Jackie Kennedy holds son John F. Kennedy, Jr., born November 25, 1960, 16 days after his father, John F. Kennedy won the presidential election. He was nicknamed “John-John.” Three years later on his own birthday, John F. Kennedy, Jr. would salute his father’s coffin at his funeral.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994) is remembered for many things, her fashion statements, her redecoration of the White House, her brave young face at the 1963 funeral of her slain husband President John F. Kennedy. There were many things she cared about. But what mattered to her most in life was raising her two children, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Caroline Kennedy (Schlossberg), to be good people. She said:
“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”
She wanted so much for her children to lead normal lives. But, in the aftermath of JFK‘s assassination, it proved to be an impossible dream. She tried to continue living in their Georgetown home but tour buses added it to their route and reporters mobbed them on their doorstep. The crowds were too much to bear.
“The world is pouring terrible adoration at the feet of my children,” she’d once confided to her decorator Billy Baldwin, “and I fear for them, for this awful exposure. How can I bring them up normally?” (1)
Jackie ended up moving them all to New York where, to her dismay, she discovered her children weren’t being invited for playdates and parties by their school friends. It turned out that their parents were intimated by the Kennedy children’s fame.
Jackie Kennedy, wife of then-Senator John F. Kennedy, reads a bedtime story to daughter, Caroline, at the family home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. Jackie Kennedy loved books and passed this joy on to her children. September 13, 1960
In the post-JFK years, Jackie wasn’t just mobbed by tourists and reporters. The beautiful and charming young widow was besieged by male suitors, among them author Philip Roth, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, and director Mike Nichols. Jackie’s friend and White House advisor Letitia Baldrige said that, even in the pre-JFK years, “she [Jackie] had more men per square inch than any woman I’ve ever known.”
Jackie Kennedy Onassis with husband Ari Onassis on June 5, 1969, at New York’s Kennedy Airport
By 1968, Jackie’s most serious – and unlikely – suitor was Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, “Ari,” for short. Whereas Jackie was cultured, sleek, and classy, Onassis was short, paunchy, and often rumpled and vulgar. Plus, he was 23 years Jackie’s senior. The Kennedy clan despised him. JFK’s younger brother, Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, who was running for president that year, urged Jackie to break off her relationship with Onassis. She promised him that she would put off talk of marriage until after the presidential election.
Then, on June 5, 1968, just moments after winning the California primary, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Jackie was devastated – and terrified.
I despise America,” a distraught Jackie told a friend. “If they are killing Kennedys, my children are the No. 1 targets. I want to get out of this country.”
She did, on October 20, when, in a small private ceremony, she wed Ari Onassis on the Greek isle of Skorpios. She was 39; he was 62. (1)
Readers, I’ve written several posts on the Kennedy family. Scroll down the sidebar to the right: Categories – Kennedys. Among them are:
“How to Be Jackie O”
“Did Jackie Love Bobby Best?”
Lisa's History Room 
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Interesting post.
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Please come back to Lisa’s History Room. I appreciate your comment. My blog has been down for 2 weeks and I have been unable to post replies. I apologize for the delay.
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[…] October 20, when, in a small private ceremony, she wed Ari Onassis on the Greek isle of Skorpios. https://lisawallerrogers.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/why-jackie-kennedy-married-ari-onassis/ __________________ The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral […]
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if jackie hadnt married him i would have lol poor maria callas .maria didnt know her worth.
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Hi, tt: Explain your last comment about Maria Callas.
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Ari was a brute. I think Jackie Kennedy knew it. She needed a quickie marriage. She needed money so she could extricate herself from the will of the Kennedy’s if she needed to do so – and frankly it gave her sense of independence. Uncle “Hugh D” and mother Janet weren’t going to support her expensive habits and frankly Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis – though she could be FRUGAL – had very expensive taste. And she had those children to think think about. But Ari Onassis was a brute – he made Maria feel as if she was fat and old – and that caused her to want to lose weight – which in turn impacted her voice and caused a further decline.
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ok, so why she married him? just to leave the country? couldnt she do that with the money she had? didnt she have better suitors? or was it for protection? i think a lot of mystery surrounds her. she has never let herself seen as a human being, more like an icon, a personality.. american royalty… but so much drama and tragedy cant be covered with a single hand
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Yes, Jackie had an air of mystery about her.
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I think Jackie was scared and wanted a quick out. Bobby was no longer there for her so she had to do something. I don’t think she loved Ari but he offered her security and a lifestyle she was use to. He wanted her so bad and once he had her he treated her badly. That would explain why she spent most of her married life to him living in New York. Plus his kids were his and hers were hers. He wanted nothing to do with John and Caroline. I wonder how Clint Hill, who cared about her so much and disliked Ari felt about all this? Must have gotten him right in the heart.
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He bought her like you buy cheap ground beef. Chump change for him. She was a run around anyway, nothing special, just a key for him to show the US that anything, anyone can be bought.
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Because she loved him..gosh so many mean people here
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Jackie had been quoted as saying your first marriage is for love, your second marriage is for money and your third marriage is for companionship.
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Did she say it or is it something often said?
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Apparently she said it. Makes sense. Married John for love, married Ari for money and then Maurice for companionship.
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She was married only twice, first to JFK and second to Onassis. She was not married to Maurice Templeman as he was still married but estranged for a very long timefrom his wife.
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she actually said it-she was “carnal” according to Onassis
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i have a new paper cilp that i found in a book.. black and white picture that reads , happy birthday to john jr… Mrs john f kennedy cuddles baby john f,. kennedy jr. who celebrates his first brithday on nov. 25. john chewing on toy. photo by mark shaw are the first official pictures of the baby since his christening . what new paper pubished this picture do any one know???
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Did she marry Maurice? I thought they were just companions. AND I thought the Onassis thing was a “blanc mariage”, or arrangement, not a sexual thing. He probably couldn’t do anything at that age anyway. At least I like to think that.
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No she never married Maurice apparently he wouldn’t divorce his wife.
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Jackie Kennedy wanted to marry Gianni Agnelli, the scion of the family that owned the Italian automobile maker Fiat S.p.A and who was very much married at that time with Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto. But he did not want to be divorced. There has long been a rumour that John John was Gianny’s love child, the product of his liaison with Jackie Bouvier Kennedy. It is an indisputable fact that Jackie Kennedy visited with Giovanni Agnelli in 1962, and maybe she also had visited him in the winter of 1960.
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Really? I have read a lot of books on The Kennedys but never knew about this rumour. Thanks.
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I think he was William Holden’s. His eyes are hazel or light brown highly unlikely that 2 brunnettes produced. Possible JFK was sterile by then because of STD’s.
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“Very interesting, if true,” Gertrude Stein liked to say.
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Then who was Patrick’s father? Caroline, John Jr. and Patrick were
JFK’s children period.
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@Yvonne: in my generation, we have a blue-eyed blonde, and two brown-haired dark hazel green-brown-eyed siblings. Our families have a mixture of both, including brown-eyed offspring. And blue-eyed. Just to point out that you can’t tell which legitimately-begotten genes might emerge.
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I was and am very disappointed. It seems that so many women will actually prostitute themselves if it serves their purpose.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1047924/Did-Jackie-Kennedys-jealous-lover-order-assassination-beloved-brother-law-Bobby.html
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Whatever the reason for her marriage. I never understood that after
She was berried in the same grave sight as john kennedy. Oh well just
Strange politics
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What type of “berry” (you bury a person) was she?
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I leave viewer comments as written.
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She married Onassis to escape the glare and hounding of the world press. A man of his means could afford her the privacy she do desperately sought for herself and her children. The relationship, albeit tumultuous not only between them but also his daughter Christina, did just that. Years later, when the press had retreated to a nominal degree, she returned to the United States and lived out her life in some normalcy in New York City and worked as an editor at a major publisher.
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John Jr. was never called John John. It was not a nickname and therefore was never called John John. That name came from crowds of media calling John to look their way for a photo op or to get his attention for some other reason. With everyone calling out his name at the same time all you could hear was John John. That’s what the media called him, not the Kennedys. John was always referred to as John Jr.
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Google photos of Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, heir to Fiat, age 33. John Jr. looks like Agnelli ‘s son and his son.
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