Malraux met Jackie in 1961, during an official presidential visit to Paris. Her husband, U.S. president John F. Kennedy, had then only been in office for four months. His talks with French president Charles de Gaulle did not go well, but Jackie, fluent in French and social charms, left such a good impression that President Kennedy playfully commented that he was “the man who had accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.” A year later, Jackie threw a star-studded dinner at the White House, with Malraux as the guest of honor. It was there that she persuaded the culture minister to loan the Mona Lisa to the U.S.

“Many art authorities were vehemently opposed to the idea of transporting one of the world’s great artistic treasures across the Atlantic Ocean in the dead of winter,” Margaret Leslie Davis, author of the recent book Mona Lisa in Camelot: How Jacqueline Kennedy and Da Vinci’s Masterpiece Charmed and Captivated a Nation, wrote to Artsy over email. “[National Gallery director] John Walker’s worst fear was that the Mona Lisa would come to harm, a sitting duck for criminals, terrorists, and thrill seekers.”

Since it came to France in the early 16th century, the Mona Lisa had been hidden during wartime and attacked, but had only left French soil once—when a thief, former Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, smuggled it to Italy in 1911.

Every great risk must have a payoff, and Jackie carefully engineered the display of France’s revered cultural icon to fulfill her goal of enriching the American public’s relationship to art, while also making a political statement. “She saw the exhibition as an unmatched opportunity to burnish the American image at home and abroad, and [as] a convincing emblem of friendship between France and the U.S.,” Davis explained. “It was a well-chosen gesture of amity, goodwill, and fervent diplomacy.”

Arts professionals around the world were irate. Opposition to the loan was so fierce that de Gaulle was forced to impose a media blackout due to riots in the streets of Paris. Walker called the move an example of American hubris, and was worried that if the Mona Lisa were damaged during its trip, it would cause an irreparable rift between America and the people of France. He later wrote in his memoirs that he had to have his doctor prescribe him “Moan Lisa” anxiety pills.