Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [36]
I see. Oh, what else was I just thinking of? Can't remember.
Before the President went to Los Angeles, did he talk very much about—did he speculate about the vice presidency?
No, he really didn't. He was at the Cape and I flew down with him to New York and we stayed—did we stay the night at that Idlewild21 hotel?—or else I just saw him off and went back to the Cape—you know, and said goodbye to him. I guess we did stay the night because the Truman thing was sometime. He really didn't. You know, it was more just to get it himself. So, that all obviously happened in those four or five days there.
Did he ever get permanently mad at people?
Never! And then I used to say to him sometimes—you know, it was so funny in politics—it was all everyone talked about, every night. And I'd hear him speaking nicely about someone and I'd say, "What? Are you saying nice things about X? But I've been hating him for three weeks." You know, if I saw him in the street I was going to make a point to just glare at him and cross over to avoid him and Jack would say, "No, no, that was three weeks ago. Now he's done x, y." You know, I mean, in politics things do change so quickly and Jack would never—he'd often say that—never get in anything so deep that you've lost all chance of conciliation. I mean, he never treated it—what did he say? "In politics you don't have friends or enemies, you have colleagues"? That isn't quite the right—
Interests. Palmerston used to say there are no permanent friendships or alliances, there are only permanent interests. Something like that.
Yeah, but he never got—I mean, I'd get terribly emotional about anyone, whether it was a politician or a newspaper person who would be unfair, but he always treated it so objectively, as if they were people on a chess board—which is right. I mean, how could you if you—if he'd gotten so mad at all those people, then you may need to work with them again later. So, it's the only way to be effective—which is one reason I think women should never be in politics. We're just not suited to it.
Yeah. He was a great realist in that way, because I remember in Los Angeles, everyone felt as soon as Lyndon attacked the ambassador, that this finished him.22 That's because of the theory that developed of sort of Irish feuding. Too many people had seen John Ford films, which I didn't—23
John Connally was the one who was going around about saying Mr. Ken—about Addison's disease too. And then, you know, the day before Jack died in Texas, I said to him, "I just can't stand Governor Connally. I can't stand his soft mouth." He was so pleased with himself and he'd spend all our times in the car telling Jack, I guess, how far he'd run ahead of him in Texas. So, I'd say, "What's he trying to tell you? It seems so rude what he's saying to you all the time." And Jack said, "Oh, well, he's been making up with a lot of businessmen down here and gotten a lot of support he didn't have before. That's what he's telling me."24 But Jack would just sort of take it—you know, "yaaah"—and then when I said that, that I hated Connally, Jack was so sweet. He sort of rubbed my back—it was as we were going to bed—and said, "You mustn't say that, you mustn't say that." He said, "If you start to say or think that you hate someone, then the next day you'll act as if you hated him," and then, "We've come down here to Texas to heal everything up and you'll make it all impossible." Nellie Connally was refusing to ride with Yarborough—everybody was refusing to ride with Yarborough—everybody was refusing to ride. And there were two people named Yarborough