The

The Today we have a special guest.

We've been doing a series on the Cold War, and the last episode was on President John F. Kennedy. And no series on President

Kennedy is complete without discussing his wife, our first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, one of the most,

if not the most iconic first lady of all time. We have author Paul Brandis, who just wrote a book. It was

newly published. I'm looking at the Amazon date. It says August 25th. So it's fresh off

the printer. And it should be on bookstalls now. The book is called Jackie, Her Transformation,

from First Lady to Jackie O. And so we're very pleased to have Mr. Brandis on our show. So welcome.

Hope you're having a great day. Thank you. How are you? Oh, very good. Thank you. Yeah. So

when we look at the life of Jacqueline Kennedy, there's just something about the Kennedy family. There's something about her specifically that fascinates, continues to fascinate the American public. And so what basically led you to write this book?

Well, exactly for the reason that you just indicated.

She is a fascinating person, really one of the most iconic first ladies in American history.

And even though she has been gone for nearly 30 years now, she continues to loom large

in the popular culture. And so that's why I did it. And I focused on this particular period

between her two marriages, we're talking about, obviously, the period between November,

1963, when President Kennedy was killed in October 68 when she married Aristotle

Onassis, a five-year period, because most books on Jackie tend to not focus on this period.

They look at her through her White House years or her marriage to

Onassis or her later years working in the publishing industry, that kind of thing. But there is not a lot

on the five years in between her to marriages. So that's what I focused on. It's an incredible

period for her. I mean, growth

and change and obviously one of great difficulty, too, but just an amazing period.

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