JACKIE ARISTO
Tragedy of the lovelorn lord who longed to turn JFK’s widow into...
THE note is one that could only be sent between dear friends. Penned in the neat feminine script familiar to those with whom she corresponded, Jackie Kennedy touchingly pays tribute to the depth of her late husband’s regard for his old companion, alongside her own affection. ‘I wish I could give you the most precious thing that belonged to him – as precious as your friendship was to him – but nothing tangible could ever express that,’ she writes. ‘So please accept this with all my love. Jackie.’
‘This’ refers to a book of poetry by Shelley, taken from the personal library of John F. Kennedy and containing his presidential bookplate.
He had been assassinated just six months earlier, and now his widow was sending as a birthday gift a book which, she confides, her late
They travelled the world – he is even said to have proposed
husband had kept in his s room at the White House. The recipient was David Ormsby-Gore, the 5th Lord Harlech, a former British Ambassador to the US and one of JFK’s most intimate confidantes.
Following the President’s tragic death, the grief his old friend d shared with Jackie e cemented their own n close friendship.
It was so close, that at when Lord Harlech’s h’s wife Sissy died in a car crash four years later, er, rumours of romance nce between the pair sweptept through Washington, with one leading US newspaper aper proclaiming him ‘The Man Most Likely To Win Jackie’. ckie’.
They travelled around d the world and he is even said aid to have proposed at Angkor ngkor Wat in Cambodia.
But it was not to be: Jackie instead married shipping pping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, though it remained no bar to her continued affection for her old friend.
Yet only now has the true extent of their bond come to light following the decision by Jasset Ormsby-Gore, the current Lord Harlech, to auction the contents of his family home, Glyn Cywarch, to help restore the property to its former glory.
Among magnificent Old Masters and antique jewellery on sale in March through auction house Bonhams are books personally inscribed and gifted to Lord Harlech’s grandfather by Jackie Kennedy, in which her love and affection are all too evident. In one inscription, she writes of the ‘shining times’ she and her late husband had spent with the Ormsby-Gores.
The discovery is poignant, coming as it does in the year of the 100th anniversary of JFK’s birth, as well as the release of a new film Jackie, for which its star Natalie Portman has been nominated for an Oscar.
Astonishingly, while Lord Harlech knew of the close e family ties with the Kennedys, he had no idea the books existed.
‘These items, along with so many others, have been rediscovered for the first time in decades or even generations,’ Jasset reveals.
‘He sadly passed away before I was born, but I knew my grandfather had been British Ambassador to the US. Growing up I would look at photographs from that era with great interest. There is much history that binds the Kennedys and Ormsby-Gores.’ The friendship between the families dates back to the 1930s, when JFK’s father Joseph was US Ambassador to Britain.
When David grew up he, too, forged a career in politics, enteriing Parliament i in 1950 and makin ing his mark in several Foreign Office posts. W When, in 1961, hi his old friend be became President, Or Ormsby-Gore was sentsen to Washington as British Ambassadorsad by Prime MinisterMin Harold Mac Macmillan. Th That the Ormsby-GoresGor were at the hearthear of the Kennedy administration is in little doubt: their black ambassadorial RollsRoyce was seen parked at the White House most days. Jackie later said her husband used to claim that Ormsby-Gore ‘was the brightest man he’d ever met’. ‘My grandfather is known to have played a significant role in ensuring Britain’s views were taken into account during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later helped to secure the first Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963,’ says Jasset. In the same year as the treaty was signed, JFK was shot while travelling in a cavalcade through the streets of Dallas. Ormsby-Gore was one of the pallbearers at his funeral.
Poignantly, a month later Jackie presented David and his wife Sissy with a maroon calf-bound volume containing inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States. In it, she wrote: ‘Jack was going to give you this for Christmas – please accept it now from me – with all my love and all the memories of the shining times we had with him. Jackie, December 1963.’ The volume forms part of the sale.
Five months later she sent him the volume of Shelley’s poetry – her late husband’s personal and much treasured copy. Accompanied by a note written on black-edged mourning stationery, she asks him to please accept it ‘with all her love’.
The families remained close and when Sissy was killed after her car skidded on a wet road in 1967, Jackie flew to England for the funeral, weeping at Sissy’s grave in Oswestry, near the Ormsby-Gore family seat.
Both grieving the loss of their partners, David and Jackie proved a great comfort to one another. But the friendship was not entirely without its shadows. Prior to his death last year, Jasset’s father Francis – David’s son – recalled that his mother Sissy was wary of Jackie, telling Francis: ‘You should be aware this charming American woman carries around with her an aura of tragedy. Her ill luck, or whatever it is, will haunt not only her but anyone deeply involved with her.’
Their friendship remained platonic, with Jackie instead marrying Onassis. The following year, Lord Harlech married Pamela Colin, an American journalist who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jackie.
Yet the passage of time, alongside distance, apparently did little to dim their mutual fondness and when, in 1985, David also died in a car crash, Jackie attended his funeral.
Ten years later, when she lay dying of cancer in her New York apartment, she is said to have spoken of her regret that she did not accept Lord Harlech’s proposal. If she had, then one part of American and British history would have played out rather differently. As it is, the sale of this extraordinary slice of Kennedy history affords us a peek into a unique transatlantic bond.