Nation: Grecian Holiday

Back in Washington after three months on Cape Cod, Jacqueline Kennedy stayed around long enough to greet Haile Selassie and to chat with him—in French—at a private White House tea later in the day. Then, taking leave of the Emperor with an appreciative “Je suis comblee” (I am overcome), she was off again—this time for a 15-day, “strictly private” holiday in Greece.

Flying over the Atlantic, Jackie was indeed nearly overcome, had to whiff oxygen to relieve her fatigue. Four first-class seats were arranged to provide a berth so that the First Lady could rest. In Greece Jackie took it easy, her privacy assured by 80 Greek policemen and coast guardsmen who patrolled the land and water approaches to the villa of wealthy Greek Shipper Markos No-mikos overlooking the Saronic Gulf near Athens. During her 1961 visit, Jackie had used the same villa.

The First Lady watched from a white speedboat while her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, went water skiing on Vouliagmene Bay. Later she was driven 26 miles to Tatoi Palace, a forested retreat in the foothills of Mount Parnes, for tea with King Paul and Queen Frederika.

Just to keep things from getting dull, Greek Shipping Magnate Aristotle Onassis sailed his 325-ft. pleasure palace, the Christina, to Jackie’s whitewashed villa and put the yacht at her disposal. Jackie had no trouble finding uses for it. She threw a dinner party and a midnight shipboard dance for eleven guests, among them the Radziwills, Owner Onassis and Under Secretary of Commerce Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., who was in Greece to discuss trade matters with local officials. While the guests slept that night, the Christina, loaded with fresh peaches, black figs and pomegranates, and decorated from stem to stern with red roses and gladioli, weighed anchor and set sail through the Aegean for a visit to Istanbul. On hand to care for the party of twelve was a crew of 60 that included a dance band and two coiffeurs from Athens.