Jacqueline Kennedy Secrets Revealed In 50-Year Old Love Letters: The Highlights
Jacqueline Kennedy, former First Lady of the late American president John F. Kennedy, had revealed her most intimate thoughts to Dublin priest Fr. Joseph Leonard in the form of love letters.
Irishcentral reported that the letters revealed her thoughts about her marriage to President John F. Kennedy, their life in the White House and her reaction to his assassination. Jacqueline had written to the priest for fourteen years before and after she became First Lady.
There were 33 letters discovered by accident by two staff members in an old safe at All Hallows College in Dublin. These letters lay undisturbed for more than 50 years since Leonard's death in 1964. According to Edition, Jacqueline Kennedy only met the priest once during a trip to Ireland in 1950, yet has sent him more than two dozen letters.
Phillip Sheppard, a spokesperson for the Sheppard's Irish Auction House, told The Irish Times, that these letters were actually in effect Jacqueline Kennedy's autobiography for the years 1950-1964. "It's so good in a way to write all this down and get it off your chest - because I never do really talk about it with anyone," Jacqueline said in one of her letters according to Edition.
Below are the "highlights" of Jacqueline Kennedy's love letters narrowed down by Irishcentral, Edition, CNN and Foxnews.
- In one letter written on July 1952, Jacqueline compares her husband to Shakespeare's Macbeth because of his ambition and she worries that he would be disloyal to her.
- On that same letter on July 1952, Jacqueline told Leonard that her time with JFK had given her "an amazing insight on politicians - they really are a breed apart".
- When only 23, Jackie confided to the priest "Maybe I'm just dazzled and picture myself in a glittering world of crowned heads and Men of Destiny- and not just a sad little housewife".
- Jackie had told the priest that the world can be very glamorous from the outside but it can also be hell if you're lonely living in it.
After a year of being married to JFK, she wrote to Leonard about how she loved being married much more than she did in the beginning.
After the assassination of her husband, Jacqueline Kennedy confided to the priest on how she became bitter against God and how she had struggled to find comfort in her Catholic faith.
"I have to think there is a God - or I have no hope of finding Jack again. God will have a bit of explaining to do to me if I ever see Him," she wrote.
Jacqueline died on May 19, 1994 as Mrs. Jacqueline Onassis after she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
Jacqueline Kennedy's love letters to Fr. Joseph Leonard will be auctioned in Ireland next month, according to Irishcentral.