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By Nicholas Gage Special to The New York Times
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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
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ATHENS, Sept. 19—Jacqueline Onassis has negotiated what her friends here call “an astounding settlement” with her late husband's daughter under which the shipowner's widow will receive $20 million in return for abandoning all further claims to his estate.
This represents more than double what she would have received under the terms of Aristotle Onassis's will and almost seven times what she would have received if he had lived to complete the divorce proceedings that his friends say he had planned.
In his will, Mr. Onassis left the bulk of his assets to his daughter, Christina, now 26 years old, and to a foundation in memory of his late son, Alexander. He limited his bequest to Mrs. Onassis to $250,000 a year, of which $50,000 was to be set aside for her two children, Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr.
Under those terms Mrs. Onassis, 45 years old when Mr. Onassis died in 1975, could have ultimately received about $10 million if she lived into her 80's.
Miss Onassis's friends here said she had agreed to such a generous settlement for her stepmother because she was eager to cut all ties to her and because she had been advised that Mrs. Onassis would not consider anything less than $20 million without pressing her claims in court. (Neither Christina Onassis nor ner stepmother could be reached for comment.]
“Although she was raised in America, Christina is exceedingly Greek,” said Stelios Papadimitriou, her principal attorney here and an executor of her father's estate. “She is strong‐willed, emotional and impulsive.”
Mr. Papadimitriou, who represented Miss Onassis in the negotiations with her stepmother, would not discuss the settlement, but he indirectly confirmed that one. had been reached. Although Mr. Onassis's will left his widow a quarter interest in his private island of Skorpios and a quarter share of his yacht, the Christina, Mr. Papadimitriou said when questioned about the settlement:
“I can't even tell you there was an agreement, but, no, Mrs. Onassis no longer has any involvement with any part of the Onassis estate.”
Mr. Papadimitriou has represented the Onassis family since 1954, when he was 24 years old.
Although initial reports after Mr. Onassis's death had contained speculation that his widow would receive as much as $200 million from the estate, when his will was finally made public in June 1975 it revealed that he had left her only $100,000 a year from tax‐free bonds and $100,000 a year in other income for herself plus the $50,000 for her children. The bequest was to have been paid through a foundation in Lichtenstein.
In addition, Mr. Onassis, her second husband, had stipulated that any attempts by his widow to resort to court action over terms of the estate should be opposed.
The handwritten will, drafted by Mr. Onassis on Jan. 3, 1974, indicated that Mrs. Onassis had signed a document in New York in which she gave up all rights to his estate. But, according to other friends of her stepdaughter's, Mrs. Onassis and her brother‐in‐law, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, began pressing the young heiress soon after the shipping magnate's death to improve the bequest to Mrs. Onassis.
Formal negotiations were begun later between lawyers representing Mrs. Onossis and Mr. Papadimitrious, representing the stepdaughter. The negotiations continued for 18 months, and Mrs. Onassis refused to lower her demand below $20 million, according to her stepdaughter's friends. Mr. Papadimitriou then was reported to have advised Miss Onassis that he thought they could not avoid a court battle unless she agreed to the $20 million.
In his will, Mr. Onassis wrote: “I have received from my wife her resignation from any claims of inheritance through a notarized agreement in the United States. If my wife presses any inheritance claims, then she will not be given her annuity of my estate. If she wins a final ruling from a court that cannot be appealed, then she will receive one‐eighth of the estate of Christina.”
Mr. Onassis divided the bulk of his estate between his daughter, who has been married and divorced twice, and a foundation set up in memory of his son, who died after an airplane crash in 1973 at the age of 25.
Miss Onassis's half of the estate has been estimated at more than $250 million, and on this basis if her stepmother had gone to court and won all her claims, she could have received at least $10 million more than she is said to have received in the settlement.
This may have been a factor in Miss Onassis's decision to settle out of court, although her friends feel she was motivated more by the fact that a long court battle would have kept her and her stepmother financially linked to each other for years.
The friends said Christina Onassis opposed her father's marriage in 1968 to the widow of President John F. Kennedy and was never able to become close to her stepmother. The relationship was said to have become even more strained after Mr. Onassis's death, although his daughter made a public statement to the contrary and denied that her father had planned to divorce his wife.
Close friends of Mr. Onassis said here, however, that he had told them he intended to divorce his wife and that he had an agreement with her limiting the divorce settlement to $3 million.
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