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State Visits Abroad: Canada and Europe
The Kennedys went to Canada for their first official state trip in May 1961. There, Mrs. Kennedy was received with unprecedented enthusiasm. It marked the beginning of her role as goodwill ambassador for the new administration.
The first lady’s universal appeal was confirmed when visiting Europe a month later. At a luncheon in Paris, President Kennedy spontaneously commented on her popularity: “I do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience. I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it…”
Jacqueline Kennedy occasionally served as interpreter for her husband and French president Charles de Gaulle, whom she impressed with her fluent conversation about French history and culture. Days later, she again impressed Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna after a tense day of negotiations between him and the U.S. president.
On her way to India and Pakistan in 1962, the first lady stopped in Rome for a private audience with Pope John XXIII where she dismissed interpreters and spoke in French with the pontiff, and wore a long black silk dress reminiscent of seventeenth-century Spanish portraiture.
In the exhibition, see the elegant ensembles Jacqueline Kennedy wore on these trips, along with original documents and photographs from her time abroad.
Follow Mrs. Kennedy’s travels in Latin America, India,
and Pakistan. >>
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