Biography: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Last months in the White House

On August 7, 1963, Jackie gave birth to what would have been her and her husband's fifth child (if their first two children before the birth of Caroline had survived infancy), Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. He suffered from a serious lung ailment, known as hylane membrance disease. It causes the air sacks to collapse after each breath. The baby was rushed to the Children's Hospital in Boston, and was placed in an incubator which would hopefully force the sacks to stay open and oxygenate his blood. It was  where he died two days later.

While still recovering from this loss, another terrible tragedy befell the 34 year old Jackie. On November 22, 1963, the President and Jackie were in Dallas, Texas. On an unofficial start to the President's re-election campaign. They didn't have a choice. Going to Texas wasn't a political choice, it was a political necessity. 

At 12:29 p.m. CST, on the second day of their tour, as President Kennedy's uncovered limousine entered Dealey Plaza, while on a motorcade, Nellie Connally, then the First Lady of Texas, turned around to President Kennedy, who was sitting behind her, and commented, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," which President Kennedy acknowledged.

From Houston Street, the presidential limousine made the planned left turn onto Elm Street, allowing it access to the Stemmons Freeway exit. As it turned on Elm Street, the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository. Shots were fired at President Kennedy as they continued down the plaza. United States Secret Service Special Agent, Clint Hill was riding on the left front running board of the follow-up car, which was immediately behind the Presidential limousine. Hill testified that he heard one shot, then, as documented in other films and concurrent with Zapruder frame 308, he jumped off into Elm Street and ran forward to try to get on the limousine and protect the First Couple. (Mr Hill later testified to the Warren Commission that after he jumped onto the tarmac, he heard two more shots.).

After the President had been shot in the head, Jackie began to climb onto the trunk of the car. Mr Hill got on the back, grabbed her arm and pushed her into the back seat. Agent Hill believed she was reaching for something, perhaps a piece of the President's skull. Jackie later had no recollection of doing such actions. He clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and accelerated, speeding to Parkland Memorial Hospital.  

After Jackie crawled back into her limousine seat, both Governor Connally and Mrs. Connally heard her say more than once, "They have killed my husband," and "I have his brains in my hand.". In a long-redacted interview for Life magazine days later, Jackie recalled, "All the ride to the hospital I kept bending over him saying, 'Jack, Jack, can you hear me? I love you, Jack.' I kept holding the top of his head down trying to keep the..." Jackie could not finish her sentence.

However it wasn't just the assassination that was made famous that day. Jackie seen wearing a pink suit with a navy trim and a matching pillbox hat, by Chanel. She had no idea it would become so famous. The suit was double breasted and was also made of wool. The suit was a Chanel design but to be patriotic, Jackie was told to buy American made clothes instead of clothes from France. Jackie found a small shop in New York called Chez Ninon. The materials for the suit and using the 'line for line' system by Chanel, Jackie was able to have an American made Chanel piece.

After President Kennedy was shot in the head, the suit was splattered with blood. When Lady Bird Johnson saw the car at Parkland Hospital in Dallas following the assassination, she said: "I cast one last look over my shoulder and saw in the President's car a bundle of pink, just like a drift of blossoms, lying in the back seat. It was Mrs. Kennedy lying over the President's body".

At the hospital, she kept her blood-stained suit on but was not wearing the hat. William Manchester wrote in Death of a President:

"The Lincoln flew down the boulevard's central lane; her pillbox hat, caught in an eddy of whipping wind, slid down over her forehead, and with a violent movement she yanked it off and flung it down. The hatpin tore out a hank of her own hair. She didn't even feel the pain".

The whereabouts of the hat today are unknown, and the last person known to have had it - her personal secretary, Mary Gallagher, will not discuss it. Several people asked Jackie whether she would like to change her suit but she refused. She told Lady Bird, who had asked her whether she wished to have someone in to help her change:

"Oh, no... I want them to see what they have done to Jack".

Despite the advice of the late President's physician, Admiral George Burkley, who "gently tried to persuade her to change out of her gore-soaked pink Chanel suit", she wore the suit alongside Lyndon B. Johnson as he was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. In the photograph taken on Air Force One, the blood stains cannot be seen as they were on the right-hand side of the suit. Lady Bird recalls:

"Mrs. Kennedy's dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked, it was caked with blood - her husband's blood". Jackie had no regrets about refusing to take the blood-stained suit off; her only regret was that she had washed the blood off her face before Johnson was sworn in.

When she finally removed her suit the following morning, her maid folded it and placed it in a box. Some days after the assassination, this box was dispatched to Jackie's mother who wrote "November 22nd 1963" on the top and stored it in her attic. Eventually the box was given to the National Archives in Maryland, together with a note, not signed, on Jackie's mother's letterhead stationery, that read: "Jackie's suit and bag, worn Nov. 22nd 1963". The suit which was never cleaned, is kept out of public view.

Anyway, President Kennedy was killed and Jackie became a widow at age 34. She planned the president's state funeral. As it was broadcast around the world, millions of people shared her grief and admired her courage and dignity.