I confess I was skeptical about the ‘explanation’ for why ABC dropped the hugely expensive and beautifully produced ‘Kennedy’ miniseries: i.e., that Caroline Kennedy had used her charm to persuade them to not run the show. Having listened to Caroline’s stumbling ‘ers’, ‘uhms’ and ‘you knows’ during her disastrous attempt to become New York’s next Senator, it didn’t appear to me this woman had enough of a handle on the English language to allow her to sweet talk a network into eating the $20 million cost of that miniseries. And now the Daily Mail has confirmed my suspicions – the real reason was because of ABC’s greed to get its hands on taped interviews by the late Jackie O.
Those tapes are said to be explosive. They were recorded shortly after the assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy’s husband in Dallas when the grief stricken widow poured out her heart to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. In those interviews, Jackie not only confessed that she suspected Lyndon Johnson had had a hand in her husband’s murder but also that she herself had engaged in a series of dalliances with other men during her marriage to Jack. The brief affairs, with actor William Holden and the Italian tycoon Gianni Agnelli, were the result of her desire for revenge against her philandering husband’s blatant affairs with other women (one of whom left her panties in the bedroom for Jackie to find). Soon after unburdening herself to Schlesinger, however, Jackie realized she’d blurted out too much and begged for her ‘confessions’ to be buried. The historian agreed and the tapes were sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston with orders given by Jackie that they were never to be released until 50 years after her death.
As Jackie’s only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is now executor of those tapes with full power to decide their release. And, as the Daily Mail writes, “It is believed that Caroline, 53, agreed to the early release of the tapes in exchange for ABC dropping its £10million drama series about the family.” It is obvious that the money ABC could make off these tapes would far exceed any profit it could have made from the miniseries.
Seems like it would have been better to have a favorable treatment in the miniseries that would at least leave some doubt as to whether they took poetic license with some of the events than have the more damaging and credible actual taped admissions/accusations getting out there…not sure why Caroline would work a trade unless she has full editing control over the tapes…