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The date: October 20, 1968.
The bride: Jacqueline Kennedy, a widow of the president who had dominated the imagination, culture and style of the public.
The groom: Aristotle Onassis, one of the richest men in the world, a magnate who had gone from rag to tanker.
The place: the Greek orthodox chapel of Skorpios, a private and secure island located in the Ionian Sea and owned by the groom.
The guests were limited to about 20 people.
I was corresponding at the London office when the call came to cover the event. I had covered Athens after the 1967 coup in Greece. King Constantine fled the country the very day of my arrival. (This was nothing personal.)
In one way, the colonel those who had organized the coup d'etat were easier to cover because you knew what they would wear. Not if the bride.
A few days before the wedding, reporters went to the Great Britain hotel in central Athens. Long tables have been set up in the ballroom for portable typewriters. Tabletops, not laptops. Everything is fine, but we could have used a long distance phone line or two.
Correspondents Paul Hofmann, on vacation in Rome, and Ray Anderson, on vacation on the island of Rhodes, have both been invited to join the cover. We had a staff meeting in a room overlooking the Acropolis.
Our master plan for coverage has emerged.
Paul would work on Onassis' commercial interests, which included 30 companies, as well as Olympic Airways yachts and jets. It also had some mansions, penthouses and scattered villas.
Ray would go to the impoverished island of Leukas and write an article on the hope of its residents that the wedding in Skorpios, located nearby, is a boon for tourism.
Access to the wedding site was restricted. Mrs. Kennedy did not want journalists in the chapel and would have tried to convince the groom to radically limit their presence on the island.
Nevertheless, the few journalists allowed to leave the chapel were soon joined by a group of people whose small boat had capsized along the shore. Drenched, they climbed rocks in search of marriage.
The Times was lucky. The elegant Mario Modiano, our supporter in Athens, knew everyone in Greece – from Plaka chefs to sponges, to Onassis himself, who was a friend.
Mario was invited to the wedding.
He accepted, attended, and returned to the office after the vows around midnight – a true Greek news. We sat down and went through his notes.
Yes, the two children of Mrs. Kennedy – Caroline, 10, and John, 7 – were next to the couple, holding fine white candles. And yes, she was wearing a beige chiffon and lace dress with a pleated skirt up to the knees, designed by Valentino.
Mario had some details, so the press office in New York suggested that we prepare a brief colored box.
I had already written A four-column article on marriage that included a long section on present and past life of the bride and groom, as well as other documents that I had collected before the event.
For the record, here is my lead:
ATHENS, Oct. 20 – Jacqueline Kennedy today became Ms. Aristotle Socrates Onassis at a candlelit wedding ceremony in a small chapel amid the cypresses of the island of Skorpios.
President Kennedy's 39-year-old widow, two inches taller than her new husband, stood next to the 62-year-old multimillionaire at a 30-minute ceremony and watched intently as the Greek Orthodox preacher officiated.
The event was not finished yet. Interest remained high.
Someone beat me about a jewelry story that Ari gave Jackie, and it did not make me happy. But I managed to get my own exclusivity.
At the bar in Brittany, I had a chance meeting with the hairdresser of the bride, the young woman of 29 years. "Mr. Napoleon." Over the Ouzo and with the help of a hastily engaged translator, he gave us surprising information.
Mrs. Kennedy, he said, had very thin hair and had to put a hairpiece to give it body. He also used some hair spray, although she did not like the idea.
In my male ignorance, I consciously reported these details as though they were not more significant than what Mrs. Kennedy ate every morning at breakfast.
The reaction was fast. My wife, Miriam, managed to get a call from London to say that she and her friends were shocked – in shock!
To add to the excitement, Napoleon revealed that he had charged $ 3.50 for a shampoo and a set.
He also cut the groom's hair; where the title: "Barbier to Onassis, stylist to the bride. "
This story, which appeared two days after the wedding, was highlighted on the Times page which we nicknamed "Food, fashion, family, furniture".
New York had to like the blanket. Two years later, Abe Rosenthal, who was then Times editor, sent me to Vietnam.
Follow the Times Insider news on Twitter, via the Reader Center: @ReaderCenter.
Alvin Shuster worked at the Times Washington Office, and then abroad as bureau chief in Saigon, London and Rome. He later became the foreign publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
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