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Why Jackie O was really Jackie ohhh!

After nearly 50 years, explosive recordings made by Jackie Onassis are set to reveal not only her affairs but the man she was convinced plotted to murder John F Kennedy, writes John Costello

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By John Costello
Tuesday Aug 16 2011

The taped interviews were made just months after the assassination that rocked the world on November 22, 1963, and until now have remained sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston.

They are now finally being unveiled as part of a US television special next month to mark the 50 years since JFK was inaugurated.

As the glamorous and iconic First Lady, her style, beauty and intelligence made her one of the president's greatest assets. During her tenure in the White House she made Washington sparkle with glitz and glamour. However, a presidential trip to Dallas would bring one of the most enchanting political eras in the US to a tragic end.

Just two hours after her husband had been assassinated, Jackie found herself standing, in her blood-splattered Chanel suit, beside Lyndon B Johnson on Air Force One as he was being sworn into office as the 36th President of America. Not only had JFK just been murdered in front of her hours before, but the man she believed was at the heart of the plot to kill him was standing right beside her.

In the series of interviews the former First Lady revealed her belief that the then-Vice President Johnson and a "cabal of Texas tycoons" were behind the assassination of JFK, and also allegedly confessed to having affairs in retaliation for her husband's own philandering.

Although writer Norman Mailer described Jackie as "the most beautiful woman to ever occupy the White House", there were other beauties in the Oval Office that constantly vied for her husband's attention. Indeed, the tapes are understood to reveal that Jackie found the underwear of a 19-year-old intern in their bedroom.

There may be little doubt that President Kennedy was a notorious womaniser, but it appears his wife also had a trick or two up her own sleeve.

The new revelations bring to light Jackie O's own dangerous liaisons with Hollywood heart-throb William Holden and Italian playboy Gianni Agnelli, proving it was not only JFK's love life that was full of indiscretions.

After her husband's murder, Jackie was transformed from iconic First Lady to iconic grieving widow. However, while the world joined with her in mourning, Jackie is rumoured to have sought comfort in the arms of JFK's bother, Bobby.

Her alleged four-year love affair with Robert F Kennedy became the subject of the book Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story. It claims the pair connected six months after the assassination and that Bobby became the former First Lady's one "true love".

"Everybody knew about the affair," revealed Franklin Roosevelt Jr, a close adviser to JFK. "The two of them carried on like a pair of lovesick teenagers. I suspect Bobby would've liked to dump [his wife] Ethel and marry Jackie, but, of course, that wasn't possible."

The socialite Mary Harrington also was a witness to the whirlwind romance. She saw Jackie sunbathing topless with Bobby kneeling at her side at the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate in 1964. She later observed them kissing. "I was shocked," she said. "It was clear that Bobby was sleeping with his sister-in-law."

In fact, their love affair was so intense it was Jackie rather than Bobby's wife who made the decision to turn off his life support after he was shot, according to the book.

But it wasn't just with the Kennedys that it was a case of Jackie Ohhh!

In 1964, she is rumoured to have had a fling with Hollywood bad boy Marlon Brando. Brando claimed they enjoyed a three-hour meal full of "a good deal of drinking", after which they headed for the dance floor.

It was during this tangled tango that Brando claimed Jackie became deeply attracted to him and "pressed her thighs" suggestively against him.

"From all I'd read and heard about her, Jacqueline Kennedy seemed coquettish and sensual but not particularly sexual," Brando wrote.

"If anything, I pictured her as more voyeur than player. But that wasn't the case. She kept waiting for me to try to get her into bed. When I failed to make a move she took matters into her own hands and popped the magic question, 'Would you like to spend the night'?"

But while the Hollywood heavyweight may have thought he was calling the shots, it was Jackie who abruptly ended the affair and showed no interest in pursuing him further.

"I'm not sure she knew what she was doing sexually, but she did it well," Brando is reported to have written in the first draft of his 1994 memoir Songs My Mother Taught Me. However, pressure was soon put on the publisher Random House to remove all references to the affair by a friend of the former First Lady, which resulted in the passages being cut from the final published version.

Her tango with Brando proved to be just a fleeting romance, and her affections remained focused on Bobby Kennedy. When he was shot dead in 1968, she began to believe there was a vendetta against her and her children, and decided to put an end to her affairs and seek sanctuary in matrimony.

After being respected and admired for years by the world, she was portrayed as a gold digger when she married multi-billionaire Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. But Jackie knew he could provide her with the security and privacy she craved. While she lost her entitlements as a widow of a US president and her Secret Service protection, she was happy to distance herself from the curse of the Kennedys.

Jackie died 17 years ago and had ordered the tapes should not be released until 50 years after her death, fearing her revelations might make her family targets for revenge.

However, her daughter Caroline Kennedy recently agreed to release the recordings early after the US channel ABC agreed to drop its €12m drama series about the family.

The Kennedys, starring Tom Cruise's wife Katie Holmes as Jackie, controversially charts the political and personal trials and tribulations of the Kennedy clan. While it never aired on ABC, it was broadcast in the US on an independent channel, and on the BBC and RTÉ, against Caroline's wishes.

However, the secret tapes will not only feature on the ABC special series, but will also form the basis for the upcoming book, Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, to be published in September.

So, while Jackie's life has been frequently defined by her marriage to two extraordinary men, it seems her own words will now soon truly define her once and for all.

- John Costello

Irish Independent