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By Root 1105 0

asking him this fall—oh, yes, that day that I told you about—it was one day in October, when he woke up from his nap and he looked very worried. I said something and he said, "This has been one of the worst days of my life. Ten things have gone wrong and it's only two-thirty." And he named some of them, which I should have written down. Anyway, one I can remember was that some little raid on Cuba had failed.38 And I sort of said, "Well, what is the point of all these little raids?" But he didn't—he sort of talked—he didn't really answer that question. He obviously didn't want to sit down with me and talk about Cuba because it was a worry to him. So I don't know what he had in his head or what his thoughts were.

Jean—did you see the interview that Jean Daniel—39

Yes.

Did that sound—what did you make of that?

Well, I thought it no more sounded like Jack. And I can remember being in Mrs. Lincoln's office when Jean Daniel was brought in and being introduced to him first.40 Then that came out after Jack was dead, didn't it?

That's right.

Well, it didn't sound like Jack. I can't remember what it said now, but it didn't sound—didn't ring true.

The language didn't sound like him. Some of the things that were said did sound like him and some didn't.

I don't even know if Daniel spoke English.

I think Ben Bradlee brought him in, as I recall.

Well, when I saw him, he was alone. But maybe Ben sent him.

Ben sent him, I guess. The—you know, eventually Miro Cardona got mad at the United States government and issued a blast, and so on.41

Yes, I can remember later on, Cardona became rather a nuisance.

I always felt the President understood—had a certain sympathy with the frustrations—

Yes, you know, and he never said anything awful about him. Just, you know, that was one more worrying thing in a day when there'd be a blast from Miro Cardona.

The President had been interested in Latin America, particularly, because it became such a major interest in the administration. Of course he had gone to Argentina, hadn't he, in 1939 or something like that?

Yes, he'd been there. I think he'd been to Brazil and a lot of places—had he been? But—but he was really quite young then and I don't think— I never remember him talking especially about Latin America before. It was really when he got into the White House—well, we were there a very short time when he made his Alliance speech.42 So he obviously must have been thinking about it during the campaign, in the interregnum, you know. And—oh, did I tell you about him, the trip to Mexico? No, the trip to Venezuela?43 I went to an orphanage and there was a picture in the paper that evening. All the children were kissing me goodbye. And the headline was—you know, it was very complimentary, it said, "We love Mrs. Kennedy. Look, she permits herself to be kissed by gringo children." Or by, you know, Indian children. Whatever they were. And that just hurt Jack so for them and he said, you know, "Look at those people. You just don't know of the inferiority complex they have, that the United States has given them." And isn't it trag—sad that they should be writing something like that? And you could see on the visit to Mexico, as it went along, how López Mateos really began to see that Jack believed all those things he was saying about "our revolution was like yours."44 At last, they had someone they could trust who felt about them.

That must have been an exciting visit—the Mexican visit.

To me that was the most exciting of all.

More than even Berlin?

Well, I didn't go to Berlin, you see, because I was having John—Patrick. I guess Berlin was to him the most unbelievable. But—so what did I have? Paris and Vienna, and Colombia and Venezuela. Well, Vienna45 was incredible in that it was miles in from the airport and back, and it was a dark, gray day. And just to see those crowds going on for twenty-five miles mostly weeping and waving handkerchiefs. That was one of the most impressive crowds I've seen. But, my gosh, the movie of Mexico—I saw it the other day.