They Communicated Through A Secret Coda

John F. Kennedy apparently knew his Marilyn Monroe better than his Mozart.

In her forthcoming memoirs, “Entertaining in the Kennedy Style,” etiquette expert Letitia Baldrige - who was Jacqueline Kennedy’s chief of staff - says part of her job was signaling the president when a piece of classical music was actually over.

Kennedy, it seems, had a habit of mistaking pauses for endings. “When the musicians stopped playing and rested, he would rush up onto the stage and embrace them,” Baldrige said. “He did this twice.”

Kennedy always moved fast, Baldrige said. “He was famous for rushing ahead and going to the wrong place. He was so full of energy and speed. So I was assigned to stop him. He called me Miss Push and Pull.”

Loose talk

Dick Morris, on whether New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s alleged infidelity would hurt his presidential chances: “The American people only care if there’s been a crime in my case, prostitution. When it’s an affair, it doesn’t cost a vote.”

Remember, you eat your cake with the south fork

Larry Hagman turns 66 today.

He’s just trying to help her get on her feet

Dick Morris, by the way, is back with his wife and back in politics, working for Nora de Melgar, who’s seeking to become Honduras’ first female president. Says Morris: “I feel that the most constructive thing that I can do for the rest of my life … is to go to nascent democracies and help candidates win, and after they win advise them in governing.”

As always, he had a few good pickup lines

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, used to traveling first class, had a slightly different experience en route to the dedication of the Melvin Laird Center in central Wisconsin. “I was greeted by a limousine that was longer than my airplanes,” Kissinger said. “Then, about 10 miles from the airport we hit a deer and it wrecked the car and I had to go the rest of the way in a pickup truck.”

Didn’t like the pardon? Well, excu-u-u-se me!

Former president Gerald Ford, visiting his granddaughter’s private school in New Mexico, was asked why he pardoned Richard Nixon. “I said to myself, ‘Am I going to spend 25 to 30 percent of my time on Mr. Nixon’s problems when I have all these international and domestic problems?”’ he explained, adding: “It wasn’t a popular decision.”

He probably stepped on the spider’s habitat

Former president Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, has been cleared to resume his daily jog after recovering from a spider bite that caused him to cut short a trip to Africa last month.

Then again, the whole idea could buy the farm

Now that former president Ronald Reagan’s California ranch has failed to sell after 13 months on the market, there’s a plan afoot to have taxpayers buy it for $5 million and turn it into a state park. U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, said he “can’t envision any opposition.”

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino