Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy (35 page)

Yet he wanted de Gaulle to come to the United States, and I think de Gaulle had agreed to come in March of this year.
¹¹

Yes, or it was going to be January, even, and it was going to be at Hyannis. And Hervé always said, if only they could talk and meet the way Macmillan and Jack met—anywhere, you know, halfway, this and that, but do it a lot. And then this time I think Hervé was right. He said, even if nothing's accomplished. But for de Gaulle—he would want it to be some momentous meeting, and I think that meeting would have had terrific results in a way, or some results, and for finally de Gaulle to agree and all that—

The President had some expectations a meeting with de Gaulle might ease things.

Yes. You know, de Gaulle respected Jack and the whole way his opinion changed of him in Paris. I mean, I don't know what his opinion was, but obviously, everyone thought, "Who is this young President?" And, you know, the way he'd speak to me of him during the endless dinners—we sat next to each—you could just see that he was—or, what he told me about him after his funeral, upstairs.
¹²
And then what—

What did he say?

THE BURIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
Abbie Rowe, National Park Service/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Well, I mean, that he just was one of these—you know, so impressive. And then Segonzac sent me a letter which I can show you that Burin des Roziers, who I think is de Gaulle's chief of cabinet,
¹³
told Segonzac what de Gaulle really thought of Kennedy and, you know, he thought—I mean, as long as Kennedy was alive, he was the leader of the West. And maybe de Gaulle didn't like it sometimes, but he really looked up to him. And then, apparently—Bobby told me this later—Bohlen
¹⁴
or someone—tried to say that Johnson would be all right, he was the one Kennedy had chosen as vice president—you know, reassure him in the first days. And about a month or so later, he said, "Kennedy may have made a mistake," or "You all may have made a mistake about that man." In other words, his opinion of Johnson fell very low. So he wouldn't have dared to—he never would have recognized Red China, I'm sure, if Jack had been alive. There are so many little things like that, because he respected him.

Did the President have any particular—did he ever talk about Europe, in the sense of European unity and unification—Jean Monnet, for example? Did he mention him that much?

Well, he always, in the very beginning, thought of Jean Monnet one of the first for the Medal of Freedom, and you know, so he thought he was a most wonderful man and that all that he worked and believed in, and everything.
¹⁵
So I think he did think that was a marvelous idea. But he never—you know, he never really sat and talked to me an hour about European unity, but I know he thought—he was for it, wasn't he?

Yes. I think it was quite characteristic. He was very much for it but he was much less interested than a lot of the people in the State Department about the questions of structure and all this kind of thing. And I think quite rightly so, because he knew if it came, it would come in its own way and you could get obsessed with the sort of tactical questions about it.

Yeah, he never seemed to be pressing it, or anything, but—

I think he saw it as a historic inevitability.

Oh, and then he told me something very interesting. Oh, if he'd only written these things down because I've forgotten them. But what made de Gaulle veto the Common Market and what Macmillan had told him and how Macmillan had been out at Rambouillet about two weeks before.
¹⁶

That's right.

And everything seemed to be fine and then there was some little thing here or there, some typically French thing of—like Hervé always being mad when he's not given precedence. Well, something that some country or person did that irritated him and bang-o, he turned around and did the other.

I think he may have have felt—was it possibly this, that—

Oh, well, maybe Nassau made him change it?

Yeah, that he—that—

That Macmillan told him at Nassau about Rambouillet.

Yes, but Macmillan at Rambouillet had not said anything to de Gaulle about the Nassau agreement, and de Gaulle believed—did not understand that the Nassau agreement was drawn up—that the Nassau plan was drawn up on the plane down to Nassau—and supposed that Macmillan had already known about it then, was holding out on him.

I see.

Might that have been it?

That's it. I guess so, yeah.

Because I heard somewhat that sort of thing from the French here—that Macmillan came to Rambouillet and held out on de Gaulle and, therefore, de Gaulle regarded that as a personal betrayal.

And that's why he suddenly did the Common Market, though at Rambouillet it had all looked wonderful. And I think—yeah.

Though, or certainly why he did the Common Market so brutally. I think that, in any case, he might have done it but not in that kind of contemptuous way that he—that he did it. On other European leaders—Fanfani came here a couple of times. In fact, when I saw Fanfani, he reminded me that he first met the President at the Chicago convention in 1956.
¹⁷

Well, he liked Fanfani. You know, that was sort of the opening to the left and everything, I suppose—they got on well and—but I mean, he wasn't just, you know, inspired beyond belief by him.

No, no.

I can't think of any other leaders. I wasn't—Tito had a violent temperature when he saw him, so that was difficult.
¹⁸

Well, how was the Tito thing?

I wasn't there. And I guess the poor man had a fever of
102
and couldn't eat anything. So it was mostly, you know, polite and all of that, but nothing much. I don't know really much about that.

How did the Indian trip, which you and Lee took, happen to come up?

Well, Nehru brought it up when he was here at dinner, or something. And then Ken Galbraith jumped on the idea. Then it was—it was delayed so many times. I was still so terribly tired after John and I didn't really want to go on that trip. But yet I sort of wanted to go to India. So, once it was delayed, you just weren't up to it, or something was happening—I forget what. Could it have had something to do with Cuba? I don't know. It was put off—anyway, just to show you one thing how sweet Jack was. The schedule came back for two weeks. All over India! My God, it would have killed him, campaigning! And you wrote back and forth, and you tried to change it and he—and Ken would keep saying that the children at Mysore were weaving garlands, and this and that. So finally, we cut it, with a map, to very small—you know, just mostly Rajasthan and around India. And it was—we were in Florida, either Washington's Birthday, or Easter or something, I forget when we went—and Jack got through to Ken Galbraith, and Ken was really protesting on the phone, and he spent the whole last day of his little holiday there, shouting to Ken on a bad connection—you know, saying, "It's too much for her," and, "Ken, I don't care. Everyone complains. It's just what they say in campaigns when you tell them you can't. I'm not going to let her. She's tired." You know, he really fought to have that chopped off. Well, then—so he did that. You know, I guess he—it was wonderful to go to India, and he didn't really care if I went or not, but I guess he thought it would be nice.

JACQUELINE KENNEDY ENCOUNTERS INDIA
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

MRS. KENNEDY BEING PRESENTED WITH A HORSE BY PRESIDENT AYUB KHAN OF PAKISTAN
Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

I think he was very pleased with it and very proud of the success and I think he thought that—well, as you mentioned yourself in connection with France, that quite apart from it's nice for you to get a holiday and get out of Washington, I think he helped—think it helped the country and it helped him in important respects.

You know, it was so funny, the difference between India and Pakistan, because India was really just getting to know Nehru, who did like Lee and I—Lee and me. And never mentioned Pakistan or anything. And then there was Ken Galbraith and B. K. Nehru and Madame Pandit and her sister.
¹⁹
It was much more like a family group. The meals were pleasant. And when we got to Pakistan—of course, I basically like the Paks more than the Indians. They're sort of more manly, and Ayub never stopped talking politics or how he hated Nehru or couldn't stand him.
²⁰
And I did get a message from the State Department from Ken to make sure that it looked like McConaughy was an old friend of Jack's.
²¹
So the first thing I did when McConaughy and Ayub—McConaughy got there the day I did—the day before, as the ambassador. So, I tried to sort of say—set it up that they'd known each other from when and everything. And McConaughy said, "Oh, no"—that's right in front of Ayub—"That's not true at all, Mrs. Kennedy. The first time I ever met the President was two weeks ago when I gave—" And the only time I ever wrote Jack a letter, which I wrote coming down from the Khyber Pass and gave him when I got home, was what a hopeless ambassador McConaughy was for Pakistan, and all the reasons and all the things I thought the ambassador there should be, which was a gentleman, a soldier, and a friend of the President's. And I suggested some other people—Bill Blair and Bill Battle.
²²
And Jack was so impressed by that letter, he showed it to Dean Rusk, whose big choice McConaughy had been, and said, "This is the kind of letter I should be getting from the inspectors of embassies." I mean, he'd never been for McConaughy, who was a sweet man, but just such a— When we went to Rawalpindi, that
Paris Match
reporter was yelling, as we got off the plane, "
Bonjour
, Jacqueline!" And that night McConaughy said to Ayub Khan, "Mr. President, I was so interested to hear all that French at the airport today. I never realized there was so much French influence in Pakistan." Well, Ayub just looked at him and said, "I think if—you will find out that the influence here has been mainly British." But you know—Dean Rusk! Anyway, that was my trip. And our trip was so exhausting that all through Pakistan, Lee and I were having nosebleeds every day and night. So we were really tired when we got home.