'That man's terrible': Secret Jackie Kennedy tapes reveal her disgust over Martin Luther King's 'sex party'



Former first lady believed King made derogatory remarks at JFK's funeral



JFK highly skeptical about victory chances in Vietnam

Kennedy also fretted about Vice-President Johnson taking over

Jackie Kennedy hated Martin Luther King so much she could barely look at photographs of him.

In interviews taped in 1964 but only just released, she said the black civil rights leader was a ‘terrible man’ and a ‘phoney’.

She claimed King bragged of being drunk at her husband John F Kennedy’s funeral and had been caught trying to set up an orgy.

Claims: Jacqueline Kennedy was said to have seen Martin Luther King as a 'terrible' man



The interviews also revealed that JFK was so worried about vice-president Lyndon Johnson succeeding him that he schemed with his brother Robert to stop it happening.

Seven conversations between Mrs Kennedy and Arthur Schlesinger, a historian and Kennedy aide, were taped in the months after the president’s assassination on November 22, 1963.

Their release is timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy-era administration, where the White House became known as ‘Camelot’.

Doubts: The newly-revealed memoirs of Jackie Kennedy (left), tell how JFK scorned the idea of Lyndon Johnson (right) being president Worried: JFK, pictured here with Lyndon Johnson in 1960, was said to have had concerns about what would happen if his former rival and Vice-President took office

Mrs Kennedy said her view of King was formed after being told of secret FBI wiretaps which showed him trying to organise a sex party before he attended the March on Washington in August 1963, at which he delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.



She said her brother-in-law Robert told her that King made disparaging remarks about JFK at the funeral and about Cardinal Richard Cushing, who delivered the eulogy.



‘I just can’t see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man’s terrible,’ she said.

Skeptical: JFK was said to have thought that U.S. participation in Vietnam was 'hopeless', according to newly-released interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy John and Jackie Kennedy with daughter Caroline, who allowed the tapes to be released to ABC in return for their cancelling of the mini series about the family

LYNDON B. JOHNSON INAUGURATION





Texas-born Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as U.S. president on November 22, 1963, around two hours after JFK was assassinated at 12.30pm.

Johnson had been in the car behind Kennedy when the assassination took place.

Despite initial fears he had also been shot or suffered a heart attack, Johnson was not hurt and was instead rushed from Dallas to Washington amid fears he may be targeted.

Flanked by Jacqueline Kennedy on Air Force One two hours later, Johnson was inaugurated as president by Federal Judge Sarah T Hughes - the first time a woman had administered the presidential oath.

After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, President Johnson gave a speech at 6.10pm, less than seven hours after JFK's death.

He said: 'This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy.

'I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help--and God's.'

‘He made fun of Cardinal Cushing and said that he was drunk at it [the funeral] – and things about they almost dropped the coffin. I mean Martin Luther King is really a tricky person.’

She said Robert told her of the FBI wiretaps: ‘He said this with no bitterness or anything, how he was calling up all these girls and arranging for a party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy.’

Over the seven sessions, Mrs Kennedy recalled conversations on topics ranging from her husband’s reading habits to the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

But the sharpest criticism was for Johnson, who John F Kennedy chose as his running mate in 1960. Mrs Kennedy said her husband would say to her: ‘Oh, God, can you ever imagine what would happen to the country if Lyndon were president?

‘And Bobby told me that he’d had some discussions with him ... do something to name someone else in 1968.’

Johnson was sworn in as president after JFK’s assassination and won a full term for himself in 1964. He declined to seek re-election in 1968.

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of John and Jackie, said her mother’s comments about King were evidence of the ‘poisonous’ activities of then FBI director J Edgar Hoover.

She said the comments didn’t reflect her mother’s true feelings about King, pointing out that she was proud to attend his funeral following his assassination in April 1968.

She added: ‘The description of Lyndon Johnson here is more of his capabilities as a president, more negative than she certainly felt about him as a person.’

In June, an extract of one of the interviews had Mrs Kennedy saying her husband felt his legacy would be secured if he was assassinated after his Cuban missile crisis success of 1962.

‘If anyone’s going to kill me, it should happen now,’ he supposedly said.

Professor Robert Dallek, a Kennedy era historian, has said JFK’s remark may have been inspired by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.