BY TERI GATTO
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
“It was exciting. It was glamorous. It was fun.” That is how Mimi Beardsley Fahenstock Alford described her relationship with President John F. Kennedy on the NBC news show Rock Central with Brian Williams.
NBC devoted the entire program to Meredith Vieira’s interview with the former Rumson, New Jersey debutant who claims to have had a 18-month long liaison with Kennedy while she was an intern at the White House. The airing of the show coincided with the release of Alford’s book, “Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath.”
The affair first came to light in a 2003 biography of JFK, but author Robert Dallek did not identify Alford by name. However, the Daily News found Alford that same year but at that time she denied that the affair took place.
Now, the sometime tearied-eyed Alford, shared intimate details of her time with 45-year old president, including taking baths together while playing with rubber ducks, spending nights at the White House while Mrs. Kennedy was away, and being by his side during the Cuban missile crisis.
According to Alford, on her fourth day as an intern, Kennedy confidant and aide Dave Powers invited her for a lunch-time swim in the White House’s heated, indoor pool. There she found two other young, female White House staffers and soon after, Kennedy arrived.
“It all seem very natural,” said Alford. “Everyone was very friendly, then we all dried off and went back to work.”
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That same day she received another call from Powers, this time inviting her to a gathering in the White House residence for a welcome for new staff. At that time, Kennedy approached Alford.
“The President came over to me and asked me if I wanted to take a tour of the second floor of the White House,” she recalled.
Kennedy escorted the 19-year old through the rooms that Jacqueline Kennedy had recently redecorated and were featured in a televised tour of the White House.
“The last room we went into was a bedroom,” said Alford. “I learned later that it was Mrs. Kennedy’s bedroom.”
It was at that time that Alford and the President first became intimate.
“He put his hands on my shoulders and sort of guided me to the edge of the bed,” she told Vieira. “ I think he said, ‘Is this alright?’ I really did not know what was about to happen…what did happen is that I lost my virginity right there.”
Alford recalled Kennedy as a fun-loving person who enjoyed being silly.
“The President was very boyish and playful with me,” she said. “He had a collection of little rubber ducks, and we had races with the ducks in the bathtub… he was not being president when he was with me.”
Alford also remembered that Kennedy taught her to cook eggs and give him special hair massages.
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President Kennedy. Yes, there were "behavior" issues that were a part
of the presidents persona, but it is very easy fifty years later to "claim" the sorts of "conduct" that Ms. Alford is claiming. We must remember the social moral "code" of that era. Women who performed various levels of sexual activity were placed into categories depending on the
type of act they were willing to perform. A woman in 1962 who was willing to perform oral sex was of the lowest ranking, I believe now we
would call her a "Tramp" or worse... ( I am being kind). Another wonder
of mine is that Ms. Alford is assuming that due to the vast amount of
time that has passed, that "everyone who knew the facts is dead".
Really, when one thinks about it, after any lengthy passage of time
a great deal is forgotten and anyone can claim to have done "anything".
I am inclined to believe this is the fantasy of a neurotic woman wanting
her "fifteen minutes of fame" and a tidy amount of money from writing
a book. We, as a society need to stop being intrigued with the sorted
sexual behaviors, that may or may not have occurred and focus on
a positive and wonderful world we can create for the "here and now".
As the same papist Fifth Column recently committed 9/11, curiously and satanically abetted by a fully emerged "goy hating" Jewish Fifth Column wishing to turn us into their "golem" to kill and die shedding the blood of innocent Iranians, should knowing George W. Bush's wife might not have been concerned about the homosexual prostitute he "entertained" hundreds of times in the White House, James Guckert/"Jeff Gannon," make any difference as to his treason?
Who is worthy of the name "American?" Slaves certainly are not.
Death for Treason
I have read many comments such as Greg Parker's. When it comes to the memory of President Kennedy, there seems to be a fanatical attempt by many to protect the fantasy of who this man was and the era in which he was president. Any attempt at straying away from the accepted script is met with the most enthusiastic public defense, often descrediting the messengers as "crackpots" or "money grabbers". Yet, the passage of time itself sometimes is the great equilizer of misdeeds. President Kennedy may have had hints of greatness at times, but in the end, he too was a mere mortal with many flaws and addictions. To try and whitewash the truth may work in the short term, but in the long term, is bound to fail. As the saying goes, "The truth will set you free" as it apparently has Mimi Beardsley Alford after 50 years. I think it was long overdue.
Jackie was living in Virginia during the week on an estate where her horses were kept. She stayed away so JFK could play.
Mimi Alford and Random House have pulled off the formula to perfection. I mean, they could not have spread the affliction quicker if it had been a rogue escaped virus from a CIA lab.
Barbara Gamarekian started it all by mentioning Mimi during her oral history interview.
BUT - BUT -
1. BG never referred to her as an intern.
2. BJ never claimed any personal knowledge of the kind of relationship that existed between JFK and Mimi. She explicitly states in fact that, "I don't know what the relationship was... most of these stories were told to me all second hand...
Yet here is how Robert Dallek wrote it up after obtaining permission from Gamarekian to access those parts of her interview dealing with Mimi:
Kennedy's womanizing had, of course, always been a form of amusement, but it also now gave him a release from unprecedented daily tensions. Kennedy had affairs with several women including Pamela Turnure, Jackie's press secretary; Mary Pinchot Meyer, Ben Bradlee's sister-in-law; two White House secretaries playfully dubbed Fiddle and Faddle; Judith Campbell Exner, whose connections to mob figures like Sam Giancana made her the object of FBI scrutiny; and a "tall, slender, beautiful" college sophomore and White House Intern, who worked in the press office during two summers (she "had no skills" a member of the press staff recalled. "She couldn't type.")
How many errors of fact can one historian make in one paragraph?
In order...
Exner's story has been discredited.
The "two White House secretaries" were NOT playfully dubbed Fiddle and Faddle by Kennedy as Dallek seems to imply. They too, gave an interview for the Kennedy library (on March 16, 1965). Priscilla Wear had the nickname "Fiddle" prior to starting at the White House. Jill Cowan was given the knick name "Faddle" by other staff due to her closeness to "Fiddle".
Nowhere does BG describe Mimi as "tall, slender, beautiful" in fact, at one point, she refers to her as "the little girl who had been left back in the United States"... when all those non-attractive, non-victims of Kennedy went to Ireland with him.
Nowhere does BG describe Mimi as an "intern" and as I discuss in my blog, BG was so upset by this error, she wrote to the New York Times to complain because she felt Dallek was drawing on the publicity surrounding Monica Lewinski.
"She had no skills. She couldn't type" is indeed a direct quote from the Oral History. But it's taken out of context. She was the editor of her school paper - so she had some background for work in a press office. And it did not matter if she couldn't type. There was nothing to type on. BG, does go on to say that she was a bright girl who could answer phones and messages and later suggests that was what was needed because the phones "were insane".
Clearly Dallek has gone beyond his evidence in claiming it as fact that Mimi had an affair with JFK. It was all based on his reading between the lines of someone hinting at what she had heard by way of rumor. And when Mimi was tracked down, she went along with it - she says now because they had found out her secret.
But of course, they hadn't. They were chasing rumors and speculation.
The only evidence is Mimi's own word.