December 9, 2003

Behind the curtain of Camelot

By John Darling
Tidings Correspondent

The last time Jamie Auchincloss saw his brother-in-law John Kennedy, a month before the assassination, he thought to himself, "This is the last time I'll see him alive."

Many people had that same feeling, which was enhanced by the fact the president was in pain all his life and seemed in a great hurry to absorb a lot of information and get a lot done, said Auchincloss, 56, a resident of Ashland's west hills for the last eight years.

"He thought a lot about death," Auchincloss reflected.

	Photo from a news magazine shows Jamie Auchincloss, half-brother to Jackie Kennedy Onassis, with President John F. Kennedy. Auchincloss moved to Ashland eight years ago, drawn by the mix of small-town charm, natural beauty and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Submitted Photos

JFK's favorite poem, "I have a Rendezvous with Death," by Alan Seeger ends, "And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous."

Sitting in his book-adorned Craftsman home, surrounded by Kennedy memorabilia, Auchincloss, is at ease with his "rendezvous with destiny," as the storyteller of Camelot. The half-brother of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis says his family is a "an extremely image conscious family, that wants control over history and is not forgiving of people who talk."

But talk he does, sharing his countless Kennedy tales - in a presentation called "Mud Wrestling with History" - before rapt audiences like the Unitarian Fellowship here last Sunday. He hasn't written a book on it as yet.

"Dazzled"

Even as a child, Auchincloss says he worshiped Kennedy.

He was "dazzled" when then then-senator from Massachusetts came into his life in 1953, courting and marrying his half-sister (they had the same mother, Janet Lee Auchincloss).

"I idolized him," said Auchincloss, "He charged me with a passion for history. You wanted to spend as much time as possible with him. You had to bone up on history when he was coming to visit, so you could keep up with him and keep him interested in talking to you."

The rich, powerful and attractive JFK, he said, could have married anyone he wished. But Jackie was "very carefully chosen" to give the Kennedys access to a conservative, wealthy family with power connections on the Republican side. In the glorious wedding, Auchincloss carried Jackie's 50-foot train.

In stays at the White House, Auchincloss, then in his early teens, played a game with the president. He served as something of an "information squire," rising before JFK to read the nation's newspapers, especially the columnists, then waiting with Caroline and John-John by the presidential bedroom door for him to wake up.

"As his children raced around the room, the president would ask, 'What does (James) Reston say today? What does (Herb) Caen say?' And if you didn't know exactly the right answers, he could go through the day thinking that columnist was a bastard."

Auchincloss would dig up and feed quotes to Kennedy and later, as an intern to Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., he would sniff the hustings with vigor, bringing back the shifting moods of the electorate - such as unhappiness with the president's pro-civil rights stance among Italian-Americans.

JFK and Jackie enjoyed ratcheting then-banal American tastes up a notch, making fads with chintz curtains, Rhine and Riesling wines (the country only drank Chablis then) and George Catlin's American Indian art.

Kennedy's comment to his mother-in-law, who inspired Jackie's chintz fascination - and all the bland colors that had to match it - was, "Are we becoming prisoners of beige?"

Auchincloss joined the Kennedy's conspiracy of culture, stumbling on the then-unknown Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofe and playing it for Jackie as she watercolored one day. Soon, she'd invited Grofe to play the piece at the White House, making it an instant American classic.

As president, Kennedy loved to playfully bend the rules that would apply to the less powerful. At a dinner in the home of his father-in-law Hugh Auchincloss, Kennedy waxed romantic, toasting his love for the beautiful Jackie, then bade all to toss the expensive champagne crystal in the fireplace. After a repeat of the gesture with further grand toasting and smashing, frugal Scotsman Hugh Auchincloss brought out the dime store champagne glasses, said Jamie.

Despite his constant presence around the first family, Auchincloss felt the same strain with Jackie as others did. He describes their relationship as uncomfortable.

"I think she was allergic to me." he says.

Babysitter on a horrid day

Auchincloss was 16 and in sitting in class when he got the feared news of JFK's death. He went to babysit young John-John and Caroline Kennedy, keeping them away from the television until their mother could get home and break the news in her own way.

"I remember every moment of those four days," said Auchincloss, who can be seen in the funeral procession, behind the president's brother Robert Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy. "I was proud to be there. My love of history took over and I realized I was at the quintessential ground zero of history."

Citing "a lot of doubts about who did it and why," Auchincloss clearly rejects the lone gunman conclusion of the "group of older white men" who wrote the Warren Report on the assassination - and who "did a rush job and wanted to reach the same conclusion" generally held by the media and public. The most likely hitmen? The mob, he indicated.

In his Kennedy talks, Auchincloss, a former docent at the National Archives and noted presidential historian (of all 20th century presidencies, especially Franklin D. Roosevelt's), said he gets asked five questions most: 1) Did Jack and Jackie really love each other? 2) Who were the true loves of their lives? 3) If Jack had lost in 1964, would they have divorced? 4) Would Jack have got rid of Lyndon Johnson as vice president in 1964 and if so, who would have replaced him, so as not to impede Bobby Kennedy's succession to the presidency? 5) Would Jack have got us out of Vietnam?

And a sixth, of course: Who really killed JFK?

The answers to all the questions: Wish I knew, but I don't.

A glimpse

But Auchincloss does shed colorful images from behind the public persona of the president and his family.

The Auchincloss vignettes are endless:

o Kennedy took a listening trip to the hustings, saying on his return, "I listened carefully and now I'm against my whole program."

o The Camelot myth of his administration was devised by Jackie after his death and he would have found it "effeminate and quite silly."

o Running for president as the first Catholic, JFK said, "I don't know what all the fuss is about - I'm not a very good Catholic."

o Kennedy was a master of non-commitment, but it wasn't because he couldn't take a stand; he just wanted the right solution and he didn't care if it came from Democrats or Republicans.

o JFK had boundless curiosity and hunger for learning and a "constant race with boredom." If you were too slow, uninformed or uninteresting, he would interrupt you and question someone else.

o Kennedy saw courage as a supreme value. After former presidential nominee and UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson admitted being afraid to fly in weather, JFK, whenever a storm came up, would joke, "Let's call Adlai here." Likewise, Jack liked to play games to teach courage. He once took Auchincloss far out to sea in a Sunfish (a surfboard with a sail) to chase a toy sailboat, both of them leaping into the deep repeatedly to fetch it.

o "Accurate," said Auchincloss of the Secret Service code name for Jackie: "Bunny."

o In addition to predicting Kennedy's death in Oct. 1963, Auchincloss predicted Jackie's premature birth (by three weeks) of John-John, advising JFK not to fly to Miami for family Thanksgiving or he would miss it. The birth happened that night.

o Once, on vacation, the president wanted to drive a Mercury sedan and let the presidential limo follow. A Marine waved Kennedy by, then saluted the limo. JFK stopped and ribbed the embarrassed Marine, "You salute the office, not the car."

o Becoming a dad opened Kennedy up emotionally and the cousins envied his children for JFK's warm parenting.

o Kennedy called Auchincloss's mother, asking her to intervene on Jackie's spending habits.

o JFK allowed McGeorge Bundy only seven minutes to do his national security briefings, but took a half-hour for frequent presidential haircuts. Bundy joked, "If you took as much time for briefings as you do for hair, you'd be a better president." Kennedy's response was quick: "If you had better hair, you'd be president."

o Driving with Auchincloss to the Christmas tree lighting at the Ellipse, a 90-second trip, Kennedy rewrote an entire speech he'd never seen, then frowned at the lad for waving to "my citizens."

Perspective

Recent history hasn't been as kind to president's image, particulary about his marriage. But Auchincloss doesn't duck the issue. Instead, he urges people to understand the climate of those times.

Kennedy's womanizing was common knowledge in the clan. The marriage echoed the pattern of Jackie's parents. Her father, John "Black Jack" Bouvier was a notorious philanderer whose wife had to put up with the same pain of infidelities, Auchincloss said.

Kennedy was no different. When Jackie miscarried in 1956, Kennedy stayed in Europe with paramours.

"He liked multiple partners," Auchincloss said.

Kennedy's brother, Robert, severely scolded him and came to comfort Jackie, a relationship that would continue till Bobby was killed.

When Jackie called JFK in Los Angeles to congratulate him on his nomination as president, she could clearly hear he was in bed with someone, Auchincloss said.

The well-hidden sexual scandals were prerogatives of Kennedy's station at the time and, like most men then, he used them - but the main thrust of Auchincloss's talks is so that history won't let it be forgot that the Kennedys, for one brief shining moment, were human beings, with family, love, dreams and pain, like everyone else.

Auchincloss tells a story that obviously warms him of a time when Kennedy pulled the pants off his 2-year-old son by the swimming pool. John-John called him a "poo-poo head." JFK postures a mock wound, wrist to brow, "No one has ever called the President of the United States a poo-poo head!"

Auchincloss smiles at the memory, studying a Christmas card signed to him from the presidential couple and dated "Christmas 1963," which was a month after the assassination. "Eerie, isn't it?" says the man who witnessed Camelot.