Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [75]
He really had read practically everything of Churchill's.
I felt so sorry for Jack that evening because he was meeting his hero, only he met him too late. All—think of all he could have—he was so hungry to talk to Churchill at last, or meet him and he just met Churchill when Churchill couldn't really say anything.
Adenauer also came over that first spring.84
Yes. Jack used to say sort of what a bitter old man Adenauer was, or how he had to be pried— He used to say, "Eighty-nine? Wouldn't you think he'd give up then, but they had to haul him off screaming." He got awfully fed up with Adenauer and all that Berlin. He'd take one private home because his mother's had an appendix or something and they'd start another weeping round. And he hated that ambassador here. The only two ambassadors he really disliked were that one, Grewe, and the Pakistan ambassador—Ahmed. Well, the new one's named Ahmed, so, this was the Ahmed before this one.85
Well, the Germans wanted reassurance all the time and it got to be a pain in the neck.
And you know, how much more of it can you do than reassure them? Well, he really did it, obviously, when he went to Berlin.
Do you remember much about the trip to Canada?86
Oh, yes, that was our first—
It was your first trip.
I remember everything about it, you know, getting off—and Vanier, the Governor General, is the most marvelous looking old man—and Madame—you know, white mustache, sort of like C. Aubrey Smith.87 And Madame Vanier, very mother—everyone curtsies to them. And I rode in from the airport with her—that must be about fifty miles from the airport to Ottawa. And she would be telling me how to wave and always calling me "dear." She was very protective. I was still very tired then and so I had to leave the receiving line that night and halfway through, and Jack was so sweet, rather protective, getting me out of there. I just had so little strength then. So before we went to Europe, I took a whole week off in the country so that I'd sleep and build up my strength and it was all right. But everyone was saying that Ottawa was so cold and never gave receptions to—nice ones to anyone, and I guess, especially to America, or something. And they really were—well, they seemed like terribly enthusiastic crowds and everyone was flabbergasted. You know, you could tell they meant it. Here you often say to state visitors—you're riding in from the airport—"Washington is blasé and I've never seen them go so mad for any visitors as they do for you." Because they are hopeless here, they just stand. But he didn't like Diefenbaker.
But Diefenbaker already was sort of erratic and crazy, was he?
Oh, yes. And, you know, Mrs. Diefenbaker is such a nice woman. But—oh, we had lunch at Diefenbaker's house and he insisted on telling all these Churchill stories in accent and calling him "old Winston" or "the old boy," or something. You know, it was just painful. He didn't like Diefenbaker. And then you know the story of that—what, there was a paper that was left behind?
The Rostow memorandum.
Yeah, well, Diefenbaker really tried to blackmail Jack with that. And whatever Jack said back to him was rather clever—something of—"How did you get this paper?" You know, he never liked that man, and he always liked Lester Pearson.
You had met de Gaulle before—when he came over here.88
I had just met de Gaulle. Jack was campaigning in the Oregon—out in Oregon and I just met him at a reception at the French embassy and I guess I talked to him for about ten minutes.
Was he easy to talk to?
I suppose he wasn't—I just—I told him how much Jack admired him and made up some completely— But I thought he was easy to talk to when we were in France.89
That was a nice visit, wasn't it? To Paris.
Yeah. Because I'd ask him things of history—or all the things I wanted to know, like who did Louis XVI's daughter marry, the Duke of Angoulême, did she have any children, and