“We have known so much & shared & lost so much together — Even if it isn’t the<br />way you wish now — I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut.”<br />Writing from Mr. Onassis’ yacht in Greece, on stationery with the ship’s crest, a clear if cold message, Mrs. Kennedy told Mr. Ormsby Gore: “You are like my beloved beloved brother —<br />and mentor — and the only original spirit I know — as you were to Jack.”<br />Mr. Ormsby Gore had expressed incredulity at her choice of Mr. Onassis, and she tried to respond.<br />Robert Kennedy said that Mr. Ormsby Gore was “almost a part of the government,” adding<br />that the president “would rather have his judgment than that of anybody else.”<br />Among the letters is one in which President Kennedy praised the ambassador: “I appreciate as you know,<br />in all these critical matters your judgment — which I have found to be uniformly good and true.”<br />Mr. Ormsby Gore inherited the noble title, Lord Harlech, when his father died in 1964.<br />Barbara Leaming, who has written biographies of President and Mrs. Kennedy, said<br />that Mr. Ormsby Gore was “the pivotal relationship Jack had in the presidency,” a man he trusted almost as much as Robert Kennedy.<br />“You want to patch the wounds & match the loose pairs — but you can’t because your life won’t turn out that way.”<br />One of the most moving documents is a draft letter Mr. Ormsby Gore wrote to Mrs. Kennedy after she turned down his proposal.
