Spy in a Little Black Dress

II


Washington, D.C., May 1951


I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, Jackie told herself as the front door clicked shut like an exclamation point. She drew in the early evening air filled with the fragrance of gardens in bloom and the spice of a new adventure. This was the big night. A date that Jacqueline Lee Bouvier hoped would not live in infamy. She had to make a good impression on Jack Kennedy when the Bartletts introduced her at their supper party, which had been arranged for that very purpose.

What Charlie and Martha Bartlett didn’t know was that Jackie had met Jack Kennedy once before. As she drove away from Merrywood, her stepfather Hugh Auchincloss’s Virginia estate, and headed for the Bartletts’ home in Georgetown, Jackie remembered that first random meeting with the young congressman from Massachusetts. She was on a train returning to her junior year at Vassar with a classmate when Jack and his assistant invited themselves into her compartment. Their conversation was all a blur now—mostly flirtatious bantering on Jack’s part and tolerant amusement on Jackie’s. But what stuck in her mind was Jack Kennedy’s indisputable allure. He was matinee-idol handsome, wickedly funny, and fiercely ambitious, yet charmingly shy. Back at Vassar, she had dashed off a letter to a friend, describing what an insistent flirt the congressman had been but admitting that she felt an absolute attraction to him all the same.

Now, as Jackie crossed the Chain Bridge in the 1947 black Mercury convertible given to her by her father, her pulse quickened at the thought of meeting Jack Kennedy again.

Within minutes, she pulled up in front of 3419 Q Street, the typical narrow, brick row house where the Bartletts lived. Jackie had driven with the convertible’s top up so her hair wouldn’t get mussed, but she didn’t bother locking the car. Georgetown, the oldest neighborhood in Washington, D.C., was a safe one. Besides, if the car did get stolen, her mother would be thrilled. She thought that a convertible was unsafe and had been badgering Jackie’s stepfather to buy her a Buick sedan. The fact that the convertible had belonged to Black Jack—her mother’s philandering ex-husband, who still made her blood boil more than a decade after their divorce—was an even bigger strike against it.

At the front door, Jackie smoothed out the Dior outfit that she’d bought in Paris, took a deep breath, and announced her arrival with the brass knocker.

“Hi, Jackie, we’ve been waiting for you,” Charlie Bartlett said, smiling broadly as he opened the door and gave her a quick peck, appropriate for an old flame who was now a married man with a baby on the way.

“I’m not late, am I?” Jackie asked.

“No, no, you’re right on time,” Charlie said, squeezing her hand in a way that reminded her of their dates two and half years ago. Jackie had been an impressionable nineteen-year-old college student then, and he was a twenty-seven-year-old wunderkind journalist who had opened the first Washington bureau for the Chattanooga Times, a sister paper of the New York Times. Their romance fizzled when Charlie said that he could never give Jackie the exciting high life she coveted, but now he was determined to find a more appropriate suitor for her. Who better than Jack Kennedy, one of Charlie’s closest friends and the most eligible bachelor in Washington?

A year had gone by since Charlie had married his perfect mate—Martha Buck, the daughter of a wealthy steel mogul—and now he wanted to help Jackie find the same marital bliss with Jack Kennedy. Little did he know that Allen Dulles, deputy director of the CIA, was even more eager for the two to hit it off.

For a moment, Jackie saw herself back in Dulles’s office receiving her assignment, and she again heard his cajoling voice speaking to her about Jack Kennedy. “We’re not asking you to marry him,” Dulles said. “We would just like you to go out with him a few times and use your considerable beauty and intelligence to persuade him to become a friend of the CIA.” Jackie felt a pang of conscience. What would the Bartletts think if they knew the real reason why I’m here?

“Let me introduce you to everyone,” Charlie said, cutting into Jackie’s thoughts and leading her into the living room. Guests were milling around in the small room, which was modestly decorated with a pair of antique armchairs, some inexpensive furniture, and a few nondescript prints on the ivory-colored walls.

Jackie turned to Charlie and gave him an anxious look. “Is he here?” she whispered.

“No, Jack hasn’t come yet,” Charlie whispered back, “but he’s always late.”

Martha Bartlett, a visibly pregnant redhead, emerged from the kitchen with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette aloft at a jaunty angle in the other.

“Jackie, you look divine,” she said, air kissing her on both cheeks, European-style. She turned to her husband. “Charlie, why don’t you fix Jackie a drink, and I’ll do the introductions.”

A quick glance around the room told Jackie that Martha had invited the usual crowd of young, up-and-coming socialite couples who frequented the Clambake Club in Newport and wintered in Palm Beach. The only one who stood out was a beautiful, slim young woman who apparently had come to the party alone.

“And this is Loretta Sumers. She’s an accessories editor at Glamour magazine and an old Long Island schoolmate of mine,” Martha said, introducing Jackie.

“So nice to meet you, Loretta,” Jackie said with a tight smile. Uh-oh, I know who you are. You’re the extra woman who’s here in case Jack Kennedy doesn’t think that I’m his cup of tea. She couldn’t help wondering, cattily, if Glamour paid for Loretta to get those fashionable blond highlights in her light brown hair and where Jackie could get hers streaked the same way.

Martha prattled away about how Loretta’s family had such fun socializing with the Kennedys every winter in Palm Beach. Jackie listened politely, but when she heard that Loretta’s nickname was Hickey, she almost laughed out loud. Then, imagining how Loretta might have come by that moniker and fearing that she would be competing for Jack Kennedy’s attention, Jackie fell victim to a sharp stab of self-doubt.

At that moment, the door burst open, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy made his entrance.

He still looks so young, Jackie thought, more like a teenager than a three-term congressman about to be thirty-four in a couple of weeks. He couldn’t have weighed more than 150 pounds and had to be at least six feet tall, so he looked as if he was still growing. His haystack of reddish brown hair, toothy smile, and twinkling periwinkle eyes added to the boyish impression. So did the careless way he dressed. Someone will have to do something about his clothes, Jackie mused, eyeing the shapeless, too-big sports jacket and unpressed, too-short trousers dangling gracelessly around his ankles. But his overall effect was that of a genial force of nature—a magnetic field of charisma that drew everyone to him irresistibly and captivated them with his charm.

Jack immediately began working the room, inquiring how this person’s sailboat did in Nantucket’s Figawi race and how that person’s trip to Acapulco had gone and when another person’s cousin who was serving in the Korean War was coming home. Jackie was amazed at the almost encyclopedic knowledge Jack had about each guest. Even more impressive was his satiric sense of humor and hilarious impersonations of people in the news (everyone from President Truman to a Mafia gangster), which had them all laughing.

Finally, Martha extricated Jackie from her perch on a love seat in a corner, where she’d been observing the scene like a bird-watcher, and brought her over to the life-of-the-party congressman.

“Jack, I’d like you to meet Jacqueline Bouvier,” Martha said, tapping him on the shoulder.

“The lovely Jacqueline Bouvier,” he said, looking at Jackie with interest and flashing his intoxicating smile. “Pleased to meet you, Jacqueline.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Jackie said, batting her eyelids at him demurely and returning his smile. “Actually, we’ve met before.”

“We have?”

His look of surprise told Jackie that by this time, she had probably disappeared into a faceless crowd of college girls, secretaries, models, actresses, and other assorted females Jack had flirted with instinctively.

“Yes, it was on a train…”

Suddenly, Loretta Sumers was tugging on Jack’s sleeve. “Oh, Jack, there’s something I need to speak with you about,” she said, adding as she glanced at Jackie, “Do you mind?” Without waiting for an answer, Loretta led Jack away. He looked back at Jackie and shrugged, unable to get out from the insistent Hickey’s talon-like grasp.

Jackie retreated to her refuge on the love seat, feeling defeated by a score of Loretta, 1; Jackie, 0.

But within moments, Jack was back. With athletic grace, he slipped into the empty seat beside Jackie. “So tell me something about yourself, Jacqueline,” he said. Displaying the inquisitiveness that he was known for, he started asking her questions. Where did she go to school? What was her degree in? Had she done any traveling lately? Did she have a job?

Jackie answered all his questions without revealing anything about herself that she didn’t want him to know—she had a degree in French literature from George Washington University; yes, she’d just returned from Paris (on a pleasure trip, not a CIA assignment); and she would soon be starting work as the Inquiring Camera Girl for the Times-Herald.

This last piece of information seemed to pique Jack’s interest. “Really? The Times-Herald? Have you been following their coverage of the House Un-American Activities Committee? And of Joe McCarthy in the Senate?”

Jackie wrinkled her nose at Jack’s mention of this zealous anti-Communist crusade. The blacklisting of writers, actors, directors, and musicians whose work she loved was unconscionable to her. “I think there’s something creepy about a fanatic like Senator McCarthy,” she said. “Anyone who works with him has to be a malicious goon who enjoys persecuting the most talented people in the country.”

Jack started as if blindsided, then quickly recovered his usual aplomb. “I’ll tell my brother Bobby that,” he said, his lips curled in an ironic half smile. “Bobby is a staff lawyer for Joe McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.”

“Oh.” Jackie gulped and felt her cheeks grow flaming hot. She studied her drink, wishing she could take back her words and drown them there.

Once again, Martha Bartlett saved her, announcing that dinner was being served. “Take your places, everyone,” she called out, pointing to the table, which was set with place cards and china.

Naturally, Martha had arranged for Jackie to be seated next to Jack. This is going to be horrible, Jackie thought. He probably won’t say another word to me all night.

But Jack surprised her. He gave her an admiring look as he pulled out her chair and said with a smile in his voice, “I like a woman who speaks her mind.”

Whew! Jackie felt like a death row inmate whose sentence had been commuted, but she didn’t know if Jack really meant the comment or was just being polite. Play it safe, she warned herself, and let him do the talking from now on.

While Jack tore into the chicken casserole that the cook had prepared, Jackie hardly ate. She was intent on following her father’s expert mating-game instruction to pay attention to everything a man says. “Fasten your eyes on him like you were staring into the sun,” he had told her. But he had also warned her to be inaccessible and mysterious, claiming that once a man possesses a woman, he loses interest in her automatically.

So Jackie hung on every word that Jack said, fixing her large brown eyes on him as if mesmerized, her lips slightly parted, as she responded with an overawed “golly” or “gee” in a whispery, little-girl voice to Jack’s monologue. He spoke about what a close-knit family the Kennedys were and how his father had tapped him to fill the empty shoes left by his older brother, Joe, when he had been killed in the war. And although Jackie gave the impression that she found Jack utterly captivating, she remembered what Black Jack had told her about being untouchable. Whenever Jack leaned in too close or put his hand on hers, she politely pulled away.

Jackie’s performance was so convincing that everyone else in the room seemed to have disappeared. She needn’t have worried about competition from Hickey Sumers (she was the one who looked defeated now) or any other women there—Jack had eyes only for her. Jackie’s intense adulation leavened with a pinch of coquettishness seemed to impel Jack to drop a politician’s natural instinct for guarding his privacy. Over dessert and coffee, he confided in Jackie that he was bored with being a congressman and was thinking of challenging Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican junior senator from Massachusetts, in the coming election.

Jackie wasn’t sure how she should respond to this revelation—somehow “golly” and “gee” didn’t seem adequate—when Martha stood up from the table and said, “Come on, everyone, it’s time for charades.”

Oh no, I was doing so well, Jackie thought, when she discovered that she and Jack were on opposing teams. She knew from his history as a war hero and winner of tough political campaigns that Jack was a competitor to be feared. A little tremor of apprehension coursed through her when she imagined making such a complete fool of herself that he might never want to see her again.

“You didn’t,” she said to Jack when she unfolded the paper he’d handed her and saw the name scribbled on it: Henry Cabot Lodge. Was she a sparring partner for Jack’s potential bout with the senator? She felt like slinking off to the powder room, but the teasing grin on Jack’s face got her dander up, and an idea came to her that she had to try.

She put her arms out at her sides, began waving them, and mouthed the sounds of clucking. “Chicken,” someone on her team shouted. Jackie shook her head and brought her hands toward each other in a shortening motion. “Hen,” another team member shouted. Jackie nodded encouragingly, then made a stretching motion. “Henna… henpeck… Henry,” someone else called out.

Jackie nodded an emphatic “yes.”

Then she depicted a big box with a line down the middle and a knob on each side. “Door,” someone shouted. Jackie shook her head. “Closet,” someone else called out. Again Jackie shook her head. “Armoire,” said another, and they all laughed as Jackie rolled her eyes. Then Charlie Bartlett, who was on her team, shouted, “Cabinet.” Jackie nodded and brought her hands together as if squeezing something. And Charlie said, “Cab… cabin…” Jackie nodded hard, and Charlie finally shouted, “Cabot! Henry Cabot Lodge!”

“Oh, yes, thank you!” Jackie said. She wanted to kiss Charlie when she caught the admiring look that Jack gave her. But then she glanced at her watch and gasped. It was nine thirty, almost time for her to be meeting John Husted for a nightcap at the Georgetown Inn. She desperately wanted to break up with John and was hoping that she’d have the courage to do it tonight.

“You’re leaving so soon?” Jack asked with disappointment in his voice as Jackie made her round of good-byes.

“I’m sorry, but I have to,” she said, softening her insistence with a smile.

As she started walking toward the door, Jackie saw Loretta Sumers come bounding toward Jack, eager to move in and take her place.

Not on your life, Jackie thought. She turned back to Jack and gave him an inviting look. “If you’d like to walk me to my car, that would be wonderful.”

“Of course,” Jack said, leaping up from his chair and linking his arm in hers, while a sullen-looking Loretta Sumers was stranded in her tracks.

When they reached Jackie’s black Mercury convertible parked in the middle of Q Street, Jack asked, “Would you like to go someplace for a drink, Jackie?”

He was smiling at her, but he had a predatory look in his silver-blue eyes. It was the same look that Jackie had seen her father give a woman when he was sizing her up to see how fast he could get her into bed.

The womanizer once-over, Jackie thought and looked away. “Uh… I don’t know…,” she stammered. Do I have a headache? Do I have to get up early? As she frantically searched for an excuse, she absentmindedly yanked the car door open.

And to her shock, a body fell half out of the car, like a corpse making its entrance in a mystery melodrama.

It was John Husted!

“Hey, Jacks,” he said, to her complete and utter humiliation, “who’s your friend?”


Allen Dulles sat behind his desk, puffing on his Kaywoodie, his face expressionless as he listened to Jackie’s account of her meeting with Jack Kennedy the night before.

“Everything was going along swimmingly, just as we had planned, when out of the blue, there was my boyfriend,” she said, “and I can tell you, Jack Kennedy didn’t take it any too kindly.” Slumped in a chair across from Dulles, she sounded like a dazed accident victim describing the catastrophe to the police.

Jackie shuddered as she recalled how badly the evening had ended. A rudely awakened Husted explained to her that he was walking along Q Street, saw her car parked there, decided to wait for her in it, and fell asleep. As for Jack, he hadn’t bothered to hang around for an explanation. He merely gave Jackie a withering look and slunk off into the night in a mist of bruised ego.

Jackie was beside herself. Leave it to good old dependable John Husted to show up at the most inopportune time and turn such auspicious beginnings into a fiasco. She sighed and looked at Dulles with a pained expression. “If only I had locked the car, that never would have happened.”

Dulles nodded. “That’s a good lesson learned,” he said evenly.

Jackie stiffened, expecting him to reprimand her, but instead, Dulles smiled at her in an avuncular way and said, “Cheer up, Jacqueline. This may turn out to be a bit of serendipity.”

“What do you mean?” Jackie asked.

“For a man like Jack Kennedy, nothing is a bigger aphrodisiac than competition,” Dulles said with a chuckle. “You’ll hear from him again. I guarantee it.”