Eight Friends of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Nancy Tuckerman were friends over seven decades. Nancy almost never talked to people writing books about Jackie. She made an exception for me because I was working with her former colleagues. She and I met for the first time at the Red Lion Inn on a cold day in February. She was wearing a plain brown sweater and hiding behind a newspaper. At first she was stiff with me. But at lunch the young waiter poured her a cold cup of coffee. When he stepped away, we both laughed. That was how we began a friendlier and franker conversation that lasted 10 years. 

For many people, Jackie was beyond criticism. People who came from her own background, however, were often more detached. They could be more forceful with her and sometimes more openly critical of her than others were. Nan Talese was one of the most important people in American publishing at the end of the 20th century. Nan and Jackie both grew up as bookish debutantes in and around New York. When Nan and Jackie worked at the same publisher in the 1990s, a muted rivalry arose between them.

These are three of Jackie's friends you've probably never heard of before. Their anonymity speaks to a side of Jackie that wanted to escape stardom. She liked to warm herself near the talent of other women who'd distinguished themselves in ways she never quite could. These are three short nonfiction stories about what it was like to interview Jackie's friends. They all remembered her vividly. In telling me about themselves and their friendship with Jackie, they reveal more about the former First Lady than a catalog of her dresses or a collection of snapshots can convey.

These last two stories in the series are about Jackie's relationship with two rare people. One took me to his club, where Jackie and Brooke Astor were among the first female members. The other told me about accompanying Jackie to India, where together with her husband they travelled as a threesome.

What was it like to meet and talk to people who knew Jackie Kennedy Onassis well? Each of these eight people gave me a surprising look into what it was like to live and work in Jackie's world. Nancy Tuckerman was Jackie's friend from boarding school and also her lifelong assistant. Jackie was wary around Nan Talese, one of the most important people in publishing. Sarah Giles was an editor at Vanity Fair. She worked with Jackie in her apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue on a book that got them both into trouble. Ruth Ansel knew Jackie via man about town and photographer Peter Beard.