“She was thirty years younger than any of the other First Ladies I had served, and I was to discover, had the most complex personality of them all. In public, she was elegant, aloof, dignified, and regal. In private, she was casual, impish, and irreverent. She had a will of iron, with more determination than anyone I have ever met. Yet she was so soft-spoken, so deft and subtle, that she could impose that will upon people without their ever knowing it.”
J.B. West, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies
J.B. West, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies
John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy Observe the First U.S. Manned Space Flight, May 1961
J.B. West had been a member of the White House staff since 1941. He was its Chief Usher during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Upstairs at the White House, published in 1973, was his best-selling memoir of the White House first ladies whom he served.
See Also: "The Jacqueline Onassis Mystique"
Image Credit: A Thousand Days of Magic
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