Jackie 'considered suicide after JFK death'

Jackie Kennedy was so distraught following her husband’s assassination that she told a priest she wanted to commit suicide, according to a new book.

The former US First Lady asked Father Richard McSorley to “pray that I die” after President John F Kennedy was gunned down in November 1963.

“I feel as though I am going out of my mind at times,” she confided to him. “Wouldn’t God understand if I just wanted to be with him?”

She said later: “I’m glad that Marilyn Monroe got out of her misery,” – a reference to the actress’s apparent suicide from an overdose of sleeping pills in 1962.

Fr McSorley, a Jesuit university lecturer, was interviewed before his death last year by author Thomas Maier for his book The Kennedys: American Emerald Kings.

He gave the widow tennis lessons, which were thinly disguised counselling sessions, in the months following the assassination after the President’s brother Robert became concerned about her mental health.

The priest said she was extremely lonely and felt too despondent to continue to be a good mother to her children, John Jr and Caroline.

“I’m no good to them,” she told him. “I’m so bleeding inside.”

She blamed herself for problems with her marriage and for not making her husband’s life happier during their last few weeks.

The priest said she also felt guilty for not shielding the President when he was shot in Dallas.

Mr Maier said Mrs Kennedy ultimately resisted taking her own life because she feared God might separate her from her husband in the afterlife.

She left Washington eight months after her husband’s death to start a new life in New York.

In letters, she thanked the priest for his guidance and said she was following his advice to keep busy and try to move on.