[UPDATE] I was advised to rewrite this piece if I wanted honest feedback. Not bad advice. i considered it because it was clear my first paragraph pretty much led to many readers not reading the rest of the diary. But then I thought about it. If people were so turned off by the description of my initial reaction to Jackie's thoughts on MLK that they would not consider the rest of the diary, how do you think MLK's fans think of what Jackie said and what Caroline did in just releasing the tapes as is and not providing enough material to support Jackie Kennedy's transformation on the MLK issue over the years?"
I am leaving my harsh reaction there to reach others who had a similar reaction, but who will then read more to learn about the intricacies of that period in her life. While I am still not pleased with the remarks, I am not as angry as I was initially. The John Lewis comments about Hoover are not reported in every news piece. I am only making minor edits but leaving in my INITIAL thoughts unfiltered to give the Jackie fans a sense of how I felt when reading Jackie's on the record comments about MLK. The difference is once I got over the shock of it, I wanted to examine the context.
[UPDATE]
ABC had such a fawning lovefest for Jackie Kennedy that I had to turn it off after a few minutes. At least, that is how I felt last night. So I am going to base this diary on what I read in the newspapers. Most of you must have read excerpts about how Jackie Kennedy hated MLK, Jr.
As far as web links, here is one from ABC itself that is stripped of the fawning tone of the TV show(or maybe Diane's voice has that effect on me).
Speaking in the months after her husband's assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy was so upset with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that she told a friend and interviewer that she could barely look at images of him.
"I just can't see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man's terrible," Mrs. Kennedy said, as part of an oral history series of interviews released this month.
Also interesting, she did not like MLK's alleged joke about the Cardinal and people being drunk at the funeral. Later on, she makes her own observations about the Irish. Hmmm.
My first reaction was "you spoiled bitch, you had a husband who slept around with many women. You married a walking aged prune for his money like a ho in just a few years from that point in time, and you have the audacity to judge MLK on whatever sex exploits you may have heard of?"
That was yesterday. So then I thought more about it today as I read the other excerpts at the bottom of this diary. OK, I am still not happy with the prissy judgemental woman. But I am willing to give her a benefit of doubt in some areas.
1) A lot of the info was coming to her from Edgar Hoover via Bobby kennedy. The MLK carousing with women may not be false as we heard other reports about it. It is indeed a gross violation of our privacy and a crime , in my opinion perpetuated by the government trying to strip a great leader of his dignity in real time. As far as the comment about MLK making derogatory remarks about JFK at the funeral, who knows if Hoover embellished some off the cuff sarcastic remark and relayed it to Bobby. So you wonder if she got extra judgemental about MLK on the sex issue because she also heard about the derogatory remark issue and made it personal.
2) She was still young and not really mature as others want to make her out to be at that time in history. So maybe her thoughts changed a little as time went by? This is where her friends, family, and accomplices can chime up to tell us if her views got more tempered as time went on. We know she got close to MLK's family. Was her view of the long suffering Corretta Scott King different enough? Or did she revisit her views of MLK Jr too? Or did the passage of time render her opinion of MLK moot and she related to the overall cause.
3) IN other excerpts, she thought LBJ was awful and Indira Gandhi was a bitter old prune. Well, except for Vietnam disaster, LBJ worked out well. As far as Indira Gandhi, Nixon and Kissinger said much worse and people in India are just as divided about her.Not really that controversial. She probably couldn't foretell that LBJ would get civil rights legislation passed. Though some part of me does wonder if Indira Gandhi's abrasiveness would have been more tolerated if she were a British Prime Minister and not an Indian(though she wasn't a PM at that time).
More excerpts:
The widowed first lady soured on King as a result of secret wiretaps arranged by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover had told President Kennedy that King tried to arrange a sex party while in town for the March on Washington, and told Robert Kennedy that King had made derogatory comments during the president's funeral, Mrs. Kennedy recalled.
But as for what was actually said by King and his circle, history remains uncertain. The original surveillance tapes involving King have never been released publicly, and are under seal by court order until 2027.
Rep. John Lewis, legendary civil rights leader and friend of King, told ABC News that he believes Hoover concocted damaging material about King to give to the Kennedys because "he wanted to destroy the man."
"He did everything possible to make Dr. King look like somebody from another planet," said Lewis, D-Georgia. "I cannot believe that Dr. King ever said anything in a negative manner about President Kennedy. He admired, he loved … the Kennedy family."
Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesDr. Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his "I... View Full Size Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesDr. Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on this day on Aug. 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington, Washington, DC.
Jacqueline Kennedy: In Her Own Words Watch Video
Caroline Kennedy: Her Mother's Never-Heard Oral History of the White House Years Watch Video
Jacqueline Kennedy's White House Tour Watch Video
"He was so moved by the speech that President Kennedy had delivered on June 12th, 1963, when he said the question of civil rights was a moral issue," Lewis said.
Mrs. Kennedy said Robert Kennedy told her he had heard FBI wiretaps in which he said that King had made derogatory comments in private about Cardinal Richard Cushing, who delivered President Kennedy's eulogy at his November 1963 funeral.
Mrs. Kennedy says Bobby told her "He made fun of Cardinal Cushing and said that he was drunk at it. And things about they almost dropped the coffin and -- well, I mean Martin Luther King is really a tricky person," Mrs. Kennedy said
Here is another link from the UK's Daily Mail where she is reported to have call him a phony.
What does the Dkos community think of this issue? Just a young privileged woman who hasn't had the occasion to learn enough life lessons and was venting too close in time to a personal tragedy?