way to Arlington National Cemetery, when Bobby looked down at young John and said, “You’ve got those sissywhite gloves on—take them off,” but Jackie made her son keep them on….
“I had carefully put the Wollensak recorder where I would see it and she wouldn’t,” Manchester wrote. “I didn’t want her to worry about the machine. Also, I had to be sure that the little light on it was winking, that the reels were turning, and all this wasn’t being lost.
“It was a good plan,” he went on. “Its defect was revealed to me when she took the wrong chair. Then the only way I could check the light was by hunching up. It was an odd movement; I needed an excuse for it. A cigarette box on a low table provided one. Before that evening, I hadn’t smoked for two years. At the end of it I was puffing away, and eight more years would pass before I would quit again.”
Manchester was deeply moved by Jackie’s candor. Like Teddy White five months earlier, he realized that he was hearing more than he had bargained for. And he, too, felt an obligation to protect her. He worked out a hand signal that she could use when she wanted him to turn off his Wollensak recorder. But she seldom resorted to using the signal.
“It is true that she … withheld nothing during our interviews,” he wrote. “It is also true that none of that sensitive material found its way into any draft of the book.”
Manchester protected Jackie out of a tender regard for her feelings, as well as out of his deep respect for her dead husband.
“I couldn’t disdain Kennedy,” he said. “He was brighter than I was, braver, better-read, handsomer, wittier, and more incisive. The only thing I could do better was write. I never dreamed that one day I would write his obituary—the longest presidential obituary in history, and, in the end, the most controversial.”
DISGUISES AND SMILES
O ne fine fall day in September, Bobby entered the lobby of 1040 Fifth Avenue, Jackie’s new home in New York City. Her building was one of those massive limestone palaces that had been designed by Rosario Candela, the leading apartment architect of the 1920s, who had also done 740 Park Avenue, where Jackie had lived as a child.
Bobby stopped to speak with Clint Hill, who had stationed himself inconspicuously in the back of the lobby. Hill seemed confused and distracted. Unnerved by the agent’s appearance, Bobby got into the elevator and ascended to Jackie’s apartment.
He stepped off on the fourteenth floor, directly into Jackie’s foyer. A black-and-white marble floor led him into a large rectangular gallery, which served as the hub of the fifteen-room apartment. He went into the living room, a square room with a Palladian sense of light and serenity, and stood at one of the tall French windows and looked out over a spectacular view of Central Park and the reservoir.
Jackie had found the co-op by scouring the real-estate market with Nancy Tuckerman, her old roommate from Miss Porter’s School, who had served briefly as her social secretary in the White House after Letitia Baldrige had left. Whenever they inspected the available New York co-ops together, Nancy dressed up, pretending thatshe was a rich matron, while Jackie disguised herself as a British nanny.
Upon finding the apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, Jackie had called Andre Meyer, the senior partner of the investment banking firm Lazard Frères and a brilliant spinner of fortunes. Jackie had come to depend on the gnome-like French banker, who enjoyed playing the role of father confessor to beautiful women who were not too sure of themselves.
“It’s perfect,” she told Meyer, “and if you think it’s a good investment, I’ll buy it.”
Meyer looked over the apartment, which was conveniently located near the best private schools, and only a few blocks away from the apartments of Bobby and Lee, and pronounced the $200,000 asking price a fair one.
After Jackie bought the apartment, she
“I had carefully put the Wollensak recorder where I would see it and she wouldn’t,” Manchester wrote. “I didn’t want her to worry about the machine. Also, I had to be sure that the little light on it was winking, that the reels were turning, and all this wasn’t being lost.
“It was a good plan,” he went on. “Its defect was revealed to me when she took the wrong chair. Then the only way I could check the light was by hunching up. It was an odd movement; I needed an excuse for it. A cigarette box on a low table provided one. Before that evening, I hadn’t smoked for two years. At the end of it I was puffing away, and eight more years would pass before I would quit again.”
Manchester was deeply moved by Jackie’s candor. Like Teddy White five months earlier, he realized that he was hearing more than he had bargained for. And he, too, felt an obligation to protect her. He worked out a hand signal that she could use when she wanted him to turn off his Wollensak recorder. But she seldom resorted to using the signal.
“It is true that she … withheld nothing during our interviews,” he wrote. “It is also true that none of that sensitive material found its way into any draft of the book.”
Manchester protected Jackie out of a tender regard for her feelings, as well as out of his deep respect for her dead husband.
“I couldn’t disdain Kennedy,” he said. “He was brighter than I was, braver, better-read, handsomer, wittier, and more incisive. The only thing I could do better was write. I never dreamed that one day I would write his obituary—the longest presidential obituary in history, and, in the end, the most controversial.”
DISGUISES AND SMILES
O ne fine fall day in September, Bobby entered the lobby of 1040 Fifth Avenue, Jackie’s new home in New York City. Her building was one of those massive limestone palaces that had been designed by Rosario Candela, the leading apartment architect of the 1920s, who had also done 740 Park Avenue, where Jackie had lived as a child.
Bobby stopped to speak with Clint Hill, who had stationed himself inconspicuously in the back of the lobby. Hill seemed confused and distracted. Unnerved by the agent’s appearance, Bobby got into the elevator and ascended to Jackie’s apartment.
He stepped off on the fourteenth floor, directly into Jackie’s foyer. A black-and-white marble floor led him into a large rectangular gallery, which served as the hub of the fifteen-room apartment. He went into the living room, a square room with a Palladian sense of light and serenity, and stood at one of the tall French windows and looked out over a spectacular view of Central Park and the reservoir.
Jackie had found the co-op by scouring the real-estate market with Nancy Tuckerman, her old roommate from Miss Porter’s School, who had served briefly as her social secretary in the White House after Letitia Baldrige had left. Whenever they inspected the available New York co-ops together, Nancy dressed up, pretending thatshe was a rich matron, while Jackie disguised herself as a British nanny.
Upon finding the apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, Jackie had called Andre Meyer, the senior partner of the investment banking firm Lazard Frères and a brilliant spinner of fortunes. Jackie had come to depend on the gnome-like French banker, who enjoyed playing the role of father confessor to beautiful women who were not too sure of themselves.
“It’s perfect,” she told Meyer, “and if you think it’s a good investment, I’ll buy it.”
Meyer looked over the apartment, which was conveniently located near the best private schools, and only a few blocks away from the apartments of Bobby and Lee, and pronounced the $200,000 asking price a fair one.
After Jackie bought the apartment, she
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