OK, then tell me, WERE you 'there'? I asked you if you were alive when President Kennedy and his brother were assassinated. Why didn't you just answered that straight forward question? I know that I was, and I remember it very well.
I didn't bring a "Camelot" story. If you go back and read my posts, I mentioned Jackie 'didn't care for the way some of Caroline and John's cousins were raised. So she also saw it (leaving the country) as a way to cut some of those ties.'
Post #79
The Kennedys are human beings, not Gods. I don't make excuses for bad behavior in their personal lives. But there are a couple questions I
would ask. Where do we draw the line on public figures? If Jack Kennedy was a philanderer, then that was Jackie's problem. If it didn't interfere with his public role, then why is it our business? And the second has to do with being 'human'..."let he who is without sin, cast the first stone"...are you without sin?
If you took a piece of paper, drew a ledger down the middle and listed all the positive things the Kennedy family has brought to this nation on one side, and the negatives on the other, it would be years of writing versus minutes. The positives and the good heavily outweigh any personal failings, especially when viewed in light of what IS our business; evaluating their public roles.
In my opinion, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy served this nation with dignity, honor, grace, patriotism and courage. When her husband, our beloved president was assassinated, this country was devastated and grief stricken. As a matter of fact, the whole world was grief stricken. Even in Russia. When Soviet Premier Khrushchev got the news from Dallas in November 1963, he broke down and sobbed in the Kremlin, unable to perform his duties for days.
The trip to Dallas was Jackie's first public appearance after the horrible lost of their son Patrick in August of '63. Patrick lived only 2 days after his birth. Then, in Dallas, riding in an open automobile, she watched as her husband was brutally murder sitting at her side. She climbed onto the back of the limousine to retrieve a piece of his skull.
Here was this young 34 year old wife and mother facing all this private tragedy in public view. Yet it was Jackie that taught a grieving nation how to grieve and how to move on. It was Jackie that directed the funeral arrangements for her husband follow protocol and history. Abraham's Lincoln's funeral was the template.
On November 25th, the day her husband was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, she hosted a reception at the White House for the world dignitaries that attended the President's funeral. But that day was also John Jr's 3rd birthday. Jackie had a private birthday party upstairs for John John. She and the other Kennedy women attended John's birthday party in black mourning dresses.
Courage and grace will always remain as my strongest image of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy. She served our country with honor.