[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]

 
                 TRIBUTE TO JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS

  Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. President, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has aptly been 
called a national treasure. Throughout her life, Mrs. Onassis devoted 
herself to preserving our Nation's historical treasures before 
everything slips away, before every link with the past is gone. And 
now, she herself has slipped away from us.
  Because she embodied some of our Nation's most magnificent moments, 
and some of its most tragic, her passing has touched all of us in a 
very personal way.
  Her own words best explain how she was able to live with the joys and 
the tragedies which characterized her life:

       We must give to life at least as much as we received from 
     it. Every moment one lives is different from the next. The 
     good, the bad, the hardship, the joy, the tradegy, love and 
     happiness are all interwoven into one single indescribable 
     whole that is called life. You cannot separate the good from 
     the bad. And, perhaps there is no need to do so either.

  Mrs. Onassis lived her life with zeal, dignity, and grace. She was 
guided by her unique vision of life's possibilities and an 
understanding of the role history would play in judging our actions.
  For the few brief years that she graced this city as our Nation's 
First Lady, she raised our Government's support for the arts and 
historic preservation to a higher level. The White House became a 
living monument to America's rich history and culture, where the 
Nation's best artists and musicians came to perform.
  The historic preservation crusade, begun during her White House 
years, continued throughout her life. Aiding in the rescue of 
Washington's historic Lafayette Square and New York's Grand Central 
Station from demolition are among Mrs. Onassis' best known 
achievements.
  None of Mrs. Onassis' efforts, however, were as dear to her as the 
raising of her two children. She referred to that successful effort as 
the best thing she ever did, and her wish was to be remembered and 
emulated for that achievement more than for any other.
  Mr. President, in his book ``The Bouviers,'' John Davis writes:

       President Kennedy's administration had captured the public 
     imagination in a way few Presidents in the nation's history 
     had done. His youthful sincerity and enthusiasm had inspired 
     men everywhere with hope for a better world. In the last 
     analysis, his major contribution to his country was spiritual 
     rather than political, and after his death, it was primarily 
     his widow who kept that contribution alive, who perpetuated 
     it. Her majestic conduct at his funeral, from the march to 
     St. Matthew's to the lighting of the eternal flame, her 
     influence in changing the names of national landmarks to 
     Kennedy, her helping with the design of his tomb, her role in 
     founding the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 
     and the John F. Kennedy Library, all these contributed 
     immensely to keeping the bright spirit of the slain President 
     alive.
       Closely allied with her efforts to perpetuate John F. 
     Kennedy's memory is what may well prove to be her most 
     significant contribution of all, as well as the most 
     ephemeral: the presentation of an image of beauty, courage, 
     and grandeur to the world during three of the most shameful 
     and humiliating days in her country's existence. As an 
     incomparable artist in life, it was her supreme privilege and 
     achievement to grant an entire nation, at the time of her 
     husband's funeral, some of the finest moments in its history. 
     It is upon the enduring quality of those moments * * * that 
     her place in history will ultimately rest.

  Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis provided the quote from Shakespeare used 
by Robert Kennedy in his tribute to the President at the 1964 
Democratic National Convention:

     When he shall die
     Take him and cut him out in little stars
     And he will make the face of heaven so fine
     That all the world will be in love with night,
     And pay no worship to the garish sun.

  I believe the words of Shakespeare are equally appropriate in 
memorializing her.

     Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
     Having some business do entreat her eyes
     To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
     What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
     The brightness of her check would shame those stars,
     As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
     Would through the airy region stream so bright
     That birds would sing and think it were not night.

  And so, the architect of the eternal flame at Arlington--Jacqueline 
Bouvier Kennedy Onassis--will now be immortalized by it. It will 
forever evoke the memory not only of a fallen President, but of the 
lady who served beside him and did so much to define his presidency 
during what was, in the words of the poet Robert Frost, ``an age of 
poetry and power.''

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