Saturday, June 23, 2012

A Secret Love Affair of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis


I guess it’s only natural that our deepest longings for sweetly remembered innocent moments come amid the most unsettled current times.  Greeks are no exception to that phenomenon and my good friend and cataloguer of all photographs Mykonian, Dimitris Koutsoukos, has just the antidote for troubled times.

Fifty-one years and two weeks ago today (June 10, 1961 to be precise), America’s first lady, Jackie Kennedy, set foot on Mykonos for the very first time.

She’d escaped the whirlwind publicity of her visits to London and Rome for a promised not harried visit to Greece, courtesy of the invitation of Greek Prime Minister Constantine Karamalis and the hospitality of the Nomikos Greek ship-owning family.

Here are photographs by Life Magazine photographer James Burke documenting Jackie Kennedy’s arrival in Mykonos harbor off the yacht Northwind and her first steps of what would prove to be many on the island.  They also record Jackie’s first meeting with one who would prove to be a love of her life. I’m talking about Petros the Pelican, and when he passed away twenty-five years later it was the then Jackie O who gifted a new pelican, Irini, to the island.  But that’s a story for another time.




Jeff—Saturday

11 comments:

  1. No comments on this post -- but, here is the very positive review of Target: Tinos from the excellent Reviewing the Evidence website:

    http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/review.html?id=9256

    I just came across as I checked in to see their latest book reviews.

    I can't wait for this book to be available in my library branch. Am (im)patiently waiting.

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  2. Thank you, Kathy, and please feel free to ignore Jackie and talk about me any time you like. She gets far too much publicity.:)

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  3. Great post Jeff - a very poignant snapshot of time, and wonderful photos too.

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  4. You're right about the very different nature of the time, Dan. And so many of the photos bring on images of others from November 1963 that are burned into American memories as the turning point in the country's loss of innocence.

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  5. What I see is the beginning of the Celebrity Culture which would lead to the death of Princess Diana and still goes on.

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  6. Perhaps the modern POLITICAL Celebrity Culture, but celebrity has always been intrinsically part of a culture...inspiring no less than Homeric Odes.

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  7. I miss Life Magazine and I miss the self-imposed discretion the media had when portraying public figures. Mrs. Kennedy, as the Wall Street Journal would have called her, had her own personal demons, but while the Kennedys were in office, their public persona was magical. And I did meet Petros in 1982 when we were in Mykonos.

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  8. Very nice, and nostalgic. I, too, feel sad. Once we were young, and it seems the worst was yet to happen. This in spite of all that happened before. Jack and Jackie were very human, but for a short time, they were a symbol of our very best best. And the possibility of many good things.

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  9. You're right on the money, LOW. One can almost see the relaxed joy in Mrs. Kennedy's face...which might help explain her decision to later become Mrs. Onassis: An effort to reclaim a modicum of that remembered time. Who knows? Who will ever know? I will deliver your regards in the morning to the new Petros.

    Yes, Lil, I felt a palpable change in my own view of things the instant I first heard the news, and more so later as I sat next to my mother in her kitchen watching her cry as she listened to the radio.

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  10. Looking at her photo's and reading Jeff's article helps bring things back into perspective as she brought class to us all... no matter where she went. I don't know anyone who didn't look up to Jackie Onassis and sometimes we need to be reminded of the many good things that she accomplished.

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  11. You're absolutely right about Jackie's profound influence on so many. In fact, you need look no further than the young woman with her in the photographs. You can see the effect in the woman's eyes, body movement and smiles.

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