What Now for Jackie Onassis?

In the Greek fishing hamlet of Nidri, the villagers waited in a light rain. Soon the mourners would arrive to ferry across to Aristotle Onassis' private Ionian island of Skorpids and witness the simple rites he had requested and bury him under a cypress tree near his only son Alexander. At last the motor cortege pulled up, and when the American woman in a black leather coat appeared, a murmur ran through the watchers. "A widow for the second time," whispered one old woman in a black shawl. A Mona Lisa smile crept briefly across Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' face, or perhaps it was simply an involuntary grimace at a world forever watching. Behind the dark sunglasses, her look was pure enigma.

The look might be read as a mirror of Jackie's future. Beautiful and youthful at 45, she has already survived two of the world's most vital men. She is among the few people anywhere whose every action, every intention are the object of immense fascination.

Byzantine Operations. The most immediate question is how Onassis' enormous wealth, perhaps as little as $500 million, perhaps as great as $1 billion, is to be allocated among his heirs. His vast holdings included a bank, more than 50 tankers, Olympic Airways, which the Greek government has agreed in principle to buy, and a half-share of Manhattan's not-yet-completed Olympic Tower, whose 51 stories of offices and superluxurious apartments dwarf St. Patrick's Cathedral next door.

By far the lion's share of these diverse interests will go to his surviving child, Daughter Christina Onassis, 24; a cadre of other relatives and associates will assist her in managing her father's byzantine business operations. After Alexander's death in a plane crash at age 24 two years ago, Onassis had been deeply concerned about who would mind his stores; he had urged Christina to marry Shipping Heir Peter Goulandris, 30, and reportedly the pair pledged at his deathbed to wed later this year.

Accounts of just how much money Jackie would get ranged wildly, from a high of $200 million or more (if a traditional Greek law entitling widows to 25% of an estate is found to apply) to a low of $2 million. The issue is complicated by the likelihood that the canny Onassis set up a maze of tax-resistant trusts. The best guess seems to be that Jackie will end up with about $100 million, and her children, John and Caroline Kennedy, with $15 million each. She is also expected to get the prime pickings of Ari's $20 million art collection, part of which already adorns her 15-room apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. While Onassis' lawyers unravel the knots of his empire and will, they are continuing to pay Jackie's $600,000-a-year allowance. Whatever the outcome, Jackie will be better heeled in her own right than ever before: she received no more than $80,000 from the estate of her erratic father, "Black Jack" Bouvier, and was left perhaps $5 million by President Kennedy.

Onassis, say associates in Athens, promised Jackie both his villa on the French Riviera and a hacienda in Mexico. But Christina will surely take over the family's regal penthouse on Avenue Foch in Paris and the 500-acre Skorpios; the day after the funeral, she took command of the 325-ft. yacht that bears her name by informing the captain and crew that their jobs were all secure.

Relations between the two women are cordial but by no means warm.

While Ari was hospitalized, Jackie stayed at the Paris penthouse, but Christina opted for a hotel. Onassis' three sisters were incensed that Jackie was in New York when her husband died; she had been assured by doctors, friends say, that his condition was stable and had gone home to catch a TV program that Caroline had worked on. At the funeral, Christina and Jackie took separate launches to Skorpios and walked apart to the chapel. Later, with Christina off to Switzerland, Jackie flew to Paris, no longer, it seemed, a member of the Onassis clan.

More Vulnerable. And what of the other clan, the Kennedys? Jackie's engagement to Onassis was at first greeted with conspicuous silence by the late President's family. Though John and Caroline are full members of the tribe of Kennedy cousins, the aunts and uncles, according to a family friend, "never know when they talk to Jackie whether it will be a week or a year before they hear from her again." Senator Edward Kennedy did make the trip to Skorpios to lend the widow some support, but it is unlikely that his gesture signals Jackie's return to the fold.

Neither Greece nor Hyannis Port will be Jackie's stomping grounds now. Said her sister Lee Radziwill in Manhattan last week: "I expect she'll come back here and carry on life as it was. After all, her children are settled here, she has her life here." Some friends think that she may pursue her interest in landmarks preservation; Critic Brendan Gill of The New Yorker, for which Jackie has already written one small article, feels that she has promise as a writer. Yet richer than before, eligible once again, she is sure to be hounded and watched and speculated upon anew. And also more vulnerable: for the first time in 15 years she will be without the personal protection that the U.S. Secret Service and later Onassis' bodyguards automatically provided.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.