Daily News from New York, New York • 376

12C DAILY NEWS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1976 A CI An's scoirpioini-shaped DsEamid, a Ihoyse byillll'ioir earthquakes Fifth of a series "-r HIP? JiWlkfM A Jf By LESTER DAY ID and JHAN ROBBINS A year after the Scorpios wedding; Onassis told reporters, "Jackie is like a little bird that needs its freedom as well as security. She gets both from me. We trust each ether implicitly." The statement started divorce rumors flying. Headlines in an English newspaper announced: "JACKIE AND ARI READY TO SPLIT. HE ADMITS JACKIE TEEDS FREEDOM!" Other aritcles forecasting a breakup began appearing.

The couple continued to live their normal jet-set lives: Jackie in New York and Ari in Greece; Jackie in France and Ari in Egypt; Jackie in Greece and Ari in New Yor' But they would always meet after a short time and spend time together on the island of Skorpios. During these periods, the couple still appeared to be very much in love. There are many photographs of them dining in restaurants that seem to prove this tender devotion; people who aren't in love do not kiss impetuously at breakfast over the croissants and coffee. Nor do they bring gifts of the most expensive gems. Occasional quarrels erupted, but there were many moments of tenderness, Jackie and Ari were seen dining together frequently, chatting intimately, smiling at one another.

Once in a restaurant in the south of France, they noticed a young American couple struggling over a French menu. Ari whispered to Jackie, walked over to the table, bowed, and asked if he could help. He then offered his recommendations. Couple astonished The couple, who appeared to be new-lyweds, were astonished when they realized who their interpreter was. They stammered their thanks and took Ari's advice.

Ari bowed again and returned to Jackie. He then had the waiter send over a bottle of rare vintage wine to the young couple's table. Jackie beamed at him. On one of the few occasions when she gave a more involved reply she was in Tehran, where she and her multimillionaire husband were taking a business holiday. Ari was hoping to get special oil concessions, and Jackie wanted to do some exploring.

The former First Lady appeared to be in gay spirits and was delighted to answer questions. When asked if there was a difference between being Mrs. John Kennedy and being Mrs. Aristotle Onassis, she replied, "People often forget that I was Jacqueline Lee Bouvier before being Mrs. Kennedy or Mrs.

Onassis. Throughout my life, however, I've always tried to remain true to myself. And I'll continue to do this as long as I live. I am today what I was yesterday and with luck what I will be tomorrow." During his life, Onassis owned many homes and estates in all parts of the world, among them an exquisite villa in the fashionable Athens seaside resort of Glyfada; a townhouse in London; a haci- enda in Montevideo, Uruguay; a penthouse on the Avenue Foch in Paris; lodge in Buenos Aires; an apartment in the Hotel Pierre in New York; and a mansion in Monte Carlo. But of them all, Skorpios was his crown jewel.

Ari would have preferred Ithaca, the 41-square-mile island in the Ionian Sea believed to have been the birthplace and later the kingdom of Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey. But Ithaca, unfortunately, was inhabited sparsely, to be sure, by fewer than 2,000 persons, but people nonetheless, and Ari wanted total privacy. Besides, Ithaca was not for sale. So he sent emissaries to scout the waters of the Aegean and the Ionian. It was a real estate hunt of formidable scope, considering tnat there are over 1400 islands in the Aegean, the vast majority unsettled and undeveloped.

His, sen explored the northern Sporades, the Dodocanese, the Cyelades, and the Onassis at foot of gangplank leading to his luxurious yacht, the Christina. villa as impregnable as possible to all natural violence nearby islands had been devastated ten years earlier by a severe earthquake. Ari insisted that the foundation be "almost as thick as that of the Empire State Building! The house is a low, two-story, rambling cement building surrounded by hundreds of rose bushes, bougainvilleas, and jasmine. It has 14 rooms, including a modern stainless steel kitchen, five spacious bedrooms each with dressing room, and a large living-dining room-combination. Ari spent many hours in an armchair in the living room, puffing on a silver-covered waterpipe and looking at the gardens he had insisted that something be in bloom throughout the year.

One of the servants told us PacCxie Atro Saronics, and they island-shopped westward through the Sea of Crete and up into the Ionian. But there was nothing suitable until one day they came upon a scorpion-shaped, 500-acre isle ten miles north of Ithaca. With its lush greenery, the island looked tropical but it was hardly a paradise. The parts that weren't rocky were thickly overgrown; there were no roads, not even a pathway through the vegetation. The tall pines and cypresses blotted out the sun, giving the place such a look of intense gloom that all the scouts could think cl as they surveyed the aereage was, "What a good place to have a funeral!" Worse, the island had no water supply of its own.

Nonetheless, it was available, and since it was the best of what they had been able to discover, one scout told Ari about it, if with little enthusiasm. "But he came down and liked it at once," the scout told us. "His eyes saw what mine had not he could look at this overgrown piece of land and visualize what could be done with it." Reconstruction begins at once In 1962, Ari paid $60,000 for the island, and at once the reconstruction began. Roadbuilders and landscape architects roamed over the scorpion-shaped island. Soon came the bulldozers, cranes, steam shovels, and other earth-movers, manned by hundreds of workers.

After several years, at a cost of $3 million, the rocky pile had been transformed into a private pleasure dome. The water supply? No problem. Reservoirs; were constructed on the highest point; they would be replenished daily with water hauled in by boat. Skorpios is dominated by The House, a magnificent dwelling that was designed for Onassis by a prize-winning architect 'whonv. Ari instructed to make the At home, Mr.

and Mrs. Onassis would play two-handed card games, hold hands while viewing movies flown over from the United States, England, and France, and spend many hours talking about their children. Late in July 1970, Ari was on Skorpios when he received an urgent phone callr Olympic Airways Flight 255, en route from Beirut to Athens, had been seized by six Arab terrorists. The Boeing 727, with 49 passengers and a crew of six, had been forced to land at Hel-linikon Airport in Athens. Demanding terrorists release The hijackers, armed with five pistols, two hand grenades, and a submachine gun, were demanding the immediate release of seven Arab terrorists being held prisoner in Greece.

Unless the Greek government complied at once, they threatened to blow up the plane with all aboard. Ari immediately flew to Athens in his private five-seater amphibian plane, and, with Stylianos Pattakos, the Greek deputy premier and interior minister, attempted to negotiate with the hijackers. He offered himself, as a hostage in exchange for the prisoners, but his offer was rejected. The air pirates' reply, re--ported in Newsweek, was, "Who is Onassis? Never heard of him! Told who he was, the hijackers still spurned his effer. "They said I was only one," Ari reported afterward, "while the passengers were many.

It seems that my stock is falling." Later, Jackie teased him with 'Who is Onassis Never heard of him! Next: Ari as a stepfather. Excerpted from "Jackie and Ari: The Inside Story." Copyright 1974 Lester David and Jhan Reprinted- by 'permission of Pocket Books, New York, a division of Simon Schuster, Inc. that Ari's favorite chair was shifted about ten feet when Jackie ordered Christina's grand piano moved into its spot. Ari sulked for days. He and Jackie had different floral preferences and would often argue about the kinds and colors of the blooms in the gardens.

After Ari's death, she reportedly ordered the flowers changed. To the right of the guest compound, on a bluff near the smaller harbor, is the 75-year-old Chapel of Panagitsa, deteriorating when Ari purchased the island. Ari had it restored to its former simple elegance. Nestled between several massive cypress trees, it is white-washed except for a dark-stained door surmounted with a classic pediment, or low triangular gable that ancient Greeks used to crown the entranceway of their temples. The pediment is repeated in the i roofline.

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