[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 86 (Thursday, June 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
             TRIBUTE TO JACQUELINE BOUVIER KENNEDY ONASSIS

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President as the nation mourned, and continues to 
mourn, the death of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, many of us have 
tried, in private and public reflections, to define and explain her 
enduring place in our common history and our shared consciousness. It 
is a difficult, if not impossible, task, as it always is when we try to 
put into words the meaning of a life that has touched our very spirit 
and left us forever changed.
  It never was the ambition of the woman we knew, and will always 
remember, as ``Jackie'' to have the kind of fundamental public 
influence. It was a part of her style that she did not cherish 
celebrity, a part of her grace that she did not succumb to its 
temptations, and a part of her dignity that she did not surrender to 
fame, but sought--in the end, it seemed, successfully--to make peace 
with it on her own terms.
  Certainly, Mrs. Onassis did seek throughout her adult life to make 
public contributions, and did so successfully and every meaningfully. 
The legacy of her passion for the arts, for history and for the beauty 
of the landmarks and places of refuge she cherished so deeply, is very 
tangible and valuable, and cause enough for our lasting respect and 
gratitude.
  Yet there is more than we remember. We remember that at the age of 
just 31, then-Jacqueline Kennedy seemed the living expression of the 
inspiration so many of us felt on that cold January day in 1961. When 
``the torch [was] passed to a new generation of Americans,'' it quickly 
seemed to us that Jackie was among the most worthy to receive it, that 
she represented part of what was best in us, part of what we aspired to 
be. We were, simply, fascinated by her.
  Initially, it may have been the glamour, the elegance in appearance 
and manner that President and Mrs. Kennedy introduced over the still-
young medium of television, which fascinated us in itself. But there 
was something deeper in the images. The couple in the White House 
looked like a promise, like the embodiment of hope as well as of style.
  As time passed in all its fateful twists, our admiration for Jackie 
grew deeper. We came to know and respect her devotion to her children, 
her complete and uncompromising commitment to them, and her growing 
pride in their achievements and their characters. We learned about the 
seriousness and sincerity of all her passions, and about her 
determination to remain true to them--despite criticism, despite 
challenges, despite losses that would have cracked a less noble heart.
  It was in times of loss, and especially during those wrenching days 
of November 1963, that Jackie touched this nation's spirit most 
profoundly. She was 34 years old, with two very young children, when 
President Kennedy was killed. She must have felt the eyes and the 
weight of the world on her, added to her personal and family grief, her 
justified anxiety about her children's future, and what must have been 
a rage almost as great as her sadness.
  What she did was remarkable. She carried this Nation to the Capitol 
Rotunda, along the route of the funeral procession and for days and 
weeks afterward, with a strength at once incomprehensible and 
undeniable. Again, now in the darkest as before in the brightest hour, 
she seemed the embodiment of hope--hope that the unendurable could be 
endured, that the future still mattered and demanded our attention, 
that dreams were still possible.
  That may have been the greatest gift that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis 
gave to this country, an enduring sense of hope. She gave it to us not 
through conscious effort, but as a natural result of her transcendent 
grace and dignity. And it is right that we should honor her for it, now 
and always.

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