Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Being the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton has said, isn't a job?"it's arole."

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was thirty-one years old at the inauguration of thethirty-fifth president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy She was by nine years theyoungest presidential wife to enter the White House with her husband. (Tylerand Cleveland married still younger women but did so in the White House.) Likethirty presidential wives before her (Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren, and Arthurwere widowers; Buchanan was a bachelor), Jacqueline Kennedy confronted thechallenge of figuring out a role as first lady.

She hated the title and instructed the staff that she should be known, not asfirst lady, but as Mrs. Kennedy. Carl Sferrazza Anthony, the historian of firstladies, traces the title to President Zachary Taylor's eulogy at DolleyMadison's funeral in 1849. Mrs. Kennedy thought the term undemocratic; also,"First Lady" sounded to her like the name of a saddle horse. Eventually, sheacquiesced in the usage.

She was a young woman of notable beauty, at once wistful and luminous, and ofacute intelligence and exacting expectation. She had been reared in a class, atime?the 1940s?and a place?Newport, Rhode Island?where young ladies weretaught to conceal their brains lest they frighten young men away. She observedupper-class conventions, but underneath a veil of lovely inconsequence shedeveloped a cool assessment of people and an ironical slant on life. One soonrealized that her social graces masked tremendous awareness, an all-seeing eye,ruthless judgment, and a steely purpose.

Jacqueline Kennedy brought several unusual qualities with her to the WhiteHouse. One was a knowledge of the arts. Her response to life was aestheticrather than intellectual or moralistic. When she won Vogue's Prix de Paris in1951, she wrote that the three men she would most like to have known wereBaudelaire, Wilde, and Diaghilev. Her natural habitat was the internationalworld of society and art. Bernard Berenson once cautioned her that "Americangirls should marry American boys. They wear better."

Her husband, an American boy, was wholly sympathetic to his wife's artisticleanings, though his own tastes ran to literature and architecture more than tomusic and decor. He asked Robert Frost to read a poem at his inauguration andembraced a proposal by Kay Halle, a Kennedy friend, that leading writers andartists be invited to the ceremony. This idea rather annoyed the politicians onthe Inauguration Committee who were hoarding tickets, but it went through, andW H. Auden, Robert Lowell, Alexis Léger, Jacques Maritain, John Steinbeck,John Hersey, Allen Tate, and fifty other writers, composers, and painters werein the audience. "What a joy," said Steinbeck, "that literacy is no longerprima facie evidence of treason." "Thank you," said Lincoln Kirstein, "forrestoring to the United States the pleasures and powers of the mind."

To her appreciation of the arts Jacqueline Kennedy added a passionate sense ofhistory. She liked to know how things began and how they evolved, and herglamorous modernity was based on an intense curiosity about the past. "We wouldtour the battlegrounds," Edward M. Kennedy recalled of the l950s, "and mybrother and Jackie knew everything about the Civil War." "She had a fantasticdesire for historical knowledge," said Letitia Baldrige, her social secretary,"and she was a sponge once she learned it."

And she knew Washington. She had lived there for eighteen years, had been aphotographer and columnist for the Washington Times-Herald, and hadabsorbed the distinctive atmosphere of what Henry James called the City ofConversation. Her Times-Herald columns show a particular interest in theWhite House and its occupants. Though she had the reputation of beingindifferent or even hostile to political life, she came in fact to enjoypoliticians and their free and easy talk. As a senator's wife, she oftenattended debates and hearings, and in due course she also came rather to likecampaigning.

Jacqueline Kennedy had thought hard about her new role as the president's wife.With her historical sense, she understood that the White House was not a privateresidence but the property of the American people. She also hoped to use theWhite House to honor achievement in the arts. Before the inauguration, LetitiaBaldrige announced to the press, "Mrs. Kennedy plans to make the White House ashowcase for great American art and artists."

During the interregnum between the election and the inauguration, she carefullystudied books and files on the executive mansion supplied to her by the Libraryof Congress. Mrs. Eisenhower gave her a tour of the White House. "As soon as sheleft," said Jacqueline Kennedy's friend Mrs. Henry (Sister) Parish, the famedinterior decorator, "she called me, and it was then that I realized that Jackiedid not have two big eyes?she had dozens. Every room was observed, down to thelast detail." The day after the visit Mrs. Eisenhower told J. B. West, the WhiteHouse chief usher?in the voice, he noted, that she reserved fordisapproval?"She's planning to redo every room in this house. You've got quitea project ahead of you."

In a phrase much used in the City of Conversation, Jacqueline Kennedy hit theground running. On her first working day as the president's wife she discussedwith David Finley, the chairman of the federal Commission of Fine Arts, waysand means of soliciting gifts that would reclaim for the White House itshistoric integrity?perhaps a committee to raise funds for that purpose? Finleywas so delighted that he made the first gift himself: a splendideighteenth-century walnut highboy in the Chippendale style.

Sister Parish arrived at the White House two days after the inauguration. (Hernickname caused some confusion. One newspaper ran the headline KENNEDYS PICK NUNTO DECORATE WHITE HOUSE.) Her inspection was unsparing. The rooms used for statefunctions on the first floor were, she thought, "tattered, worn, and seemed tohave no rhyme or reason. I felt sad for the neglected rooms. It disturbed me toknow that these badly designed, poorly maintained rooms belonged to the UnitedStates.... What did the kings and queens and great statesmen of the world thinkwhen they came to our president's home?" As for the family room on the secondfloor, "the Eisenhowers had given it a cold, stiff hotel look, and it was allthere, including the TV sets."

Three days after the inauguration Mrs. Kennedy had George Balanchine for tea(the great choreographer wondered whether the White House might provideanything stronger). She asked him, "What can I do for the arts?" Like Finley,Balanchine was delighted by her and afterward observed to a reporter, "Shelooked like a pussy-cat." Later he told her that she should become the"spiritual savior" of America. "I don't mean in a religious sense," he wrote,"but I mean to distinguish between material things and things of thespirit?art, beauty. No one else can take care of these things. You alonecan?if you will."

Mrs. Kennedy had more limited objectives. Her first priority was to becomespiritual savior of the White House. Even here she proceeded with caution,afraid that she might seem officious in calling for changes. Her husbandreinforced her apprehensions. Americans, the new president feared, did not likepresidents or their wives fooling around with the White House. PresidentTruman, when he dared to build a second-floor balcony on the south portico,provoked such wrath that he felt he was being accused of interfering with thenatural order of the universe. How to rehabilitate the White House withoutrousing a political storm?

President Kennedy now turned to Clark Clifford, not only a trusted adviser andpersonal attorney but a veteran of the Truman wars. At luncheon with theKennedys two weeks after the inauguration, Clifford recalled the outcry againstthe balcony. President Truman, he added, had wanted to match the historictradition of the White House with furnishings equally historic, but funds hadnot been available and the result, Clifford said, was the "somewhat patheticand shabby air the building had acquired during the Eisenhower years."

Still, thousands of visitors came through the White House every day, JacquelineKennedy reminded the group at lunch, "We must make this building something thatthey will be proud of. I want to make the White House the first house in theland." And she also envisaged the White House as a history lesson. "People whovisit the White House see practically nothing that dates before 1902. Peopleshould see things that develop their sense of history."

Clifford endorsed the objective but warned that great care had to be taken. "TheWhite House is a sacred cow to the American people and woe to any president whotouches it without preparing the groundwork." A fine arts committee for theWhite House, he suggested, might provide legal and political cover. PresidentKennedy seized upon the idea; Clifford drew up the legal framework; and onFebruary 23, 1961, hardly a month after the inauguration, the Fine ArtsCommittee for the White House came into existence as a body empowered to"locate authentic furniture of the date of the building of the White House[1802] and the raising of funds to purchase this furniture as gifts for theWhite House."

The original formulation seemed to restrict the restoration to objets ofthe very early republic. Life ran a jocose editorial entitled "Forwardto 1802." Mrs. Kennedy soon clarified her purpose. "The White House," she saidin an interview, "does and must continue to represent the living, evolvingcharacter of the Executive Branch of the National Government. Its occupants havebeen persons of widely different geographical, social and economic backgrounds,and accordingly of different cultural and intellectual tastes?it wouldtherefore be highly inadvisable, even if it were possible, to fix on a singlestyle of decorating and furnishings for a building that ought to reflect thewhole history of the Presidency."

"This," she continued, "should put to rest the fears of people who think wemight restore the building to its earliest period, leaving [out] all that cameafter; or fill it with French furniture; or hang modern pictures all overit?and paint it whatever color we like. The White House belongs to our past andno one who cares about our past would treat it that way."

The Kennedys' friend Charles Wrightsman, whose wife Jayne played a generous andresourceful role in the restoration, proposed as chairman of the new committeeHenry Francis du Pont, the founder of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, a notedauthority on and collector of American antiques, a millionaire, and also aRepublican. Though eighty-one years old, du Pont accepted the assignment. Itwas, Jacqueline Kennedy said, "the biggest red-letter day of all.... Without himon the Committee I didn't think we would accomplish much?and with him I knewthere would be no criticism."

The fourteen members of the committee?eight women, six men gave generoussupport in funds as well as in artifacts, and the restoration was rapidly underway. None of this would have worked, however, without the wholeheartedcollaboration of the chief usher, who, despite his title, was not an usher atall but the general manager of the White House.

Mrs. Eisenhower's prediction was right: the chief usher had quite aproject ahead of him. But J. B. West, who had started out at the White House inthe Roosevelt years and had been chief usher since 1957, applauded therestoration. "Mr. West," said Sister Parish, "was a fund of knowledge andunceasingly helpful. Nothing was too much in his desire to help us." "He wasever patient and understanding," said Letitia Baldrige. "He went through aterrible lot. He had to referee everybody's fight and never say no to theKennedys."

And he delighted in Mrs. Kennedy. His memoir, Upstairs in the WhiteHouse (1973), offers a vivid description of her modus operandi. "I soonlearned that Mrs. Kennedy's wish, murmured with a 'Do you think...' or 'Couldyou please....,' was as much a command as Mrs. Eisenhower's 'I want this doneimmediately."' The new first lady, West said, turned the White House inside outand imprinted her own style upon the mansion. "In public, she was elegant,aloof, dignified, and regal. In private, she was casual, impish, andirreverent. She had a will of iron, with more determination than anyone I haveever met. Yet she was so soft-spoken, so deft and subtle, that she could imposethat will upon people without their ever knowing it."

Relaxed and uninhibited, she was always popping up everywhere, wearing slacks,kicking off her shoes, sitting on the floor, hair flying in every direction. Shepoked fun at everything, including herself. She was highly organized but rarelyheld herself to a schedule. She conducted "spelunking" expeditions into dustystorerooms and warehouses in search of forgotten treasures. She had, Westobserved, a "total mastery of detail?endless, endless detail." West foundhimself "thoroughly enjoying the most creative and challenging work to which theChief Usher had ever been put."

Jacqueline Kennedy's chosen medium of communication was a memorandum on a legalpad, scrawled upon in the looping society handwriting she had learned at MissPorter's. She fired memos off every morning rather in the manner of the "ActionThis Day" memos with which Winston Churchill used to torment generals, admirals,and cabinet ministers during the Second World War.

Showing impressive executive ability, Jacqueline Kennedy skillfully managed anunruly team. Du Pont was to be the authority on historic furnishings, but,recalling that President Monroe had furnished the White House in the FrenchEmpire style, the first lady chose Stéphane Boudin of the Jansen firm inParis as the authority on decoration. "From the first day the two men met," J.B. West noted, "it was apparent they'd never see eye to eye on anything. Mr. duPont, a dignified Eastern millionaire, was interested only in authenticity, anddidn't care about arrangement or proportion or compatibility. M. Boudin, abubbly, dramatic little Frenchman, cared only about pleasing the eye."

Jacqueline Kennedy, confident of her own taste and charm, kept them workingtogether. "Next time Mr. du P comes," one of her memos to West reads, "the poorman can't bear to think our moving days are over?he enjoyed it so?tell him Mrs.K loves the rooms the way they are and doesn't want to make any morechanges?the press and Maxine Cheshire [of the Washington Post]... writerather nasty stories and Mrs. K feels it may undermine work of committee etc.etc. I am sorry he wastes your time but I don't dare tell him.... Put him offuntil we have LOTS of new furniture or he can come on his way back from Fla tosee 3rd floor & Q[ueensl room (and not change ANYTHING)."

She quietly favored Boudin. A memo: "Mr. West. Could you send Mr. duPont Boudin's 3 samples for green room 1) big ocean on green design 2) smallergreen-on-green piece 3) tiny bit more of moiré. Also return him his owndarker green stripe material?on white board. Please enclose this humble lettersoliciting his approval?If we don't get it he will have the shock of me doingit anyway."

There was tension, too, between Boudin and Sister Parish. This did not work outso affably. A coolness arose between Mrs. Parish and Mrs. Kennedy. "Finally, Ilearned the source of our problem," Mrs. Parish later said. "She had been toldthat I had kicked Caroline, and she was convinced it was true." Sister'sgranddaughter commented, "I wouldn't have put it past her, but that was not theroot of the falling-out," and attributed it instead to a dispute over moneyIndeed, Mrs. Kennedy felt that she had been overcharged for modest work in GlenOra, the Kennedys' country house. In any case, Mrs. Parish's specialty wascreating small, cozy rooms. Boudin was better able to cope with the state roomsof the White House.

Jacqueline Kennedy was a mistress of meticulous detail. On the Treaty Room,which had served as the Cabinet Room before Theodore Roosevelt built the WestWing: "Mr. West. I was looking at treaties?in Treaty Room. a) Theyshould all be ones that were signed in that room. That would be [Andrew]Johnson?TR?isn't that right? Or did J Q Adams use that as office and signtreaties there?? Is there any way of finding out which were signed inoffice?when room was that?and which when it was Cabinet Room?probably not. SoI think?as Treaty of Peace with Spain is obviously in that room we should justhave Johnson TR?and lots more. Let's get rid of FDR and Cuba?and getlots more treaties of 1864-1902. We could put them way up [on] walls. b) Wherethe name of treaty is printed on the mat?I think date should be printedalso?as it is too complicated to read treaty to find out."

The Queens' Bedroom for distinguished guests, like Winston Churchill and V M.Molotov, was the subject of a number of Jacqueline Kennedy's bullets: "Mr.West. When was mantel put in Queens room?1902; 1948? I don't really want tochange it. If it's 1948 will you send photo to Boudin and ask him if he thinkswe should get lower, more English one." It all came out well: "Mr. West.The Queens' room is INCREDIBLE. It really could be [fit] for a Queen now."

Before their falling out, Sister Parish had arranged for Amory Houghton ofCorning Glass to make Steuben wineglasses engraved with the Great Seal of theUnited States. Mrs. Kennedy's refusal displays her social consciousness as wellas her skill in maneuver. She had already purchased wineglasses she loved fromWest Virginia and, as she explained to Mrs. Parish, at "one millionth theprice." Nor did she miss the Great Seal. "It is almost a relief: Our flatwareand china are all engraved."

Then she added: "West Virginia is the most unemployed area in the countryand...I just don't want to put a lot of people in West Virginia out of worknow, especially as so many of them found jobs because of this glass." She wassure, she continued, that Mr. Houghton would understand her concern. "The thingI would really love to have from him is the marvelous English furniture for theQueens' Room, so you might try that tack. Do be sure to let him know that youhad not consulted me when you thought of this."

President Kennedy no doubt was all in favor of protecting the West Virginiaglass workers and, when his own domain was involved, had no hesitation aboutregistering preferences. "Mr. West JFK approves Cabinet Roomcurtains?does not like muddy colors of rug.... His office. We don'twant white chairs?he wants to see sample of rug. He says curtains are OK? butI think perhaps they should be a creamier color?as it makes everything else inroom look so dirty & we can't make sofas white?what does B[oudin] suggest forsofa? I just think design might be a bit feminine for Pres office?I likesomething less draped more like Cabinet or Red Room curtains."

When she traveled, she would dictate instructions through the U. S. SignalCorps. Once she recommended from abroad that historical items be put inglass-paneled cases, or "tastefully designed vitrines." This was unluckilytranscribed and distributed as "tastefully designed latrines," resulting inmuch high-level merriment.

The Fine Arts Committee for the White House and its devoted members sent outpleas for furniture, paintings, busts, chandeliers, and rugs that had been ormight have been at one time or another in the executive mansion. They wereastonished by the response. "The White House," said J. B. West, "was barragedwith everybody's old quilts, spittoons, and paintings." Many items werehopeless; some were genuine finds.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline Kennedy had focused on a new White House need?a permanentcollection of American paintings. Most paintings on White House walls wereportraits of presidents and their wives. In many cases these were poor copies ofvanished originals. A Special Committee for White House Paintings was set up,headed by the artist James W. Fosburgh. Within two years the committee gatheredfor the White House more than one hundred and fifty paintings, drawings, prints,and sculptures.

Other items were offered for purchase. "Mr. West. I so like the rug, butwe are short of dollars and I am ENRAGED at everyone trying to gyp the WhiteHouse. Tell him if he gives it he can get a tax deduction and photo in ourbook?if not? goodbye!" The costs of the restoration project far exceeded theWhite House allocation in the federal budget. "They don't even have a brochurefor all the tourists who go through here," Mrs. Kennedy told the chief usher."But if we could sell one, we could finance the restoration."

President Kennedy hesitated at first, fearing criticism over thecommercialization of the president's house. Once again Clark Clifford came tothe rescue, proposing the creation of a nonprofit organization. On November 3,1961, the White House Historical Association came into existence. Its firstassignment was to produce a White House guidebook, an undertaking in which Mrs.Kennedy took an intense personal interest.

"This must be scholarly?and not talk down to the public then they will learnfrom it and I have never seen a case, in politics or books, when talking downdid any good?it just bores people.... This shall be something which Berenson,Uncle Lefty and Arthur Schlesinger would want to read " (Uncle Lefty wasWilmarth Lewis, the Horace Walpole scholar and Jacqueline Kennedy's stepfather'sbrother-in-law.)

The author of The While House: An Historic Guide was Lorraine Pearce,the first occupant of the Jacqueline Kennedy-created position of White Housecurator. Mrs. Kennedy herself submitted the text to rigorous editing. TheNational Geographic Society provided the illustrations and supervised thepublication. The guidebook proved to be a smash. More than six hundred thousandcopies were sold in the Kennedy years, and it has been selling steadily eversince. Having helped pay for the Kennedy restoration, the White House HistoricalAssociation devoted the guidebook proceeds to additional historical furnishingsand paintings.

By this time Jacqueline Kennedy's restoration protect, despite initial doubts,had won enthusiastic national support confirmed by the popular success inFebruary 1962 of the CBS program "A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F.Kennedy." It was, Theodore H. White said, "the most successful nonfiction show"CBS had ever presented. (Norman Mailer filed a dissent in an article forEsquire: "I liked her, I like her still, but she was a phony?it was thecruelest thing one could say, she was a royal phony." Jacqueline Kennedy laterconfided that she rather agreed with Mailer's account of the image she presentedon television.)

The guidebook's success led her to her next project and the White HouseHistorical Association's next production?a guide to the presidents. She wanted,she wrote me, something so "someone like me can get a vague but interesting ideaof each Pres (for instance I haven't a clue what party Pierce or Buchanan wereof or what they did?except fail)." There should be a "lively, evencontroversial, big sketch (not just born, married, wrote Monroe Doctrine, died)with some description of their character....It must be short enough so peoplewill read it all?in other words all on one page.... I would hope they wouldn'thave more (except in some cases you'll have to) as that detracts from theconcision I want. So many people and children are lazy?if they can learnsomething in a glance at a page?they will do it?rather than thumb through ahistory book."

"If you can do all this," she said, "I will carve your name on the Blue Roommantelpiece. It's your penance for not coming to India when we were there."Then she sketched herself in a nightgown with arms outstretched walking down acorridor past busts marked Lincoln and Washington. She and I had seen togetherAlain Resnais's haunting film Last Year in Marienbad, and her captionunder the sketch read: "Last yr. in the White House I was looking for ArthurSchlesinger?where is he?behind what door?down the long corridors past thestatues?is he writing the guidebook, or is it only a dream?"

It was, alas, only a dream. Despite this irresistible plea, I couldn't do thepresidents myself Her husband had other ideas about how I should spend my time.But I prevailed on my Harvard colleague Frank Freidel, the biographer ofFranklin Roosevelt, to undertake the text, which he discharged with style andspeed. The National Geographic Society again produced the book as a publicservice.

Her next idea was a working library for the White House. A small room on theground floor contained a random assemblage of volumes, but the White House hadno serious collection of fundamental works on American history. Here, again, Iwas enlisted as the first lady's point man. What we had in mind were the"American Classics"?the two thousand or so volumes most essential to anunderstanding of the American experience. James T Babb Jr., the Yale Universitylibrarian, headed the selection committee. Jacqueline Kennedy directed thecommittee to choose the "writings that have influenced American thinking?Lockeetc. and all books by Presidents...just what a gentleman's library should looklike."

The restoration of the White House was the first step in a larger vision."President Kennedy and I," she said in later years, "shared the conviction thatthe artist should be honored by society, and all of this had to do with callingattention to what was finest in America, what should be esteemed and honored.The arts had been treated as a stepchild in the United States. When thegovernment had supported the arts, as in many WPA projects, artists were givena hand, and many wonderful things emerged.... Our great museums and greatperforming companies should of course be supported, but the experimental andthe unknown should also be thrown a line. Our contemporary artists?in all themedia?have excited the world. It was so sad that we couldn't help them more. Ofcourse, the president and I talked of these things. It was something heresponded to and cared about for his country. Who else had had a poet read athis inauguration, and so many great writers invited to it?"

The first lady had strong White House support beyond her own staff. PierreSalinger, the president's press secretary, had started out as a concert pianistbefore turning to journalism, and he retained a lively interest in the arts.Richard Goodwin was a constant source of imaginative ideas about governmentencouragement of the arts. I, too, helped where I could.

An important unofficial adviser was William Walton, a journalist, painter, andconfidant of both Kennedys (he had run the presidential campaign in New York in1960), who eventually succeeded David Finley as chairman of the Commission ofFine Arts. The Kennedys were wholly unaffected in their attitude toward thearts, Walton explained; it was simply that they were "susceptible to thecomfort of the arts. They couldn't live without them?it was woven into thepattern of their lives."

White House dinners afforded opportunities to recognize and celebrate theimportance of the arts and of artists. In November 1961 Pablo Casals, who hadlong declined to play his cello in public until democracy was restored inSpain, agreed to perform at the White House on an evening honoring Governor LuisMuñoz Marín of Puerto Rico. Kennedy said with emphasis in introducingCasals: "We believe that an artist, in order to be true to himself and hiswork, must be a free man."

Other dinners followed: for Igor Stravinsky; for the western hemisphere's Nobelprizewinners (whom Kennedy famously called "the most extraordinary collection oftalent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the WhiteHouse, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone"); forAndré Malraux (at which Kennedy began his toast by saying, "This will bethe first speech about relations between France and the United States that doesnot include a tribute to General Lafayette"). And dinners in honor of visitingstatesmen or monarchs always included artists and writers and entertainment ofhigh quality The administration, Thornton Wilder said, had created "a whole newworld of surprised self-respect" in the arts.

Jacqueline Kennedy played a dazzling role in the White House dinners. Sheenjoyed especially the one for Malraux. After John Kennedy met Malraux in Parisin 1961, I asked him what the adventurous author of Man's Fate was like.The president said wryly, "He was far more interested in Jackie than inme?which I perfectly understand." When Malraux came to Washington in May 1962,the Kennedys summoned an impressive list of American writers and artists to meethim: Edmund Wilson, Leonard Bernstein, Elia Kazan, Robert Lowell, ArchibaldMacLeish, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Isaac Stern, Robert Penn Warren, TennesseeWilliams. (Later, sitting next to Mme Malraux at a dinner at the French embassy,I asked her what American writers were admired in France. She named WilliamFaulkner, of course, then paused for a minute and named Margaret Mitchell. Whenmy reaction betrayed surprise, she said, "Oh, and my husband admires her too?hefound Gone with the Wind fascinating.")

John F. Kennedy's reaction to most problems was "OK, but what can we do aboutit?" The national government, he noted, did all sorts of things within its ownjurisdiction that bore upon the arts, from erecting public buildings todesigning stamps.

Here was an opportunity to set standards that might serve as examples to therest of the country. In the summer of 1961 he asked Pierre Salinger and me toconsider how the White House might take hold of this problem. We recommendedthat he appoint a special consultant on the arts to survey the areas wheregovernment policy had impact on cultural life and to define the elements of anational cultural program.

In December, after the success of the Casals dinner, the president invitedAugust Heckscher of the Twentieth Century Fund to conduct "without fanfare" aninquiry into the resources, limitations, and potentialities of national policyin relation to the arts. "Obviously government can at best play only a marginalrole in our cultural affairs," he told Heckscher. "But I would like to thinkthat it is making its full contribution in this role."

Heckscher looked first at the question of whether government kept its own housein beauty and fitness. Government was, after all, "the great builder, thecoiner, the printer, the purchaser of art, the commissioner of works of art,the guardian of great collections, the setter of standards for good or for badin innumerable fields." He reviewed the impact of tax and tariff laws on artistsand artistic institutions. He proposed an advisory council on the arts and, as"the logical crowning step in a national cultural policy," a national artsfoundation. In the spring of 1963 he put these and other recommendations in areport entitled "The Arts and the National Government."

A few days later, the president set up the Advisory Council on the Arts byexecutive order and prepared to make the Special Consultancy on the Arts afull-time and permanent office. The Heckscher report laid the basis for theNational Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities soon to be established inthe Johnson administration. Since Heckscher wished to return to the TwentiethCentury Fund, Jacqueline Kennedy proposed Richard Goodwin as his successor.Goodwin hesitated (and the president said to me, "Why the hell does Dick wantthat job anyway?!"), but Mrs. Kennedy sent him a most beguiling and persuasiveletter that closed the deal. Goodwin saw the special consultancy as a way ofapproaching the whole problem of the aesthetics of American society the way ourcities looked and the beauty of our environment, along with generalencouragement of the arts.

Washington had always been a company town, dominated by government and politics,and Jacqueline Kennedy wanted to make it, like Paris and London, the cultural aswell as the political capital. The Eisenhower administration had endorsedproposals for a national cultural center, and Mrs. Kennedy hoped for somethingalong the lines of Lincoln Center in New York City. The project became in duecourse the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and has given newsalience to the arts in the republic's capital.

Most presidents, including even the two Roosevelts, remained rather indifferentto the physical appearance of the capital. Lafayette Square, in front of theWhite House, was surrounded by Federal row houses where once had lived notableslike Dolley Madison and Stephen Decatur. The Eisenhower administration, seekingoffice space, had decided to replace the graceful old residences with banalmodern office buildings. The Kennedys were appalled by the sentence of deathpronounced on Lafayette Square.

"They are now planning to put up a hideous white modern court building,"Jacqueline Kennedy wrote Bernard Boutin, the head of the General ServicesAdministration. "The important thing is to preserve the 19th century feeling ofLafayette Square....I so strongly feel that the White House should give theexample in preserving our nation's past. Now we think of saving old buildingslike Mt. Vernon and tear down everything in the 19th century?but, in the nexthundred years, the 19th century will be of great interest and there will be noneof it left; just plain glass skyscrapers."

After exhaustive discussions, Kennedy and William Walton, his architecturalcounselor, were about ready to give up the fight. Mrs. Kennedy held out. "Thewreckers haven't started yet," she said, "and until they do it can be saved."Then the president, running by chance into John Carl Warnecke, the SanFrancisco architect, asked his advice. Warnecke came up with a brilliantsolution that protected the historic houses by placing new and harmonizingred-brick office buildings behind them.

The president kept careful watch on the progress of Lafayette Square. One dayWalton apologized for interrupting him when weightier affairs were on his desk."That's all right," the president said. "After all, this may be the onlymonument we'll leave."

The Eisenhower administration had also wanted to tear down the old StateDepartment building, a charming Neoclassical structure with Baroque featureserected just west of the White House during the Grant administration (and knowntoday as the Old Executive Office Building). Jacqueline Kennedy saved thatbuilding too. "She was the one who really deserved the credit for the wholething," Bernard Boutin recalled. "It was her idea. Her imagination. Her drive.Her ability to work with people." But when the new plan for Lafayette Squarewas unveiled, she whispered to Boutin, "Remember, not me. The president. Thepresident, Bernie, the president." Boutin said, "She did not want to take anyof the credit."

President Kennedy's great architectural dream was the rehabilitation ofPennsylvania Avenue, the broad boulevard running from the Capitol to the WhiteHouse, conceived by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the city's eighteenth-centuryplanner, as the "grand axis" of the city but now decaying into block afterblock of dingy buildings and cheap shops. The Kennedys set up a Council onPennsylvania Avenue, headed by the architect Nathaniel A. Owings and protectedin the government by a brilliant and resourceful assistant secretary of labornamed Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

"You, sir," said J. Roy Carroll Jr., president of the American Institute ofArchitects, to Kennedy in the spring of 1963, "are the first president of theUnited States?except, possibly, the first and third ones?who has had a visionof what architecture and its allied arts can mean to the people of the nation,and of what the careful nurturing of the architecture of the city of Washingtoncan mean to the millions who come here to pay homage to the heart of theircountry."

On October 24, 1963, President Kennedy traveled north to Amherst College to takepart in a ceremony honoring Robert Frost. "I see little of more importance tothe future of our country and our civilization," Kennedy said, "than fullrecognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of ourculture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever ittakes him.... The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is toremain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving hisvision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation."

He concluded: "I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of graceand beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, whichwill preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of ournational past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as wereward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America whichwill steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which willsteadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all our citizens. And I look forwardto an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for itsstrength but for its civilization as well."

The next month Goodwin, about to take over as White House special consultant onthe arts, proposed to the president that the aesthetics of American societycould he to him, and to his legacy, what the conservation of natural resourceshad been to Theodore Roosevelt. "It's a good idea," Kennedy said. "Let's workon it."

The next day the president departed for Dallas.

Much has been written about John and Jacqueline Kennedy; much has been imaginedabout them; their lives blend into legend, sometimes adoring, sometimessensational, sometimes scurrilous. This is not the place for a comprehensiveassessment of their thousand days in the White House. But the Kennedys must begiven credit for the intensity of their commitment to the vitality of the artsin America.

In 1957 William Faulkner had told the American Academy of Arts and Letters, "Theartist has no more actual place in the American culture of today than he has inthe American economy of today, no place at all in the warp and woof; the thewsand sinews, the mosaic of the American dream."

Seven years later, again before the Academy of Arts and Letters, Lewis Mumfordcalled John Fitzgerald Kennedy "the first American president to give art,literature and music a place of dignity and honor in our national life." Heshould have added: in partnership with Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy: A Reminiscence
Rachel Lambert Mellon

One summer day in the early 1960s Jacqueline Kennedy was in a drugstore not farfrom the village of Osterville, on Cape Cod, where we lived at the time. It wasthe perfect country drugstore, with a soda fountain on one side, Band-Aids,drugs, bathing caps, etc., in the middle, and a magazine stand at the far end.Here people gathered and picked up magazines to read before buying them. Thismorning there were more people than usual reading in intense silence.

When I walked in, I found Mrs. Kennedy sitting at the soda fountain, enjoying alarge cone of peach ice cream, with five small children who were chattering awaylike happy sparrows. Seeing me, she called "Well hi!," and smiled mischievouslylooking over toward the magazine stand, which had her picture or some referenceto her on many of the covers, she said, "all those people over there are sohappy reading what I don't do, they have never looked over here to see what Ireally do." The truth of this remark has often been repeated in my mind when Ihear and read the made-up, untrue fantasies about Mrs. Kennedy, whose charm inreality was simplicity.

We had met years before when she came with Adele Astaire Douglas and somefriends from Washington for tea in my home in Virginia. That evening Delliecalled and said, "young Mrs. Kennedy wants to call you, but feels I should askyou first if she should." Her telephone call the next morning was about herhouse. "I loved your house, but I don't like mine." She had noticed almostevery detail with enthusiasm, but it was not until she said "I even loved thestale candies in the antique jars" that she won me over. I agreed to go toWashington and see if I could help. When I arrived, she was sitting on the floorsurrounded by large books of maps and drawings. Her voice low, but with theunique charm that was one of her characteristics, she thanked meenthusiastically for coming. Mrs. Kennedy told me that the things she had lovedmost were the painted floors that I had found in Sweden and was able toduplicate at our Virginia farm.

Before we went much further, the front door opened and a large pram was bumpedup the steps and into the front hall. "That's Caroline," she said smiling, andjumped up to carry the baby in to meet me. Before leaving, I understood her needfor warmth in her house and the unusual details that would create it. Moreimportant, it was the beginning of a friendship that brought us both continuousjoy.

Mrs. Kennedy was a true "bluestocking" in the old-fashioned sense of the word.She explored history in all its aspects and was fascinated when meeting peopleunlike herself, whose lives had created worlds unknown to her; however, it washer family and children who were foremost. This private world she guardedceaselessly with dignity.

It was in mid-August of 1960, when, arriving home from Europe, I found threeurgent phone messages waiting: "Please call Mrs. Kennedy." There was aseriousness in her voice, and when I called, she asked, "When can I come over?"She arrived a few hours later and, with short gasps for breath, told me, "Jackmay be president. The count isn't in but what will I do??that big house and allthose curtains." Her fear of this enormous change in her life had focused on herhouse, her family, and her children.

Time passed, November came, the narrow margins of votes were counted, andSenator Kennedy had won.

John was born fifty-six days before the inauguration, and Mrs. Kennedy, inspite of a weakened back, had found her own way to this new life before itbegan. Her sense of history had helped her see the White House in a differentway. It was the president's house, a large southern mansion, with anever-changing atmosphere of administrations and new families that moved in andout. She studied its history, and with her youth, love of family, and love oflife, worked endlessly to blend the past with the present.

She did not like it or feel that the title "first lady" was appropriate; shewould be the president's wife. It was a big task she had to face?like exploringa new world. Fortunately, there existed the most unusual and wonderful man, Mr.J. B. West.

He was the chief usher in the White House, a title that meant he knew all theintricacies of staff management, the ways of past families, the protocol, andthe tiresome details. His fame lay in his way of dealing and working withpeople of all types and walks of life. His smile and calm never left him.Jacqueline Kennedy and I often wondered what would really shake Mr. West. Iworked with him, not only helping her inside the White House but also withgarden questions. Going to his office, I marveled at his almost empty desk. Mr.West was the president's young wife's greatest support and help from beginningto end. He was also the true friend of Mrs. Kennedy's secretary and schoolclassmate, Nancy Tuckerman. Jacqueline Kennedy reached out to many friends andpeople, but it was the few close to her who helped her daily to find in theWhite House the understanding and sense of home she had had in Georgetown.During the years Mrs. Kennedy was in the White House, she had three prioritiesthat filled most of her time: her admiration for and support of the president,her time spent with the children, and bringing the fresh history and importanceof the White House, as well as the lives of past presidents, to the childrenand people of America. The tours and White House guidebook are the results ofher dreams and effort.

Jacqueline Kennedy was true to herself. Her gift of insight into people and herdislike of false pretenses were strong guidelines in carrying out her newresponsibilities.

She dressed most of the time in pants and sweaters, with her tumbled hair oftentied in a scarf, and radiated an irresistible smile. Nevertheless, she gaveimportance to her formal clothes in her role as the president's wife. Whatevershe wore, she had her own sense of effortless elegance.

Her perception of the White House as a large southern mansion helped her makechanges almost immediately, winning over sympathetic members of the devotedWhite House staff with her directness and sense of fairness. Windows were soonopened. Fireplaces and chimneys were cleaned so fires could burn in all therooms when needed. She redesigned the flower room and the way flowers were tobe arranged in all the State Rooms. Dozens of long-stem roses, which constantlyarrived as gifts, were cut shorter and often mixed with country flowers. A newatmosphere blew through the White House like wind with a clearing sky. Cupboardsand warehouses were opened to search for historic treasures. Entertaining wasfull of pleasure and celebrated the importance of the guests. The kitchen staffwas changed and mixed American dishes with those of France. The existing partydining chairs were sad, not suitable for the new cheerfulness of the diningroom, painted in white and gold. Traditional chairs used in Paris for suchoccasions were ordered and made in France.

She felt that the early influence of French culture on the new republic,introduced by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, should be emphasizedwhenever possible in literature, social behavior, and taste. Washington'scopious correspondence with Lafayette dealt with all subjects, including theexchange of seeds and plants with France. After Jefferson visited Paris, he,too, saw the importance of America's need to learn from this European country.Today, the gardens of Mount Vernon and Monticello continue to grow with theirinspiration.

President Kennedy asked me to redesign the Rose Garden. He explained that afterhis trip to Europe, where he had met with the heads of state in Germany andFrance, he became aware of how walking in the gardens between serious meetingsand lunch brought a common interest of the different nations together in arelaxed and informal way. The president was an active participant in theconstruction of the garden and had constant pleasure as it grew. Noticing aboxwood bush that looked not too well, he asked me how much it would cost toreplace it. I told him, and he reached in his pocket and gave me the sum,explaining with a smile that he did not want to add it to the government'sexpense.

The Rose Garden was supervised and planted by a devoted and extraordinary man,Irwin Williams, who is still there after forty years. We met when he was incharge of Dangerfield Island, on the Potomac River, and, like Mr. West, he wasthe Kennedys' and my loyal and dear outdoor friend, forgiving dogs and poniesfor trespassing and redoing the damage without a word.

I was in Antigua when news came over the radio from Martinique of the tragedy inTexas. We had no telephones on the island at the time to get furtherinformation. The earliest plane leaving Antigua was the next day. Arriving inNew York the following evening, I found a message from Mr. West that Mrs.Kennedy wanted me to come to Washington. It was a stormy night when I left. Iarrived at the North Portico of the White House at 2:00 a.m. The steps werelined with Marines. They clicked their heels as I passed, going up alone. Mr.West opened the door, he was alone; he had been sitting nearby waiting for myarrival. After embracing me, he said, with tears in his eyes, "Mrs. Kennedy isasleep now, but would like for you to be at the Capitol tomorrow morning at9:00 to organize the flowers." I asked him if I could go in and pay my respectsto the president. The East Room seemed particularly large. It was lit withcandles. The chandeliers were draped in black gauze. In the center of the roomlay the president under a large American flag. At each corner of the casketstood a motionless guard from each of the four services, Army, Navy, Air Force,and Marines. Holding tight to Mr. West's hand, I said my prayers.

We walked back together to the front door. As we went down the steps outside, aheavy snow was falling. The ground was already white. Three days later Mrs.Kennedy asked me if I would go to the Rose Garden and pick a small basket ofremaining flowers. She handed me a note she had written, "Please put this inthe basket for me and take it to Arlington."

Excerpted from Jacqueline Kennedy by Hamish Bowles. Copyright © 2001 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright © 2001 the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-8212-2745-9