he'd say about him—I guess he sort of admired Adenauer, but he said, "Look at that man, eighty-nine, just hanging on so hard." I forget when Adenauer left.
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But he said, "Can you imagine it, and trying desperately to get back in again?" And, you know, Adenauer really gave him a pain. But I can remember the Berlin crisis, just sort of coming all through that—I guess was it the—

It was constant really from the middle of—summer of 1962 until the Cuban crisis.

So, it was then a year after Vienna that it finally came and he made a speech?
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Yeah, no, I mean from the summer of 1961. It began the summer of Vienna and it went from there until the Cuban crisis, really, in November '62.

Well, when did he make his Berlin speech?

He made his speech in June 1961, after he got back from Vienna. He made the speech calling for an enlargement of the military, of the defense budget.

But is that when he said, "We do not like to fight but we have fought before."

Um-hmm.

And "They said that Stalingrad was untenable and free men have always fought"—yeah, and "They said Stalingrad was untenable," and this and that, and "We do not like to fight, but we have fought before."
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Anyway, I could just remember one of the few times—I always thought with Jack that anything, he could make—once he was in control, anything, all the best things would happen. In this childish way, I thought, "I won't have to be afraid when I go to sleep at night or wake up." But you could see after that Khrushchev meeting, I mean, he was really in a gloom, which he wouldn't talk about, but you could just tell by a sort of—a certain quietness and lowness. So, I thought—I remember a couple of times, just a little shooting pain of fright going through me, thinking is—"Cannot even Jack make this turn out for the best?" And so this mounting thing—and then, when he was going to go on television to speak of Berlin, all the tension and everything around the White House. And I can remember again him march—and scribbling on the pages and, you know, for a few days before. And maybe he'd read me a line or something. But, and then I can remember that day, looking out—my dressing room window looked on the Rose Garden—and his office and all the television cables, and I remember thinking, "Shall I go over in his office and watch it?" But then I thought, "No, that might make him more nervous," or "People would start taking pictures, or something. I'd better just watch it up here." And, well, that was one of the grimmest speeches I've ever seen him make.

It was probably the grimmest speech he gave.

Yeah. And you just couldn't believe that you were sitting there thinking that, well, you really might have to go to war. And then—

Grimmest speech except, of course, for the Cuban Missile speech.

That was sort of the first one, so it almost frightened me more because by the time of the missile crisis—of course, you were scared all through it, but, you know, Berlin was the first one and then it did turn out all right. So, well, that's what I remember about that.

Yes, Berlin was the—really the big thing in the summer and fall of '61, and then as a result of our reaction, you remember, Khrushchev then extended the deadline and so—

That's right.

In, I believe, November.

And then, I remember thinking a couple of times how true it was—something rather interesting about Jack that he had by nature, and in politics I used to see it, this conciliatory nature, which never meant that you sort of sucked around people or tried to curry favor, but—what did he say? Pol—"In politics you don't have friends," or something, "you have colleagues," or—

Interests—was it?

No, it's—is it "You don't have friends or allies, you have colleagues"—well, you can look it up. But I often used to say to him, some man would come to dinner, a newspaperman or a politician, and I'd say, "But you were so nice to him," or "You're speaking nicely about him, and I was so mad about him for what he wrote two weeks ago or said two weeks ago that I've been cutting that man dead all day, and now I'm meant to be nice to him?" And Jack would say, "Of course
,
you know, that's all over, and then he did this and that." So, you know, his relationships always changed and he never made it hard for anyone to come back and be forgiven or, you know, go on in a new relationship with him. Which was so true in marriage too. It just carried him to every phase. And I remember thinking, "Thank God he has that side and not that old funny Dulles side where nobody, you know, where you'd have to make people grovel so!"
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And I remember thinking of the Inaugural Address—"Let's never negotiate out of fear"
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—because I thought how humiliating really for Khrushchev to have to back down. And yet, somehow Jack let him do it with grace and didn't rub his nose in it.
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And somehow, that was the quality which we should all be the most grateful for. It's how we got through all these crises.

Yes, it was a marvelous thing this—to leave a way for your opponent to retreat and preserve his dignity.

Yeah. And if you wanted lots of popularity in the newspapers or something, you'd go around shouting things about "No one's going to tell him to say this to America," and then you'd just be, everybody'd be shooting before you knew it. So, it's that side of him which—it was always so easy when you were married. I mean, a little tiny thing might come up that would cloud—but you never really had a fight, but I might say something that would sort of hurt his feelings and there'd be a certain quietness that day. And then suddenly, I'd come running and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" and throw my arms around him, and he'd just laugh and everything was over. He never would hold, or make you really—that just ran all through his personality. And you know, Bobby's getting it—and it was a side of Bobby that's lacking a bit which he's developing much more now and which since November he's spoken to me so much about Jack, the side that he admired in him so much. It was really easier for Jack to be that way when he had Bobby doing a lot of the things. But it was also much more part of his personality. Bobby will get that way.

As the Berlin thing was dying down in November, Nehru came and made his visit—

Yes, and—that was a rather nerve-wracking visit.
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Lots of consultations with Galbraith, and everything. And Galbraith kept saying Nehru wanted no fuss, and everything private. And I remember Jack had shown me a memorandum the winter before about—was it Sihanouk of Cambodia?

Prince—yeah, Prince Sihanouk.

Well, anyway, who—from the State Department—it was saying, "This man will say that he wants nothing special, no treatment, but yet he'll be furious if you don't lay the red carpet out and sort of have throngs." So Jack sort of was wondering whether Galbraith's advice was quite right because he thought Nehru would like a lot more pomp. But no, Galbraith thought he just wanted to be received in our home. Well, Hyannis just seemed a little too depressing, so we went to Newport and we met him at—whatever that air force base is there.
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He came over with his daughter and Galbraith and the Indian ambassador, B. K. Nehru. And Jack had had a most unsatisfactory time with Nehru when he'd been a congressman in India. He said they'd warned him, "Whenever Nehru gets bored with you, he taps his fingertips together and looks up at the ceiling." And Jack said he'd been there about ten minutes when Nehru started to look up at the ceiling.

When had they met?—I hadn't realized they'd met before.

Well, Jack had toured the Far East with Bobby and Pat.
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Was it '51?

It was before we were married.

Yeah, '50 or '51.
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It was when he met General de Lattre, whom he was so impressed with.
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That's when he nearly died in Okinawa. If Bobby hadn't come in, he would have died then. He got a fever of
105
or -
6
. And he met Nehru on that trip, I think. So, anyway, they came and it was decided the men would eat in the dining room. Angie Duke was there too.
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And Mrs. Gandhi
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and I would have a little ladies' lunch in the living room—and Lem Billings was with us.
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Well, of course, she hated that. She liked to be in with the men. And she is a real prune—bitter, kind of pushy, horrible woman. You know, I just don't like her a bit. It always looks like she's been sucking a lemon. And Jack brought Nehru back on the
Honey Fitz
and Caroline and I were waiting for him at the front door, which she'd picked a little flower for him and made a curtsey. That's the first time he sort of smiled. And then we went and had a drink before lunch and Nehru never said one word. It was just such heavy going. You could ask him something, anything. Just that real Hindu thing—you learn it in India, that they don't look on social gatherings as a time to speak. I don't know if they're contemplating—but I also say it's just damned spoiled brattishness because you should make an effort when other people are trying. So anyway, they had their lunch, and I don't know what they talked about. And then we all went back in the helicopter, Nehru in the best seat, Caroline on Jack's lap next to him, back to Washington. And that night they came for dinner. And I think it was when—anyway, it was the first dinner of that fall in the White House. And we lit the fire in the Oval Room
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and then went downstairs to meet them at the front door. And of course, somebody hadn't opened the flue of the fireplace, so when we came back in that room the smoke was just so thick and everyone's eyes were pouring. That wasn't a very good start. And it was meant to be, as you remember, a rather small dinner, but yet it wasn't quite small enough or big enough because we were in the State Dining Room, and just enough of us so that it was rather like sitting in a church with not enough people there. And I remember Jack told me later that Mrs. Gandhi, all through dinner, really lit out at Jack on our policy somewhere and this and that and she said lots of nice things about Krishna Menon
¹⁷
and everything. And you know, Jack really didn't like her. My sister was there and I so badly wanted her to sit next to Nehru, who should have sat next to Lady Bird. And so I said, "What shall I do?" And Jack said, "Call up Lady Bird before because she might expect to go and ask her if it's all right." Which I did, and she was sweet, and understood. Which just shows one more thoughtfulness that Jack always had for his vice president. Well, Nehru does sort of like pretty women in the most unlecherous way. But it's just the only—he sort of talked between Lee and I, and you could get him to say something about something and make a little joke. So, he was rather nice then. And I think he asked us to come to India. I think that's when he did it. That's when the whole idea started. And that's the part I remember. Oh, he always took—there's a picture of him taking my arm.