Former First Lady Jackie Kennedy was afraid of becoming a mental or physcial invalid late in life and not being able to live as she wished. In a bold and unusual move she hired a hitman to kill her if she ever became incapacitated and a burden on her family. Knowing that no one would approve of this, she arranged with the hitman that he would only kill her if he heard a specific word used in one of her interviews. It was an unusual word and would signal to the killer that she was ready to end her life. The only problem was that she forgot the word. This caused her to live in fear and greatly restrict the number of interviews she gave later in life. She also made it a point to only use simple words of no more than two syllables, in an effort to limit her chances of accidentally saying the kill word. Her diary chronicles the dread she always felt when she was unable to avoid giving an interview, and the relief she felt after several days had passed with nothing happening.