Page 76 of Jackie

I meet him at the portico when the car brings him back that afternoon.

“You did it,” I say.

He smiles. “It’s a start.”

Dave Powers steps up to us. “I’m afraid we need you,” he says. “News from the South.”

Turning to leave, Jack pulls me in briefly. His lips brush my face. “I’ll find you later, Jackie.”

…

Inept. That’s the word De Gaulle reportedly uses to describe the American fiasco in Cuba.

Within days, we’re leaving for Europe. First Paris, where Jack will meet with De Gaulle; then Vienna, for a summit with Khrushchev. I was surprised when Jack told me Khrushchev accepted his invitation to discuss a nuclear détente. Then I realized why. Khrushchev scented weakness, prey. He and De Gaulle see Jack as a boy king playing at world leader who can’t keep his own house in line.

“De Gaulle may be an ally,” Jack tells me, “but he’s a bastard.”

“French or not,” I say, “I promise to like him less for your sake.”

Bobby is with us in the Residence. Jack turns to him now.

“While I’m gone, please keep the civil-rights mess off the front page.”

It’s been unfolding: The Freedom Riders and the unending violence in the South. Buses burned. Bricks and lead pipes hurled at passengers stepping off. On Mother’s Day, an all-white mob barricaded a bus carrying Black and white riders in Birmingham. They slashed the tires, smashed windows, threw firebombs in, and blocked the doors so the passengers were trapped.

“Birmingham one day,” Bobby says, “Anniston the next.”

“The local police?” Jack says.

“Late.” Bobby’s eyes are flat. “Every time.”

“All right, deal with it.”

“I need real support. U.S. marshals, the National Guard.”

“Too much fuss. Get it done quietly.”

“It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to keep quiet.”

We arrive at Orly Airport on the last day of May to a crowd of thousands waving American flags. De Gaulle has arranged a spectacle—tremendous black horses, motorcycles, waves of gold-helmeted troops. He stands, tall and solemn and alone, on the red carpet at the foot of the steps.

“He’ll try to one-up you,” I say to Jack as we leave the plane. “He likes to traffic in power, even if France doesn’t have what they once did.”

“Macmillan calls him ‘the pinhead.’ ”

I smile. “And you’re the young dashing one. Look at all these people who’ve come out for you.”

“Or you.”

We start down the stairs.

“Just remember,” I say, “the world wants a Jack. Someone who overturns what’s outdated. They want adventure and change.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“It’s true. And now you’ve gone on national TV and promised to put a man on the moon.”

—

---