Question for Jim D

[Pat Speer]

I sometimes get emails from Quora, pointing to this or that thread. I received one today that claimed 1) Jackie Kennedy kept a diary, 2) that has been made available to the public, 3) in which she claimed Bobby and Teddy were both in love with her and she was frightened of being alone with Bobby because he might rape her. 

To me it looks like a hoax. And yet none of the responses that I saw seemed to indicate as much. Does such a diary exist? Has it been made public? Did she really say she was afraid of Bobby?

My instincts tells me that it's total bs. But it appears people on Quora are taking it seriously and using it as a vehicle to denounce Camelot.

I suspect you have looked into this. What's the real story?

[James DiEugenio]

Quora is such a trap when it comes to JFK.  I won't go into why, but it just is.

The two best biographies of Jackie Kennedy are by Donald Spoto and Randy Taraborrelli, neither of them, clicking in at about 700 pages total, mentions any of that material.

I suspect that RFK baloney comes from Heymann, the serial fabulist.  

[Kevin Balch]

11 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I sometimes get emails from Quora, pointing to this or that thread. I received one today that claimed 1) Jackie Kennedy kept a diary, 2) that has been made available to the public, 3) in which she claimed Bobby and Teddy were both in love with her and she was frightened of being alone with Bobby because he might rape her. 

To me it looks like a hoax. And yet none of the responses that I saw seemed to indicate as much. Does such a diary exist? Has it been made public? Did she really say she was afraid of Bobby?

My instincts tells me that it's total bs. But it appears people on Quora are taking it seriously and using it as a vehicle to denounce Camelot.

I suspect you have looked into this. What's the real story?

Kitty Kelly would have mentioned it in her biography of Jackie Kennedy.

[James DiEugenio]

Kitty Kelly does not belong in the Spoto/Taraborrelli category or class.

And you should know that.

She is closer to Heymann.

[Johnny Cairns]

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated, Jackie Kennedy was devastated. As she left the Good Samaritan Hospital, after his death,  she had a haunting, distant smile on her face, supported by a man on each side. She also wept over his casket at a private wake, grieving for a man she loved like a brother—her actions driven by deep sorrow, not fear.

[Pat Speer]

11 hours ago, Johnny Cairns said:

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated, Jackie Kennedy was devastated. As she left the Good Samaritan Hospital, after his death,  she had a haunting, distant smile on her face, supported by a man on each side. She also wept over his casket at a private wake, grieving for a man she loved like a brother—her actions driven by deep sorrow, not fear.

Yes, my understanding is they became very close. But I MIGHT believe she was kind of scared of him back when she was JFK's fiancé. But as it is, I have found no evidence she wrote a diary in which she confessed such things and suspect, as Jim, that some idjit was representing something they read in a trash book as fact. 

Edited September 24 by Pat Speer