Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [34]
Which he did—completely, of course. He won in West Virginia three to one, as I recall. Something like that. And then after that, did—
Oh, do you want to know something interesting about the night that we won there? I guess that night was just too frightening. You know, we didn't want another night like the Hotel Pfister. So he came back to Washington and we went—we had dinner at home with the Bradlees and we went to a movie.
What was the movie, do you remember?
We had been going to some movie at the Trans-Lux, but it was half over, so we went to some strange movie on New York Avenue. Just the only movie that was sort of open that we could get in. It was some awful, sordid thing about some murder in California—really, I mean, just morbid.10 And then we came home to our house, terribly depressed by this movie, and waited for the phone to ring. And I was in the pantry getting some ice cubes and suddenly I heard this war whoop of joy! And they'd called Jack and it was, well, you know, just fantastic in West Virginia, so then we all got in a plane and flew down there, and got there in the middle of the night. But you know, he was so nervous about it, he just didn't want to be there. So we had this strange little evening of not wanting to be by the radio, the phone, anything.
Is that the—that's the only election you ever did that, isn't it? Most of the other times you were always there.
Yeah. The other times we were always there, yeah.
This was really so much a make-or-break thing. And after this, did it seem to be clear sailing?
Well, I guess it did to Jack. Because then it was to really go around and talk to people, wasn't it, and keep speaking. Well, what month would that have been?
Well, that was May, and then in June there was President Truman's attack. Remember that?
Oh, yeah.
On experience. Did that upset him much or—
Well, you know, it irri— I mean, it was just one more thing to, you know, swat down like a buzzing fly. But I remember when he answered that, because that was on his way out to the convention. So June and July, what did he do? Well, then there was the long session of the Senate.
That was after the convention.
Was that after the convention? Were June and July—I guess he was mostly in Washington, wasn't he? Wasn't the Senate still in session then?
Yes, the convention was in July. It was earlier because the Democrats were out of office and then he came back and the special session began in August.
Then whenever he'd come up to the Cape for a weekend—oh, or a day—you should have seen our little house. There'd be fifty Lithuanians arriving with folk dolls for Caroline or something at eleven in the morning, then they'd go. Then, I don't know, then Tom Mboya11 would come, and then Governor Stevenson, then Norman Mailer, then—just in and out of our house. And everyone on the street outside—I'd started to build a stockade at the convention, but I only had it half finished—that split fence. So, Lee and Stas12 were staying with us and everyone could see them getting in and out of the bathtub because they had a room on the street. It was rather close living that summer.
About the convention, were you or the President ever alarmed by the way things were going at the convention? For example, all the Johnson efforts or the Stevenson picket line, or anything like that?
You see, I was at home at the Cape with my mother and stepfather and Janet. I was the only person in the whole compound because I was having John.13 And I was panic-struck, reading the papers. Well, Jack would always call me up, usually terribly late at night, or say something would be all right, or not to worry, or this or that. I suppose he was worried about me worrying, having a baby. Oh, but I was panic-struck watching it. But I guess they weren't as worried out there, because Bobby told me that once he got to the convention, he