Our Jackie

by Kitty Kelley

Library shelves sag with Kennedy books — about the president, his wife, his children, his parents, his siblings, his administration, his policies, his friends, his enemies, his lovers, and even his dogs. “We don’t maintain an exhaustive list of books about JFK or Jacqueline Kennedy,” the archivist of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library emailed me, “but we do have a list of some books on our Goodreads page.” The total there is 930.

Now, make room for number 931. In Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life, Karen M. Dunak, who holds the Arthur G. and Eloise Barnes Cole Chair of American History at Muskingum University, a private school in New Concord, Ohio, promises to bring academic firepower to her subject and provide “far-reaching historical scholarship on American women at mid-century and beyond” by evaluating media coverage of the former first lady.

While Dunak certainly soaks herself in media coverage of the time, she provides scant “historical scholarship on American women” to bolster her claims that such coverage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reveals “the prevailing views of women in America.” Sounds professorial, though, and professors must publish or perish.

Even more puzzling in a book with such a personal title is the impersonal way Dunak refers to her subject: She defines “Our Jackie” only by her married initials: JBK, for Jacqueline Bouvier, who married John F. Kennedy in 1953, and JKO, for Jacqueline Kennedy, who married Aristotle Onassis in 1968. The professor completely ignores coverage of the enterprising young woman (JB) before her marriages. Even Dunak’s eight chapter titles encapsulate a life mostly defined by husbands: “Campaign Wife,” “First Lady,” “Widow,” “Single Woman,” “Fallen Queen,” “Jet Setter,” “Professional,” and “Icon.” Sadly, Dunak disregards the long and loving relationship Mrs. Onassis enjoyed with Maurice Tempelsman, who lived with her after Onassis’ death until the day she died in 1994.

The professor argues that the highly publicized life of her remarkable subject demonstrates the way in which news, entertainment, politics, and celebrity evolved over the second half of the 20th century. It’s certainly an interesting point, which Dunak makes by devoting most of her book to the public image of Mrs. Onassis, defined primarily by her exquisite wardrobe. This first became an issue during the 1960 presidential campaign when it was reported that “Our Jackie” spent $30,000 on her wardrobe. At the time, she said, “I couldn’t spend that much unless I wore sable underwear.”

Apparel and appearance, of course, contribute to a public image, which Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis mastered with enviable elan. Yet for many Americans, she’ll be cherished and best remembered for the black widow’s weeds she wore as she ushered the country through the harrowing trauma of November 22, 1963.

In her cornucopia of consulted texts, Dunak definitely prefers authorized biographies — those written with the sanction of the subject — to those written independently without the subject’s consent or approval. A tolerance for both suggests an open mind, but on that subject, the professor closes hers, and her reason sounds a bit like Mammy in “Gone with the Wind”: “It just ain’t fittin.’” She wallops moi for writing Jackie Oh! in 1978, a book Dunak characterizes as “meant to scandalize, tabloid in style, intended to titillate as much as to inform.”

In defense, I might suggest that I was walking the trail set by the Four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who wrote the New Testament’s Gospels without authorization, and like them, I, too, found my subject to be a marvel. Decades later, in fact, I wrote a paean entitled Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys. But Dunak ignores that 2012 tribute altogether, leaving me to ponder Mark Twain, who said, “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it.”

While the professor pillories the unauthorized biography, she expends many pages referencing movie-magazine coverage, particularly the fantasy (i.e., made-up) stories in Photoplay. But perhaps this is understandable, considering her subject epitomized the glamour of stardom.

Dunak read widely to write her book — each chapter contains 70-100 footnotes — and her voice is sympathetic throughout, even worshipful at times, leaving no doubt about her admiration. While the professor doesn’t touch all the bases of Mrs. Onassis’ life, she examines those that received the most press coverage:

• Mary Barelli Gallagher, secretary to Mrs. Kennedy from 1957-1964, whose bestselling “tell-all” in 1969 prompted one male critic to write, “No gentleman could have written such a book and no lady would have.”
• Judith Campbell Exner, a JFK mistress for 18 months, who claimed to have carried personal messages from the president to Mafia boss Sam Giancana regarding plans to assassinate Fidel Castro.
• Ron Galella, the paparazzo whom Mrs. Onassis twice sued for harassing her and her children.
• William Manchester, the historian Mrs. Kennedy chose to write The Death of a President but then sued for not donating payment for the book’s serial rights to the Kennedy library.

Dunak writes in her introduction that her book is not a traditional biography but an effort to understand “what representations and responses to JKO suggest about views of American womanhood more broadly.” That effort seems an impossible stretch. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was sui generis — a unique individual elevated by tragedy into the public sphere, where she remained for the rest of her life.

Crossposted with Washington Independent Review of Books