JFK widow’s surprise wedding stuns world
It
was one of the biggest and most divisive weddings the world had ever seen. When Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis in 1968, it enraged as many as it delighted. She had long been friends with the Greek shipping tycoon, one of the world’s wealthiest men, but back in the United States a lot of people disliked him. Some felt Onassis was obsessed with power and wealth and would stop at nothing to gain more influence in Washington and elsewhere. To others, Jackie was sure to be excommunicated by the Catholic Church, as his former wife was still alive. Onassis was also 23 years older than her, and had a reputation as a ladies’ man. The fact was, however, that they had been great friends for five years, and he had been a rock for her after she lost a child, just months before she also lost her husband, JFK, who was assassinated the same year. Her sister Lee who, it was rumoured, also had a romance with Onassis, suggested she get over her depression with a break in Greece. She ended up having a great time in the Ionian Sea, and it’s thought that Jackie told Onassis she hated being First Lady and wished her Greek holiday would never end. After JFK had been assasinated, and then his brother Bobby, a man Jackie had been very close to, she said that if there were people out there who wanted to kill Kennedys, then she and her family were all in danger and she would have to get out of the US. Onassis could offer her security and a life of fabulous wealth, and they married on Skorpios, his private island. They wore crowns of orange blossom for their Greek Orthodox wedding, and Jackie’s children held the large candles pages normally have at this kind of ceremony – 10-year-old Caroline and John Jr, who was seven, looked thrilled about the whole thing, even if many outsiders were less than pleased. Subsequently, the Church said it was nonsense to suggest that Jackie would be excommunicated. It was a happy, but sadly, a short marriage. Following the death of his son Alexander in a plane crash in 1973, Aristotle’s health failed and he died of respiratory failure in 1975, at the age of 69. Greek law limited what a non-Greek spouse could receive, and Jackie had a lengthy legal battle to get an estimated $26 million. Jackie returned to the US, where she worked as an editor with various book publishers. In later years, she gave Hillary Clinton advice on raising kids in the White House. She died of cancer in 1994, aged 64.