NEW YORK BOSTON |#Popular: Irish Celebrity Gossip Irish in US Politics Irish Festivals Irish Roots Irish Entertainment Offbeat Irish

Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Jackie Kennedy was a complete snob about the Irish and others

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Jackie Kennedy was a complete snob about the Irish and others

Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 08:16 AM

Larger Text

E-mail

39 Comments

RSS

Archives

New book highlights her disdain for those less exalted

What comes across in the new book about Jackie Onassis and her conversations with historian Arthur Schlesinger is how much of a snob she was.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, she was after all a child born into privilege, Yale-educated father and a wealthy Irish American mother.

Art history, poetry, French history and literature were her preferred pursuits we read and you might also add, contempt for those lesser classes who failed to see the importance of such aesthetic pursuits.

Consistently, throughout the book that snobbishness comes through.

She dislikes her mother-in-law Rose Kennedy because she is too Catholic and has a persecution complex.

She dislikes the Irish mafia around Kennedy because she thinks they are very bitter people.

Why she even complains about Irish stew being made in the White House kitchen and she wants to replace it with proper French cuisine.

She dislikes Lyndon Johnson because he’s a Texas rube who should not be trusted with anything.

She dislikes Martin Luther King because he had affairs.

____________

Jackie Kennedy believed LBJ had her husband killed new tape shows

Controversial Jackie O tapes - First Lady talks openly about her adultery and JFK’s assassination

Top ten facts about Wexford - ‘Through water and fire’ – PHOTOS

____________

She fails to see the complete person in all her comments, merely taking the superficial as the reality.

Johnson and King together dragged civil rights into the 20th century.

They have no equal in history.

The Irish mafia that she complained about propelled Kennedy to the presidency and played key roles in creating the ‘Camelot’ mystique right after he was killed.

On the other hand every obscure French or foreign intellectual, painter, artiste is treated as the greatest genius on earth. Most are now utterly forgotten

Perhaps she was a woman of her times, afraid to go beneath the manners and the social niceties that dominated a wife’s role back in the early 1960s.

Typical of the period her husband could do not wrong, Jack Kennedy comes across as an almost saintly presence, ironic when we know now he was all too human when it came to human failings.

She knew of course, but choose to bury it in the fashion of the times but canonizing her husband makes her book far less authentic.

Jackie Kennedy proved herself before and after leaving the White House, becoming a woman of the world.

She raised two great kids, given the incredible pressure she was under.

She also saved so many historic buildings in Washington from developers not to mention landmarks such as Grand Central Station in New York that her legacy as a great First Lady is secure.

But there is no doubt also a French-influenced disdain for the unwashed who failed to see the greatness in idle intellectual pursuit and vanity.

Perhaps we should never be surprised that our heroes are mere mortals after all.

In her own voice in this new book, Jackie makes all that abundantly clear.

E-mail

39 comments

Previous Page 3 of 3 pages

Rebelforce | Sep 14, 2011, 10:38 AM EDT

I taped but haven't yet watched the program about the hidden Jackie interviews so I will reserve judgement on this, but from what I've heard her personal conclusion that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was a "phony" stemmed from what she had heard about him making jokes about her husband's funeral and his sexual dalliances with other women.

Report abuse

jamieLM | Sep 14, 2011, 10:22 AM EDT

Jackie's mother Janet was a role model for snobbishness and raised her daughters to marry money, like she did. Janet was the ultimate social-climber. Socially and financially, the Irish Lees were not in the same league as the more affluent French Bouviers. Janet "married up" socially and financially when she married Jack Bouvier. By 1941, Jackie's father was almost broke, so financially desperate newly-divorced Janet married the very RICH REP WASP, Hugh Auchincloss, Jr., in 1942 when Jackie was 13. Another giant step up the financial and social ladder. Jackie favored and ADORED her (French) father and had a very tense relationship with her (Irish) mother - one tough cookie - who was often abusive to Jackie. It helps to explain Jackie's love for all things French and her belief in the superiority of French culture. According to her 1st cousin, John Davis, Jackie's whispery voice was a "put-on" because she thought it made her sound more sophisticated and cultured than everyone else. Jackie was a social and financial snob, thanks to "Mummy." Jackie married Jack for his money, even dumping her fiancee, John Husted, when Janet dug into Husted's finances and decided Husted didn't have enough money for Jackie. Janet approved of JFK financially, but thought the Auchinclosses were head-and-shoulders above the socially inferior Kennedys. Janet made sure that Jackie knew how she and Hugh felt about "those Kennedys," according to Jackie. For insight into the dynamics of the families of JFK & Jackie, "Jack and Jackie" by Christopher Andersen is an interesting and insightful read.

Report abuse

stephendoyle | Sep 14, 2011, 10:07 AM EDT

The French always have a "holier than thou" attitude. Anyways, who cares. That is ancient history......

Report abuse

catherineu | Sep 14, 2011, 10:01 AM EDT

There are three sides to every story. Yours, theirs, and the truth. Many folks come across as "snobs", so what? She was human. She had her likes and her dislikes just as many do. I would not say she did not like Catholics--she most likely just did not care for the Catholics who wear their Catholicism on their sleeves. This holds true in any religion. There are also a great many Francophiles among us. No big deal. She was, and will always remain, an iconic woman.

Report abuse

feliciamaisey | Sep 14, 2011, 10:00 AM EDT

I suppose it is easy to point out the presumed ramblings of a "bitter trophy wife" as snobbery, but she lived the life, walked the walk and talked the talk, and to her credit she, by all outward appearances was class personified, a style icon, and a human being who made the White House a home, preserving relics of every past presidency and making them a part of the historical decor of the house itself. I am not sure being honest as it pertains to one's emotional self is really snobbish, but rather it shows she was her own person, who liked what she liked and also respected her husband and extended family enough to also be there and play the role they expected of her.

Report abuse

donal1951 | Sep 14, 2011, 09:58 AM EDT

I suspect Jack Kennedy, whom I continue to respect as a president, had more affairs that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ever thought of having. Let he, or she, who is without sin cast the first stone.

Report abuse

CitizenWhy | Sep 14, 2011, 09:55 AM EDT

Some of this contradicts what you have said in other articles. I knew people of a a lesser class to whom she was courteous and kind. Yes, she did value a liberal arts education and French intellectuals were exciting in the 50s, 60s. I thank God my high school religious teacher, for instance, a French Communist (card carrying) priest, gave us a fascinating course on the history of the church from a Marxist point of view. Daft in some ways, insightful in other ways, it was not boring.

Report abuse

hollabackgurl | Sep 14, 2011, 09:54 AM EDT

It's probably safe to say that much of that animus was driven by her difficult relationship with the Kennedy family (Rose, Ted etc). She was a trophy wife and a woman of her era and at sea among that clan. Doesn't mean she was a bad person, just a bad fit.

Report abuse

brokerguy | Sep 14, 2011, 09:49 AM EDT

Wow. Bitter much?

Report abuse

Previous Page 3 of 3 pages