Costco Connection - October 2011

CECIL S TOUGH TON, WHITE HOUSE/JOHN FI TZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY
COURTESY HYPERION BOOKS/(C) MARK SHAW/ MPTVIMAGES.COM
COURTESY HYPERION BOOKS/(C) PAUL SCHU TZER, TIME & LIFE/GET T Y IMAGES/JFK PRESIDEN TIAL LIBRARY

CONVERSATIONS

surviving child, who now serves as president of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. The Schlesinger conversations “represent a gift to history and a labor of love” on her mother’s part, Caroline Kennedy writes in her frank foreword. Those who read this book and especially those who listen to the eight CDs will understand Caroline’s mention of love is a reference to her mother’s deep love for John Kennedy. And indeed, the dualities of public and private, political and personal, world events and family life pervade just about every page of the book and every segment of the recordings.

The release of the recordings and the transcript
was not a foregone conclusion, Caroline tells The
Connection in a recent interview at the Kennedy
Library. “I grew up with my mother mostly being
much more protective and shutting that kind of atten-
tion out,” she notes. “And so to be responsible for
bringing this thing forward felt like a big step for me.”
Ultimately, her belief in the book and discs’ value
as both a historic document and a personal tribute
to her parents outweighed any hesitation. And, she
felt, “if it was going to be done I should be the one
[to do it].”
So, late last month, Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic
Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy was
released by Hyperion Books.

“The overall purpose of this is to, I hope, awaken an interest in history and inspire kids and new generations who don’t remember that time to become interested in public service and the study of history, and to remind them that our country has had hard times before and we’ve always come through them,” Caroline says.

At the same time, she adds, she believes the material will give a “more rounded view” of her mother “to people who felt they had a pretty good take on her.

Photos from lower left to right: Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

“It’s hard for me as a daughter who, obviously,
knew my mother so well to remember that other
people didn’t really know her,” she explains. “There
were nuances and parts of her that people really
didn’t know.”
In fact, in the book and discs Jacqueline Kennedy
opens up to Schlesinger about people and events in
ways she never did in public.

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, her sister, Lee Radziwell, and an unidentified woman aboard a boat on Pichola Lake, Udaipur, India, March 1962

Caroline says there are numerous comments her mother might have wanted to expunge from the book and that gave her pause as she weighed the pros and cons of whether to edit such remarks from the material. In the end she chose to edit just for clarity and to leave the accuracy of the conversations intact. The decision adds weight to the book and discs in both of its senses—as a historic and personal record. “It is a snapshot of a time,” she points out.

Mrs. Kennedy greets her husband for the first time as president President Kennedy and his family, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1962

Reading in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1959

The time discussed runs from when her mother met JFK to the assassination. Covered are his days in the Senate; his campaign for president; his election as the first Catholic and at that time the youngest president in history; the memorable inauguration; the selection of his cabinet; the civil rights movement; the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion; the creation of the Peace Corps; the Cuban missile crisis; the triumphant trips to London, Paris, Vienna, Mexico, South America and India; the construction of the Berlin Wall; the restoration of the White House; the New Frontier.