Unmistakable Style

It’s hardly remembered now, a date marked only by the most die-hard fans. But on November 22, 1963, the world was stunned by the assassination of one of the world’s most charismatic leaders, U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

In the two years and ten months that Kennedy occupied the White House, new style and new life were breathed into the venerable house. Much of that–and of the entire Kennedy mystique–was owed to Kennedy’s First Lady, Jackie. With her refined tastes and unmistakable sense of personal style, she transformed the White House into a warm and welcoming home without dimi-nishing–rather, to some degree, enhancing–its dignity and historical significance.

Some of that elegance is wonderfully captured in a book available at the Kennedy Library in Massachusetts entitled In the Kennedy Style: Magical Evenings in the Kennedy White House (The Madison Book Group, Inc., Toronto and Doubleday, New York) by Letitia Baldridge, Mrs. Kennedy’s social secretary during the White House years and a friend since their teen years at Miss Porter’s School and later at Vassar College. Ms. Baldridge’s own sense of style was honed by years in the diplomatic service; that and her genuine affection and respect for the Kennedys show through in this lovely book.

Ms. Baldridge left the Kennedy White House in the summer of 1963, physically exhausted by "twelve, sometimes eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, winter and summer, since November 1960". But she returned a few months later to help with arrangements for the President’s funeral.

A special treat–as if the book and its photographs were not enough of a treat–is the participation of then White House chef René Verdon, who shares many of his menus and recipes of dishes served during White House dinners as well as some of the family’s personal favorites (like a classic Boston clam chowder which President Kennedy and Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson requested three days in a row), in the hope that they will "inspire readers to...recreate some of the magic of the Kennedy years in their own homes". He also shares back-of-the-house moments and encounters with the Kennedys that will never be included in history books, but which give one a better sense of how special a family the Kennedys were.

The book starts when the beautiful Jacqueline Bouvier marries the dashing young senator Jack Kennedy, and their first home in Georgetown in the nation’s capital. There political entertaining took on an edge of class, a class that reached full bloom when the young senator entered the White House as the nation’s President in 1961 and his wife became First Lady, with a flair that would charm even the crustiest world leader and a style that would be copied by women all over the world.

Six special White House functions–out of many–are presented in detail: a luncheon with Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco; a candlelit dinner at Mount Vernon–George Washington’s stately home–for Pakistani President Mohammed Ayub Khan; a state dinner in honor of Governor Luis Muñoz Marin of Puerto Rico at which the renowed cellist Pablo Casals played; a dinner for the Shah of Iran and Empress Farah Diba; an evening with Nobel Prize laureates (President Kennedy called it "the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone"); and a dinner for French Minister of State for Cultural Affairs Andre Malraux.

One chapter on the White House as home for the Kennedy family gives some insights into the goings on in the life of a family with young children li-ving in the country’s most historical house: the small private dinner parties with after-dinner dancing in the candlelit Blue Room, Caroline "escorting" her father to and from his office, Jackie and Caroline’s adventures in the White House kitchen.

One of President Kennedy’s favorite passages from Shakespeare’s Henry V aptly captures the place of the Kennedy White House and the fascination it held–and, to some degree, still holds–for the "lesser mortals" who were not part of this fabled Camelot.

"We shall be remembered–we few, we happy few...And

Gentlemen...now abed, shall think them-selves accurs’d they were not here."