(5 of 9)
Jackie told him of her decision by long-distance phone: Yes, she said, she accepted his proposal. (He had already had a physical checkup by his doctor and told the physician that he would marry her.) If anything rang loud in her acceptance, it was a thunderous silence from the Kennedy camp. Senator Edward Kennedy's statement wishing the couple well was chilling in its formality and its brevity. Joseph P. Kennedy, speechless since the stroke he suffered seven years ago, was wheeled into Jackie's presence in her Fifth Avenue apartment and, by a kind of communication worked out between himself and his niece, conveyed his blessing on the pair. Even such Kennedy-leaning papers as the Boston Herald Traveler, which first broke the news, failed to elicit a single family reaction. The announcement of the impending marriage was made quite curtly, and belatedly, by Jackie's mother, Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss. Had Bob Kennedy been alive and in presidential contention, it might never have been made. Though two Kennedy sisters, Mrs. Stephen Smith and Mrs. Peter Lawford, accompanied Jackie on her flight to Greece for the wedding, the Kennedy clan seemed less than delighted—especially the devout Rose Kennedy, who could hardly have approved of the religious problems involved.
The theology of the wedding is sufficiently intricate to serve as a test case for Aquinas. As a Roman Catholic, Jackie may not marry a divorced man. Indeed, in times past she would automatically have been excommunicated as a "public sinner" at the moment of her marriage. The Greek Orthodox creed followed by Onassis, however, permits a believer to wed three times (a fourth marriage is forbidden). As a first step toward solving the problem, Onassis could try to win an annulment of his first marriage from the Greek church. Then the Vatican would have to pass on the validity of the Greek annulment. Normally, such procedures in the Roman Rota, the church's highest marriage court, require years. Still, it is likely that Jackie, who has had frequent audiences with the Pope is well aware of her difficulties.
Plausible Freudians
Religion aside, her decision to marry Onassis was a jolting one, and the theories regarding Jackie's motivation were as wild as the news itself. Some observers, awed by Onassis' wealth, suggested that money might have been a consideration. Jackie is worth roughly $20 million, but some of her inheritance may be tied up in trust funds for the children. And she has decidedly-expensive tastes. As Gossip Columnist Suzy Knickerbocker remarked: "She could never marry a nice doctor and settle down in Connecticut to ride horses!" The Freudians sounded a touch more plausible. They speculated that perhaps Jackie needs a "father image." Her own father, John ("Black Jack") Bouvier III, was divorced by her mother when Jackie was eleven. A swarthy, swashbuckling stockbroker, he was wistfully described by his daughter after his death in 1957 as "a most devastating figure"; clearly he was a key influence on her. Onassis, with his grey hair and courtly manner, his dark skin and authoritative air, seems at least fatherly—if not grandfatherly.