(3 of 9)
Once in the White House, Jackie clearly relished its monarchical aspects. Her wardrobe was reputed to cost $50,000 a year in couturiers' bills ("If so, I would be wearing sable underwear," she countered). But from her first years as the wife of a junior Senator through her reign as First Lady, she never warmed fully to the capital's political ambiance and never tried too hard to conceal the fact that she was bored by the machinations of government.
After her grief over Jack's death wore off, she found herself liberated in a sense —and to an extent that she could never have known as the wife of the President. She sold her house in Georgetown and a country estate in Virginia, and moved with evident relief to Manhattan. She globetrotted, rode to hounds, sailed, delighted in candlelit tête-à-têtes with such figures as Pablo Casals, Truman Capote, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn—luminaries her husband might have found unprepossessing—over French cuisine, for which he had little gusto. Despite her sophistication, world and national affairs were not necessarily her forte. Friends felt that she was truly interested in other things—music and books and art, and particularly her children.
Fascinating Speculation
From her 15-room apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park, she has escorted her children to school, past the customary benchfuls of Jackie-watchers. Caroline, in a grey uniform, attends the Convent of the Sacred Heart; John, in an early-Beatle haircut, went to St. David's until last term, when it was recommended he be held back. He now attends Collegiate, which has the reputation of being the most stimulating private boys' school in New York. Occasionally, Jackie and the children could be seen licking ice-cream cones at a nearby Schrafft's. When John Jr. punched a schoolmate in the nose, it made news around the world.
For the time being, at least until the children are older, the second Mrs. Onassis has indicated that she plans to spend most of the year in her comfortable Fifth Avenue abode, which has a big living room decorated in light colors and dominated by a deep fireplace and an easel on and around which stand a number of Jackie's consciously primitive paintings. A large telescope has been observed poised before the Central Park window. In her closets, day suits and evening suits are segregated, evening dresses arranged by length, all clothing lined up by primary color and shades of color, pairs of shoes catalogued by the hundreds according to color and style.
On her public pedestal, under 24-hour surveillance by Secret Service agents, Jackie was of necessity extremely circumspect with her male acquaintances. Quite often, she borrowed husbands as safe escorts: Roswell Gilpatric, 61, former Deputy Defense Secretary who accompanied her to Yucatán; Arthur Schlesinger Jr., 51, a charter New Frontiersman; Composer-Conductor Leonard Bernstein, 50; even Robert McNamara, 52, of whom one observer noted: "When Jackie's around, the computer turns into a puppy dog wagging its tail."