Jackie Kennedy correspondence with Costello reveals high value on privacy

Jackie Kennedy's letters to Irish priest Fr Joseph Leonard were not her only correspondence with Ireland. It has emerged that she also wrote to John A Costello, a former Fine Gael taoiseach, and his son, Declan Costello, a Fine Gael TD and later attorney general and president of the High Court.

Jackie learned, by chance, her letters to Fr Leonard had been “saved” by the priest. Two years after Fr Leonard’s death, she received, in New York, a letter from John A Costello. Costello had also been friendly with Fr Leonard and had met Jackie during her first visit to Ireland – as a 21-year-old student in 1950. He subsequently recalled that Miss Bouvier (Jackie Kennedy’s maiden name) “was full of youthful vivacity and charm” and “delighted with everything she found in Ireland”.

Costello was aware of Jackie’s friendship and correspondence with Fr Leonard which lasted from 1950 until 1964 when the priest died.

In 1966, Costello wrote to the then widowed Kennedy in New York. He informed her that Fr Leonard had given him one of her letters before he died. He asked her permission to quote from the letter in an appreciation of Fr Leonard he was writing for an All Hallows publication.

‘Fascinating’ book

In April 1966, Jackie wrote back to Costello to say she had "no objection" to his quoting from her letter, written in 1958. In it she had thanked Fr Leonard for sending her a book, Pio Nono by EEY Hales, which he had sent her as a present.

Jackie had found the book – about the 19th-century pope Pius IX , “fascinating” and “riveting”.

She also told Fr Leonard about her daughter Caroline who had been born in November 1957. She said [and Costello used this quote in his article]: "My Caroline is beautiful – terribly strong-minded – which is so sweet to see in a fat helpless baby; so determined as she goes about her little projects, like climbing on a chair. Don't worry she won't be spoiled. She is so much like Jack, except for being so delicious looking, that I really feel unnecessary to the whole transaction and she might as well have sprung full blown from the head of the Senator. But that doesn't make you love her the less, as it is such a relief not to find one's own faults in a child."

Jackie told Costello that, “It made me so happy to see the effect on her – hearing how much she was loved and how much she was like her father. It means so much to her to know she is like him.”

Jackie appeared to be pleasantly surprised to discover that her letters to Fr Leonard had been kept by All Hallows. She told Costello: “If Father Leonard saved his letters there must be many from me in his files.”

Costello contacted All Hallows and had copies of the letters typed up and dispatched to Jackie in New York where she had lived since leaving the White House following the assassination of her husband in November 1963.

Upon receipt of the copies, she wrote to Costello to thank him and said, "it was the most extraordinary feeling to read them . . . one's life passing before one's eyes". The letters provide detailed accounts of her life and thoughts including meeting and marrying JFK, the birth of her children, and her reaction to her husband's assassination. They had never been published. Extracts appeared for the first time in The Irish Times last month.

Moved by chivalry

Jackie told Costello she was “so touched at the way you have all treated those letters”. She also told him, “In the strange world I live in now, where privacy barely exists, and where I spend all winter in New York holding my breath and wondering which old letter of mine will come up for auction next! – your chivalry is so beautiful, and I am deeply moved by it.”

Jackie then asked Costello if there was something she could do for All Hallows and offered “to leave them Fr Leonard’s letters” – all of which she had retained. Mr Costello discussed her offer with All Hallows and they requested some books for their library. Jackie said she was “overjoyed to know there is something I can do for All Hallows and for the memory of Fr Leonard”. She sent books to All Hallows which she had inscribed “for the new library”. The present whereabouts of these books are unknown.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis died in 1994. She left her estate to her two children, Caroline and John jnr. In 1996, Sotheby's held an auction of Jackie's art, furniture and personal effects – including some of the books, but not, apparently, any of the letters, sent to her by Fr Leonard – which raised over $34 million.

John Kennedy jnr died in a plane crash in New York in 1999. It is believed his estate of some $50 million passed to Caroline and her family.

Caroline Kennedy (56) married Edwin Schlossberg, a designer, author and artist, in 1986. The couple have three children. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Caroline Kennedy as US ambassador to Japan.

Mother’s papers

Caroline Kennedy would likely have inherited her mother's papers – including the correspondence with Fr Leonard – both the priest's original letters to Jackie and the Costello copies of Jackie's letters to Fr Leonard. Fr Leonard is believed to have written dozens of letters to Jackie between 1950 and his death in 1964. However, only his letters from 1963 are in the Kennedy Library in Boston.

The whereabouts of the others are not known. Fr Leonard also frequently sent Jackie gifts of books – some during the White House years and some of which were read by JFK. Some of these books were sold at the 1996 Sotheby’s auction.