An Icon Speaks

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was First Lady of the United States in a time of great change, promise and turmoil in this country. This very young woman with extraordinary poise, grace and style would capture a nation and the world's eye unlike any other First Lady,a term she did not like. The Kennedys were in the White House briefly and before my time, yet her images and her presence have captivated me as they have  so many for whom she became larger than life...but she was very real, and very human.  This week 50 years after her husband's inauguration we heard her voice, that soft breathless almost little girl voice that would reveal a great deal about the woman behind the fashion shots

In March of 1964, just 4 months after her husband's assassination, Jackie Kennedy sat for a series of recorded open conversations with her friend and historian Arthur Schlesinger to talk about her experiences as First Lady. These were not conversations about that horrific day in Dallas, but rather a love letter to her husband and a revelation about this woman's vulnerability,insecurity, strength and candor.  Jackie Kennedy throughout her life was a fiercely private public woman,..perhaps the most famous woman in the world, who for obvious reasons guarded her privacy, her children and her life.  So why would she have done this and what did they tell us about Jackie? Come Visit Political Woman

Caroline Kennedy: "...I think people really need to understand the purpose of an oral history. And it really – the value of it is it is immediate, it is honest...I think that was very brave of her to do that and to be honest. But it’s got limitations. It’s just – it’s a primary source document. It’s like a diary or something like that, it’s really a snapshot...This was something where she felt the obligation to be honest and she had always told us that she was going to put it away for 50 years...

"...There are flashes throughout where I hear her and there are parts to me where it sounds like it was a very long time ago, just the way she speaks and the things she said...It was funny because my daughters listened to it too and they were just absolutely horrified…’Did she really think that?’ And of course time has moved on and it shows you both there are many timeless things in here but it really is a snapshot of a world that we barely recognize,” 

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