JFK's teen mistress addresses relationship

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Timothy Noah, editor of the New Republic, dials in with his take on MiMi Aford in article titled "JFK Monster"

(Monster? Really? I called and emailed him and told him he needs to start reading about Lyndon Johnson, especially the book "Power Beyond Reason: The Mental Collapse of Lyndon Johnson" by D. Jablow Hershman http://www.amazon.com/Power-Beyond-Reason-Collapse-Johnson/dp/1569802432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328896880&sr=8-1 )

Here is the email address for the New Republic - letters@tnr.com

JFK Monster by Timothy Noah

http://www.tnr.com/blog/timothy-noah/100566/jfk-monster

I knew that John F. Kennedy was a compulsive, even pathological adulterer, given to taking outlandish risks after he entered the White House. I knew he treated women like whores. And I knew he had more than a few issues with his father about toughness and manliness and all that. But before I read in the newspaper that Mimi Alford's just-released memoir, Once Upon A Secret: My Affair With President John F. Kennedy And Its Aftermath, described giving Dave Powers a blow job at JFK's request and in his presence, I didn't know that Kennedy had an appetite for subjecting those close to him to extreme humiliation.

The likelihood that Alford is making this story up is extremely remote. She didn't come forward on her own. She was outed, partially in a 2003 Robert Dallek biography, and then by name by the Daily News, as "JFK's Monica," because when she began her affair she was a White House intern and a 19 year-old rising sophomore at Wheaton College. (In the book Alford reveals that Sally Bedell Smith was actually the first journalist to contact her--by phone, about a year before the Dallek book came out--and that she declined to speak to her then.)

Alford's story is entirely believable. She was an attractive, naive recent graduate of Miss Porter's School. Miss Porter's was also the alma mater of Jacqueline Kennedy and of a slightly older White House secretary named "Fiddle" with whom Kennedy was also having an affair, or so the First Lady believed--there was also a purported dalliance with Fiddle's close friend "Faddle," a secretary in the press office--and it isn't lost on Alford that this descendant of Boston's lace-curtain Irish had a thing for Social Register girls. Her fourth day on the job she was invited upstairs to the private residence. Kennedy led Mimi into his wife's bedroom (the First Lady was away), unbuttoned her blouse, touched her breast, pulled down her underwear, dropped his pants, climbed on top of her, and _____ her. When she told him she was a virgin he became a bit more compassionate, but neither in that sexual encounter nor in any other did he ever kiss her on the lips.

This part of Alford's story doesn't really add anything to what we already know about Kennedy. Nor does it really change my opinion of the 35th president. But this part does:

Dave Powers was sitting poolside while the President and I swam lazy circles around each other, splashing playfully. Dave had removed his jacket and loosened his tie in the warm air of the pool, but he was otherwise fully clothed. He was sitting on a towel, with his pants leg rolled up, and his bare feet dangling in the water.

The President swam over and whispered in my ear. "Mr. Powers looks a little tense," he said. "Would you take care of it?"

It was a dare, but I knew exactly what he meant. This was a challenge to give Dave Powers oral sex. I don't think the President thought I'd do it, but I'm ashamed to say that I did. It was a pathetic, sordid, scene, and is very hard for me to think about today. Dave was jolly and obedient as I stood in the shallow end of the pool and performed my duties. The President silently watched.

Afterwards, Alford says she was "deeply embarrassed," and as she climbed out of the pool she "could hear Dave speak in as stern a tone as I ever heard him use with his boss. 'You shouldn't have made her do that,' Dave said. 'I know, I know,' I heard the President say. Later, a chastened President Kennedy apologized to us both." Alford believes that Kennedy showed "his darker side ... when we were among men he knew. That's when he felt a need to display his power over me." Kennedy didn't just have a thing for Social Register girls; he had a thing for humiliating Social Register girls. He also had a thing for humiliating his fellow Irishman, Dave Powers.

Maybe Kennedy wasn't this much of a creep all that much (though Alford also tells of him once forcing her to take an amyl nitrite "popper" in Bing Crosby's living room). But the poolside ritual of humiliation is not easy to reconcile with any kind of worldly tolerance for Kennedy's peccadilloes. Perhaps the fairest conclusion to make is that Kennedy did some good things in his public life (and also some bad), but that he was capable of monstrous cruelty that's hard to forgive and also hard to equate even with that of successors like Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon (or with any in his less polished younger brother Ted, whose own private life had plenty of dark moments but whose public accomplishment ultimately outshone JFK's). Clinton shared many vices with President Kennedy, but I can't imagine him ever doing anything like this. I don't usually say this about scandal stories, but Alford's tale ought to occasion further reassessment of a president we already knew to be morally compromised.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

It boggles the mind that JFK researchers can lean back and praise billionaire media outlets who have suppressed every aspect of JFK truth or news that might generate interest and then gush with praise over the tons of billionaire- press coverage given to this story.

Two weeks ago one of four surviving surgeons at Parkland spoke about his observations. Not a word in big media anywhere. And now people gush over these purveyors of coverup.

Unbelievable. The Soviet Union could not create better propaganda for the coverup-- I mean looking at the total picture of what is excluded and what is included. And then researchers praise the accomplices of murder. Unbelieveable.

If these are warriors for truth I would hate to see the opposition.

[Douglas Caddy]

This is almost too much. Really.

Suddenly, the JFK community is to rely upon, of all publications, The New Republic?

Bob, when did you get into this, last week? I thought I saw you at a couple of Lancer conferences.

Do you know who runs TNR? And who has run it into the ground for the last forty years? I mean do some research will you.

Then go ahead and read what happened when Ray Marcus tried to get Peretz to look at some evidence on the JFK case back in 1966--way before there were any Exner stories or Mary Meyer stories around. Now, go ahead and look and see if TNR has ever published any positive review of any good book about JFK, for example: Battling Wall Street, JFK and Vietnam, JFK:Ordeal in Africa, Brothers, JFK and the Unspeakable etc. See if they have ever written anything real about the JFK murder since Peretz took over. (They actually did previously under Gil Harrison.)

But you will notice one thing interesting if you do some research on TNR and JFK. When the Collier and Horowitz piece of crap came out, Peretz put it on the front cover. Do you know who he assigned the review to? Midge Decter. For me this marked when Peretz actually tipped off that he was not really a centrist liberal. He was now heading into the neo con camp. Which he did. Do me a favor. Look up who Decter is and who she is related to. You will come across the name of one Elliot Abrams. End of story.

So please, no more of this. OK. You obviously have done very little work on the media in this case.

As per Lifton, wow, he is now in the RFK snuffed Marilyn camp? Utterly ridiculous goofiness. I did months of work on this issue. What, did RFK do? Use a helicopter from GIlroy, then land it on some private heliport in Santa Monica?

Just bonkers. Almost every hour of RFK's stay is accounted for in GIlroy. Not just with witnesses, but with written evidence. Only someone as goofy on this as the likes of Robert Slatzer and James Haspiel and his gang, would buy into this MM swamp. Norman Mailer admitted he smeared RFK for money. Slatzer has been exposed as a xxxx. I mean what is next,Milo Speriglio? The JImmy Hoffa/Bernie Spindel tapes? Maybe Lifton does not know this but there was a whole long report on the latter issued by the NYC DAs office, called the Carroll report. Spindel had every opportunity to produce these tapes. He never did. Even though he was under indictment.

Lifton is so eager to embrace this crap, maybe he forgets how this whole MM story got started? Guy named Frank Capell, a rightwing nut who was later indicted for guess what? Conspiracy to commit libel. Geez David, does that not give you pause? Most rational people would stop right there and think. Not Lifton.

Next step, Mailer. Who admitted he smeared RFK for money. Not enough for Lifton.

Next step, Slatzer. How did this one start? Slatzer approached a LA TImes reporter with an idea on the MM death. It had a political angle to it. The reporter, WIll Fowler, said to him, "Too bad you weren't married to Monroe, then you would have a story." A couple of weeks later, Slatzer talked to Fowler again. Slatzer said, it slipped his mind, but he had been married to Monroe.

Three strikes and you are out. But not with Lifton.

Now Slatzer is a perfect example of what I am talking about and what I described in my essay. This BS has become a business racket. Because no reputable publishing house, magazine, or TV network would touch such a fraudster. But yet, Slatzer made a career out of this xxxx. He published books, articles and even a TV movie about himself and MM! Did anyone ever call him out on this? Like maybe David Lifton? Heck no. So please when you tell me that the MSM is all aboard Mimi, geez, are you for real? Its like saying the MSM buys the Magic Bullet. NO KIDDING CHARLIE!

Its no surprise to me that Lifton buys Wolfe and anyone who says he saw RFK in LA that night. I mean you can find people who say they saw the helicopter landing on the beach in Santa Monica. ( I am not kidding one bit.) Lifton would probably buy them also.

And now he backs RFK offing Castro. Oh no David, please. DId you get this form Hersh's book and Sam Halpern also? It was exposed long ago buy Talbot. Anyone who takes seriously CIA asset Hersh's work on almost any major topic is simply not aware of Mr. Loomis and their long association.

To ignore that, one must be willfully blind.

http://www.rd.com/family/marilyn-monroe/5/

[Guest Robert Morrow]

I believe that Marilyn Monroe had affairs with both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.

One of David Lifton's friends or acquaintances (or a friend's friend) was in car with Robert Kennedy when it was stopped in Los Angeles (or perhaps Santa Monica, near where ever Marilyn lived) on or about the day of her death.

I am not saying RFK killed Marilyn. I do think RFK was doing emergency work trying to keep her quiet.

Joe DiMaggio went to his grave thinking the Kennedys killed Marilyn. Joe DiMaggio was the one who loved Marilyn Monroe the most; I don't know of anyone else who put fresh flowers on her grave every week for the rest of HIS life.

I think DiMaggio was completely aware that Monroe was having affairs with both Kennedy brothers. I think he hated them and was jealous of them. And he suspected they had her murdered.

I would not go that far; but I do think Marilyn Monroe was having a sexual relationship with both John and Robert Kennedy.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Doug Caddy is one of the JFK researchers and posters who has the MOST credibility with me on Education Forum or anywhere else. I think DiEugenio spends a lot of time shooting the messenger (Caddy) because he does not like the message.

I think one of the interesting things about Doug Caddy is that he was a founding member of Young Americans for Freedom. DiEugenio points this out like its a cuss word. In fact, it means Caddy ran in conservative circles and is an excellent source as to what was going on inside them.

Doug Caddy was also the lawyer for his good friend E. Howard Hunt and LBJ business associate Billie Sol Estes (Estes was actually a cut out for LBJ doing business and getting kickbacks).

Doug Caddy has also hooked me up with Houston gay activist Ray Hill who has given me invaluable information about both George Herbert Walker Bush and Lyndon Johnson. And it is not favorable about either of those 2 fellows. Ray Hill has given me good information about both GWH Bush's pedophilia as a congressman in the late 1960's and LBJ's homosexuality (bisexuality) based on Ray Hill's work at the Kinsey Institute (where Hill had access to LBJ's interviews and sexual histories). Invaluable stuff that is not in biographies or even on the internet.

Three cheers for Doug Caddy!

Edited February 11, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[Don Jeffries]

I'm astonished that any CTer would put their trust in the same sources who have consistently averted the truth when covering the JFK assassination. We're speaking about the same historical figures- John and Robert Kennedy; if they have been shown to distort the facts about their deaths, why should we place any credence in what they have to say about their lives?

I differ with Jim D. partially on the Marilyn Monroe death. I don't believe for a second that she killed herself, and I think the facts suggest a coverup of some magnitude. That being said, I tend to think that she was murdered because of the connection she had to the Kennedys. This was not done with their approval, but orchestrated by their enemies, as perhaps a kind of warning. Her suspicious death has been used by anti-Kennedy zealots, in order to tie them directly to it. I believe some have even suggested RFK himself gave her a shot or something. Is that a ridiculous scenario or what? So, once again, connecting those "bad" Kennedy boys to the murder of a movie star they both were allegedly sleeping with is done with the intention of making the public shake the heads in disgust and react to any assassination "conspiracy theory" with, "they weren't any good, anyway- they deserved it."

What is significant about the Mimi Alford story is that it represents the first example of an underling accusing JFK of sexual improprieties. JFK's alleged pecadiloes, up until now, were all with women wholly unconnected to his profession (well, okay, there "Fiddle and Faddle," but does anyone believe that?), and many of them were his equal in celebrity status. IF those allegations are true, then JFK's infideilty is still, imho, of a different stripe than the kind other politicians have engaged in. Bill Clinton, for instance, was accused of directly abusing his power over Paula Jones, Kathryn Willey, etc. I believe FDR's long time affair was with a secretary, and some have claimed that LBJ ordered his aide to marry an underling he impregnated. So the Alford allegations serve the purpose of, for the first time, placing JFK in a particular nasty light- of a powerful figure wielding his authority over his innocent young intern. Since there has never been the slightest hint that abusing his authority over others was a part of JFK's character, I think it's another reason to doubt this story.

I'm usually very cynical about politics, and there are very few politicians I have admired during my lifetime. In comparison to their contemporaries, the Kennedys were about as honest as political figures can be. They actually did try to accomplish some good, and they were murdered because of it. If there are such things as "good guys," then John and Robert Kennedy fall into that category.

[Kathleen Collins]

I believe that Marilyn Monroe had affairs with both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.

One of David Lifton's friends or acquaintances (or a friend's friend) was in car with Robert Kennedy when it was stopped in Los Angeles (or perhaps Santa Monica, near where ever Marilyn lived) on or about the day of her death.

I am not saying RFK killed Marilyn. I do think RFK was doing emergency work trying to keep her quiet.

Joe DiMaggio went to his grave thinking the Kennedys killed Marilyn. Joe DiMaggio was the one who loved Marilyn Monroe the most; I don't know of anyone else who put fresh flowers on her grave every week for the rest of HIS life.

I think DiMaggio was completely aware that Monroe was having affairs with both Kennedy brothers. I think he hated them and was jealous of them. And he suspected they had her murdered.

I would not go that far; but I do think Marilyn Monroe was having a sexual relationship with both John and Robert Kennedy.

She definitely had an affair with President Kennedy. But Robert Kennedy was trying to help her in several ways. They were going to do a movie on his book, The Enemy Within. He talked to studio bosses who gave her back her job. He spoke with her psychiatrist. He was trying to get her off Jack's back and there is no proof whatsoever that Bobby Kennedy had a physical relationship with Marilyn Monroe. He was there that night. But he was being framed.

Kathy C

[Kathleen Collins]

This is almost too much. Really.

Suddenly, the JFK community is to rely upon, of all publications, The New Republic?

Bob, when did you get into this, last week? I thought I saw you at a couple of Lancer conferences.

Do you know who runs TNR? And who has run it into the ground for the last forty years? I mean do some research will you.

Then go ahead and read what happened when Ray Marcus tried to get Peretz to look at some evidence on the JFK case back in 1966--way before there were any Exner stories or Mary Meyer stories around. Now, go ahead and look and see if TNR has ever published any positive review of any good book about JFK, for example: Battling Wall Street, JFK and Vietnam, JFK:Ordeal in Africa, Brothers, JFK and the Unspeakable etc. See if they have ever written anything real about the JFK murder since Peretz took over. (They actually did previously under Gil Harrison.)

But you will notice one thing interesting if you do some research on TNR and JFK. When the Collier and Horowitz piece of crap came out, Peretz put it on the front cover. Do you know who he assigned the review to? Midge Decter. For me this marked when Peretz actually tipped off that he was not really a centrist liberal. He was now heading into the neo con camp. Which he did. Do me a favor. Look up who Decter is and who she is related to. You will come across the name of one Elliot Abrams. End of story.

So please, no more of this. OK. You obviously have done very little work on the media in this case.

As per Lifton, wow, he is now in the RFK snuffed Marilyn camp? Utterly ridiculous goofiness. I did months of work on this issue. What, did RFK do? Use a helicopter from GIlroy, then land it on some private heliport in Santa Monica?

Just bonkers. Almost every hour of RFK's stay is accounted for in GIlroy. Not just with witnesses, but with written evidence. Only someone as goofy on this as the likes of Robert Slatzer and James Haspiel and his gang, would buy into this MM swamp. Norman Mailer admitted he smeared RFK for money. Slatzer has been exposed as a xxxx. I mean what is next,Milo Speriglio? The JImmy Hoffa/Bernie Spindel tapes? Maybe Lifton does not know this but there was a whole long report on the latter issued by the NYC DAs office, called the Carroll report. Spindel had every opportunity to produce these tapes. He never did. Even though he was under indictment.

Lifton is so eager to embrace this crap, maybe he forgets how this whole MM story got started? Guy named Frank Capell, a rightwing nut who was later indicted for guess what? Conspiracy to commit libel. Geez David, does that not give you pause? Most rational people would stop right there and think. Not Lifton.

Next step, Mailer. Who admitted he smeared RFK for money. Not enough for Lifton.

Next step, Slatzer. How did this one start? Slatzer approached a LA TImes reporter with an idea on the MM death. It had a political angle to it. The reporter, WIll Fowler, said to him, "Too bad you weren't married to Monroe, then you would have a story." A couple of weeks later, Slatzer talked to Fowler again. Slatzer said, it slipped his mind, but he had been married to Monroe.

Three strikes and you are out. But not with Lifton.

Now Slatzer is a perfect example of what I am talking about and what I described in my essay. This BS has become a business racket. Because no reputable publishing house, magazine, or TV network would touch such a fraudster. But yet, Slatzer made a career out of this xxxx. He published books, articles and even a TV movie about himself and MM! Did anyone ever call him out on this? Like maybe David Lifton? Heck no. So please when you tell me that the MSM is all aboard Mimi, geez, are you for real? Its like saying the MSM buys the Magic Bullet. NO KIDDING CHARLIE!

Its no surprise to me that Lifton buys Wolfe and anyone who says he saw RFK in LA that night. I mean you can find people who say they saw the helicopter landing on the beach in Santa Monica. ( I am not kidding one bit.) Lifton would probably buy them also.

And now he backs RFK offing Castro. Oh no David, please. DId you get this form Hersh's book and Sam Halpern also? It was exposed long ago buy Talbot. Anyone who takes seriously CIA asset Hersh's work on almost any major topic is simply not aware of Mr. Loomis and their long association.

To ignore that, one must be willfully blind.

Robert F. Slatzer is a disinformationalist. He was also a rabid fan of Marilyn Monroe. Jeanne Carmen is a hustler and Marilyn never roomed with her. Slatzer said he was at Marilyn Monroe's last birthday (36) party, given reluctantly by 20th Century Fox. No photos show him in them. I think he was allowed onto studio lots because he wrote bad westerns. He was a screen writer. I think he hovered around Monroe. Slatzer died about 4 years ago. There is a book out mentioning Marilyn Monroe and Robert Slatzer. He was not a close friend of hers. The book is called "Inside Marilyn Monroe, A Memoir by John Gilmore." He talks about the "fat" man hanging around the set (Niagara) and quietly calling her name. She posed for a picture with him, but that was about it. Slatzer is spoiling the reputations of the Kennedys. None of her friends or colleagues ever heard of him or Jeanne Carmen.

Some of the things Slatzer wrote were disgraceful lies. This was especially aimed at Robert Kennedy.

Kathy C

[John Dolva]

John:

You are missing the point.

As I stated above, its not a matter of whether or not Kennedy had affairs. To me whether he did or did not is not really relevant.

It is what people who are in the "business racket" do with these things TO MAKE THEM SEEM RELEVANT that is the key.

With Exner, Time-Life went ahead and simply made up BS to make them appear to be relevant. On that one, the original writer, Kitty Kelly, did not write one word of the front page essay. The editors at Time-Life just made up crap about the mafia and JFK to sell magazines. And then Hersh and Russo went even beyond that. Except their source, Underwood, would not show up for his ARRB interview.

With Mary Meyer, Leary lied his head off to sell his book Flashbacks. Dr. LSD, made sure he got acid in the White House. Somehow, no one noticed that in his 25 previous attempts to write about the matter, he forgot about Mary Meyer.

As per David Lifton, man where have you been?

C. David Heymann? This guy was exposed as a serial xxxx ages ago.

Frankie, you are right on.

That's it. Anyway that's what I think. That's what makes this a worthwhile topic to me. (I know its an answer to John Simkin)

I think it's interesting that some chief purveyors (and creators) of this stuff to feed a certain something are, like Edgar 'the body remover' Hoover far more sexually conflicted (Walker too) yet hide behind a certain facade. One can go far on this on a number of tangents like sociology for example. It's funny (see the whats the tsbd topic) what's often missed is right in front of one.

edit typo

Whoever has read the C. David Heyman book, does he include a picture of Bobby Kennedy, wife and kids, going to church on Aug.5, 1962 in Gilroy, CA, which is pretty far away from Santa Monica. I've been trying to find this picture for a long time.

Kathy C

Ok, Kathy. Can you explain to me what you are getting at, please?

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Here are some excerpt's from Mimi Alford's book. The book is written analytically, not in a sensational manner. But there are some "juicy parts."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099498/Mimi-Alford-The-day-JFK-took-virginity-wifes-White-House-bed.html

JFK's promiscuous sex life is completely relevant to a historical understanding of him. As is Lyndon Johnson's, Bill Clinton's and whoever else's. Ditto Hoover.

And if Richard Nixon really was boyfriend/boyfriend (gay affair) with Bebe Rebozo that is extremely relevant, too. (Bebe Rebozo was obsessed with Richard Nixon. He was also a former male flight attendant who never consumated his first marriage of 4 years. If that does not set off your "gaydar" nothing will. My take, Nixon and Rebozo were gay lovers.)

Mimi Alford:

"The President and I were in the pool, splashing playfully, while Dave Powers was sitting on the edge, with his feet dangling in the water. Then JFK swam over and whispered in my ear: ‘Mr Powers looks a little tense — would you take care of it?’

I knew exactly what that meant: it was a dare to give Dave Powers oral sex.

I don’t think the President thought I’d do it, but I’m ashamed to say that I did. It was a pathetic, sordid scene, and I can hardly bear to think about it. Dave was jolly and obedient as I stood in the shallow end of the pool and performed my duties. The President silently watched.

JFK swam over and whispered in my ear: ‘Mr Powers looks a little tense - would you take care of it?’ I knew exactly what that meant: it was a dare to give Dave Powers oral sex

Try as I may, I cannot explain why, without hesitation, I obeyed his command. Perhaps I was carried away by a spirit of playfulness.

Perhaps I was in thrall to his charm and authority.

No doubt my own insecurity and need for his approval had something to do with it. What I do know is that Dave and I were umbilically linked to each other in our devotion to President Kennedy.

But now the man who’d engaged our complete loyalty had gone too far. He’d emotionally abused me and debased Dave. For what? To watch me perform and to show Dave how much he controlled us?

Afterwards, I was deeply embarrassed. As I climbed out of the pool, I heard Dave say sternly to his boss: ‘You shouldn’t have made her do that.’

‘I know, I know,’ was the reply. Later, a chastened President Kennedy apologised to us both.

For the first time, I’d seen his dark side.

I saw it again a year later, when I was in a room with him and his younger brother, Teddy.

Once again, he tried to show off his power over me, this time suggesting: ‘Mimi, why don’t you take care of my baby brother — he could stand a little relaxation.’

This time I felt a flash of anger. And for the first time, I stood up to him.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ I said. ‘Absolutely not, Mr President.’"

Edited February 13, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

So was John Kennedy having sex with ABC News reporter Lisa Howard? Let's use some "critical thinking skills" here. Probably. Based on what I know about John Kennedy and his rampant promiscuous behavior AND the fact that Lisa Howard was having an affair with Fidel Castro AND the fact that Howard was describing this affair in graphic detail to an amused JFK, I would say (conservatively) there is a 75% chance that JFK and ABC News reporter Lisa Howard had sexual relations.

Now let's reflect on what members of the CIA and JCS would have thought about JFK having an affair with a mistress of Fidel Castro; a lady who thought she was on a "peace mission" to normalize relations with Cuba. How do you think that would have gone over at Langley or in the U.S. national security establishment of 1963?

How do you think Gen. Ed Lansdale, who had an extremely frustrating time running Operation Mongoose for the Kennedys, would have reacted to learn JFK was having an affair with Castro's mistress and they were talking peace (i.e. keep Castro in power is what "peace" and "normalizing relations" would by definition entail). How about Allen Dulles or his protege James Angleton, the head of counter-intelligence?

Answer: in their minds, it would be just one more reason to murder JFK a man who was threatening their turf and Cold War policies and agenda.

So don't tell me that sex and who is having sex with who is not relevant, because in this case it might well have been extremely relevant and seen as a national security risk by the killers of JFK (in their minds).

At JFK Lancer 2010, I asked Larry Hancock, who I respect, was Lisa Howard having an affair with either JFK or Fidel Castro (I knew that I had read it somewhere.) Hancock said "no." Now that my memory is a little better here is what is in David Talbot's Brothers:

"After Howard returned to the United States, she went to the White House, where a curious Kennedy debriefed her. She shared the details of her Castro encounter with the gossip-hungry Kennedy, including the revelation that she had slept with the Cuban leader. "She talked with Jack about it," Howard's friend, the equally dishy Gore Vidal, later reported, "and mentioned that Castro hadn't taken his boots off. Jack liked details like that." In her diary, Howard wrote that Castro "made love to me efficiently."

[Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, p. 224]

"According to Howard's daughter, Fritzi Lareau - who was a teenager at the time - her motivations were largely emotional. "She fell for Castro," Lareau told me, recalling her "wild" and "iconoclastic" mother. Lareau remembered her mother bluntly asking her stepfather, film producer Walter Lowendahl, whether she should take her diaphragm to Cuba before she left on one of her frequent trips there. (Lowendahl agreed she should. According to Lareau, her stepfather was not happy with her mother's adventures, but the German immigrant suffered his wife's exploits with European equanimity.) She liked powerful men. And Fidel was very macho. And, of course, the peace mission appealed to her dramatic sensibility because it was very grand, it was on a world playing field. It was secretive and exciting."

[Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, p. 225]

Edited February 11, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

JFK's genitals are getting 8,000,000% more press than the tactical nukes that would have hit US ships had they invaded Cuba, an event that would have caused WWIII. Fair and balanced for NBC, but why the replication here?

Edited February 11, 2012 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[Douglas Caddy]

BTW, Caddy was not just the first guy Hunt called after the Watergate break in was blown.(JIm Hougan, Secret Agenda, pgs. 216-17)

The reason Hunt trusted him is that he had a desk at the Mullen Company representing general Foods.. (ibid) After the investigations about Watergate, the Mullen Company was exposed as a CIA front. This is something that Caddy himself admitted during his Grand Jury testimony.

Except he greatly underplayed it by saying he had "intimations" that the firm provided cover to the CIA. (ibid, p. 265) This is so understated that in reality it is false. By the time Hunt got there, the firm was essentially being run by Robert Bennett, who was a CIA agent. In fact, one can argue that Bennett ran his part of the Watergate operation from the Mullen Company. And it was a large part. Bennett for example knew the break in was going to be blown since he called off a friend of his from going in that night. After the arrests, Bennett quickly rolled up the company. He then moved the Hughes operation--Mullen's biggest client-- to LA.

Finally, Hougan adds something else that is interesting about Caddy on p. 321.

Describing him as about as conservative as they come, he then reveals the following colloquy from the investigation of the huge Korean influence scandal of the late seventies:

Sen Weicker: "Who is Douglas Caddy?"

Tong Sun Park: "Douglas Caddy was...not only my roommate, but also treasurer of the class and I beleive he was Executive Director of Young Americans for Freedom...He was someone I spent a lot of time with. So when I came to Georgetown [university], my exposure to American politics was first to the conservative movement."

I am pleased to see Jim quoting from Jim Hougan’s book, “Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA”, published in 1984. Secret Agenda and James Rosen’s book, “The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate”, published in 2008, are at the top of my list for recommended reading about that scandal.

Jim is factually incorrect in stating above that “by the time Hunt got there, the [Mullen] firm was essentially being run by Robert Bennett, who was a CIA agent.” General Foods Corp. sent me from its White Plains, N.Y. headquarters in 1969 to work for about a year out of its Washington public relations firm, the Mullen Company, until I was to open its own office for the corporation in the nation’s capital. Hunt came to work for the Mullen Company about six months after I arrived. In late 1970, Robert Mullen, who owned the firm, asked Hunt and me if we wanted to buy the firm. While we were considering the proposal, Mullen suddenly announced he was selling it to Robert Bennett. At that point in time I left General Foods and went to work as an attorney for the law firm of Gall, Lane, Powell and Kilcullen.

I did not learn definitively that the Mullen Company had been incorporated by the CIA in 1959 and was a CIA front until Senator Howard Baker released this information in his separate report as part of the final report of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1975. Up until then I had only inklings or “intimations” as I testified in July 1972 to the federal grand jury investigating Watergate. I have since concluded that General Foods not only knew of the Mullen Company’s CIA background but that this was part of that corporation’s own relationship with the CIA, all of which information was not disclosed to me when I was sent to work out of the Mullen Company in 1969.

This and more will be covered in my autobiography that I am writing at the present time under contract with TrineDay Publishers.

[Larry Hancock]

Robert, I'm sticking with my position on Howard and JFK but I won't write off Howard and Castro; I will say that the CIA was actively looking for just that sort of involvement and could not find anything (they really, rally wanted to undermine her). And Howard, as were most of the attractive women reporters of the time were constantly getting accused of that sort of thing, normally by jealous male competitors. What I would like to see is the source material on Talbot's interview with her daughter (including some details of the situation surrounding the conversation described - I have to say that circa 1963 a daughter hearing a mother having the sort of conversation quoted is pretty fascinating).

I don't consider myself naive about such things but I do consider myself pretty "critical" without primary source material. If Talbot has the interview or she will confirm it I'd just like to verify that and I have to admit that I'm not in touch with David myself. Of course he may have the same sort of problem several of us have - yes I had that when I was writing, wonder where it is now? But then he may be a lot better organized than I am. So if anybody does come up with more detail from him, please email me, it would be most appreciated.

-- Larry

So was John Kennedy having sex with ABC News reporter Lisa Howard? Let's use some "critical thinking skills" here. Probably. Based on what I know about John Kennedy and his rampant promiscuous behavior AND the fact that Lisa Howard was having an affair with Fidel Castro AND the fact that Howard was describing this affair in graphic detail to an amused JFK, I would say (conservatively) there is a 75% chance that JFK and ABC News reporter Lisa Howard had sexual relations.

Now let's reflect on what members of the CIA and JCS would have thought about JFK having an affair with a mistress of Fidel Castro; a lady who thought she was on a "peace mission" to normalize relations with Cuba. How do you think that would have gone over at Langley or in the U.S. national security establishment of 1963?

How do you think Gen. Ed Lansdale, who had an extremely frustrating time running Operation Mongoose for the Kennedys, would have reacted to learn JFK was having an affair with Castro's mistress and they were talking peace (i.e. keep Castro in power is what "peace" and "normalizing relations" would by definition entail). How about Allen Dulles or his protege James Angleton, the head of counter-intelligence?

Answer: in their minds, it would be just one more reason to murder JFK a man who was threatening their turf and Cold War policies and agenda.

So don't tell me that sex and who is having sex with who is not relevant, because in this case it might well have been extremely relevant and seen as a national security risk by the killers of JFK (in their minds).

At JFK Lancer 2010, I asked Larry Hancock, who I respect, was Lisa Howard having an affair with either JFK or Fidel Castro (I knew that I had read it somewhere.) Hancock said "no." Now that my memory is a little better here is what is in David Talbot's Brothers:

"After Howard returned to the United States, she went to the White House, where a curious Kennedy debriefed her. She shared the details of her Castro encounter with the gossip-hungry Kennedy, including the revelation that she had slept with the Cuban leader. "She talked with Jack about it," Howard's friend, the equally dishy Gore Vidal, later reported, "and mentioned that Castro hadn't taken his boots off. Jack liked details like that." In her diary, Howard wrote that Castro "made love to me efficiently."

[Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, p. 224]

"According to Howard's daughter, Fritzi Lareau - who was a teenager at the time - her motivations were largely emotional. "She fell for Castro," Lareau told me, recalling her "wild" and "iconoclastic" mother. Lareau remembered her mother bluntly asking her stepfather, film producer Walter Lowendahl, whether she should take her diaphragm to Cuba before she left on one of her frequent trips there. (Lowendahl agreed she should. According to Lareau, her stepfather was not happy with her mother's adventures, but the German immigrant suffered his wife's exploits with European equanimity.) She liked powerful men. And Fidel was very macho. And, of course, the peace mission appealed to her dramatic sensibility because it was very grand, it was on a world playing field. It was secretive and exciting."

[Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, p. 225]

[Douglas Caddy]

Opinion

J.F.K.’s Intern

By LIESL SCHILLINGER

The New York Times

Published: February 11, 2012

FRESH out of Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Conn., a well-brought-up young woman named Mimi Beardsley (now Alford) went to work, in 1962, as an intern in President Kennedy’s press office.

Thanks to Ms. Alford’s memoir — which was released last week and well publicized — everyone now knows that, on the fourth day of her internship, after a trusted aide and go-between, David Powers, plied the 19-year-old intern with daiquiris, the president gave her a private tour of the White House residence and then took her virginity on the first lady’s bed. (Mrs. Kennedy, conveniently, was away.) They embarked on an affair that lasted 18 months, until Nov. 15, 1963, when she met the president at the Carlyle in Manhattan, two months before her marriage. He gave her a gift she used to buy a tasteful gray suit from Bloomingdale’s as a wedding present. The following Friday, he was assassinated in Dallas. Ms. Alford never made her full story public until last week, when her book came out.

I could not rest until I met this woman.

My motives were twofold. The first was that I suspected that, in a parallel universe, my mother, who is Ms. Alford’s age and, like her, was the editor of her high school paper, could have been the star-struck young girl in the Pappagallo flats and madras dress who succumbed to the wiles of the handsome commander in chief. In 1960, when he came to Springfield, Ill., on his election tour, my mother sneaked into his hotel. He shook her hand and said, “Young lady, I believe I’ve seen you here in Springfield last year.” She was mesmerized. (My mother, who looked like Jackie Kennedy and who has been married to my father for 46 years, said of Ms. Alford, “I’m just mad it wasn’t me!”) The second reason: I was curious about the self-effacing woman who describes herself, as she did in her book, as a “footnote to a footnote in the story of America’s 35th president.”

Would she turn out to be enigmatic, standoffish or inscrutable, or an Audrey Hepburn who’d found her way to Breakfast at Camelot? Not at all.

Ms. Alford was friendly and poised and told me she associated the White House not with Camelot but with the sexy, deceptive dystopia of television’s “Mad Men,” in which comely young women service their married bosses, as glasses clink, ashtrays fill and everyone keeps mum about the misbehavior.

“God, I love ‘Mad Men,’ ” Ms. Alford told me. “All of it is exactly what was going on.” When she arrived at the White House as a teenager, she said, she “wanted to be Peggy” — an ambitious “Mad Men” character. But the part she ended up playing was closer the frustrated wife of the lead character, Don Draper. “I think I probably relate most to Betty Draper,” she admits.

Ms. Alford’s second husband, Dick Alford, whom she married in 2005 — two years after her identity was leaked in a biography by Robert Dallek called “An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963” — sat beside her when we spoke. Mr. Alford said he was there “for moral support” and he gazed proudly and tenderly at Ms. Alford as we discussed the exhilaration involved in being the teenage lover of the most powerful man in the world; the sadness of her first marriage, which was haunted by her secret; and the relief she found in confronting and finally exposing her past.

I felt, as I looked at this warm, earnest woman, that I had never encountered a more guileless person. And I marveled at the generational distance between the 1960s, when she came of age, and the ’90s, when her daughters (and I) did.

How had she managed to be so discreet for so long, I asked, especially when she was a young intern? “I think it was the era, the times,” she said. She said, however, that she now wishes that she had not been so closemouthed. Keeping a secret like that, she explained, “silences a piece of you inside.” For decades, she said, she felt disconnected not only from other people, but from herself. Leaning forward in her tailored dark dress and ladylike pearl earrings, Ms. Alford told me she applauded the societal changes that have given young women more sexual freedom.

In November 1963, during the weekend of Kennedy’s death, Ms. Alford was with her fiancé planning their January wedding. Overcome with grief, she confessed to him the affair she had hidden throughout their courtship. He ordered her never to speak of Kennedy again. To keep the peace, she pawned the diamond pins the dead president had given her; gave away her gray suit and ripped up the photo he had signed for her into hundreds of tiny pieces, depositing handfuls of the shreds in different corner trash cans, to disperse the evidence.

And yet, she says she does not regret the affair. What would have happened, I asked, if Kennedy had not died on that November day? Would she have continued seeing him after her marriage? His parting words before he left for Texas were that he’d call her when he got back. “Remember, Mr. President, I’m getting married,” she chided him. “I know that,” he said. “But I’ll call you anyway.”

“What if he’d rung again, and he was living in New York? I might have stayed connected. But I don’t think I would have taken up with him.”

“What I really want is the gray suit I bought with his wedding present,” she said. “I think I could have worn it today.” Then she and her husband stood to leave. They’d been up since 4:45 that morning and were exhausted by their lengthening 15 minutes of fame. All the same, Ms. Alford said, “In these last two days, I feel incredibly liberated.”

Liesl Schillinger is a journalist, literary critic and translator