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- <text id=94TT0693>
- <title>
- May 30, 1994: To Our Readers
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994
- May 30, 1994 Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- TO OUR READERS, Page 4
- Elizabeth Valk Long
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> After a lifetime spent observing, a journalist sees so much
- pass by that it can blur with the years. But every reporter
- remembers the special moments and the extraordinary people he
- encounters. TIME contributor Bonnie Angelo and columnist Hugh
- Sidey both covered the White House during the 1,000 days of
- the Kennedy Administration. Those times, and now the remarkable
- woman who helped define them, are gone. But Angelo and Sidey
- recall the vivid moments they saw.
- </p>
- <p> Sidey covered the Kennedys' initial journey abroad after winning
- the White House. The trip was to a summit in Vienna. On a stopover
- in France, the press landed before the President so they could
- see the First Couple greeted by President Charles de Gaulle.
- The scene had all the pomp and glamour the media had been anticipating.
- There had been rain earlier, and the tarmac was glistening;
- sunlight was starting to cut through the clouds. As Air Force
- One touched down, the first thing Sidey noticed was that it
- had a new paint job--Jackie's work. She had gone to designer
- Raymond Loewy to give the jet a new look; it was now a striking
- blend of teal, blue and white, proof of her sense of style and
- spectacle.
- </p>
- <p> "The Kennedys emerged and were greeted by De Gaulle," Sidey
- recalls. "The President said a few words, and Jackie had a few
- lines in French, graceful, elegant. I can recall standing down
- there and responding not as a reporter, but as an American.
- I was proud of this young couple, and I was deeply touched by
- the majesty of the moment."
- </p>
- <p> Angelo remembers the First Lady's impact on the home front.
- "After all this time," says Angelo, "those three short years
- are still in my head like a video." The whole country seemed
- to want to play godparents to the First Children, Caroline and
- John-John. Women, impressed by Jackie's impeccable taste, rushed
- out to buy clothing that looked like hers.
- </p>
- <p> "Jackie was a reporter's dream," says Angelo. "From the moment
- she stopped the Inaugural balls in their tracks as people gaped
- at this dazzling new First Lady, she was a megastar."
- </p>
- <p> Despite all the media attention she commanded throughout her
- life, Jackie never lost her regal bearing, her effortless dignity.
- Her enduring grace was one of the main reasons journalists found
- her so endlessly fascinating, and so entirely unforgettable.
- Says Angelo: "To the end--too soon, too soon--Jackie was
- a class act."
- </p>
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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