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Jackie and John F. Kennedy
Photo: Fednews / dpa
Eight years after the death of her former husband, John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis returned to the White House in 1971 for a secret visit.
She had asked then First Lady Pat Nixon to do so.
Nixon had previously invited Kennedy Onassis to attend the unveiling of the Kennedy's official portraits.
Onassis, who married the Greek shipowner Aristoteles Onassis in 1968, rejected this.
In a letter she wrote that the thought of returning to the White House was "difficult" for her.
“I don't have the courage to attend an official event and bring the children back to the only home they both knew and their father under such traumatic conditions - the press and everything.
Things I try to prevent in their young lives;
I know the experience would be difficult for them and would not bring the memories I would like to give them from the White House. "
This letter and others are part of an exhibit in the presidential libraries of Kennedy and Nixon.
Kennedy Onassis asked if an alternative appointment might be possible.
She was then invited by Nixon, and she and their children Caroline Kennedy, then 13, and John F. Kennedy Jr., then 10, attended the White House.
According to the Washington Post, the children met the president, Richard Nixon, and his dogs.
Pat Nixon made sure that Kennedy Onassis and her children were not photographed.
In a letter following her visit, the former first lady wrote that she had never seen "such generosity and tenderness."
It is a gift "to be able to return to the White House in private with my children at a time when they are young enough to rediscover their childhood," she wrote.
You have never seen the White House so beautiful.
“I thank you with all my heart.
A day that I always dreaded turned out to be one of the most precious that I have spent with my children, "she wrote," God's blessings, with great gratitude, Jackie. "
John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in 1963 with the first lady sitting next to him in the car.
Numerous conspiracy theories have grown up around his death.
John and Jackie Kennedy are - with the Obamas - considered a particularly glamorous presidential couple.
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