ASHLAND — James Auchincloss moved here eight years ago for the same reasons people have moved West for 150 years: the dream of a fresh start and an escape from the confinements of East Coast privilege.

It didn’t work. Auchincloss has been yanked back to the reality of his past every time a member of the Kennedy family is in the news. The coming 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination Saturday is no exception.

Television and print media have bombarded him with phone calls. A man who prides himself on not wearing a tie since his arrival in Oregon has put one back on. Reporters want him to recall his extraordinary teenage years, when his sister was the first lady and his brother-in-law the president. They want him to relive "Camelot" once again.

Auchincloss is quite willing to oblige. He is not running from his Kennedy family connection, yet he is struck by how defining his youthful brush with history has been. His willingness to talk about famous relatives has made him something of a persona non grata in Kennedy circles over the years.

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While born of the same mother, Jacqueline Bouvier and James Auchincloss had different fathers. Divorce and remarriage resulted in a blended Auchincloss and Bouvier family, and Jackie and young "Jamie" lived together at the Auchincloss family home in Newport, R.I., for a time. Jackie considered herself a big sister to Jamie and even had him carry her train at her 1953 marriage to JFK at the Auchincloss estate. Ten years later he would walk directly behind her in the funeral procession after having been entrusted to spend the previous couple of days shielding John Jr. and Caroline from the news of their father’s death.

"I think we played Chinese checkers," recalls Auchincloss, now 56, when asked how he kept the president’s children from the truth. While most Americans sat stunned and immobile in front of flickering TV sets that November day in 1963, Auchincloss arguably had the most historic and difficult baby-sitting job in America.

The next day’s diversion for the Kennedy children was a trip into the Virginia countryside with Uncle Jamie to the Civil War battlefield at Manassas. Auchincloss thought this would be an appropriate place to visit, a place where so many others had given their lives for their country. Much to his chagrin, the gates were closed as a result of the president’s assassination.

At first waving away what they assumed were tourists, startled park rangers wasted no time opening the facility upon realizing whom their visitors were.

Jamie was 6 when he first met his 36-year-old future brother-in-law, who visited the Auchincloss house to see Jackie. The night got off to an awkward start when the precocious and arrogant Jamie greeted the senator from the head of the stairs with a haughty "Hullo, Kennedy." It seems that plenty of talk about this upstart immigrant Kennedy family had preceded the visit. The Auchincloss family, after all, were old established oil rich Republican Brahmins.

By night’s end, however, the boy had been won over by the famous Kennedy charm and seven straight defeats at Chinese checkers. Kennedy was smitten as well, Auchincloss recalls.

"I told him he would be the first Catholic elected president," Auchincloss says. "Jack told me he never forgot that prediction coming from such a young boy."

Seven years later the forecast proved accurate and he often saw the president, especially in the summer.

In fact, he recalls now, they both nearly drowned on July 4, 1963, in an attempt to retrieve John Jr.’s toy sailboat. The president had arrived at Hyannis Port with a beautiful model sailboat for John Jr., a gift from the president of Italy.

"Suddenly a wind blew the small boat out to sea and I found myself ordered by the commander-in-chief to help rescue the toy using a ‘Sunfish’ sailboat, a little larger than a surfboard," Auchincloss laughingly explains.

His excitement turned to fear as he realized just how far offshore they had gone, especially when their boat capsized several times, throwing both the president and Auchincloss into the cold water.

"I could see in Jack’s face that he was in terrible back pain and barely able to climb back on the boat," he says. It occurred to Republican-raised Auchincloss that had things turned out differently he might be blamed for the drowning of a Democrat president on the Fourth of July.

Returning with the toy sailboat in hand, James and the president were greeted on shore by anxious relatives and nervous Secret Service agents, who had stood watching on the beach.

"I realized later that this was Jack’s way of testing me, toughening me up" Auchincloss says.

Chance meetings and glimpses of future leaders of his own generation have been a side benefit of having a brother-in-law in the White House. Rather than take on a White House internship in the summer of 1962, Auchincloss took the president’s suggestion and went to work on Ted Kennedy’s first run for the Senate.

The young man running the youth division of the campaign was John F. Kerry, today a candidate for president himself. Impressed by Kerry’s skills, Auchincloss invited him to meet the other "JFK" at a weekend retreat in Newport.

A few years later, Tommy Caplan, a former White House intern, asked Auchincloss to attend his 21st birthday party. It seems he and some Georgetown University roommates planned a night at the 21 Club in New York and wanted to hear Kennedy stories from an insider.

Auchincloss, a 20-year-old Columbia University student, was happy to oblige but exhausted by party’s end because of the non-stop queries of Caplan’s most inquisitive roommate, 21-year- old Bill Clinton.

The following year, Auchincloss remembers yet another New York birthday party, this time for Mohamed VI, today the king of Morocco but then a 4-year-old crown prince. Jackie had invited Auchincloss to help host the party, he says.

"Jackie was a good friend of the king of Morocco and she had a unique sense of humor," Auchincloss explains. Fortunately, it didn’t result in an international incident.

Jackie came into the room where the prince was seated with his nurse and bodyguards. She presented him with a huge cake complete with trick candles.

"Jackie thought this would give everyone a laugh because they were the kind you can’t blow out," Auchincloss says with a grin. The problem, of course, is that even at the tender age of 4, the prince was regarded as infallible. When the candles wouldn’t stay blown out, the future king became frustrated and cried, which greatly concerned and disturbed his nurse and guards.

In the case of both his sister and her children, Auchincloss has tried to bring a degree of normalcy to the legend of Camelot.

"Everything I’ve ever written or said has been intended to help people see the Kennedys as more human," he says. "A manipulated existence is not healthy."

He recalls a favorite Kennedy quote: "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, dishonest, but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic." Within the Kennedy camp, however, Auchincloss fears his previous statements have been seen as disloyal and self-serving. Observers don’t have to look far to find an example of how he has raised eyebrows with his observations.

"Even the time of her death was planned so as to allow for its coverage on the evening news," Auchincloss claims when asked about his sister’s death. "A 10:15 p.m. death would provide coverage on the late news, and it would make newspaper deadlines for the next morning’s papers."

He speculates that were she alive in 1999, John Jr. would not have been flying the small plane in which he died. He points to the fact that several years earlier, when John sought flying lessons, her disapproval was enough to nix the idea. Auchincloss says that only after Jackie’s death did John once again flirt with learning to fly.

"John became his own person after her death, fulfilling a Kennedy love of speed, adventure, danger and escape," says Auchincloss.

To Auchincloss, extraordinarily gifted people are capable of greatness as his sister Jackie was, but they are also human and therefore capable of manipulation as well. Obviously, this is not the woman some want to remember. Nevertheless, the historian in him compels Auchincloss to speak out and let others conclude what they will.

Partly because of this candor the phone rings every time there is another anniversary or episode in the Kennedy saga. James Auchincloss is still amazed at how much his Kennedy years continue to play such a central role in his life, even after 40 years and 3,000 miles away in Ashland.

Joe Peterson is an adjunct lecturer in the history and education departments at Southern Oregon University and has written articles for Southern Oregon Heritage magazine.