Posted on 02/23/2007 1:18:42 PM PST by xcamel
Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy advised her sister-in-law, Joan, to stop being a doormat for her philandering hubby, Ted Kennedy - and if he didn’t shape up, to move out, according to letters up for auction tomorrow in Connecticut.
“This is the 20th century - not the 19th - where the little woman stayed home on a pedestal with the kids and her rosary,” Jackie wrote in an undated four-page note to the senator’s wife and miserable mother of three. “Your life matters - as much as him
- you love him - but you can’t destroy yourself.”
The hand-written sisterly screed was retrieved from the trash at Joan’s Hyannisport home, reports Bill Panagopulos of Alexander Autographs of Stamford. A housemaid packed it away in a storage facility on Cape Cod, but the bill was never paid.
“Then some guy went and bought the contents of seven storage lockers at auction - and like the guy who stumbled upon Paris Hilton’s stuff and sold it for $10 million - he found the letter from Jackie amongst other things,” he said. “We should all be so lucky.”
Panagopulos said the provenance of the letters is “solid,” and that documentation is available for would-be bidders.
The first letter, penned on white-lined notebook paper in Jackie’s distinctive hand, advises Joan not stand in the shadows while Ted cheats on her with girls with cutesy nicknames.
“Men under pressure have to let off steam sometimes - that’s why even the Catholic Church has carnival & Mardi Gras,” she wrote. “But having your own little black phone . . . so that you can talk to Mootsie or Pootsie every night - right in the house with his wife & children - and bringing them there when you’re away. What kind of woman, but a sap or a slave, can stand that & still be a loving wife & care about him & work like a dog for him campaigning? It is so old-fashioned - probably got it from his father.”
Can you just feel the disdain????
“Forbidden fruit is what is exciting,” wrote Jackie, whose own hubby was a notorious womanizer. “It takes much more of a real man to have a deep relationship with the woman he lives with. The routine of married life can become boring . . . if you married Mootsie & she had a few miscarriages (Joan had three) & had to go to the movies at the Cape and on the Marlin with the whole family every day - you’d be sneaking off from her too, after a while.”
Ooooh, ouch! The presidential widow, who made her own life outside the family circle, also took aim at the clannish Kennedys for Joan’s unhappiness.
“This community living has to stop. The family that really counts is his own . . . He can go to the graduations of all of Ethel’s children & teach John to sail the Victura - but, if he botches up his own family . . .that will be a pretty sad record.”
As it turns out, of course, the family did get botched up. Joan and Ted Kennedy, who were married in 1958, divorced in 1982. They have three children - Kara, Ted Jr. and Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island.
Ted married Victoria Reggie in 1992 while Joan has lived a mostly lonely life, waging a long battle with alcoholism and, more recently, breast cancer.
Jackie, apparently seeing the writing on the wall, told Joan to make a life outside the Kennedy circle, to “take vacations with your friends - not the family.”
“Make the sisters scared to death of you so they don’t walk all over your house and appropriate your husband. He’s your husband (that’s more important than being their brother). Tell Eunice everything & be mad when you’re telling her. Say you’d like to
talk to his mother about it.”
Whoa. That means trouble.
“Don’t explain where you will be, don’t speak of yourself as a delicate health problem - Don’t ask permission . . . Be a bit mysterious . . . then he can’t plan things around your absence,” she wrote with a wink.
In a second letter, which is trash-stained and missing its first page, Jackie invites Joan and her kids to move in with her if she needed a break from Ted.
“As you could see, we could both live here for months together & lead completely separate lives,” said the president’s widow. “I’ll just be here for supper as usual - with children or you.”
Jackie’s breezy note, signed “J” with an “XO,” also talked about her young children’s love for Aunt Joan.
‘John said at supper you were his favorite aunt and Caroline said were were her favorite except for Lee (her godmother) and you were the prettiest!”
Alexander’s Panagopulos said while he fielded a flood of press calls about the salacious letters yesterday, interest from serious buyers is low.
“It’s because people nowadays live on the Internet and have an eBay mentality,” he said, adding that you can follow the auction on his website www.alexautographs.com. “All the bidding will come at the very last minute. But, you gotta admit this is great stuff.”
Other Kennedy items up for grabs include some ugly monogrammed hand towels and a life-saver ring from the Victura, the president’s sailboat.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Kennedy declined to comment yesterday.
Jackie enabled the whole Kennedy Klan by creating the myth of Camelot in the wake of the JFK assassination.
I like the reference to Teddy's "Bimbo Phone"
Maybe Jackie should have taken her own advice. My rule of thumb is to take care of your own house before giving advice to others.
Wow...I've just gained a whole new respect for Jackie O!
Wow...I've just gained a whole new respect for Jackie O!
Wow, she didn't care much for teddy, did she? He had a special phone for his girlfriends? What the ..?
Same here...I think Jackie could see that Joan was going down a bad path and was trying to save her, I have to admire that, she seemed very kind.
The Kennedys are a cancer on America.
Yes, but Jackie was ambitious as well. And Jack was going places Teddy could only dream of.
Says alot about her character...IMHO. I never thought much of her before this revelation.
In all fairness...both John and Caroline said it was Teddy who kept the family together after both brothers were killed. He acted like a father to all the children. They all adore him.
That's a bit of a dig at Rose Kennedy.
Lost on those of you who are not from MA is that this was made possible because they Kennedys STIFFED yet another local business. Ask any contractor down the Cape. Hang up when you see Kennedy on the Caller ID
Well, he was the only one left. And he led some of them astray. Remember Au Bar??
And I am SO glad he's a changed man today!
So who do they think is going to bid on this? Sen Boozebag himself? Does he even care?
Isn't this a pot calling the kettle black kind of thing?
True.
As a teen I worked in a shop on the Cape where both Jackie and Ethel shopped. Jackie was a wonderful customer and her bills were always paid the first of the month. Ethel never, ever paid a bill at the shop for as long as I worked there (3 years)...and charged hundreds of $ every month...I believe the owner eventually wrote it off as a loss.
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