Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [99]
Yes, or it was going to be January, even, and it was going to be at Hyannis. And Hervé always said, if only they could talk and meet the way Macmillan and Jack met—anywhere, you know, halfway, this and that, but do it a lot. And then this time I think Hervé was right. He said, even if nothing's accomplished. But for de Gaulle—he would want it to be some momentous meeting, and I think that meeting would have had terrific results in a way, or some results, and for finally de Gaulle to agree and all that—
The President had some expectations a meeting with de Gaulle might ease things.
Yes. You know, de Gaulle respected Jack and the whole way his opinion changed of him in Paris. I mean, I don't know what his opinion was, but obviously, everyone thought, "Who is this young President?" And, you know, the way he'd speak to me of him during the endless dinners—we sat next to each—you could just see that he was—or, what he told me about him after his funeral, upstairs.12 And then what—
What did he say?
THE BURIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
Abbie Rowe, National Park Service/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
Well, I mean, that he just was one of these—you know, so impressive. And then Segonzac sent me a letter which I can show you that Burin des Roziers, who I think is de Gaulle's chief of cabinet,13 told Segonzac what de Gaulle really thought of Kennedy and, you know, he thought—I mean, as long as Kennedy was alive, he was the leader of the West. And maybe de Gaulle didn't like it sometimes, but he really looked up to him. And then, apparently—Bobby told me this later—Bohlen14 or someone—tried to say that Johnson would be all right, he was the one Kennedy had chosen as vice president—you know, reassure him in the first days. And about a month or so later, he said, "Kennedy may have made a mistake," or "You all may have made a mistake about that man." In other words, his opinion of Johnson fell very low. So he wouldn't have dared to—he never would have recognized Red China, I'm sure, if Jack had been alive. There are so many little things like that, because he respected him.
Did the President have any particular—did he ever talk about Europe, in the sense of European unity and unification—Jean Monnet, for example? Did he mention him that much?
Well, he always, in the very beginning, thought of Jean Monnet one of the first for the Medal of Freedom, and you know, so he thought he was a most wonderful man and that all that he worked and believed in, and everything.15 So I think he did think that was a marvelous idea. But he never—you know, he never really sat and talked to me an hour about European unity, but I know he thought—he was for it, wasn't he?
Yes. I think it was quite characteristic. He was very much for it but he was much less interested than a lot of the people in the State Department about the questions of structure and all this kind of thing. And I think quite rightly so, because he knew if it came, it would come in its own way and you could get obsessed with the sort of tactical questions about it.
Yeah, he never seemed to be pressing it, or anything, but—
I think he saw it as a historic inevitability.
Oh, and then he told me something very interesting. Oh, if he'd only written these things down because I've forgotten them. But what made de Gaulle veto the Common Market and what Macmillan had told him and how Macmillan had been out at Rambouillet about two weeks before.16
That's right.
And everything seemed to be fine and then there was some little thing here or there, some typically French thing of—like Hervé always being mad when he's not given precedence. Well, something that some country or person did that irritated him and bang-o, he turned around and did the other.
I think he may have have felt—was it possibly this, that—
Oh, well, maybe Nassau made him change it?
Yeah, that he—that—
That Macmillan told him at Nassau about Rambouillet.
Yes, but Macmillan at Rambouillet had