Original subtitles

NARRATOR: On the 22nd of November, 1963,

Jacqueline Kennedy stepped off Air Force One in Washington,

wearing a dress soaked in her husband's blood.

About 10 or 15 minutes ago,

a tragic thing has happened in the city of Dallas.

Four and a half hours earlier,

President John F Kennedy had been assassinated.

- REPORTER: - President Kennedy has been assassinated.

The President is dead.

And as the bullets hit him,

his bleeding head fell into her lap.

The First Lady flew with her husband's body back to Washington,

but she refused to change out of her suit.

She appeared with JFK's brother Bobby,

and the world looked on in horror.

From that moment, Mrs Kennedy is cemented

in American minds and American history

as the tragic figure.

How did she find the strength to face the world?

And why did she insist on wearing

that blood-spattered outfit for the cameras?

In this film, we reveal two sides to her life -

heartbreaking tragedy

and a powerful determination to survive.

With never-before-seen letters and brand-new insight,

we uncover the private pain of America's most famous First Lady.

Her elegance, her beauty, her style really captivated people.

Beneath the gloss of her public life lay a world of unbearable grief.

It was incredibly lonely and heartbreaking.

And in the goldfish bowl of the White House...

..she hid her husband's relentless adultery,

using medication to help her cope.

- JACKIE: - She had two pills, green one and an orange one,

and she told me to take the orange one.

It is speed, it's an amphetamine.

She learned to bury her pain beneath a beautiful veneer...

She was made of steel.

..and emerged as the ultimate image-maker,

becoming a powerful asset to the presidency.

She had become a star equal to his own star power.

An international icon in her own right,

this is the story of America's First Lady of tragedy

and queen of survival.

On the 12th of September, 1953,

all of New England high society gathered in Rhode Island

for the event of the season -

the wedding of picture-perfect couple

Jacqueline Bouvier and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

- REPORTER: - The wedding of Senator John F Kennedy

recalls Newport's one-time social grandeur.

The occasion had caused a stir,

with 3,000 onlookers gathered to see the newlyweds.

- REPORTER: - Speaker of the House Martin,

screen celebrity Marion Davies...

and former ambassador and Mrs Joseph Kennedy,

parents of the groom, are among the personalities on hand

to make this the top society wedding of the year.

The entire state was in a tizzy over this,

as was really the whole country.

So this was an epic wedding.

The sun shining.

The festivities went on for several days before

as people came in from all over.

The Kennedys - a large and wealthy political dynasty

from Massachusetts -

were fast becoming America's most celebrated family.

JFK, known as Jack,

a senator for only ten months,

had ambitions to climb to the very top of the political ladder.

Their wedding was a highly orchestrated bid

to boost his career prospects.

It was effectively planned by their parents,

particularly Joe Kennedy,

who's insistent that this is going to be a huge, massive social event,

that he's going to wring every drop of publicity out of it

for his son that he can.

The wedding was more a show wedding for the Kennedy family

and for Senator Kennedy's future political ambitions

than it was for the bride and groom.

- REPORTER: - For the spectators outside the church,

it's a real storybook wedding.

A radiant bride, the former Jacqueline Bouvier,

and a handsome groom.

With a pretty wife and a politically rising star,

the future seems bright for the junior senator from Massachusetts.

It was a photo opportunity for a political candidate.

Getting married had not been on Jack's personal agenda.

He was happy being single and playing the field,

which is probably an understatement.

He's a bachelor.

At some point, that's going to become a liability, politically.

He needs to be seen to be settling down, to be a family man,

if he's going to go further in politics.

Find a partner, a young woman, a fellow Catholic,

someone from high society who had a fine intellect and marry her.

In Jacqueline Bouvier,

it seemed he had found the perfect match.

She was young, she was beautiful,

she was educated.

She was also very smart and engaging

and could hold a conversation with anyone.

She comported herself well,

so certainly, she did tick all of those boxes.

Behind Jackie's smiles,

the wedding turned out to be far from the happiest day of her life.

She really lost control of her entire wedding.

She hated the wedding dress her mother picked for her.

She said it looked like a lampshade, and it did.

And it wasn't her style at all.

It's this huge sort of confection

of sort of taffeta and chiffon,

and Jackie clearly looked very uncomfortable in it.

Jackie wanted her much-loved father by her side.

She thought, "Well, maybe the one thing I will have control over

"is which person can walk me down the aisle."

And she wanted her much-beloved father to have that honour.

But he was not invited to the reception.

This caused huge tension between her parents.

He's so upset about it.

He gets terribly drunk

and is physically incapable of walking her down the aisle.

And Jackie, you know, has to present herself

as the happy, blushing bride, even though, you know,

internally, she was devastated that her father wasn't there.

To understand how she found herself here,

we need to go back to Jackie's childhood.

Like the Kennedys, her own family were affluent.

Her mother, Janet, was from a very wealthy family.

Her father, who was known as Black Jack Bouvier,

was a stockbroker.

And they lived, you know,

a very, um... high-class, highbrow lifestyle.

Jackie's early years were very much privileged years.

And, you know, with big homes and staff, and so forth,

access to riding horses.

She was quite a bookish young girl.

She went to the finest schools for her earliest education.

So in that sense, she was living an idyllic childhood.

Jackie loved her charismatic father.

So, her father is this larger-than-life character,

and he's besotted with his daughters, with Jackie and Lee,

and they adore him.

He looked like a movie star.

He always had a perpetual tan.

He had a Clark Gable moustache,

and Jackie just thought he hung the moon in the stars.

Jackie's family life was very perfect on the surface,

but underneath that, there was unhappiness.

- REPORTER: - It happened on Wall Street in 1929,

and before it was done, the whole world was to feel

the impact of the suffering and privation

brought on by the blind and futile panic of the stock market crash

that shattered the economy of the world.

Unlike the Kennedys,

her family's fortunes plummeted after the Wall Street crash,

leaving Jackie with a lifelong anxiety about money.

She did see her family's fortune evaporate,

and her father, you know, sort of attempting to come back

from financial ruin.

It left an indelible mark on her.

Her parents' marriage began to collapse.

Jack Bouvier cheated on Janet constantly.

He was kind of a man-about-town, a philanderer.

The stock market crash had made him a much poorer man.

He drank quite a bit. He was an alcoholic.

All of these things combined made Janet very unhappy.

At the time, there were plenty of unhappy marriages, I have no doubt.

But to actually go for a divorce is very bold.

Their very public split made the headlines,

leaving Jackie humiliated.

It had to be quite embarrassing not only to know that,

in her eyes, her heroic father had these terrible flaws

of alcoholism and being a womaniser.

But then, knowing that her mother did have to divorce him.

It was a real social scandal.

It impacted her deeply, impacted her emotionally.

Something at such a vulnerable age is fundamental as that

shatters the entire worldview.

Suddenly, you realise the world was not as it seemed.

There are snakes in the grass.

Jackie acquired survival skills that she would rely on

for the rest of her life.

It changed her personality,

and now she became an introvert

as a coping mechanism.

It was very painful, very difficult.

She developed that kind of glacial exterior.

She can be in a crowd,

but she's also slightly apart from it.

She learned ways to protect herself emotionally from public attention,

even at that early age.

This came in useful at her own wedding.

In the newsreels,

it all looks a bit stilted for Jackie.

She does smile on occasion for the camera,

but it looks a bit forced,

and she just looks like this is someone who is not the bride

at her own wedding.

It gave Jackie a foretaste of what lay ahead -

a life of putting on a brave public face to hide private pain.

Perhaps it's kind of dawning on her at this point,

of what she's marrying into -

this huge family with very clear agenda.

Like the British royal family,

the Kennedys, as American royalty,

are like a family business or a firm.

What she's thinking is, "I haven't just married a man.

"I've married a machine."

The Kennedys were a machine.

Huge, ruthless, rich machine

for the achievement and sustenance of power.

And she must have felt terribly vulnerable

that she joined a clan,

and she probably felt her individuality was draining away.

Jackie had married her Prince Charming

and been thrust onto the stage.

She was going to have to play the role

that they were creating for her

in that family business, which was politics,

and which was pointing towards the White House.

She was going to need all her strength to survive.

And as shocking revelations will uncover,

this marriage would be far from happy ever after.

If it was syphilis, it affects your fertility.

And if he had passed it on to Jackie,

it would affect her fertility as well.

NARRATOR: At the age of 24,

Jacqueline Bouvier had married Senator Jack Kennedy,

joining a powerful dynasty.

She was now a political wife.

Her role - to support her high-profile husband.

This wasn't the life she had dreamed of.

In 1947, she graduated at the top of her class.

In her yearbook, there's a glimpse of the future she wanted,

and her ambition, she writes, "not to be a housewife".

It's such a telling quote from her yearbook.

Jackie was very smart, and she was independent.

I think that's very radical for the 1940s.

And, of course, what is the alternative to being a housewife?

It's having a career.

To achieve this aim, Jackie went to college

and spent a year in France before graduating.

Her first job was as a journalist.

She's working as a kind of a Lois Lane-type girl reporter

for Washington newspapers,

so she's really enjoying herself.

She's part of Washington's society.

It's all going great, and you think, "That's it! Go, Jackie."

She loved it.

I think she saw that there could be a future for her as a journalist.

It allowed her to both be creative and inquisitive.

Jackie Kennedy never wrote a memoir,

and her private letters remain under lock and key.

But a private collector has given us exclusive access

to a previously unseen letter written by Jackie

in the early '50s to a friend.

"I run around all day taking pictures

"and asking people questions,

"and am in love with the newspaper world.

"It has opened up so many new sides of Washington."

In it, Jackie revealed her ambition and her passion for her career,

but pressure was mounting on her to follow a more conventional path.

There's still always that sense

that, ultimately, what she should do is,

is marry and have a family.

In 1952, Jackie got engaged

to a young stockbroker called John Husted,

who seemed to fit the bill.

And I think that it was in part due to social pressure.

I think she quickly realised that Husted was boring,

and she envisioned a rather sad and quiet life with him.

As she explained in the same letter,

three months later, Jackie called it off.

"Things have been rather confused here.

"I was engaged to John Huston,

"and now I'm not any more.

"It wasn't a very happy time for a while,

"but now I know it was the right thing to break it.

"If it hadn't affected another person,

"I'd say it was good that it had to happen.

"It made me grow up, and I needed to do that."

In May 1952, she went to a dinner party

that would change her life.

She met Jack Kennedy.

John F Kennedy, he's a war hero.

He's got these dashing good looks.

His father is, by today's standards, a billionaire,

and he's also a celebrated author.

So this is a very appealing prospect for any young woman.

Jack bore striking similarities to Jackie's major male influence

and offered the possibility of a life less ordinary.

Just like her own father, he was charming,

knew how to have a good time,

a massive philanderer.

She looks at him and sees ambition and drive,

but also a kind of exit route.

She wanted an interesting life.

She wanted more.

And that's what she found in John F Kennedy.

They began dating,

and in May 1953,

Jack proposed to Jackie.

She accepted, but there was a price to pay.

Once she did get engaged, she had to quit her job

the very next day at the paper.

And, you know, I think that was a sign of the times.

You know, you can't really be engaged and about to be married

and hold down a job.

A year later, the couple,

now married and just back from their honeymoon,

were interviewed on the TV programme Person To Person.

You used to be a reporter, didn't you?

Yes, I did.

And, uh, you first met the senator when you interviewed him?

Well, I met... I interviewed him shortly after I met him.

Well, now, which requires the most diplomacy -

to interview senators or to be married to one?

Um...

- Well, I think... - Being married to one, I guess.

Jackie's cautious manner revealed

how unused she was to being in the public eye.

She had other, more painful lessons to learn.

Jack wasn't ready to give up his bachelor lifestyle.

I don't think Jack Kennedy ever wanted to settle down,

and in many ways, I don't think he did.

He went through the formalities of settling down,

but I don't think he ever ended his Playboy streak.

She had seen her mom put up with so much.

Women of that class, at that time, were expected to put up with

a certain amount of cheating and infidelity.

As the wife of political royalty,

Jackie was under pressure to produce a Kennedy baby.

Jack always wanted to have a big family.

His brother Bobby and his wife, Ethel,

already had many children by that point.

I think they were on their seventh or eighth child.

I mean, a huge Irish Catholic family.

That's what you did as a Kennedy wife.

You had lots of children.

It was a way of creating more Kennedys,

more people to carry on the torch.

The Kennedys saw themselves in a royal light.

And, of course, the woman, the queen, Jackie,

has to produce the son and heir.

The path to meeting those expectations

would be filled with tragedy.

In 1956, a pregnant Jackie accompanied her husband

to the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

There's concern on her part

that because she has already lost one child

to a miscarriage, the year before,

that she does need to be careful.

So she would be, you know, risking her health

and very hot conditions with lots of crowds of people around her.

After the convention, Jack went on holiday with friends.

He takes off for a cruise around the Mediterranean.

Jackie goes back to Rhode Island to be with her mother and stepfather

as she awaits the arrival of her baby.

In Jack's absence, she suffered a tragic loss.

She goes into a premature labour, and she's rushed to the hospital.

The baby, a girl, is born, but it's a stillbirth.

Jack didn't come home.

There is Jack sailing around the Mediterranean

with some of his Senate cronies,

presumably calling on women in every port,

until reportedly one of his Senate colleagues says,

"Jack, if you want to preserve your political career,

"you need to get back to the States and be with Jackie."

I think even at that time,

what man would refuse to get the first plane he could

out of Europe to get back to Rhode Island,

to be with his wife?

It was an act of betrayal that must have been hard to forgive.

I think it was a very lonely period in her life.

I mean, she was expected to always take a back seat to her husband,

and her needs were always secondary.

Jackie had problems conceiving and carrying pregnancies to term.

Analysis of her husband's medical records reveal clues

to a disturbing possible cause.

There's a lot of speculation

that this is because of JFK's own sexual behaviour,

that he had either herpes, or syphilis, or gonorrhoea.

If it was syphilis, it affects your fertility.

And if he had passed it on to Jackie,

it would affect her fertility as well.

If indeed that theory is accurate,

that that could have led to her difficulty in becoming pregnant

and getting through pregnancy successfully,

that is all the more heartbreaking,

because that is something that he could have stopped, but he didn't.

In June 1956, having survived baby loss and betrayal,

Jackie was interviewed on television again,

seemingly every inch the happy, dutiful wife.

Where did you go on your honeymoon?

We went to Acapulco, Mexico.

Do any fishing?

Yes. My husband caught a ten-foot sailfish,

which he has in his office.

But in these startling outtakes, her true feelings are revealed.

Someone asks her, you know, if she's very much in love with him.

Pretty much in love with him, aren't you?

Oh, no, I said no, didn't I?

Yes, you did. Do you want to do it again?

She kind of pauses and doesn't really answer the question,

and it's at the height of how difficult their marriage was.

I think that there were times in the marriage

that she did love her husband,

and I think... maybe I'm just romantic,

but I think he loved her and was proud of her.

But he had a lifestyle

that followed his father's of womanising,

and he just couldn't break himself of that habit.

The following year, after two years of heartbreak,

a healthy baby arrived.

- REPORTER: - In November, 1957,

a daughter, Caroline, was born to the John F Kennedys.

Bobby and his wife, Ethel, were the godparents.

They were both just over the moon.

And so, one-year-old Caroline

made her debut on television with her mother,

on television campaign spots.

- REPORTER: - The Kennedys basked in the warmth of new parenthood.

Two years later, JFK was picked as the Democratic nominee for president

and the election campaigning began.

# Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy

- # Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy - Kennedy! #

As the campaign gathered momentum,

Jackie would soon have to take a back seat.

She becomes pregnant with John Kennedy Jr,

in the midst of that campaign,

and has to stop most of her appearances.

In a TV interview from 1960,

Jackie was challenged about her decision to stop campaigning.

Did it seem strange not to be campaigning with her husband?

Oh, yes.

I missed very much campaigning with my husband

in this major endeavour of his life.

I would be if I wasn't expecting a baby.

Her husband's aides had doubts about Jackie,

fearing her shyness would damage his presidential chances.

Unlike a lot of political wives who really kind of threw themselves

into that side of their husbands political career,

she was a bit more reticent.

On camera, she played the part of the devoted political wife.

All politicians wives say they love campaigning.

Does Mrs Kennedy really love it?

Will I tell you why you do love it?

Granted the exhaustion is there,

but you're with your husband in the major endeavour you share.

But I've campaigned with him ever since we were married in 1953.

I counted. I've been in 46 states with him.

In this revealing 1960 interview,

days after the nomination,

Jackie shows her true feelings about life in the spotlight.

I understand that, at one time,

you were a roving photographer in Washington, is that right?

That's right.

Do you, uh, do you, uh... Does all of this bother you at all?

I'd rather be on that end of it than this, I think.

Do you expect to meet the Senator at the airport Sunday night?

I'd like to.

Depends how many of you will be there.

LAUGHTER

Her shy charm won over the press, but JFK's team were not convinced.

Kennedy's political advisers did at times feel

that she was been a liability.

She wasn't seen as particularly accessible

to the average American woman.

You know, she has this fancy hairdo.

She wears these very couture clothes.

She speaks all these languages.

She wasn't seen as entirely relatable.

Jackie revealed how she was perceived

and how ashamed it made her feel

in a 1964 interview with historian Arthur Schlesinger.

The advisors were wrong.

She was anything but a dud.

Despite her critics, Jackie summoned the strength

to continue making public appearances with Jack,

and the crowds were captivated.

She had impeccable manners,

and she could really speak to anyone.

And so, she had this innate charm that won everyone over.

The campaign team realised that Jackie was this huge asset to them.

Whenever she appears, the crowds are twice as big.

She didn't have to say or do anything.

She was the model of the political wife

that we now absolutely take for granted:

stylish, intelligent, diplomatic,

an asset to the husband.

Far from a liability,

it was now clear Jackie was Jack's trump card.

Just before the presidential election,

she agreed to a final pitch for the campaign.

Very visibly pregnant, Jacqueline Kennedy took the risk

of riding through the canyons of Manhattan,

with the big buildings on either side,

and lots of confetti coming down on them in an open convertible,

with crowds pressing around,

and that was the final push towards election day.

Jackie's popularity was set to soar,

far outstripping even the Kennedys expectations.

In the goldfish bowl of the White House, however,

she would find herself taking drastic measures to survive.

It is speed, it's an amphetamine,

and Jackie took it.

NARRATOR: January 19th, 1961,

the Kennedys are on their way to a star-studded gala

to celebrate Jack's election victory.

The following day, he will become the 35th president

of the United States.

Snow is falling heavily,

but it gives it this aethereal effect.

They're making their way through the snow-clogged streets.

All eyes are on Jackie.

On the way to the gala, he actually said to the driver,

"Turn on the lights so they can see Jackie."

People who are braving the cold and the snow,

Jack Kennedy wants them to see Jackie Kennedy in all of her beauty.

The Kennedys ushered in a new era of American politics,

defined by youth, glamour and a sense of hope.

- REPORTER: - After a brief rest, President Kennedy and the First Lady

venture from the White House

to attend a round of no less than five gala inaugural balls.

You have this youthful couple entering the White House.

He's incredibly handsome and dashing,

and she's beautiful and elegant.

They were like a breath of fresh air in the White House.

- REPORTER: - A new era begins

under the leadership of President John F Kennedy.

He had a vision about the future

where racial barriers would be overcome,

which had haunted America from the very beginning.

I think for my family, an African-American family,

the Kennedys were a possibility of doing something different

and being something different.

Behind the glitz of the inaugural celebrations,

Jackie was struggling to cope.

Jackie Kennedy had had a baby less than two months previously.

She'd had a Caesarean.

You don't recover quickly from that.

And yet, less than two months later,

she was expected to participate in this just whirlwind of events.

The following night,

Jackie was due to attend another ball

but found herself exhausted.

She recalls how she asked for help.

The White House doctor offered Jackie something

to help her get through the evening's event.

She felt that she had to do whatever was necessary

to kind of smile by his side.

It is speed, it's an amphetamine, and Jackie took it.

She said she'd never taken that kind of medication before,

but it did its work.

Just like in a fairy tale, the magic didn't last forever.

He went on to multiple parties that night

where he engaged with lots of women.

But by that time, Mrs Kennedy was back

and presumably sound asleep in the White House, her new home.

Jackie wasn't alone in relying on medication to cope.

There was a kind of prescription-drug culture,

and particularly around uppers and downers.

Celebrities, politicians

were being prescribed medications,

quite often to enable them to...

you know, do their jobs better as they... as they saw it.

She did take them to some extent to get through her duties,

I think, especially in those earliest months in the White House.

In a 1964 interview,

Jackie described the strain of her early months as First Lady.

Jack would often send Jackie on breaks away from the White House,

which gave him the freedom to continue his favourite pastime.

President Kennedy apparently could not stop himself from womanising.

It appears to have been some kind of obsession.

President Kennedy once told Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

that he had to engage in sexual relations every three days,

or he would have a headache.

But it was such a widespread, well-known thing

that staff who work in the residence

knew not to go up to the second floor,

which is where their bedrooms were, when Jackie was out of town.

Much of her energy was spent on covering up her husband's adultery,

a subject she never spoke about publicly.

But one devastating aside reveals she was fully aware.

At one point, when a visiting dignitary from France

comes to the White House, and she's showing her around,

and there are these two perky young secretaries in Kennedy's office,

she turns to this dignitary and says in French,

"Oh, and that woman over there, she's sleeping with my husband."

He supposedly had an affair with an intern,

a college intern who was working in the press office.

He apparently had a long-standing affair

with Mrs Kennedy's press secretary.

Jack's conquests were not limited to White House staff.

Most humiliating for Jackie

were the rumours of his affair with Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe.

It seemed Jackie was powerless to stop her husband's philandering.

Jackie had to think that...

how unfair this was,

that she was offering him everything,

and he could not do her the honour of obeying the marriage vows.

So what she did was exert control over the areas where she could.

Determined to keep her head held high.

within days of the election victory,

Jackie started an ambitious project

that she had imagined many years earlier.

So, Jackie Kennedy had a really keen interest in the arts,

and she decides that her main project as First Lady,

that she's going to try to restore the White House

in a sympathetic way that actually brings American history to the fore.

As a young girl, Jackie Bouvier had visited her future home.

Years later, she recalled her impressions in a TV interview.

Well, if I may say so, without disrespect,

every time I've been in the White House,

it's always seemed to be a rather cold and austere place.

I remember the first time I came here as a child feeling that.

I was 11 years old,

and my mother brought me here on Easter vacation,

and I felt very much what you say.

So I do try to make it warmer now,

when I think of all the schoolchildren

who come through here.

She was really struck by how sort of dark and dingy it felt.

It didn't feel like a welcoming place.

It didn't feel like somewhere really befitting of the presidency.

It made her, in other words, probably think of a few ideas

about how she could run that place.

This was not about changing the colours of the drapes

or redecorating.

It was really about instilling pride in the White House

and making America understand that this was their home, too.

Jackie renovated the private quarters to accommodate her family.

However, her restoration of the White House furniture

was way ahead of its time.

This whole business of preservation, this was brand-new.

No-one preserved anything in America.

What Jackie had discovered is that, you know,

presidents would sell the furniture of the previous administration.

So what was left in the White House

was this kind of hodgepodge of styles and eras.

One of the first treasures that Jackie restored

was a gift from Queen Victoria to the US - the Resolute Desk,

placed in the Oval Office, where it remains today.

In February 1962, after two years of work,

the public were invited in by Jackie herself...

- REPORTER: - This is the White House as seen from its South Lawn.

For the next hour, Mrs John F Kennedy invites you

to visit the President's house

and see some of the restorations she's made in its interior.

..presenting pieces of furniture and works of art,

offering a rare glimpse inside the famous building.

Jackie opened up the White House for the first time to everyone

in the world, really.

And she was putting on a performance.

Mrs Kennedy, I want to thank you

for letting us visit your official home.

What's your basic plan?

Well, I really don't have one,

because I think this house will always grow and should.

It just seemed to me such a shame when we came here

to find hardly anything of the past in the house.

For the introverted First Lady, this didn't come naturally.

Could we see a completed room?

Yes. The Diplomatic Reception Room is right here,

if you'd like to see that.

She was quite nervous, as anyone would be,

marching through the White House without a teleprompter.

When she would go off camera,

she would go back to her habit of smoking,

which is what kept her calm.

Despite her nerves, Jackie's tour was an enormous hit.

It was one of the first prime-time specials

that was really aimed at a female audience,

and that audience tuned in.

It was hugely successful.

It was completely revolutionary at the time.

56 million people tuned in to watch it.

That's how significant it was.

The TV tour had shown the nation that Jackie was a trailblazer,

but despite her success,

the opinion she cared most about was Jack's.

In a 1964 interview,

Jackie described his reaction to the broadcast.

I think that's like an incredibly sad statement to make, right?

The fact that she would have to perform

to get her husband to be proud of her.

This says quite a bit,

but he saw the footage and was just blown away by it.

I think in some ways, it was about him understanding

and appreciating the fact that she was so smart.

He realised that she had become a star equal to his own star power.

And Jackie had another skill that she would use to make her mark.

She would become queen of style,

an international icon of good taste.

The crowds in France are chanting her name.

The French newspapers are obsessing over what outfit she's wearing.

I think that they all knew that she was a secret weapon.

NARRATOR: Despite the pressures of life in the White House,

tragic baby losses, and an adulterous husband,

Jackie Kennedy had held her own and become hugely popular.

And before she knew it, she was America's number one fashion icon.

There was no place you could go in America

where you wouldn't see somebody with Jackie Kennedy's style.

She had been brought up to dress perfectly for every occasion.

Their mother, in particular, was quite strict about their appearance

and strict about their behaviour.

Aged 21, she had travelled to Europe with her sister Lee.

They wrote a tongue-in-cheek diary for their parents,

promising that they'll stick to the rules.

"We do sew on all our buttons and wear gloves,

"and never go out in big cities

"except in what we would wear to church in Newport on Sundays."

Next to the text, Jackie and Lee have stuck a photo of themselves

in clothes that would have raised more than a few eyebrows back home.

In the photo, Lee's actually wearing shorts

and Jackie's wearing cigarette pants.

We can see from an early age,

Jackie has an interest in sort of pushing the boundaries

of what's acceptable through what she's wearing.

Now that she was First Lady, Jackie continued to break the rules,

using fashion to express an image of modernity.

Jackie's First Lady style can really be summarised, I think,

as elegant, chic simplicity.

There was a broad, wealthy middle class in the States at that point,

so people would respond really well to somebody bringing fashion

to the White House and something fresh and exciting

and something that you could do to aspire to.

Her unique way of dressing was revolutionary,

and she became a much-copied style icon the world over.

There was something to do with the youth of the Kennedy family,

and it became incredibly desirable to dress like her.

Her pillbox hat, her hair and her suits,

she just had a vast, vast influence on the world.

Jackie's style appealed to every generation.

Little girls could buy paper dolls.

They could cut out sleeveless shift dresses

and put them on to Jackie dolls.

I had those,

and you put on the clothes, which was with French couture.

You cut them out, you put on the different dresses

and little things that she had on in her hats.

I wasn't fortunate enough to have the Jackie Paper Doll set,

but one of my girlfriends did it, and I was quite jealous.

I bet you adult women were playing with those, too.

I'm sure my mother would have liked to have it.

Jackie's global appeal became clear

on the couple's first official trip to France in 1961.

- REPORTER: - Jackie, educated at the Sorbonne

and fluent in French,

accompanied her husband on this important venture

into international diplomacy.

During the three-day state visit,

Jackie charmed all levels of French society

from the public that turned out to greet her to the President himself.

The crowds in France are chanting her name,

the French newspapers are obsessing over what outfit she's wearing.

Meeting the French, speaking fluently in French,

which clasped her to the bosom of France,

there was a deep anti-American prejudice.

Jackie kind of melted all of that.

She speaks to de Gaulle in French, and she knows French history.

Not only does she know French history,

she's worshipped de Gaulle since she was a little girl,

because she thought he was so wonderful in the,

you know, leading the French Resistance.

Over lunch, de Gaulle made clear that the admiration was mutual.

Jackie was using her clothing as a powerful political tool.

Jackie really shows how fashion literate she is.

She wears this incredible white gown

with these embroidered flowers by the French designer Givenchy.

So she's really sort of giving this gesture to the host nation:

"I appreciate your culture."

That's the message that she's sending all.

- REPORTER: - All Paris, by the way, was talking about

the charm and elegance of Mr Kennedy's wife, Jackie.

Jack basked in her success.

You can see in footage, he has fun with it.

I think that he truly enjoyed watching her

really blossom in this role.

Jackie went on to charm dozens of leaders across the globe,

strengthening international relations

and winning admirers wherever she went.

En la mente humana vive Mexico.

She represented a different kind of American power.

She represented the essence of what today we call soft power.

She was able to connect with audiences in different countries

in ways that maybe other First Ladies hadn't done previously,

and in ways that John F Kennedy wasn't necessarily able to do.

Jackie Kennedy was a huge asset.

The last stop on the European tour was London,

where the couple were invited to a dinner at Buckingham Palace.

This visit was dramatised in television series The Crown.

Jane Petrie is the costume designer who created Jackie's clothes.

The opportunity to kind of bring a wardrobe to life

that you've liked all of your own life is...

it was just too exciting. It's going to be fantastic.

In the story, the Kennedy visit coincides

with the Queen feeling insecure.

The most glamorous and intelligent woman on Earth, hm.

DOOR CLOSES

So they say.

And now she's coming to London.

So the Kennedys, in our story,

represent the forward propulsion of the outside world.

The Palace was stuck.

And, you know, Elizabeth's trapped inside,

and things aren't going very well, you know, politically.

But the Kennedys came in as this breath of fresh air,

bringing Paris fashion, bringing the sort of modernity of America,

you know, it was, you know, incredible.

The Crown is a fictionalised account of the event,

so Jane is given some creative freedom.

Queen Elizabeth's dress was based very closely

on the real outfit she wore to meet the Kennedys.

Jackie's dress involved researching her story and her style.

So, I really got to know Jackie's wardrobe really well.

I wanted to see that she was braver and she was more modern,

and she... and she was exciting.

Your Majesty.

- No curtsy. - No curtsy.

Mrs Kennedy.

The final outfit was based on the real dress Jackie wore,

but with a few creative tweaks.

'We changed the neckline. We made it strapless.'

And I thought that taking the straps

and having her strapless

made a better contrast for our story.

'This is dowdy and old-fashioned and a bit stuck.'

And this is really fresh, and she was the future.

Less than two years into her role as First Lady,

Jackie was now an international star.

But tragedy was never far away.

In 1963, Jackie was eight months pregnant when she went into labour.

The baby boy they named Patrick died two days later.

The death had a devastating impact

on both the President and the First Lady.

They bonded over that common tragedy.

When they emerge from the hospital, they're holding hands,

which they rarely did in public.

Despite Jack's support, Jackie was overcome with grief,

finding the public interest in her loss unbearable.

To help her recuperate and to escape the press,

her sister Lee invited her on a cruise

with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

He had the yacht, he had the power.

You had the protection from prying eyes.

With her husband's agreement,

Jackie flew to Greece.

The trip did not go down well back home.

Kennedy clan were very hostile.

Congress were hostile.

They criticised her because, you know, "You just had a child die.

"What are you doing going on a cruise in the Mediterranean?"

Jackie's holiday with Onassis had caused a storm

of negative publicity for the President.

To make amends, she agreed to give the public what they wanted

and appear with him in Texas

as he kicked off his re-election campaign.

Jack had a clear view on what Jackie should wear for the Texas trip.

The night before, he had told her,

you know, "They've come to see you, not me."

She had asked him, "Should I wear this suit or this dress?"

And he said, "Wear the suit.

"I want you to teach

"those Texas millionaire housewives how to dress."

In Fort Worth, they were guests at a breakfast event

where Jackie, not Jack, was the centre of attention.

- REPORTER: - Now is an event that I know all of you

have been waiting for.

Everybody wanted to see her, so in she walks

in her stunning raspberry-coloured suit

and her raspberry pillbox hat...

- REPORTER: - As you can tell from the reaction,

that's Mrs Kennedy coming in.

..and marches up to the dais,

and the President is standing and applauding her,

and there's just great pride in his face.

And it's very poignant, the suit that Jackie was wearing

would come to be so tragically symbolic and iconic of that day.

Two years ago, I said that... introduced myself in Paris

by saying that I was the man who had accompanied Mrs Kennedy to Paris.

I'm getting that, somewhat, that same sensation

as I travel around Texas.

And then, typical of his sharp wit, he added...

Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear.

LAUGHTER

Jackie's outfit had done the job.

The Texans were impressed, but by the end of the day,

that pink suit would become seared on the world's consciousness

in an image of shocking tragedy.

- REPORTER: - And here is the President of the United States,

and the crowd is absolutely going wild.

GUNSHOT

NARRATOR: November 22nd, 1963,

President John F Kennedy and his wife, Jackie,

America's first couple,

are making a public appearance in Texas.

- REPORTER: - Friday Morning, 11:37,

the President's jet lands at the Dallas Airport.

Several enthusiastic Texans are on hand

to give the President and Mrs Kennedy a warm welcome.

In Dallas, they set off in an open-topped motorcade.

- REPORTER: - And here is the President of the United States,

and the crowd is absolutely going wild.

Jackie never spoke in public about her experience of that day in Texas.

However, these words are the testimony

she gave to the congressional investigation in 1964.

- MAN: - The President's car is now turning onto Elm Street,

and it will be only a matter of minutes

before he arrives at the Trade Mart.

To shield her eyes, Jackie put on her sunglasses,

prompting Jack to speak what would be his last words to his wife.

The President asked her to take them off

because he wanted people not only to see her face,

but to look into her eyes.

GUNSHOT

Moments later, shots were fired.

GUNSHOTS

- REPORTER: - It appears as though something has happened

in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

The President was hit in the upper back,

and then in the head.

Several police officers are rushing up the hill at this time.

Stand by. Just a moment, please.

One moment, you're talking and enjoying the experience,

and the next minute, shots rang out.

GUNSHOT

People have said that, you know,

she was trying to collect bits of his brain, you know,

that it was... I mean, it's very, very gory.

I was at school and was called out of school

and told... and told to go home.

Here is a bulletin from CBS News.

There has been an attempt, as perhaps you know now,

on the life of President Kennedy.

I just remember sitting in front of the TV just shocked.

And it was Walter Cronkite.

From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official.

President Kennedy died at 1pm

Central Standard Time.

Took his glasses off, and he looked at the clock,

big wall clock behind him,

I guess to note the time that he said that.

And my mother was crying, and we just didn't know what to say.

I mean, it was just so...

It wasn't anything that was graspable.

I couldn't make any sense out of it.

- REPORTER: - There's only one word to describe the picture here,

and that's grief.

So, we get this fairy-tale president and his fairy-tale wife,

and his little blonde little girl and this little baby,

and it's all part of the package.

That's America. It's wonderful.

And then his head is blown off.

Jackie's all covered in blood,

and you're like, "Oh, it's all over."

I mean, literally, it's all over.

The President's body was carried back to Washington on Air Force One.

On board, Jackie, still soaked in blood,

was offered a clean outfit.

Her face and her hair are covered in blood and brain tissue.

And so, Mrs Johnson, now the new First Lady,

uh, very sweetly asks if Mrs Kennedy would like to change her clothing

because the skirt is covered in blood.

And what she does is, obviously, clean her face and her hair

to present herself.

But she refused to change her clothes.

Showing unwavering strength, she stood by the new president,

Lyndon B Johnson, as he was sworn in.

The shock of the horrible situation, the horror,

the trauma is visible on her face.

On arrival in Washington,

Jackie stepped off the plane with JFK's brother Bobby,

to face a silent crowd of 3,000 onlookers,

and an indelible image of tragedy was created.

And I can remember as a seven-year-old that night,

watching that scene live on the family's black-and-white television,

and the fact that we gasped when we saw her for the first time

in that blood-stained suit.

She wanted the American people

to see what had happened to her husband.

She wanted that that visual image to be seared into people's minds.

The fact that she continued to wear the dress

shows a really steely resolve

and an understanding of the power of images.

It's really quite apt for Jackie,

someone who knew the power of clothes,

that the clothing itself should be the bearer of this physical trauma.

In the immediate aftermath of this unimaginable tragedy,

Jackie's mind was already turning

to how her husband should be remembered,

inspired by another American icon, Abraham Lincoln.

I talked to a curator who was at the White House,

and she had called him from the plane

and she said, "I want his funeral to be exactly like Lincoln's."

Specifically, because, you know, this is a great American president

who was felled by an assassin's bullet.

Three days after JFK's assassination,

200 foreign dignitaries

and over a million members of the public

came to pay their respects

at a funeral choreographed down to the last detail by Jackie.

She already was familiar with the Lincoln funeral

and how the White House had been decorated for it,

with big swags of black cloth over the doorways,

through the chandeliers.

Her skill as an image-maker had reached new heights.

It is absolutely another example of her stage-crafting the presidency,

and she was focussed on details.

She wanted to make sure that this was an important historic moment.

With crowds lining the route,

the carriage brought the flag-draped coffin

to the White House, led by a military band,

and followed by a symbolic, riderless horse

and projecting the ultimate image of survival in their midst,

walked Jackie.

And it was extremely risky, because, of course,

the Secret Service don't want her

and every major head of state walking down the street,

but she put her foot down and she absolutely demanded it.

- REPORTER: - Mrs Kennedy comes forward with Caroline

in a tableau that calls for no words.

Its poignancy calls only for tears.

She's taking ownership of the entire event.

She's saying, "You have not destroyed me."

In the months after the funeral, Jackie retreated from public life.

However, she made one final statement.

I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation

for the hundreds of thousands of messages,

nearly 800,000 in all,

which my children and I have received over the past few weeks.

So many letters of condolence, and regret, and love

were sent to the White House to her,

and she tried to answer them.

And I think she finally realised that there was no way

she could answer all those letters.

The knowledge of the affection

in which my husband was held by all of you has sustained me,

and the warmth of these tributes is something I shall never forget.

She doesn't have tears run down her face,

but you can see the tears coming into her eyes

as she looks to the camera

to speak to the American people and thank them.

Deep in grief, Jackie moved back to New York City with her children.

She turned to JFK's brother Bobby Kennedy for support.

They're very, very close.

He looks after her.

He guides her.

He becomes a surrogate father to her children.

He is the great link with the Kennedy clan.

Unbeknown to Jackie, another terrifying tragedy

was about to shatter her world again.

- GUNSHOT MAN: - Ladies and gentlemen,

we have a doctor now. Will you please clear the room?

NARRATOR: In the months following her husband's murder,

Jackie Kennedy was consumed by grief.

She really did break down.

I mean, she drank a lot.

She was incredibly depressed.

She was counselled by a priest.

She talked about killing herself.

She was clearly exhibiting the signs of what we would now call PTSD,

post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jackie's newly single status drew some attention.

There are many men who wanted to marry Jackie Kennedy

when she was a widow.

She certainly had offers,

and I think she enjoyed her freedom as a single mother

without the huge responsibilities of public life.

She was alleged to have had a short-lived flirtation

with Hollywood star Marlon Brando.

But it was JFK's brother Bobby that Jackie grew closest to.

It was even rumoured that they had a physical relationship.

Following in his brother's footsteps,

in 1968, Bobby ran for president.

But five years after JFK's assassination,

the unthinkable happened.

GUNSHOT

- MAN: - Ladies and gentlemen, we have a doctor now.

Will you please clear the room?

She was called in the middle of the night to be told

that he had been shot.

One unimaginable tragedy followed by another in quick succession.

And understandably, Jackie Kennedy is... is, you know,

plunged into despair once again.

Jackie feared for her children's safety.

She was terribly frightened in this country,

and said, "If they're killing Kennedys, my children are next."

Looking for a way out of the US,

she turned to a powerful and wealthy man

to provide her with what she needed.

She had this flirtation and bit of a relationship going

with Aristotle Onassis.

There were few people in the world who had the money that Onassis did,

and what that money could buy her was privacy.

You know, he owned an island, right?

I mean, he was able to kind of keep her safe.

Only four months after Bobby's death,

she married Onassis in Greece.

He was a man with many familiar attributes.

The testosterone-ridden,

madly ambitious, womanising,

drinking, all of these things,

that's what she'd grown up with.

That's what she'd known all her life.

Her decision to marry Onassis

shocked the nation she'd left behind.

She has this status as a kind of perfect widow.

She's elevated onto stratospheric platform,

and marrying Aristotle Onassis is kind of this fall to Earth.

A lot of people saw it as a huge betrayal,

betraying the legacy, marrying this foreigner.

He was no John F Kennedy.

Running from her childhood fears of poverty, as Jackie Onassis,

she had secured a lifestyle of wealth and safety.

Her time was spent jetting between homes in New York and Greece.

Yet once again, her marriage was dogged by rumours

of her husband's infidelity.

He was not a great husband.

He did not treat women well, generally.

She was just his wife.

She was certainly an ornament for him.

The couple lived increasingly separate lives.

Then in 1975, after an illness, Aristotle Onassis died in Greece.

Jackie inherited a sizeable sum.

She got 25 million in the settlement.

After Onassis' death, she could have led a life of comfort and seclusion.

She chose not to do so.

Instead, Jackie decided to start a new chapter in New York.

And despite the tragedies she had endured,

her ambition was undimmed.

She is standing on her own two feet, not as someone's wife,

and she's looking around New York thinking, like,

"This is my moment to be who I want to be,

"finally, unattached to a man."

And it's fascinating what she accomplishes.

Despite her wealth, Jackie chose to enter the workforce

and took a job in publishing,

a role that reconnected her to her love of literature.

She really did blossom.

She loved working as an editor.

She was very, by all accounts, hands on.

It's badly paid,

and you have to do a lot of humdrum tasks yourself.

You certainly make your own coffee and fetch the biscuits.

Still as passionate about conserving historic buildings

as she had been in the White House,

in 1975, she became concerned by plans to demolish

New York's historic Grand Central Station.

Jackie got wind of it and was pretty horrified.

She basically said, you know, "What can I do to help?"

Jackie hadn't spoken in public for over a decade,

but she was inspired to break her silence

to save this historic building.

I think if we don't care about our past,

we can't have very much hope for our future.

And we've all heard that it's too late

or that it has to happen, or that it's inevitable,

but I don't think that's true.

Because I think if there is a great effort,

even if it's at the 11th hour, you can succeed.

And I think and I know that that's what we'll do.

Certainly, her star power

really changed the city's attitudes then about historic preservation.

In the 1980s,

she started a relationship with diamond merchant Maurice Templeman.

Emotionally supportive, he enabled her to live life on her own terms.

They never married, and I think that that is also important to note.

You know, Jackie reached, I think, a point in her life

where she felt like she did not need a man in order to be herself,

in order to complete who she was intended to be.

Finally able to be her true self,

Jackie regained her place in American hearts.

She represented a new era in American society,

the idea that anything is possible,

all kinds of hope for the future.

She projected an image of elegance and stature

that had been missing from the American story in the 20th century.

You know, this idea that Americans are kind of rich but brash,

maybe even slightly uncouth.

Jackie Kennedy changes all that.

Ever resilient, Jackie survived and thrived,

despite the many tragedies that had scarred her life.

Jackie Kennedy was an incredibly strong woman.

If you look at the totality of her life and the trauma she endured,

she was made of steel.

But in 1994, tragedy struck for the final time.

She was out hunting foxes on a horse and fell,

and then they found she had lymphoma.

At age 64, to discover that she had cancer

was a true blow to her and her family.

Four months after her diagnosis,

Jackie Kennedy Onassis lost her final battle.

Last night at around 10.15, my mother passed on.

She did it in her own way and on her own terms.

And we all feel lucky for that.

The fact that she had control of her life, especially at the end,

meant so much to her and to her family.

Jackie was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington

alongside JFK and the two babies they lost.

Frank Sinatra sent two dozen red roses

with the message: "You are America's Queen".

Certainly, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

was the closest America had to royalty.

The outpouring of affection and love for her was like that

that a grateful country might have for their queen.

America's First Lady of tragedy was a survivor until the very end,

her steely resilience unparalleled,

and her impact is still felt today.

I think Jackie Kennedy still presents this iconic image

of elegance, and grace and intelligence

that continues to fascinate and inspire us.