JFK notes reveal blonde obsession
John F Kennedy had such a voracious sexual appetite that he would sleep with up to three different women a night and told Harold Macmillan that if he did not ‘‘have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches’’.
His extra-marital pursuits included interns, secretaries, actresses and call girls, with little compunction shown for his wife or about being uncovered by the media.
However, notes written by Kennedy on the 1960 election campaign trail show he was concerned that victory might mean an end to his philandering.
The candid notes, which are expected to fetch US$20,000 (NZ$32,000) at auction, were made throughout 1960 after Kennedy was struck down by laryngitis and instructed by his doctor and speech coach not to talk while travelling. In a message thought to date from October 1960, when asked about post-election holiday plans, he wrote: ‘‘If I win maybe Florida or Puerto Rico. If I lose around the world in 180 days. I
‘‘If I win maybe Florida or Puerto Rico. If I lose around the world in 180 days. I suppose that if I win my poon days are over.’’
John F Kennedy
suppose that if I win my poon days are over.’’
He then expresses his fear about his affairs becoming public, writing: ‘‘I suppose they are going to hit me with something before we are finished.’’ On the reverse side, Kennedy, who married Jackie, a brunette, in 1953, scribbled: ‘‘I got into the blondes.’’
His fear of being asked difficult questions by the press proved unfounded as he continued to carry on an extraordinary number of affairs with reckless abandon after entering the Oval Office.
His lovers included Pamela Turnure, his wife’s press secretary; Judith Campbell Exner, the mistress of the mob boss Sam Giancana; Ellen Rometsch, who had been a member of Communist Party organisations in East Germany; Mimi Beardsley, a 19-year-old White House intern; Mary Meyer, the sister-in-law of Ben Bradlee, who was Washington bureau chief of Newsweek; Priscilla Ware and Jill Cowen, two West Wing secretaries known as Fiddle and Faddle, who had no typing or filing skills, and allegedly the actress Marilyn Monroe. Madame Claude, a French brothel-keeper in the 1960s, claimed that Kennedy was among her high-profile clients. Sally Bedell Smith, author of Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House, said she was surprised by Kennedy’s apparent concern about being questioned and the potential end to his behaviour.
‘‘The press was notable for looking the other way,’’ she said. ‘‘One of the reasons why Jack was such a flagrant philanderer was because he was quite confident that the press wouldn’t call him out. It was just part of the code of silence at the time.’’
She said the anxiety in the messages may have been ‘‘a little pang of guilt or maybe good intentions which were quickly lost’’. The 98 pages of notes are being sold by Heritage Auctions in Dallas on April 23.