GONE WITH THE SIXTIES

JFK’ S  FATE

FATHER & SON

T

he beginning sixties were to JFK’s, the ever- elected young US president the ill-rated ones. In his private life as well in his public’s.

               Everything begun apparently long time before November 1963, when her beautiful wife, Jacky lost her stillborn baby, named Patrick Bouvier Kennedy.  The presidential couple mourned in silence this loss, but Jacky was deeply wounded  for other reasons, maybe the absence of her husband by the time of the tragedy. Some clouds for long  had been hovering over this relationship, which contributed to irritate a lot the first lady.

She decided to take on vacation in Greece, nodding to the invitation of an already wealthy mogul of Mediterranean, Aristotle Onassis.

Not only had Onassis fallen in love with the sea- he was born, so to speak, within the waves-but also he was a king of open seas. Jacky Kennedy believed that traveling would have eased her mourning. She went away almost against the advice of her husband. From the beginning, Greece had remained a little bit Homeric. The first lady expected that the Greek myths would have played for her the same way they did to the Mediterranean half gods.

Onassis was delighted at welcoming his famous guest. Together they cruised off the Bosporus, sailed on the same streams of Ulysses, offered libations to the sea and its goddess, tasted millennia foods and   took a quick look   at the fragility of human history. Jacky probably felt relieved.

One day, as Icarus landing somewhere in its mythic islands, a helicopter lowered until landing a few meters from Jacky relaxing in the warm sand. Onassis jumped off, walked with the assurance of the wealthy and handed an expansive diamond to her guest. Jacky smiled her sunny smile. Onassis didn’t overstay. He boarded as quickly as before his helicopter which very soon was the size of a fly in the still sunny fall. Jacky would have never forgotten his coming. Comfort as usual comes from out of the blue.

But, what would be unforgettable remains one night under the starry sky, on the bridge of the Christina, the yacht named after Onassis’s daughter. Onassis, the lord of the sea, and Jacky were alone. They were chatting, as if time would have never ended. On the day after, everybody noticed a change among the host and her guest. That was enough to untie the tongues. Even the White House echoed the first lady perilous escape on a land where legends and truth used to die hard. JFK, the American president, became mad at so much recklessness.

Nevertheless, turning back to their recent past, the presidential couple traveled mid –November  to Paris where the incumbent General de Gaulle welcome them with pump and honor. Paris people cheered when JFK and his wife waved them from the Elysee. Wearing mitt along a beautiful suit, Jacky was so irresistible with her glamorous smile that the crowd kept  calling for Jacky! Jacky !. It was exciting. The Parisian magic seemed to have worked its way.

Onassis’ specter   shadow maybe had faded away now. But, it was not reassuring enough because the Caribbean shadows and their rising left were still worrisome. The Cuban disaster of the Bay of Pigs was still an American  concern  and many in Washington considered  this   adventure of April 1961 a thorn in the ribs. Even the Dominican Republic rid of its long time “Caudillo audillo” Rafael Leonida’s Trujillo by May 1960 could not calm down the hawks to which this Cuban move mattered most. 

 Furthermore, in  Haiti, Papa Doc seemed to have defied the armada-like fleet sent off to scare the strong Black president. A few miles off the American coasts, a turbulent Caribbean sea was almost a threat.

Fall 1963, Francois Duvalier started brushing his hands after the Amphibian Atlantic Fleet moved away and his inconsistent neighbor Juan Bosh overthrown. Still angry against his American equivalent John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Papa Doc whispered to his praetorian guard that the JFK days were counted. But, as November neared to end, the presidential couple aimed to become over the years the so-called American legend, left Paris and its feasts for Dallas, Texas. This would have been their last trip together.

Kennedy, Onassis, Duvalier have had too few reasons to like each other.

We’re said very soon that the voodoo gods and the Greek ones plotted together to give an eerie hue to the JFK’s saga.

Part history, part mystery.