Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [57]
JOHN: Why? [John leaves.]
Really the fact he wasn't exercising—
Yes, you see, he'd never done much exercise anyway, but as he said, the campaign of jumping in and out of cars, walking, you know, kept him fit. And then for the first time in his life, he'd really had from election to inauguration a lot of it in Florida, to play golf—I don't know, twice a week or three times—to swim, to walk on the beach. He never had such a long period of daily some kind of exercise. And he just lost it all sitting in his desk. And then he went back to Dr. Travell, but all that Novocain, it didn't do any good anymore. You know, it wasn't until the next October—I got so mad at her because then other doctors were trying to bring in Hans Kraus, who could build you up through exercises.63 Well, all these doctors are so jealous of each other and she wouldn't let Kraus come in. And finally, I'd sat by so many times while doctors did things to Jack—well, doctors just pushed Jack all over the place—that I really got mad and got in there and got the back surgeon and the other—everybody and just forced her to have—him to have Kraus. And Kraus started these series of exercises which he did every evening with the navy chief. You know, like lift—trying to touch your toes or lying on your stomach and trying to raise one leg. And you could just see—I mean, he still was in pain a lot that winter—oh, and it went out really badly, you remember, in May in Canada. But by the next October, when he started to do these, after a while—
But he was weak before he went to Canada? In other words, it wasn't the planting the tree in Canada which caused it all, it was really the lack of exercise that really did it.
Yeah. And—
How long a day would he exercise?
Oh, well, these exercises with the chief would just take about fifteen minutes. You know, sort of sitting-up exercises or then they'd hold your legs so you'd have to try to lift it up against it. But you know, Jack could never touch his toes. He couldn't get his hands down any farther than his knees standing up. He couldn't put on his shoes before—sort of bend over that far.
Oh, really?
Well, he could if he'd lift his foot in his lap, or something. So, as I say, he wasn't a cripple—that sounds funny—he could do everything, but you'd just notice when you'd see him trying to reach for something he'd dropped on the floor, how stiff he was. My Lord, at the end, in a couple of months, he could touch his toes, he could do all these things he'd never been able to do—knee bends— So then once Kraus started—then that was, you know, encouraging, because he'd get so discouraged. That's when you'd see him in black periods. Well, he'd tried and he had every doctor and Dr. Travell had given him the tenth treatment and before she always helped. And now there didn't seem to be any answer. So then Kraus then helped him and that cheered him up.
Your White House parties—the best parties I've ever gone to—were they—
Well, I'll tell you why I thought of having them. The one thing I noticed was that I could get away from the White House and I could go to New York and see a play or go to a restaurant. Jack never liked to go out before, when he was in his home, but he had liked to stop in New York a couple of days, see a play, go to Pavillon64—see some different people. I mean, we were young and we were gay and you couldn't cut all that off from him and just leave his life full of worry. So the first one I thought of having, it was when Lee was over. I thought that would be an excuse to have one. And I thought of all these people from New York or—everywhere,