Yes, so far good dish and looks like more to come. I was thinking more along these lines: after all that she went through, still a fine example of a Miss Porter's School and Vassar alum and a former debutante of the year (both of which she was.) But your comparisons are there, too. And don't forget that her sister had already become an actual Princess.

Now I'm the one being catty. More seriously on that front, since you have obvious interest in such characters, if you ever manage to look at a copy of the book she wrote with her sister in 1951, One Special Summer, like in a bookstore or library, do it. I dare anyone not to find it fun and charming and innocent, it just is; it's hard to dislike even if you're coming to it with a prejudice against her or her kind. And you really get an idea of the culture in which they were raised and why people from that place act the way they do.

I happen to know such things because my mother as a young wife was a big fan of the Camelot package, and I think I gave that book to her as a gift one year. Mom wasn't a dummy and over the years her fandom segued into pure interest of following the Kennedys stories, not as a fan but as a learning experience.

This story and some of the comments on the Times' page which I read, got me thinking about how Mom explained how she used to feel about Jack & Jackie to others. She would say something like "you just don't understand how it was, it was like an incredible breath of fresh air to have them leading the country instead of Mamie and Ike, like color instead of depressing black and white,  youth and life instead of old age, classy instead of dull." And then--just a couple hours ago--don't know why I didn't think of this in relation before-- I thought how post war, we were the big victors, but we were still considered "ugly Americans" by others and ourselves, with little interest or knowledge of high culture or the finer things in life. (I mean, even our bread sucked back then, and the wine available for most was mogen david; we had only begun to compete on the international arts stages, etc.) People (like my Mom, a Depression baby raised by immigrant parents on a farm and with a high school education but wanting to live a better life,) were really just waiting for someone like Jackie to make them feel proud of the U.S.A., and learn to enjoy the finer things. (The teens gyrating to Chubby Checker on Bandstand were of interest but really didn't do the trick.) It kind of puts a more complex picture on some parts of the growth of middle class culture to me--that "Camelot" has to do with the way it developed.

Back to the article, another thing that took a while to sink in, a "doh" moment. about how outrageous it was. In the audio, she really stressed that Jack commented many times how terrible it would be if Lyndon Johnson was president. She was saying that to Schlesinger while Lyndon Johnson was president and running for election to stay president.