Jackie Kennedy’s Last White House Days & What She Found in JFK’s Desk

Two weeks to the day that her husband was assassinated, presidential widow Jacqueline Kennedy moved out of the White House. It was December 6, 1963, fifty years ago yesterday.

Just hours after she had been handed the flag which covered the President’s coffin and left his intended final resting place following the burial service, and once all the friends, family, and heads of state had left the White House reception, the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy quickly accepted the impromptu invitation from his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy to visit “our friend.”

And so they returned to Arlington National Cemetery, the night black and cold, the crowds gone but for the sentries.

In fact, every remaining night she would spend in the White House, Bobby and Jackie Kennedy would go to pray at the President’s grave.

Jacqueline Kennedy attending LBJ’s speech to
Alliance for Progress Latin American representatives.

At three the next afternoon, November 26, 1963, Mrs. Kennedy invited Lady Bird Johnson, the new First Lady, to join her for a warm hour of tea as she explained the ins and outs of making a home on the second floor of the national museum that was the White House. “Don’t be frightened of this house,” Jackie told Lady Bird, “Some of the happiest years of my marriage have been spent here…”

The new First Lady described her predecessor’s state as being “orderly, composed,” with “an element of steel and stamina somewhere deep within her to keep her going on as she is.”

Mrs. Johnson assured her that there was no need to feel pressured to vacate quickly, but rather that she take all the time necessary to find the place she wanted to next make a home for herself and her children.

Although she and President Kennedy owned a house among those famously known as the “Kennedy Compound” in Hyannis, Massachusetts, it was a summer home, relatively isolated and not winterized.

They had sold their Georgetown home following the 1960 election and move to the White House. Despite having no home to go to just yet, Jacqueline Kennedy wanted to vacate the White House as quickly as was humanly possible, setting a target date of December 6, 1963.

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