Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [29]
Always when we were in Washington, we saw Bobby. It's funny. Just in the White House, we stopped seeing them in the evenings. When we went out, we saw Bobby. Before we were married, we always lived in Georgetown, we were at dinner with them once or twice a week. And then Bobby—they'd talk about the McClellan committee, the McCarthy committee—you know, all the things that Bobby was on.37 But, I guess, then Bobby ran his Senate campaign—didn't he?
Yes, he did.
In '52?
In '52, and Teddy, supposedly, in '58.38
But, you know, Bobby was always sort of—well, they were both so caring of what the other was doing. But then I guess—I suppose, at that Thanksgiving meeting, Bobby just gave up everything else and did everything for Jack from then on. I don't remember what Bobby was doing in '58 that he couldn't run the campaign. Are you sure he didn't run it?
My impression is that Teddy was nominally the campaign manager, but maybe not. The labor hearings were going on, I suppose, at that time.
Well, that's a major thing, I remember, in Jack's life, but I can't remember what year it was. But I can remember every morning for breakfast, Arthur Goldberg39 would appear. Or George Meany,40 and everyone—that was the year '57 when we moved in our house, because the first breakfast, I bought these creaky old dining room chairs, and at one of the first breakfasts, Jack and George Meany and someone else all went crashing to the floor. But all that year, you know, we were seeing people for the labor bill. He and Seymour Harris 41 that spring—
Much more labor than foreign policy at that point—
Well, it was to get through the labor bill. Was it against the Landrum-Griffin Bill?42
The Landrum-Griffin Bill came along as an—alternative, which was eventually passed as a result of Eisenhower's throwing himself into it.
Well, anyway, Jack had one whole spring working on that.
Spring of '59, I think. But at the same time, he would do things like give the speech on Algeria.43
Oh, yeah. Gosh, I had to be married for my contribution to that. Because the summer—that was the summer before we were married—he gave me all these French books, and asked me to translate them. And I was working for the Times-Herald,44 living alone at my mother's house in Virginia. And I'd stay up all these hot nights, translating these books, and, as I couldn't tell what was important and what was not—
What sort of books?
I mean, all these—they were all in French on Algeria. No, no, this was Indochina. Sorry, Indochina. That's right.45 That's what I did before I got married.
That was '51–'52.
Yeah, translate all on Admiral D'Argenlieu, and Ho Chi Minh, and the Ammonites and the Mennonites.46 I think I translated about ten books.
Ten whole books?
No, I mean really sort of skimming through the page, but—
Summarizing. Could he not read French?
Yeah, he could read French, but you know, but not enough to trust himself for a lot of facts and things. And then he would see—we were seeing a lot of French people then, and then they'd give some book. And the same—well, I did some for Algeria. But, you know—and the St. Lawrence Seaway, again I can remember that. You know, all those things were so brave.47
The Algeria speech was particularly so, because the whole Council on Foreign Relations crowd in this country were all outraged by it. I happened to be in Paris when the speech came out, and an old friend of mine, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber of L'Express, was absolutely delighted by the speech and ran the full text and claims to be the first magazine in the world which put the President on the cover. And I remember writing to him from Paris, saying, "Pay no attention to these editorials from the New York Times saying how you shouldn't rock the boat. You are absolutely right. The people in France who care about it welcomed the speech."
Oh, yeah, I remember when he went to Poland, he wouldn't take me, because he thought it wasn't serious to travel with your wife. But, you know, he