Barbara Leaming - Mrs. Kennedy: The Missing History of the Kennedy Years

BARBARA LEANING is the author of the critically acclaimed Orson Welles and the New York Times bestseller Katharine Hepburn. Her articles have appeared in Vanity Fair and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in Connecticut.

Cover design by Robin Schiff

Cover photograph Mark Shaw/Photoresearchers

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Acclaim for Barbara Leamings
Mrs. Kennedy

[A] fabulous success the gripping soul-story of Jackie Kennedys White House years. This is the first biography to plumb Jackies marital horrors in such heart-stopping detail.

Donald Newlove, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Chock-full of stuff I never knew or dreamed about. It makes both Kennedys seem utterly human, flawed and some of it will break your heart. I was glued to this book from start to finish.

Liz Smith, New York Post

A compelling day-by-day chronicle of the Kennedy marriage and presidency.

Teresa K. Weaver, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This is one of those books that stays with you, challenging previously held beliefs about a seemingly ornamental first lady and fostering a new understanding of a complex relationship and its impact on American and world history.

Barbara Henning, Rocky Mountain News

The famously private Mrs. Kennedy has met her match and is herein revealedalong with her husband and his administrationrespectfully but thoroughly. Admirably detailed, stunningly successful.

Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Fluid, intuitive writing. Leamings account is more than convincing.

Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Flawlessly melds personal, political, private and public moments in the Kennedys lives and convincingly shows the cumulative effect on the course of history.

Dianne Bock Stern, The Journal News (New York)

An intimate look at a very private woman. Leaming explores Jackies complex and often painful inner life with subtlety and compassion. Unabashedly sympathetic toward her protagonist, Leaming provides a fascinating glimpse into the psychodynamics of one of the 20th centurys most famous marriages.

Publishers Weekly (starred)

Original and compelling breathtaking.

Library Journal

Leamings Mrs. Kennedy is a marvel of clarity, intelligence, sympathy and sound research.

Book Magazine

Insightful and astute a rending caution about the tragedies of power and celebrity.

Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer (London)

A revelation about the core of the marriage.

The Sunday Telegraph (London)

A perceptive and well-written book.

Sarah Bradford, The Spectator (London)

Leaming offers the clearest picture ever painted of [the Kennedys] deeply troubled marriage.

The Daily Mail (London)

This splendid biography provides the most complex, subtle and satisfying account of Jacqueline Kennedy to date.

Terry Prone, Irish Independent (Dublin)

A psychological, as well as a political, biography: one which casts new light on the Kennedy years. A remarkable help in reading between the lines of one of the most sensational, mysterious and scandalous periods in history.

Melanie Reid, The Herald (Glasgow)

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Copyright 2001 by Barbara Leaming

All rights reserved,

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form.

First Touchstone Edition 2002.

All photos are courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library.

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by DEIRDRE C. AMTHOR

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Free Press edition as follows:

Leaming, Barbara

Mrs. Kennedy: the missing history of the Kennedy years / Barbara Leaming.

p. cm

Includes index.

1. Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy, 19291994. Presidents spousesUnited StatesBiography. 3. United StatesPolitics and government19611963. I Title

E843.K4 L43 2001
973.922092dc21
[B]

2001040442

ISBN: 0-684-86209-3

ISBN: 0-7432-2749-2 (Pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4516-7811-6 (ebook)

Had it not been for the fact that Jacqueline Kennedy was married to the President of the United States, it is unlikely that a single book about her would have been written. And yet, in the dozens of books about her, specific details of that presidency have been largely excluded. Even more striking, and of greater consequence, is the fact that the histories of John F. Kennedys presidency are comparably flawed, missing as they do the story of Jacqueline Kennedy and her crucial role. In an effort to fill the gap, I have tried to tell her story in those years with as much attention to the presidency as to the events of her private life. The role of Jacqueline Kennedy is probably less understood than any other part of the Kennedy presidency; equally, her personal story cannot be grasped without seeing it in the context of the unfolding events of one of the twentieth centurys most dramatic presidencies. Her life was changed by historical events in ways she had never anticipated. She, in turn, influenced certain of those events in ways that until now have remained largely unexamined.