Why Jackie Onassis Secretly Visited The White House Eight Years After JFK’s Death

The reaction to John F. Kennedy’s assassination was swift: a state funeral, a change in presidential administration and the slain leader’s family leaving the White House. And as far as the public knew, the President’s widow Jackie Onassis made a point to stay away from the Washington, D.C. estate. But she did, in fact, make a secret visit there for a surprising reason, years after her exit from the storied residence.

It was Jackie herself who instigated the return to the White House, and she did so through a series of letters. The first one arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1971, landing on the desk of then-First Lady Pat Nixon. An impending event had gotten JFK’s widow thinking about returning to the White House.

But Jackie made one thing clear in her letters – she didn’t want it to be a media circus when she came to visit. She made this explicitly clear in her messages, which had been sent in secrecy. Instead, she wanted to slip into the White House without anyone knowing she was there.

It wasn’t just her own privacy that Jackie had to worry about, after all. The widow shared two children with her fallen husband: Caroline, who was 13 at that time, and ten-year-old John Jr. She hoped to bring them back to their old house with her, but she didn’t want the press to overwhelm “their little lives,” as she admitted in her letter.

But why did Jackie want to make the trip back to Washington, D.C.? After all, by 1971 her life had changed greatly. For one thing, the former First Lady had remarried in a surprise ceremony to ostentatious shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. And she’d moved from the nation’s capital to a luxurious New York City apartment on Fifth Avenue, where she went on to live until her death in 1994.

Still, the former First Lady had one bit of unfinished business to attend to. So, Jackie sent a letter to the woman who now occupied her old position to ask for an audience – and she got it. It would prove to be many years, however, before the world found out about Jackie’s secret White House visit. But when the reasons for the trip emerged, it certainly tugged at the public’s heartstrings.

The Kennedys’ tragic year of 1963 didn’t start that way for the family. Early on, President Kennedy and his wife found out that Jackie was pregnant with their third child. But when she went into early labor in the summer, things didn’t go to plan. Baby boy Patrick was born with a lung condition and lived for only two days.

That happened in August, and the Kennedys spent months trying to come to terms with the death of their son. But they’d yet to fully overcome the grief when the unthinkable occurred once again. This time, though, the couple’s children remained safe – it was JFK himself who had his life ripped away from him.

JFK and Jackie had flown to Dallas, Texas, on November 21, 1965, so that the President could deliver political addresses in the Lone Star State. The day after the First Couple arrived, they took to the streets to see all of their supporters. They drove slowly through the crowds, who cheered as they eyed the Commander-in-Chief in the back of his limousine.

The Kennedys were only slated to drive nine and a half miles in the limousine, but it would never reach its final destination. As the car turned onto Dallas’ Elm Street, Jackie heard a noise that she presumed had come from a motorcycle’s engine. But she realized that she’d misidentified this sound when a fellow passenger – the Texan governor John Connally – cried out.

Before the limo’s passengers had a chance to react, two more shots rang out – and one of them made its fatal impact. Jackie then climbed from the back seat and onto the trunk of the vehicle before a Secret Service man jumped onto the car. He implored her to get back down, shielding her with his body.

Later on that year, the Warren Commission investigated the assassination. This led Jackie to state that she had no recollection of her attempt to flee the vehicle. She admitted to having seen pictures of herself splayed on the trunk of the car, but she said, “I don’t remember that at all.”

What Jackie did recall were her husband’s last few seconds of consciousness. She testified that JFK “put his hand to his forehead” before he “fell in [her] lap.” The First Lady added, “I remember shouting. And just being down in the car with his head in my lap. And it just seemed an eternity.”

That eternity was actually a 3.8-mile drive to nearby Parkland Hospital, where Jackie stood by JFK’s side as doctors operated on him. He never came to, though, and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at the age of 46. His wife refused to remove her blood-stained suit afterward, hoping to impress upon the public that her husband had suffered horribly.

Jackie wore the spattered garment as she stood next to Lyndon B. Johnson on Air Force One, as he was sworn in as President. Johnson hoped that Jackie’s presence would ensure that Americans saw the exchange of power as a legitimate one. She further hastened the transition by moving out of the White House and into a Georgetown mansion, before settling in New York City for good.

Johnson was President until 1969, at which point Richard Nixon entered the White House. That was around the time that Jackie’s life had changed dramatically, after she married Aristotle Onassis in 1968. Onassis was a shipping magnate known for his showiness, and the public balked at the match. He was, after all, incredibly different compared to her slain former spouse.

Jackie had left behind much of the life she once shared with JFK, opting for the hustle and bustle of New York over the politics of Washington, D.C. It seemed she’d stayed away for decades after her husband’s death. But the truth was that the former First Lady had been in correspondence with the Nixons in the 1970s. And she actually made her way back to the White House precisely one time.

This is a stunning revelation, considering Jackie’s refusal to reflect on JFK’s tragic assassination for several years following his death. She wouldn’t speak to reporters – she wouldn’t even talk to her closest associates. Instead, she told them all that she was “still in mourning,” according to People magazine.

But Jackie had actually been speaking to someone linked to her past life in the White House. It all started in 1971 with a letter she sent to Pat Nixon, who was the First Lady at the time. Basically, Jackie wanted to request a private visit to the presidential estate for a very specific purpose.

Since George Washington’s tenure as President, it’s been custom for Commanders-in-Chief to have a portrait made during their time in office. The tradition has continued in spite of the advent of photography. So, even after his untimely death, JFK had a professional portrait made, too. And that was the reason for Jackie’s request for a visit – she’d learned that the artist had finished painting her fallen husband.

And it wasn’t just JFK who was going to be immortalized in an oil painting. After all, First Ladies got their own portraits, too. So, Jackie wanted to come to the White House to see the artworks that would represent her and her husband for years to come. But she wanted to go without any fanfare from the press.

The Nixons had invited Jackie to the official unveiling of the portraits, but the former First Lady had declined on behalf of herself and her children. She explained why in her letter, sent to Mrs. Nixon in 1971. She wrote, “I really do not have the courage to go through an official ceremony, and bring the children back to the only home they both knew with their father under such traumatic conditions…”

Jackie continued, “With all the press and everything, things I try to avoid in their little lives, I know the experience would be hard on them.” The former First Lady would also be affected by a return to Washington. She admitted, “As you know, the thought of returning to the White House is difficult for me.”

Perhaps reading this part of Jackie’s letter would have led Nixon to believe that she didn’t want to make the trip. But in actual fact, Jackie wanted to strike a deal with the woman holding her old position. She wanted to see the portraits, but she wanted to do it in complete secrecy.

So, Mrs. Nixon got to work in securing the most trustworthy staff members to prepare the day without arousing the suspicions of anyone else in the White House. This must have been a nerve-wracking planning process, but she wasn’t the only one in a difficult position. New York artist Aaron Shikler had the tough task of painting the slain president without any sittings with him.

Shikler had once seen JFK pass by him in a vehicle, but that was his only personal reference of the ill-fated president. Instead, he had to rely on 25 photos of him, sketching each one before deciding which image would spark the portrait. This led the artist to realize that JFK had two favorite poses, but Shikler was particularly inspired by the images in which Kennedy held his arms in front of his chest.

Shikler finished the portrait ahead of Jackie’s visit, which must have been a tense occasion for the artist. After all, he would likely have wanted her approval before his work could be shared with the public. The responsibility of creating an artwork that was suitable in the eyes of the former First Lady would be a lot of pressure for anyone.

On February 3, 1971, Jackie went back to the White House with her children in tow – and Americans were none the wiser. To protect herself and the emotions that might emerge when she reentered her former home, she asked to just have the Nixons show her around. Aside from the First Couple and their children, only the President’s first usher Rex Scouten and the White House curator Clement Conger knew she was there.

The First Lady met Jackie and her kids and began their visit with a tour of the White House. Although Jackie had come to see the portraits, she wanted to see the changes made to her former abode, too. During her tenure, she’d made a point of gathering historical artifacts and turning the presidential property into an active museum. The Nixons had continued that tradition, and they wanted to show their additions to the former Mrs. Kennedy.

But the true purpose of the visit was, of course, to see the portraits – and the Nixons made sure their unveiling met Jackie’s expectations. They placed the painting of JFK in the Green Room, his favorite of the three parlors on the State Floor of the White House. That would be where the painting resided for good, although the public reveal would take place in the East Room instead.

As for Jackie, her portrait went on the ground floor with the rest of the First Ladies. It hung right in front of the Diplomatic Reception Room, which Mrs. Kennedy had refurbished during her White House tenure. The location of her portrait was meant to honor her work, and visitors in the future wouldn’t be able to miss her. Entering through the East Wing, it’s one of the first paintings that people see.

The locations were prime ones, but that wasn’t what concerned the Nixons or Shikler. They wanted to make sure that Jackie, Caroline and John Jr. liked the portraits that would represent the family for years to come. Mrs. Nixon took a step back when they finally reached the paintings so that the trio could process them on their own.

The 2016 book First Women by Kate Andersen Brower focused on modern First Ladies. In one passage, it detailed Jackie’s reaction to the unveiling of the portraits, specifically to the one of her fallen husband. She wrote, “Jackie was quiet and simply thanked Pat for displaying it so prominently.”

Brower added that the Kennedy children loved the portrait, too. And they helped lighten what could have been a somber trip back to the White House. Supposedly, ten-year-old John Jr. broke an awkward silence at dinner with the whole Nixon family by spilling his milk. And according to First Women, he delighted Mrs. Nixon by telling her all “about a great car he got for Christmas that runs on a battery.”

And the Kennedy children were later able to express how much the meeting meant to them, too. John Jr. penned a note to the Nixons the day after the White House tour. In his adorably childish handwriting, he wrote, “I can never thank you more for showing us the White House. I really liked everything about it...”

John Jr. continued, “You were so nice to show us everything. I don’t think I could remember much about the White House, but it was really nice seeing it again.” The then-ten-year-old also revealed that when he sat on Lincoln’s bed – the same bed where JFK once slept – he had wished to have a good year at school.

According to Brower, Caroline grew to appreciate the 1971 visit because it inspired “her mother [to] open up and share more of her White House memories with” her children. Plus, the author wrote, “I think she really appreciated Mrs. Nixon’s thoughtfulness in the sense that there are family values and a dedication to politics and patriotism that go beyond any... party.”

As for Jackie, she, too, sent a letter to Mrs. Nixon to express her gratitude for the intimate, private visit. She wrote on a sheet of pastel blue paper, “Can you imagine the gift you gave us to return to the White House privately with my little ones while they are still young enough to rediscover their childhood?”

And, as it turned out, the visit had helped Mrs. Kennedy to add to her memories of the White House. So, alongside the tragic ones, she now had some newer, happier ones, too. She wrote, “The day I always dreaded turned out to be one of the most precious ones I have spent with my children.”

In spite of how special that day was, Jackie had no intentions of replicating it ever again. She never came back to the White House after her secret tour in 1971. But it clearly remained a fond memory for her and her children – one that shaped their outlook for years to come. According to People, Caroline later said, “One of the things you learn, having lived in the White House, is that there really are these common experiences and what we share is so much larger than what divides us.”