ABC News Barbara Walters on JFK Jr

John F. Kennedy Jr in Nation Waits continues good night again. I'm Peter Jenning. A wise person remarked not long ago that in this era of celebrities we all become members of the international family. It really doesn't always matter who happens to the tragedy. In the case of the Kennedys, of course, they have been in the country for a long time. I suspect that not many people knew John F. Kennedy well, but one of the people in our field who knew him well and also I think journalists do it well. I don't want to, uh, I don't want to say that I knew him well, I didn't know him well, but I had spent some time with him and with Carolyn Betet Kennedy, uh, you mentioned that he.

He had had so much responsibility in his, Peter's, life, and in fact he did, that it is surprising to many of us to know that he could have taken risks, you know, flying without a co-pilot and a single plane. It happened to him just in the last few years the death of his mother in May 1994 in 1995 he opens begins publishing this magazine George Many people said it was not going to work in 1996 he married Carolyn Bassette who had not been in the spotlight who by the way his mother had never met and this now seemed to be a very good time in his life the magazine seems to have achieved it he himself had become a reporter doing some very good

news

paper articles some very good interviews marriage 3 years seemed too strong the paparazzi were no longer on his back all the time and yet, uh uh Peter um, he was famous, in fact, wasn't he from the moment he was born?

If we ever had a collective national photo album with the photos of John F. Kennedy Jr it would be instantly familiar to millions of us and of course it would bring back a flood of memories and no wonder, John, it's Gerald Kennedy, a who Solly was born a few weeks after his father's election, the only child born to a president. Choose a living reminder that the nation had elected a 42-year-old as its leader. You must remember that both my sister and I, particularly I, see my father's administration through the color of others and his perceptions of others and through photographs and through what we have read and that is why it is difficult for us to discern a lot about him regardless of other people's impressions.

John Jr, whom his family called John John rarely spoke to reporters about himself or memories of him, but seven years ago he and his sister Caroline told our J Shadler about some special moments so long ago. . Do you have any memories of your father? I have some. He had this desk in the Oval Office that was made that belonged to a sea captain and, uh, it was. made from an American frigate and I just remember the inside that you could climb through and there was kind of a cavern of spaces that we used, do you remember crawling in, yeah, just hanging out there and he used to give us gum because my mom, uh I didn't.

He liked us to chew gum, so we used to go to the Oval Office at night and you'd give him gum under the desk. There's a shot I always remember where everyone was going out to meet your dad in the helicopter. Do you remember the White House helicopter landing? Oh, it sure was a big exciting event, right? And who could forget that searing image now ingrained in all our memories? A few days before his third birthday, when he was a small child, he greeted his murdered father. the coffin as he walked past it, frankly it's not something, I mean, I know it's hard to believe, but it's not a topic that I've spent a lot of time analyzing.

I understand that it was obviously a very significant event from a historical point of view. He was president. uh, and there are people who, historians, filmmakers, etc., are going to make money and time studying that, um, that whatever they decide or find is not going to change the fundamental fact of my life, which is that it will not bring When He Came Back Shortly after the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy moved her family here to an apartment in New York City. There were appearances of a normal life, but five years later, Bobby Kennedy, who had become a surrogate father to John and his sister, was also murdered, and within four months. jacel and Kennedy married the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onasis Pier Sal Challer remembers it well Jackie came to my office and told me something that I have never forgotten, she said: you know, I only have one thing to do in life, now I have to take care of myself .

I have to raise these children. I have to make them smart. I have to get them in good shape so they can have a real career in the future because if I don't do that, they will be totally tied to their father's death. For years after Bobby Kennedy's death, John Junor was largely out of the picture. public view, photographers managed to see him occasionally, almost always with his mother nearby and, as a harbinger of what was to come, every time he appeared in public it was a guarantee. of a media mafia John and his sister Caroline returned to New York City after the death of Aristotle Onassis and John began to emerge in controlled situations.

The dedication of the JFK Library in Boston was a prime example in October 1979. I continually think of those who from the womb remembered the story of the soul through the corridors of light. John Jr seemed to have trouble finding himself when he was young. He attended the prestigious Philips Success Academy in Massachusetts and Brown University, where he thought he wanted to be an actor. Biographer Wendy Lee John was very capable of throwing herself into another character to become another person and perhaps in a strange way that was her escape, her only escape from the role of Being John F.

Kennedy Jr. She graduated from Brown University in 1983 to the applause of a family that adored him after Brown. College expectations for the son of America's most famous dynasty were enormous, his path uncertain, and public scrutiny relentless. He never became an actor, but JFK Jr. attended law school in New York City. There was speculation that it was Jackie who wanted it that way. Jackie put her foot down and said you're not going to be an actor, you're going to have a profession and made him go to New York University School of Law. Politics may not have been his chosen career path, but he had everything right in 1988, at 27 years old.

Old John Kennedy Jr electrified the Democratic National Convention when he gave the keynote address. An unwavering commitment to the poor, the elderly and the hopeless, regardless of fashion or convention, is the greatest reward of public service. His speech earned him a two-minute standing ovation, but his law career earned plaudits in the Bronx, the tabloids had fun with his failure to pass the bar exam twice when I failed the bar exam. lawyers, you know, the New York Post had the headline "the failed heartthrob," so part of that I was actually able to do. Without the third attempt it was a charm, how do you feel about it?

Is it true that you passed the bar? Apparently it's true. I got the official word not long ago, so it's true and he eventually accepted a job in the Manhattan district attorney's office, but it wasn't John Kennedy's public life that became the object of so much fascination, it was his private life. , the paparazzi followed him everywhere, if JFK Jr was in the park, it was

news

, the man who People magazine chose as the sexiest man alive became the most eligible in Manhattan. Single, he was as handsome as any movie star and was himself a favorite of Hollywood beauties.

There were rumors of a relationship with Madonna. Do you care about everything related to you? What is it about being sexy and attractive? And every time you see another woman. is all this is she is this is the only listen people could say much worse things about you than then that you were attractive and you look good in a swimsuit for five years actress Daryl Hanah was the one and the couple I've seen it everywhere, but the romance failed, although JF K JR couldn't help but appear in the news, he seemed to stay away from the scandals that plagued so many of the rest of the Kennedy clan when cousin William Kennedy Smith went on trial accused of rape.

Jr was there to support him, he also campaigned publicly when the other members of his family ran for public office. During all this time, JFK Jr enjoyed a special closeness with his mother, she was his friend, his confidant and the guiding force in his life, but tragedy occurred when Jackie was praying. He was diagnosed with cancer. John Kennedy Jr. was at his mother's side during her final days outside her apartment on Fifth Avenue. The world's press awaited an anxious vigil. Jacquelin Kennedy died in May 1994 and John Kennedy emerged from the glamorous skyscraper in which he had lived. lived as a child to announce to the world that her mother had passed away last night around 10:15 my mother passed away she was surrounded by her friends and her family and her books and the people and the things she loved and she did it her way and on her own terms and we all feel lucky about that and now she is in God's hands with the death of her mother.

John Junr suddenly seems more mature, the boy America had loved so much was now a famous adult. Children seem to have an extra burden to find themselves and be themselves. Do you think you have found yourself? I think part of what famous kids have is that they have abundant opportunities and that life circumstances don't force them to be themselves. um, you know, choose and you have to choose. I don't think I've seen so many of you in one place since the results of my first bar exam were announced, so it seemed inevitable that your fate and politics would one day become intertwined.

What no one expected was that John would choose the role of observer rather than participant. In 1995, the son of the 35th president of the United States introduced his new magazine named after the first ladies and gentlemen. meet George, he has avoided the press, now he has made himself. in a sense, one of them, sure, you can't beat them, join them, listen to their messages. Mr. Cin, the irreverent magazine seemed an instant success and gave its famous editor the opportunity to shine in a new career as a journalist. Kennedy by lines appeared in witty interviews with Colen Powell, Clinton's former press secretary, Mike McCurry and Goth Brooks, how long will it take us nights?

Did you discuss this magazine with your mother? Yes, what did she say? Well, I think she showed him a uh, I think we showed him. on the M cover and she was a little skeptical, but I think she had always encouraged Caroline and me to make our own path to not subordinate our own lives to the expectations of what we should do with our lives and so on. In that sense, I think she liked it, in the end it was a tall, statuesque blonde named Carolyn Bassette, a public relations executive who put an end to reports of Kennedy being single.

She came to light that they were close. A few photos were taken, but the couple. The courtship remained largely private, so private that the world was stunned in September 1996 when the wedding was announced after it had already occurred. The most eligible man in the world is no longer eligible. He is practically our Crown Prince and now he is no longer free to marry. He is married in the last year the young Kennedys had settled into their lives the press seemed less of a factor the magazine was doing well the Martha's Vineyard house they were heading to last night was their retreat and you already know Peter as we speak about this and see talk about the relationship that JFK Jr had with his mother I think what many of us must be thinking is how if she had lived she would have been able to withstand this emotionally well, I must tell you first of all that it is a very beautiful piece of work that you put together and I am struck by the fact that I recognize virtually everything that has happened, which reminds me, of course, how public Kennedy's relationship has been with us across the country and she, he is 38 years old , his mother was only 64 years old when she died and his father was only eight years older than him when he was murdered, one of the people they had just talked to said he was our Crown Prince and many people consider him the American Prince.

I mean, it's a cliché to say. that he is American royalty that the family is American royalty and today without making too much of a connection we were saying that in this country it has some of the feeling of the death of Princess Diana, I mean, he is our royalty, if he has died. He died too young. He had a life of vulnerability. People could identify with him. He was also as handsome as her. I mean, the mythic elements are what keep us talking and making this kind of show, although I deeply suspect that. that John F.

Kennedy's life will not disappear in the same way. I think that princess wants to bring her life to our presidential scholar. I tend to call him our residential presidential scholar. We feel as much ownership of him at times as this boss Michael who is with us in Washington again tonight Michael, I'm very impressed by what, uh, John John John JFK Jr, you were never quite sure what to call him because we've known him for so long. a long time, just when he tells Barbara that our mother taught usnot to subordinate ourselves. Our lives in the face of the expectations of others are enormously difficult for the children of the first families, well, that's how it is and, in reality, very difficult, very different from those of their father, because John Kennedy, after the Second World War, returned home from his heroism in the Pacific, he was very depressed, he thought.

He could become a journalist or something else, it was only due to the death of his older brother Joe Jr that his father Joseph P. Kennedy almost forced Jack into politics. Jack, who was a bad speaker at the time and, interestingly, a very introverted guy. It was more of Jackie, John Kennedy's mother, who really tried to make her way in the world and not be bound by expectations. One of the things you always hear about her is that her first lady said she wasn't going to do it. What all the other first ladies did, she would do.

In her own way, Michael, I too am surprised, and I have said this before, by how long-lasting the relationship with the Kennedys that you mentioned to me today is, that in popular polls Although historians disagree with the idea, John F. Kennedy often appears as the most popular president, you said it, you know, we always think of John Kennedy of 1963 and what we knew at the time as this great man who he was suddenly killed and put an end to this during the Camelot period, but it was during the 1970s that we discovered others. stuff about murder plots and women in the underworld that one would imagine would make Americans at least think a little more skeptically about him and certainly about the whole family and the surprising thing is that polls in recent years among Americans asking who the Presidents John Kennedy almost always come out on top by a pretty wide margin, even ahead of Lincoln and Washington, and I think what this suggests is that people are willing, to some extent, to see what they want to see. , all of which was heavily projected onto John Kennedy.

Jr. I think they projected all the good, practically none of the bad. I have a question for you two first, Barbara, because I was surprised today by the great interest in the Kennedys across the generations, why do you think that is? They are beautiful people, they were people with a huge amount of money, they were people with an enormous amount of charm when John Kennedy gets married, he marries a beautiful blonde that none of us know much about, she has all the trappings that we want to have. uh for the people we admire and at the same time there's that tragedy, there's what I said before, that vulnerability, there's those aspects of somehow evil and again and again the risk takers, just a quick one. note about jonf Kennedy's wife his sister uh uh his wife's sister on board was I think in the banking business but we don't know much about her at all uh Lauren bassette she was an investment banker she worked for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in New York York City and I had a twin sister and I had a twin sister who was in New York today when all this happened and now she's gone to be with her mother in Connecticut, so that question for you, Michael, is the lasting fascination with the cedy?

It's all too obvious that we live in a celebrity era dominated by television. We have to find interesting aspects of our public figures that attract us to them. It sure wasn't the case with CH in the 19th century. I'm very concerned about the life or private life or life experience of Benjamin Harrison and the other thing I think you have to say is, to some extent, the constant presence of death and tragedy in the Kennedy saga. John Kennedy's life was more interesting as we read about today because you know what tragically happens in the last act.

I think that will be true for his son Michael. You are a very serious presidential historian. I mean it absolutely, I mean it very seriously. What do you think about this notion of a curse? about the family Teddy Kennedy once talked about it in public and that was only 30 years ago and we've seen other evidence of it, you know, you just have to think about Peter, other families in American history, other famous families that have had this. Kind of a horrible recurring bad luck and tragedy, even people who are pretty serious presidential historians are starting to think maybe there's something to this idea of ​​a curse, after all, thank you very much Michael, please don't go, Barbara, thanks for that.

That was very illuminating. We are going to continue exploring this, as we called at the beginning, what could have happened in this accident, which is the family complex in Hyanis, to which, as we have said before, the Kennedys retreat in times of tragedy and gather in times of celebration and They were there today for the wedding of Rory, Senator Robert Kennedy's youngest son. He was born after his father was murdered, so everything gets mixed up. We'll be back in a moment.