SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: This week's release of interviews with former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy has revealed a new side of the demure fashion icon. Among the unsparing criticism of her husband's political contemporaries were also a few comments about the Germans, who were apparently the source of great aggravation.
She said Martin Luther King was "phony," called former French President Charles de Gaulle an "egomaniac" and had harsh words for her husband's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In a new book that unveils private interviews for the first time with former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, unpleasant opinions about a number of political figures are revealed´-- and the Germans aren't spared, either.
Released this week, "Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life With John F. Kennedy" documents previously unheard conversations with the grieving widow in the spring and summer of 1964. Recorded in her Washington home by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., they offer an intimate glimpse into the personal and political lives of the Kennedy family during their three years in the White House.
With a frankness uncharacteristic of her discreet public persona, Mrs. Kennedy offered up humorous -- though sometimes prickly -- descriptions and private reflections, which can also be heard on audio discs that come with the book or are provided digitally with the e-book. Among her unflattering comments about other world leaders -- such as the "kind of pushy, horrible" future Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi -- she also revealed that her husband had often been exasperated by relations with Germany. » | kla | Thursday, September 15, 2011
