[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 91 (Thursday, July 14, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                THE DEATH OF JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Jacqueline Onassis touched the lives of 
millions through her remarkable conduct as First Lady, her courage 
during a shattering national tragedy, and her ability to then raise two 
beloved children and succeed brilliantly in a career in publishing.
  Yet there is even more to be added to the Senate's account of her 
achievements--her many contributions to the life of America's two 
greatest cities--New York and Washington, DC. Characteristically, she 
never sought recognition for these efforts, but they were significant 
ones and ought to be recorded for history.
  In New York City, which was her home and which she loved, Mrs. 
Onassis was for the last two decades a member of the Municipal Art 
Society, the 102-year-old organization dedicated to historic 
preservation and the furtherance of civic art in New York.
  As Senator Kennedy observed in his eulogy, she was much involved in 
the society's efforts to preserve Grand Central Terminal. Senators may 
recall the news photographs of her outside Grand Central with the 
architect Philip Johnson and others in 1975. She led the fight to stop 
an awful proposal to erect a 53-story office tower atop the magnificent 
1913 Beaux Arts Terminal, and ultimately prevailed when in 1978 the 
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the New York City landmarks law that 
protected the station.
  She also applied her considerable energies and talents to the 
revitalization of Times Square; to efforts to revive Manhattan's West 
Side riverfront; to the preservation of St. Bartholomew's Church, and 
to the protracted fight against a plan to build a skyscraper at 
Columbus Circle that would have cast a giant shadow over Central Park.
  Her influence on the city of New York was profound, yet her legacy in 
the area of civic improvement is perhaps even greater here in the 
Nation's Capital.
  During his inaugural parade in 1961, President Kennedy looked at the 
north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, then lined with an assortment of 
structures in varying states of dilapidation and the unfinished Federal 
Triangle on the south side, and decided that something had to be done 
with it. He gave this task to Arthur Goldberg, then Secretary of Labor, 
who in turn assigned it to me, then Secretary Goldberg's assistant. 
This led to the creation of the President's Commission on Pennsylvania 
Avenue--later the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation--which 
produced the plan for developing the 1.1-mile stretch of the avenue 
between the White House and the Capital.
  One of the last instructions President Kennedy gave before departing 
for Dallas was that a coffee hour be arranged for the congressional 
leadership in order to display the model of the Pennsylvania Avenue 
plan and seek their support. Bill Walton, Charles Horsky, and I were at 
lunch discussing this on November 22, 1963 when the White House 
operator called with the news that the President had been shot. We made 
our way to the White House; the final word came. We left with this task 
undone. Or would have had it not been for the intervention of Mrs. 
Kennedy.
  Soon after President Kennedy's funeral, she met with President 
Johnson in the Oval Office. Their conversation was later recounted by 
Mrs. Kennedy in an interview she gave on January 11, 1974 to Prof. Joe 
B. Franz of the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Franz 
conducted the interview in Manhattan for an oral history of the Johnson 
administration. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of Mrs. 
Kennedy's remarks:

       I remember going over to the Oval Office to ask him for two 
     things. They were two things I thought that I would like to 
     ask him as a favor. One was to name the space center in 
     Florida ``Cape Kennedy.'' * * * And * * * there were plans 
     for the renovation of Washington and there was this 
     commission, and I thought it might come to an end. I asked 
     President Johnson if he'd be nice enough to receive the 
     commission and sort of give approval to the work they were 
     doing, and he did. It was one of the first things he did.

  Jacqueline Kennedy asked for Pennsylvania Avenue, for the 
continuation of the President's Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue. And 
coming from Mrs. Kennedy, this request understandably made a claim on 
President Johnson and on his administration. As it did on me. The 
enterprise soon acquired official sanction, having been wholly informal 
under JFK. And it moved forward. By the time President Nixon left 
office, the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation had been 
established by act of Congress. Today, with construction of the Federal 
Triangle building at 14th Street well underway, a third of a century's 
work is nearly complete--and Jackie made it all possible.
  A few years back, as the last major features of the redevelopment 
fell in place, I received from her perhaps the most precious letter I 
will ever receive from anyone. ``Twenty five years,'' she wrote, ``is a 
long time not to give up on something.'' Then this:

       I will be forever grateful dear Pat, for your message to me 
     along the way, for the spirit you brought to something Jack 
     cared about so deeply, and for this happy ending.

  The poet Yeats said of a man that he was blessed and had the power to 
bless. Those few lines of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suggested how very 
blessed she was in spite of all that came to her as she traveled, in 
Maurice Tempelsman's words, to Ithaca.
  On the morning of May 23, Liz and I attended her funeral at the 
Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on East 84th Street in Manhattan, the 
same church where she was baptized as a child. We knew and loved 
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis all these many years, and never more than of 
late when she so wondrously, luminously contributed to any enterprise 
that might add grace and beauty to the city of New York. She adorned 
New York as she had adorned Washington before, much as she embellished 
our age.

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