Courtship
For a while, Jack and Jackie circled each other like prizefighters sizing up their opponents. Both seemed reluctant to be the first one to lay their interest — or heart — on the line. For a while they played it coy. When one started showing more interest, the other would be busy.
Dating a Senator
Eventually, their dating became more regular. Although Jackie did not enjoy attending social functions, she gave in and accompanied the dashing young senator to several. But most of their dates were far more domestic. They often stayed in playing board games like checkers or Monopoly with other friends.
Their most private time, when they were alone, was during the car trip back to Merrywood from Washington, D.C., after a date. Jackie thought they shared a similar reserve and once equated their personalities to an iceberg — with most of their emotions hidden below the surface.
Jackie walks along the beach with Jack Kennedy, 1953
Photo Credit: Hy Peskin/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Over the Fourth of July holiday in 1952, Jackie spent the weekend with Jack in Hyannis Port. This was no relaxing holiday getaway. There were raucous games of touch football on the sprawling lawn, tennis, and reminiscences about past games and races. Eunice told Jackie how their parents had trained them in athletics and instilled the importance of winning.
Jackie initially felt like a fish out of water. She silently dubbed Jack's sisters the rah-rah girls, and they, in turn, considered her standoffish and snobby. Jackie was appalled at the family's indifference to the arts, and they looked askance at her apparent physical delicateness.
She Said…
“Jack was something special and I know he saw something special in me, too. I remember my mother used to bring around all these beaus for me but he was different…. Both of us knew it was serious, I think, but we didn't talk about it then.”
It was that weekend that Joe had a serious talk with Jack about getting married, reminding him that a wife was an important political asset. He also told his son that marriage didn't have to put a crimp in his enjoyment of other women. Joe and Rose had a tacit agreement where in exchange for unlimited funds and the prestige of being a Kennedy, she turned a blind eye to his marital infidelities. He assumed Jackie would be similarly disposed.
On the day of President Eisenhower's inauguration in January 1953, Jackie spent the day working on her Inquiring Camera Girl column, then accompanied Jack to the inauguration as his date. They continued to see each other through the winter and into spring. Jack finally broached the subject of marriage right before Jackie left to cover Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in London.
Uncertainty
Jackie traveled to England with her friend Aileen Bowdoin and saw the trip as a chance to do what she considered real journalism. She filed stories about the voyage and wrote several more about the coronation and the mood in London. She spent a lot of time browsing bookstores buying gifts for Jack. She admitted to Aileen that they had talked about marriage.
She Said…
“I had a sort of special dress to wear to dinner. I was more dressed up than his sisters were, and so Jack teased me about it, in an affectionate way, but he said something like, ‘Where do you think you're going?” And Rose said, ‘Oh, don't be mean to her, dear. She looks lovely.’”
Rather than being excited Jackie was pensive. It wasn't that she doubted her feelings for him, nor did she doubt his sincerity. It was more a concern about what their life together would be. Being married to a politician would mean living constantly in the public eye. For someone who kept her deepest thoughts and feelings close to her, the idea of living in the spotlight was unnerving.
Jackie also worried about being swallowed up by the Kennedy clan. They were such forceful personalities, and she wondered if she'd be able to hold her own and not lose her individual identity.
THEY SAID …
“I said, ‘When [Jack] comes to New York, he calls … all the guys to line up the girls. The guy is a hopeless womanizer.’ And she just laughed. I think basically Jackie was attracted to Jack … because all these flaws were balanced by the fact he had money. There was nobody else pursuing her with that kind of money.”
— John “Demi” Gates to Sarah Bradford, America's Queen
While Jackie's friends may have been concerned, Jack's family was not surprised that he proposed. Ted Kennedy claimed his brother was smitten with Jackie from their first meeting. He said Jack was fascinated by her intelligence and enjoyed her company and conversation. It wasn't a matter of if, just when.
Jack proposed the night Jackie returned from London. She resigned from the Washington Times-Herald the next day. On June 24, 1953, Jacqueline Bouvier's engagement to Senator John F. Kennedy was officially announced. That summer, Jack went to Europe with a college friend named Torbert Macdonald and sailed along the French Riviera, sampling the affections of the local female population.
