Jackie O and John F Kennedy. RICHARD AVEDON
Jackie Kennedy believed Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the 1963 assassination of her husband President John F. Kennedy. In the sensational tapes recorded by the First Lady months after the President’s death, broadcast by ABC, Kennedy revealed her belief that Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons orchestrated the murder of her husband by gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy, who later became Jackie Onassis, claimed that the Dallas murder was part of a larger conspiracy to allow Johnson to become American President in his own right.

Johnson, who served as a member of Congress, completed Kennedy’s term after the assassination and went on to be elected president. Leading historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr recorded the tapes with Jackie Kennedy within months of her husband’s death. They have been stored in a sealed vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston after orders from Mrs. Kennedy that they would remain secret for 50 years after her death.
Years after her mother died from cancer, daughter Caroline has opted to release the tapes early. She has entered an agreement with the ABC network in the States who will air the tapes after agreeing to cancel their Kennedys drama series which upset Caroline and the Kennedy family.
The $10 million series starred Tom Cruise’s wife Kate Holmes as Jackie Kennedy and critically charted the family’s political and personal trials and tribulations since the 1930s. It has now been dropped in a deal with Caroline concerning these tapes.
ABC executives have confirmed that the revelations in the tapes are ‘explosive’ with Jackie Kennedy allegedly blaming President Lyndon Johnson for the death of JFK, according to the Daily Mail reports. It is believed the tapes also include the suggestion that President Kennedy was having an affair with a 19-year-old White House intern with his wife even claiming that she found underwear in their bedroom.
Jackie Kennedy also admits to several affairs of her own in the tapes - one with Hollywood star William Holden and another with Fiat founder Gianni Agnelli - in retaliation for the President’s indiscretions.
There are also claims that the couple had discussed having more children in the weeks before his death. Noted Kennedy family historian and author Edward Klein said: “Jackie regarded the pretty young things in the White House as superficial flings for Jack. She did retaliate by having her own affairs.
“There was a period during which she was delighted to be able to annoy her husband with her own illicit romances.”