John F. Kennedy: A Life From Beginning to End (Biographies of US Presidents Book 35) by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2017-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Kennedy Women

“Because of my father, I was used to infidelities, but Jack’s womanizing hurt me greatly.”

—Jacqueline Kennedy

When John Kennedy entered the Senate, he was a bachelor - and an extremely eligible one. The public posture of the Kennedy men and their commitment to Catholicism did not mean that they were saints. Joseph Kennedy Sr. may have fathered nine children with wife Rose, but he was famous for his infidelities, most notably with Hollywood actress Gloria Swanson.

John Kennedy had been sexually promiscuous as far back as his days when he was a high school student at Choate. When he was a Navy ensign in 1941, he was involved with a Danish journalist named Inga Arvad who was rumored to be a Nazi spy because she had interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1935. The FBI was so concerned about Arvad’s reputed Nazi connections that Director J. Edgar Hoover had her under surveillance and used devices to eavesdrop when she and Kennedy were alone because the FBI feared that she was using Kennedy to obtain information about the American Navy. There was no evidence that anything of that nature was happening, but Kennedy was reassigned to South Carolina and the relationship ended.

In 1952, Kennedy attended a dinner party in Washington D.C. where he met Jacqueline Bouvier, an inquiring photographer for the Washington Times-Herald. Bouvier, who had graduated from George Washington University with a degree in French literature, was the daughter of a hard-drinking stockbroker and a socialite who had divorced. Jacqueline had attended the Sorbonne in Paris as an exchange student; before entering college, she had been named “debutante of the year” by Igor Cassini when she made her debut. Like Kennedy, she was a Catholic and, through her mother, of Irish descent. Both of them appreciated literature and culture, and both benefitted from a worldlier, more sophisticated outlook, which grew out of their time spent abroad, but because of his campaigning for his Senate seat, Kennedy didn’t have much time for wooing. However, after he won his seat, he proposed marriage. Bouvier was assigned to cover Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and spent a month in Europe. When she returned, her answer was yes. As was typical of the times when wives didn’t work outside the home, she resigned her job at the newspaper.

Archbishop Richard Cushing married the pair on September 12, 1953, in Newport, Rhode Island. There were 700 guests at the ceremony and 1200 at the reception, making the marriage one of the season’s most celebrated social events. After honeymooning in Acapulco, the newlyweds lived in McLean, Virginia. Kennedy’s health issues continued into his marriage, and he had back surgery the year after their wedding. In 1955, Jacqueline had a miscarriage; she gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1956. They sold the McLean house to Robert and Ethel Kennedy, who already had a growing family, and moved to Georgetown.

Finally, in 1957, the Kennedys had a daughter, Caroline. Life magazine had the young family on its cover in 1958, publicity that didn’t hurt Kennedy’s campaign for re-election to the Senate.

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