JFK's Final Days: October 27, 1963
On Sunday, October 27, 1963 (50 years ago) President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy spent the weekend at Wexford, a home they had built that summer in Atoka, Virginia. They Kennedys did not like the house, and had it built because they expected that they would not like Camp David. They were pleasantly surprised with Camp David, and Jacqueline Kennedy had considered selling Wexford during her husband's presidency. That Sunday, Princess Irene Galitzine, a designer who descended from Russian nobility, was a guess of the Kennedys at Wexford.
Author Thurston Clarke writes that while at Wexford that day, Jacqueline Kennedy asked her husband what he planned to do in 1968 (assuming that he won re-election in 1964). Kennedy joked that he would appoint himself Ambassador to Italy. The group went for ice cream and JFK had to borrow money from his secret service agents to pay for it.
At page 265 of his recent book JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President, Clarke writes:
He maintained the easy banter throughout dinner and a screening of home movies of Jackie's cruise [with her future husband Aristotle Onasis]. "Next year when I'm re-elected, Jackie will stay at the house with the kids and I'll come on the boat," he joked, adding that he hoped that Galitzine would join him and introduce him to her friends.
After the Onasis film, he screened one of his televised debates with Nixon. It is hard to imagine what possessed him to show it. Jackie and [Kennedy's friend LeMoyne] Billings had seen the debates live and had probably watched the film several times. Perhaps he wanted to impress Galitzine or revisit happier times. He was no longer "the jokey affectionate playboy" Galitzine had seen earlier that evening. Instead, he stared at the screen transfixed, reminder her of a boxer preparing to enter the ring. During the 1946 campaign, Jim Reed had noticed that he sometimes became so engrossed in a conversation that he was oblivious to his food, pulling a caramel from his pocket and chewing on it while spooning soup, or popping a marshmallow into his mouth while eating roast beef. As the film flickered across the screen, he grabbed Galitzine's glass of champagne and drained it.
A video of JFK's day at Atoka can be found here.
Author Thurston Clarke writes that while at Wexford that day, Jacqueline Kennedy asked her husband what he planned to do in 1968 (assuming that he won re-election in 1964). Kennedy joked that he would appoint himself Ambassador to Italy. The group went for ice cream and JFK had to borrow money from his secret service agents to pay for it.
At page 265 of his recent book JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President, Clarke writes:
He maintained the easy banter throughout dinner and a screening of home movies of Jackie's cruise [with her future husband Aristotle Onasis]. "Next year when I'm re-elected, Jackie will stay at the house with the kids and I'll come on the boat," he joked, adding that he hoped that Galitzine would join him and introduce him to her friends.
After the Onasis film, he screened one of his televised debates with Nixon. It is hard to imagine what possessed him to show it. Jackie and [Kennedy's friend LeMoyne] Billings had seen the debates live and had probably watched the film several times. Perhaps he wanted to impress Galitzine or revisit happier times. He was no longer "the jokey affectionate playboy" Galitzine had seen earlier that evening. Instead, he stared at the screen transfixed, reminder her of a boxer preparing to enter the ring. During the 1946 campaign, Jim Reed had noticed that he sometimes became so engrossed in a conversation that he was oblivious to his food, pulling a caramel from his pocket and chewing on it while spooning soup, or popping a marshmallow into his mouth while eating roast beef. As the film flickered across the screen, he grabbed Galitzine's glass of champagne and drained it.
A video of JFK's day at Atoka can be found here.