Interesting account of JFK affair, Gore Vidal

[Cory Santos]

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/affair-jfk-jackie-kennedys-relationship-sister

[Michael Griffith]

11 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/affair-jfk-jackie-kennedys-relationship-sister

A brief summary would be helpful. 

It appears too obvious to deny that JFK's personal sexual morals left much to be desired. But, how does serial adultery compare with ordering innocent people murdered or with high treason or with trying to start a nuclear war for no valid reason?

[Matthew Koch]

59 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

A brief summary would be helpful. 

It appears too obvious to deny that JFK's personal sexual morals left much to be desired. But, how does serial adultery compare with ordering innocent people murdered or with high treason or with trying to start a nuclear war for no valid reason?

I gained alot of understanding on that from reading High Treason 2. JFK suffered from an adrenal disorder, to treat that disorder he was given steroids, those steroids enhanced his libido. That obviously does't excuse his behavior but there is a mitigating factor that created a greater understanding for me.  I saw you say that you read JFK Conservative, I recently read that and while I give the book overall a C, I think the author made some very interesting points about JFK having an sexual addiction and not that he was a scum bag for it. But that he was a flawed human and that that guilt is what may have brought JFK to church so much. I don't know if you have read high treason 2, I know Livingstone is unpopular with alot of people (I've only read HT1&2) but I came away from that book that JFK's doctors were mistreating JFK's Addison disease and may have been trying to kill him covertly first and that is why he may have hired Max Jacobson and when the people who were trying to do that couldn't they moved to an overt assassination. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Matthew Koch
Erased two word that were typed twice

[Joe Bauer]

JFK's father certainly set the rich man philandering example...and very probably subtly or even overtly didn't discourage his boys from doing the same.

I am certain Joseph Kennedy Sr. felt such overt extra-marital affair sexual behavior was normal, accepted and even expected for men of his highest wealth social standing.

I would think the rate of sexual philandering is much higher in the wealthiest married couple world versus the working class one.

Wealth draws women. Most often extremely attractive women who feel they may enhance their own standing by offering themselves to these super wealthy men and famous celebrities, actors, athletes as well.

When beautiful women are throwing themselves at you, even knowing you are married, the temptations are logically very strong. Many, many poorer men who have never been offered this temptation would break down and violate their oath of marriage in a minute under it's powerful drug effect.

I refuse to believe Rose Kennedy wasn't fully aware of her husband's serial philandering.

Jackie Kennedy as well. Lady Bird Johnson as well. Melania Trump as well. Was there a Mrs. Allan Dulles? 

Most women entering that highest wealth social strata via marriage know in advance that this aspect of their husband's extra-marital behavior will be a given imo.

I am sure they are taught this tradition and expect it. It's a price of entering that world of highest wealth. Either you accept it, or you are out.

It's the other abuses of morality by these high wealth and power status men that separates JFK from the likes of LBJ, Dulles, Hoover, etc.

Financial corruption, blackmail, constitutional law breaking, foreign policy abuse, even murder?

 

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[W. Niederhut]

Joe,

   Allen Dulles was quite a philanderer who didn't even try to conceal his many extra-marital affairs from his wife.  Stephen Kinzer writes about that history in considerable detail in The Brothers.

   

[James DiEugenio]

Oh please with this BS from Gore Vidal.

Vidal was so full of it on JFK it was ridiculous.

He had a falling out with the Kennedys when Bobby Kennedy saw him drunk at a gathering and he was making a pass at a fellow.  RFK had him escorted out.

From that moment, Gore used every piece of rubbish that came down the aisle-or that he could think of--including that BS about the 1960 elections from that novel Double Cross.

Lee R and JFK, I mean please.

If you read the comments, the rubbish continues.  Someone wrote that RFK had an affair with Jackie after JFK died.  Pure David Heymann BS that was exposed by, among others, Lisa Pease.

It really troubles me that some smart and interested people on this forum have a penchant for posting this garbage.  Which besides being false on its face, has nothing at all to do with the Kennedy assassination.  

Edited November 14, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Ken Davies]

Amen, Jim.

Assassinate the man, then his memory, then who cares about his death.

[John Cotter]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Oh please with this BS from Gore Vidal.

Vidal was so full of it on JFK it was ridiculous.

He had a falling out with the Kennedys when Bobby Kennedy saw him drunk at a gathering and he was making a pass at a fellow.  RFK had him escorted out.

From that moment, Gore used every piece of rubbish that came down the aisle-or that he could think of--including that BS about the 1960 elections from that novel Double Cross.

Lee R and JFK, I mean please.

If you read the comments, the rubbish continues.  Someone wrote that RFK had an affair with Jackie after JFK died.  Pure David Heymann BS that was exposed by, among others, Lisa Pease.

It really troubles me that some smart and interested people on this forum have a penchant for posting this garbage.  Which besides being false on its face, has nothing at all to do with the Kennedy assassination.  

James,

I don’t know how anyone who has read your substantial detailed article “The Posthumous Assassination of John F. Kennedy” in the book you co-edited with Lisa Pease, The Assassinations, could give any credence to the sleazy apocryphal stories about JFK’s alleged promiscuity.

As far as I’m aware, there’s no reliable evidence for those stories. What is certain is that, as explained in your article, after the 1975 Church Committee had cleared the Kennedy brothers of any part in CIA skullduggery such as the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, the so-called Eastern Establishment, which had always been hostile towards the Kennedys, wasn’t satisfied with the Kennedys being literally assassinated; it also wanted to ensure that their reputations were assassinated.

As you wrote in the article:

‘The smothering effect afterward must hold, since the assassinated leader cannot be allowed to become a martyr or legend. To use a prominent example, in 1973, right after the CIA and ITT disposed of Salvador Allende and his Chilean government, the state department announced (falsely) that the US had nothing to do with the coup. Later on, one of the CIA agents involved in that operation stated that Allende had killed himself and his mistress in the presidential palace. This was another deception. But it did subliminally equate Allende’s demise with the death of Adolf Hitler.

‘The latter tactic is quite prevalent in covert operations. The use of sex as a discrediting device is often used by the CIA and its allies. As John Newman noted in Oswald and the CIA, the Agency tried to discredit its own asset June Cobb in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. It did the same to Sylvia Duran, Cuban embassy worker in Mexico City who talked to Oswald or an impersonator in 1963. In Probe (Vol. 4 No. 4, p. 9) we have seen how journalist (and CIA applicant) Hugh Ainsworth and the New York Herald Tribune tried to smear Mark Lane with compromising photographs. If one goes to New Orleans, we will meet those who say that Jim Garrison indicted Clay Shaw because he was himself gay and jealous of Shaw's position in the homosexual underworld. And we all know how the FBI tried to drive King to suicide by blackmailing him with clandestinely made “sex tapes”.’

Hence the well-funded posthumous hatchet jobs on the Kennedys by the likes of Judith Exner, Ovid Demaris, Kitty Kelley, Liz Smith and Seymour Hersh.

Edited November 15, 2022 by John Cotter

[Guest]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

It really troubles me that some smart and interested people on this forum have a penchant for posting this garbage.  Which besides being false on its face, has nothing at all to do with the Kennedy assassination.  

Is it that those types are just here purely for what they regard as the greatest murder mystery, as opposed to wanting justice, truth, a correct record of history? 
 

So much of what we have read since the JFKA and particularly since RFK died has been by design to destroy the reputations of the Kennedy’s, to diminish their status in the public consciousness. Its been very well coordinated and effective, unfortunately. The most malcious seems to have been the Marilyn Monroe stuff. 
 

To anyone else reading; I am not denying that he had affairs or saying they are a good thing. We have to have things in context.

The same with Joe Snr. He starts being a bootlegger about 6 years after he dies. He is the guy asking FDR to offer the Jews a passage to the USA as their whole migrant quota, because he thought something very bad would transpire. But, some of his language referring to jews in the USA has been used to paint a different picture of him, language that was commonplace in that era. Irish themselves were subjected to similar language. 
 

All of it is about context. We live in a world where an organised MSM all reading from the same hym sheet can make anything a huge issue in the public minds, at the same time they can hide something huge, making it seem insignificant. 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

JFK's father certainly set the rich man philandering example...and very probably subtly or even overtly didn't discourage his boys from doing the same.

I am certain Joseph Kennedy Sr. felt such overt extra-marital affair sexual behavior was normal, accepted and even expected for men of his highest wealth social standing.

I would think the rate of sexual philandering is much higher in the wealthiest of married couple world versus the working class one.

Wealth draws women. Women who feel they may enhance their own standing by offering themselves to these super wealthy men and famous celebrities, actors ,athletes as well.

When beautiful women are throwing themselves at you, even knowing you are married, the temptations are logically very strong. Many, many poorer men who have never been offered this temptation would break down and violate their oath of marriage in a minute under it's powerful drug effect.

I refuse to believe Rose Kennedy wasn't fully aware of her husband's serial philandering.

Jackie Kennedy as well. Lady Bird Johnson as well. Melania Trump as well. Was there a Mrs. Allan Dulles? 

Most women entering that highest wealth social strata via marriage know in advance that this aspect of their husband's extra-marital behavior will be a given imo.

I am sure they are taught this tradition and expect it. It's a price of entering that world of highest wealth. Either you accept it, or you are out.

It's the other abuses of morality by these high wealth and power status men that separates JFK from the likes of LBJ, Dulles, Hoover, etc.

Financial corruption, blackmail, constitutional law breaking, foreign policy abuse, even murder?

 

 

Yes, Joe. People who have never had much opportunity have no real comprehension of just how it feels to have so much opportunity. Many criticise actors, rock stars, professional athletes for their promiscuity. They have no Idea what its like to be offered it all day every day. Our history is these common ancestors, who sired many many children, because they were very desirable in terms if status. 
 

Biology plays a part too. Men are designed to give their seeds, we could have thousands of children. Women have the job of choosing whose genes survive, they have to be very selective with their fertile eggs. That’s not be excusing infidelity or condoning it. On balance, its only a short period of our evolution where we are learning to fight instincts and behave in a more civilised way. 
 

Regarding Rose, she may have, she may not. She may not have cared as long as she wasn’t confronted with it, or humiliated. Was John Fitzgerald promiscuous? She may have been conditioned by seeing her mother and fathers relationship. 
 

I think in wealthy circles its still common, but, a divorce or separation isn’t so ruinous for them, as it is in middle class or poor communities. They seem to handle it all with a view on preserving wealth. 

[Douglas Caddy]

Last week, on November 10, I attended a presentation by Professor Douglas Brinkley at the Progressive Forum held at the Congregation Emanu El in Houston. He talked about his new book that will be released this week, Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the great environmental movement. Brinkley is the Chair of Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University. He is CNN's presidential historian and contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine and is a member of the James Madison Council at the Library of congress.

Brinkley talked extemporaneously for about an hour and a half that left the audience spellbound. He covered this history of the environmental movement starting with President Teddy Roosevelt up to the present. He said that while JFK was a "playboy president", some major advances were made by him in protecting the environment. This was done because of Rose Kennedy's abiding interest in the matter that influenced and guided JFK.

Historians may have a different take on JFK than some members of the forum.

 

[Joe Bauer]

To those who plant these stories about JFK, RFK, MLK regards their extra-marital affairs, especially those with access to the major media to get them national exposure and coverage I say ... bring em on! 

Bring even more!

Why?

Because I think they are totally ineffective in seriously hurting the images of these three great Americans in our collective societal mindset including and especially with all the younger generations since 1970's.

IMO Americans born after 1970 have successively cared less and less about the assassinations and even less about the personal consensual sex lives of the three iconic leaders of that era.

JFK is and always will be known much more for his image as a vigorous, intelligent, courageous, ambitious, inspiring, WW II veteran, and youngest age and most handsome president ever. A man married to the most glamorous first lady ever and with two beautiful young children. And yes, tragically taken out.

Same with MLK and RFK. Their more heroic images are etched in official textbook stone.

Who cares if these great Americans did or did not sleep with most of the women listed in these trash pieces!  They are no more effecting or taken seriously than National Enquirer tabloid newspapers with laughably exaggerated front page headlines and silly photos on supermarket check out line stands.

I play with these postings.

Even if JFK's babe hopping is half true ... it is nothing to me versus the much more criminally corrupted and even murderous dark doings of JFK's adversaries and haters.

JFK DID date many, many women in his long 36 years of wealthy bachelorhood time.

He loved attractive women. He was very physically amorous. If he didn't become totally faithful opposite after marrying Jackie...who cares!

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

53 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

Biology plays a part too. Men are designed to give their seeds, we could have thousands of children. Women have the job of choosing whose genes survive, they have to be very selective with their fertile eggs. 

It really is a natural genetically imbedded and driven thing.

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

It really is a natural genetically imbedded and driven thing.

 

It’s all very instinctive, a throwback to the animal In us all and our evolution. 
 

Another interesting point; Bertrand Russell once said that if you socialise children to the idea of multiple partners before puberty, it makes it highly unlikely that as adults they’ll stay with one partner. ie if the parental example is polygamy, or promiscuity, the offspring will adopt that. If JPK did it, and sons were aware, its likely they would condone it. 

[Joe Bauer]

2 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

It’s all very instinctive, a throwback to the animal In us all and our evolution. 
 

Another interesting point; Bertrand Russell once said that if you socialise children to the idea of multiple partners before puberty, it makes it highly unlikely that as adults they’ll stay with one partner. ie if the parental example is polygamy, or promiscuity, the offspring will adopt that. If JPK did it, and sons were aware, its likely they would condone it. 

I agree.