Excellent review of Mimi Alford's book-best to date

A HERO BUT NOT A SAINT, April 14, 2012 By Steven G. JonesThis review is from: Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath (Hardcover) Mimi Alford's story is very believable and the book is well written. It is obvious that sharing her long held secret was necessary for her emotional healing and no one has a right to criticize her for telling her story. And her story is important for historians to get a better understanding of one aspect of Kennedy's character. Psychologists today would say that Kennedy had a compulsive sexual addiction. He used his power, money and good looks to seduce women as a way of escaping stress and distracting him from the almost constant physical pain that he suffered from. Also the steroids he took for his Addison's Disease most likely increased his sex drive. However, if we think more deeply this book can help teach us an important lesson. Unless a politician forcibly rapes someone or sexually molests a child or adolescent it is best that, while they are living, their sex lives be kept private just like everyone else's. If the public had known about Kennedy's sex life in 1960 he never would have been elected. Richard Nixon, who was closely aligned with the right-wing hawks in the Pentagon and CIA( as Vice President Nixon helped plan the Bay of Pigs invasion) would have given us a war with Cuba in 1961; a much earlier escalation of the conflict in Vietnam; and a showdown with the Soviets over Berlin very possibly resulting in a nuclear confrontation. Not to mention what would have happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The media that covered Washington in the days of FDR, Eisenhower and Kennedy were wiser than their current brethren. They had the common sense to realize that human sexuality is deeply personal and very complex and has little, or nothing, to do with the way a leader conducts himself in office. That is why despite the public knowledge of Kennedy's numerous sexual affairs he was still ranked as our sixth greatest president in the most recent American Historical Association poll of professional historians The saddest thing about this book is not how it tarnishes the image of JFK, but that it might distract us from the much more important( for us as citizens) task of understanding the significance of Kennedy's presidency and why he was murdered by the CIA. For that I direct readers to " JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters" by James Douglass. Sure we would all prefer a president who conducted himself morally in both private and public matters. but if given a choice between someone such as Kennedy who showed enormous courage and restraint in his efforts to keep us out of war; or someone like George W. Bush who, though faithful to his wife, lied and manipulated us into an unnecessary war, I would gladly take the former. We certainly know by now that John F. Kennedy was not a saint. But he most certainly was a hero.

Fact-Checking Mimi Alford

In Mimi Alford's 2012 book "Once Upon A Secret", the inside flap jacket, as well as pages 3-5, not to mention press interviews she has given, gives the distinct and quite erroneous impression that Mimi's original last name---Beardsley--- was heretofore unknown, although acknowledging that she was mentioned in Robert Dallek's 2003 masterpiece "JFK: An Unfinished Life", wherein historian Dallek quotes from Barbara Gamarekian's 1964 JFK Library oral history, then recently released. Gamarekian was the one who claimed not to remember Mimi's last name at that time, not Dallek. For her part, Alford states on page 5 of her book: "Dallek's mention of an UNNAMED "White House intern" lit a fire at the New York Daily News (emphasis added)."

However, Dallek's book, a #1 national best seller, not only DOES indeed note Mimi's then-last name of Beardsley, on page 476 and the index on page 813, but she is PICTURED in Dallek's book with a caption "Mimi Beardsley, intern in the White House", in the second set of unpaginated photographs between pages 502 and 503 (with the photo acknowledgement going to CNN) [all references are to the 2004 Trade Paperback edition-YOU WOULD THINK SOMEONE AT RANDOM HOUSE WOULD HAVE NOTED THE MASS PAPERBACK/KINDLE/ONLINE UPDATE]! In fact, Alford's book purposely OMITS the relevant Dallek passage (s) in question: on page 4 of her own book (quoting word for word from pages 475-476 of Dallek's work), she quotes a verbatim passage from the historian's seminal work that began on page 475 with "Kennedy's womanizing" and ended on page 476 with "she couldn't type." Alford's use of Dallek's quote intentionally omits her name! For his part, Dallek wrote: "...and MIMI BEARDSLEY, a "tall, slender, beautiful: nineteen-year-old college sophomore and White House intern... (emphasis added). Again, not only does Alford intentionally omit this specific identification of her, which could not have been an accident, she says Dallek referred to her as an "unnamed" White House intern (page 5 of her book) and makes great play of the fact that Gamarekian, as previously mentioned, could not remember her last name back in 1964...but she could and did later on, as Dallek interviewed Gamarekian on 4/19/2001 (see page 779 of Dallek's book, Notes section)!
But the point is: Dallek DID mention her last name---on three different pages, including a captioned photograph. Remember, it is Alford who purposely omits the mention of her name "Mimi Beardsley" from an otherwise word-for-word verbatim quote from Dallek---what was the motive for that omission? Yes, we know she became Mimi Fahnestock (page 6) and, later, Mimi Alford (page 9), but she was "found out" as Mimi Beardsley eleven years before publication of her own book (2001 Gamarekian interview with Dallek; 9 full years before via Dallek's published book). In addition, any good investigative reporter worth his or her own salt could find out a woman's current last name with the starting point of having the woman's maiden name. Nevertheless, Dallek HAD that information, publicized it, and Alford makes great stock out of the erroneous "fact" that her then-last name was not known when Dallek's huge best seller came out.

And, if that wasn't enough, Alford mentions being contacted by and politely turning down the author Sally Bedell Smith (page 6): "She honored my request. My secret was safe." However, like Dallek, Smith ALSO mentioned her in her own massive New York Times best-selling book from 2004 entitled "Grace & Power: The Private World Of The Kennedy White House", with as yet ANOTHER captioned photo, as well (photo: unpaginated first photo between pages 290 and 291), as well as with credit on NINE formal pages (287, 330, 334-335, 382-383, 385, 416, and the index on page 584), not to mention sourcing a MARION BEARDSLEY FAHNESTOCK interview on the following "Source Notes" pages: 537 and 561!

What does that say about one's credibility? You decide. Those are the facts. Depending on your love or hate for the book, spin them any way you want.

Yes, I have actually read the entire book now; every word. Verdict: it is good if you like this type of sordid tale; well written, as well. Again, my misgivings go to the credibility factor as outlined above.

11 Responses to FACT-CHECKING MIMI ALFORD
Greg Parker says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:02 pm (Edit)
Vince, you say “any good investigative reporter worth his or her own salt could find out a woman’s current last name with the starting point of having the woman’s maiden name. Nevertheless, Dallek HAD that information, publicized it”. Given that Dallek could have easily tracked her down to request an interview, I can’t fathom your decision to laud him and his book.

It is what a good historian should have done.

Instead, his decision to publish as fact, that which Barbara Gamarekian clearly only delineated as second or third hand gossip, is all the more unconscionable.

Reply
Kirk Stricker says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:26 pm (Edit)
Hello Vince, I love your work and support you enthusiastically. I’ve not read Ms. Alford’s book and have no interest in nor intention of reading it. I think her motives and veracity ought to come under close scrutiny. However, I have a 2003 edition of Robt. Dallek’s book, “An Unfinished Life”, and in my edition the photo you mentioned is not present, the quote you cited beginning on pg. 475 and continuing to 476 mentions a “tall, slender, beautiful, etc.” but does not mention her by name, and the index on pg. 813 goes from an entry for “Bay of Pigs” to “Beck,Dave” and has no citation for “Beardsley” of any kind. I’m confused. Help. Thank you.

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vincepalamara says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:30 pm (Edit)
oh! ok: I have the 2004 Trade Paperback edition. Still predates Alford by many a year. Thanks for that clarification!

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vincepalamara says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:51 pm (Edit)
also: if you go to the Amazon site, pull up Dallek’s book, then search “Look Inside”, you will see the Beardsley references. To put it another way: if we can somehow let Alford off the hook for her ignorance regarding the changes from the hardcover to the trade paperback (and, now, kindle) made the next year, as well as even the 2004 Smith book, it is VERY hard to give a huge publishing company like Random House the benefit of the doubt. Fact checking is crucial, especially with such a controversial subject sure to be (as it is) a massive best-seller reaching the public and influencing people

vincepalamara says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:57 pm (Edit)
(and Sally Bedell Smith’s book is ALSO a Random House venture!)

vincepalamara says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:27 pm (Edit)
VMP [from our Facebook posts/ comments/ replies]-Fair enough; I respect your opinion/ perspective. That said, I am amazed that Alford would pull such a stunt and that no one discovered the ruse until now (my blog). Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised LOL
Greg- “Any thoughts on why she did it?”
VMP- Yes: to make her story more of an “exclusive” and worth publishing.The fact that Gamarekian’s oral history, dated 1964, was sealed until 2003 adds to her credibility. Coupled with the “Fiddle” and “Faddle” ‘affairs’, it seems that there is merit to Alford’s story, albeit NOT the gorey details; they remain and always will be unconfirmed.
Greg- “Exactly”
VMP-(this is all separate from the MERITS of having actually written a book in the first place). JFK had affairs; big deal. Old news. Real or imagined, he allegedly had affairs with Exner(?), Monroe (?), Fiddle, Faddle, etc. Presidents Harding, FDR, Ike, and Clinton also had affairs. I think JFK getting his head blown off “squares his …account”, so to speak. Why the need to further sully his memory is the real question—perhaps to vanquish the enthusiasm for the upcoming 50th anniversary a la Posner, Bugliosi, and Thomas (not-to-be-confused-with-Richard) Reeves before her?
Greg-”Gamarekian’s oral history – as I understand it – was not sealed in entirety – only that part dealing with Mimi – and then only at Gamarekian’s own request. If I have that right, I assume she made that request due to having misgivings about passing on unsubstantiated gossip.”

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Dan Armstrong says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:31 pm (Edit)
Great post, Vince! Also, the 5/13/2003 website The Smoking Guns “smoked” her out years before her book: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/jfk-had-intern-too

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vincepalamara says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:41 pm (Edit)
Thanks! While we can “forgive” Alford somewhat for not knowing about the trade paperback update with Dallek, this 2003 website has been there for almost 9 years and, most damning of all, on the very same publishing house as her book, Sally Bedell Smith, the author she claims she did not cooperate with, sources an interview withAlford (Beardsley-Fahnestock), has a captioned photo of her, and devotes quite a few pages to her. Like Dallek’s book, Smith’s 2004 work was a major best-seller. Random House needed to perform better fact-checking

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Tracie Donato says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:52 pm (Edit)
Excellnt information! You are on more solid ground with the Bedell Smith book than Dallek’s, although someone should have informed Mimi that Dallek’s book mentioned her in the paperback edition-it’s on my kindle and, as you said, on the Amazon website. Random House seems guilty of trying to make her book more of an exclusive than it really is.

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Kirk Stricker says:
February 15, 2012 at 12:00 am (Edit)
Excellent work, as usual, Vince. Thank you for the swift clarification and update. While still reeling a bit from this most recent chapter in the ongoing second assassination of JFK (this time his memory and image), I am grateful that the work you’ve done to expose Mimi Alford’s distortion of facts now stands on solid ground. Thanks again.

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vincepalamara says:
February 15, 2012 at 12:47 pm (Edit)
Thanks! And another thing: Mimi Alford notes on page 4 that she refused to buy any JFK books, merely being satisifed to read snippets of books at bookstores to see if they talked about her, yet she twice quotes, verbatim, from Ted Sorenson’s 2009 book “Counselor”, as well as a Washingtonian magazine article about Pierre Salinger, not to mention other bits and bobs from other Kennedy-worthy items, betraying a knowledge of details she shouldn’t, especially if she really sought to, by and large, avoid Kennedy books as she stated (and that, of course, doesn’t include Dallek’s updated paperback or Smith’s 2004 work that quotes FROM AN INTERVIEW she gave!)

JFK mistress gets no love from her tale

JFK mistress gets no love from her tale
By Margery Eagan
Sunday, February 12, 2012 -
Boston Herald Columnist

Maybe America has lived through so many political sex scandals, one more fails to grab us. Mimi Alford, the latest JFK mistress to tell all, drew only 5 million viewers to her debut interview Wednesday with NBC’s Meredith Vieira. Meanwhile, 19 million tuned into “American Idol” that night and 70 million watched Barbara Walters depose Monica Lewinsky in 1999.

Or maybe we’re not as titillated by a grandmother’s confession, no matter how gorgeous Mimi Alford remains at 69.

But clearly the double standard remains. There’s one for the powerful, one for the powerless; one for the middle-aged politician, another for the teenage intern or, in Lewinsky’s case, the 22-year-old. No new revelation about the sordid womanizing of both Clinton and Kennedy seems to hurt these men’s legacies. Clinton is the most popular Democrat alive today. Lewinsky, 38, lives with struggle and ridicule. NBC on Wednesday brought out historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to assure viewers that Alford’s “Once Upon A Secret” has not sullied Camelot, though she is even more sympathetic than Lewinsky.

Alford arrived at the White House a 19-year-old virgin kissed just once — in eighth grade. In pictures taken then, she looks like a baby-faced middle-schooler in modest cardigan sweaters and pearls. She writes that JFK got her tipsy, escorted her into a White House bedroom and quickly had sex with her. Worse, he allegedly later asked her to perform sex acts on his aide Dave Powers and his brother Ted. This is uncorroborated, but Vieira, a veteran journalist, described Alford as “credible” and her name has been known by Kennedy biographers, none of whom she talked to.

Still, the trashing of Alford is well under way. It was so uncomfortable watching Barbara Walters go after her on “The View,” particularly since Walters has written an autobiography revealing her affair with a married U.S. senator of Massachusetts, Ed Brooke. And Walters was no teenager at the time but the co-host of “Today” and well into her 30s.

All but pummeled by Walters, Alford said she wrote her story now both because she did not want some other biographer to tell it for her, perhaps erroneously; and because her secret had haunted her, taking a terrible toll on her marriage, which failed, and her psyche.

Alford, while not blaming Kennedy, tries to explain how easily she fell for the most powerful man on earth. She tells of limousines fetching her at Wheaton College, of parties at Bing Crosby’s, of the thrill of being allowed so close to this glamorous world. “Being part of it — that was huge, for me,” she said. “I was special; I was taken in. When I think about it, I go back to feeling sort of — chosen ...” Then, “I’m in the bedroom, he’s so handsome, I’m 19, and I’ve had two daiquiris. ... Do I know one person who would have done differently?”

My bet: Many would do just what she did, then pay an awful price. But Clinton and Kennedy did not, and won’t, pay a price anywhere near so dear for their many, many, many transgressions
--
Posted at 12:14 PM ET, 02/09/2012
JFK Mistress Mimi Alford: Do you care?
By Michael Katz

(Mimi Alford in January 1963 (Courtesy of Mimi Alford)) The details of Mimi Alford’s affair with President John F. Kennedy continue to trickle out from her new book and into the news cycle.

The latest salacious tidbit from the former White House intern’s memoir is that JFK once asked her to “take care of my baby brother” Ted.

There was also the revelation that she was with the president on the final night of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

With more sordid tales sure to come, how interested are you in this story?


[More: Why it’s relevant | Why she did it | Affairs still political killer?]

Vote in our reader poll after the jump and explain yourself in the comments.

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Washington Post

Reader's scathing comments about Alford

Why now? Good grief; leave him to RIP. It's been nearly 49 years since JFK's death, but ne'er-do-well folks, such as this aide, refuse to let him lie in peace, or offer his remaining family any shred of dignity.

Money, the root of all evil, runs rampant once again! I, for one, will not buy her book, and refuse to allow this 'dead-in-the-water' story, cloud my mind. Our beloved Mr. Kennedy was human, and he suffered the same frailties as any person throughout history. While I don't condone extramarital affairs, this appears to have been a mutual consent tryst, so, to me, becomes a non-issue. It's also a non-story, and this senior citizen is merely trying to capture her youth. She's pathetic and a sore loser.
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Well it`s one thing to have an affair - alot of people do that..... It`s quite another thing to be asked to blow his buddy while he watches and than asked again to do his brother....

She might have been 19 but she was a doing the w hore thing .....

So getting it off her chest now --- just makes them both look bad....

JFK intern recounts long-ago affair in new book

JFK intern recounts long-ago affair in new book
By KAREN MATTHEWS | Associated Press 2/13/12

NEW YORK (AP) — Mimi Alford was terrified in 1998 when the Monica Lewinsky scandal turned the word "intern" into a dirty joke, exposing an affair with a president. Her decades-old secret about her trysts with John F. Kennedy was still safe then.

Outed in a 2003 biography and a New York newspaper account, Alford has learned to tell her story and not be ashamed of it — from the moment she said Kennedy seduced her on her fourth day working at the White House until the affair ended shortly before his death.

In "Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and its Aftermath," published last week by Random House, she writes of her first encounter as a naïve teenager, her "varied and fun" sex life with Kennedy, whom she always called Mr. President.

The Rumson, N.J., native was 19 and had no sexual experience when she first went to bed with Kennedy in his wife, Jacqueline's, bedroom. It was June 1962.

"Short of screaming," she writes, "I doubt I could have done anything to thwart his intentions."

Nor did she want to thwart his intentions.

"I wouldn't describe what happened that night as making love," she writes. "But I wouldn't call it nonconsensual, either." Addressing people who have questioned the encounter, she said: "I don't consider it was rape. I have never considered it rape because I was willing."

The relationship continued, even after Alford had become engaged while attending college in suburban Boston, until Kennedy's 1963 assassination, she wrote.

The two raced rubber ducks in the bathtub; they had multiple sexual encounters, though he never kissed her; when he called her at her college dorm, he would use the code name Michael Carter, she wrote.

Her account seems "quite credible," said Robert Dallek, whose Kennedy biography made a passing reference to a college sophomore who was a favorite of the president's.

"This is how he operated," Dallek said. "He was a compulsive womanizer."

A lawyer for the Kennedy family did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend.

Writing the book was liberating, Alford said in an interview last week in her publisher's midtown Manhattan offices. Now 68, Alford was slim and elegant in a gray knit dress, gray pageboy hairstyle and pearl earrings.

She was Marion "Mimi" Beardsley when she arrived at the White House press office the summer after her freshman year at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, then an all-girls school.

The affair began during her summer internship and continued when she returned to Wheaton in the fall, she wrote. It continued while she dated and until a few months after her engagement to Tony Fahnestock, a senior at Williams. She was deep into wedding preparations when Kennedy was shot.

Overcome with grief, she confessed the affair to her fiancé. He told her never to breathe a word of it. She promised, fearful that the only alternative was to break off the engagement, and she largely kept the promise, telling only a trusted few. It took years for her to see the connection between her silence about the relationship and "the emotional shutting down" that had blighted much of her life.

"I needed to look at the secret and then look at the impact of having kept the secret for so long," she said.

Mimi and Tony Fahnestock divorced in 1991 and he died in 1993. Alford married again in 2005, to Dick Alford. Her two daughters from her marriage to Fahnestock are in their 40s, are mothers themselves and have supported her decision to write of her experience, she said.

The book took several years and multiple drafts. Alford supplemented her memory with research at the Kennedy Library, where she found her name on passenger logs from plane trips with Kennedy's entourage.

The story she tells is not always flattering to Kennedy or to Alford herself.

She felt no guilt, she wrote, with regard to the first lady, whom she never met.

"I do now," she said.

But at the time, "it wasn't as if I was trying to replace her or that the president was trying to replace her. I think I just went along. And so I didn't feel guilty. It's kind of embarrassing to say that."

Alford knows that readers may judge her harshly; "it doesn't frighten me," she said.

She describes Kennedy as "a kind and thoughtful man." And then, she tells stories of what she calls his darker side.

She says Kennedy once asked her to "take care of" his aide Dave Powers, who had served as the go-between facilitating the affair; she performed oral sex on Powers while Kennedy watched. The president later apologized to both of them.

On another occasion, she wrote, he asked her to do the same for his brother Teddy. She refused.

Then there was a party with a "fast Hollywood crowd" at Bing Crosby's house in Palm Springs, Calif., that she attended with the president. A guest offered yellow pills that she believed were poppers, or amyl nitrate, a drug often used to enhance sexual pleasure.

Kennedy asked her if she wanted to try one and she said no, but she said he popped the capsule and held it under her nose anyway.

"Within minutes of inhaling the powder, my heart started racing and my hands began to tremble," she writes. "This was a new sensation, and it frightened me. I panicked and ran crying from the room, praying that it would end soon."

Alford debated whether to share episodes like this, taking them out of the book and putting them back in. If she had excluded them, she said, "it would have felt like I was not telling the whole story."

When the affair with Kennedy was revealed in 2003 — the Daily News of New York published her name — Alford spent a few days holed up in her apartment with the media camped outside. Then they left and she started going to work and going grocery shopping again.

After interviews to promote "Once Upon a Secret," she expects to return to her quiet life once more.

"It's sort of like closing a chapter on that 18 months," she said, "and closing a chapter on keeping secrets."

..

This comment from a reader sums up Mimi Alford's book well

This comment from a reader sums up Mimi Alford's book well

"It really won't shock many readers coming at this late date when JFK's sexual adventures are well known. And it includes a lot of great stuff about the hidden, secret personality of JFK. This is one of the best reads to be published so far this year. And it won't cause JFK's fans to lose their respect for President Kennedy."

Blaine's book proven a lie AGAIN: Secret Service aware of JFK affairs!

MIMI ALFORD: "TODAY" transcript 2/9/12

Woman reveals ‘dark side’ of JFK affair Advertise | AdChoices>>> back now at 8:09 with the woman who claims she had an affair with president john f. kennedy during her time as a white house intern. we'll talk to mimi alford exclusively in just a moment. but first, her story. for mimi alford , then mimi beardsley, it was a secret that started in the summer of 1962 rks when the 19-year-old debutante from a prominent new jersey family began what she says was an 18-month affair with president john f. kennedy . her secret was first revealed in 2003 , when historian, robert dallek wrote in his biography of jfk ha a tall, slender, beautiful white house intern was rumored to be among the president's many paramours. at the time, mimi wasn't offering details. she released a short statement confirming the affair, and then disappeared. now in a tell-all book, "once upon a secret," she reveals explicit details about her alleged affair with jfk, which include close encounters in this white house swimming pool , losing her virginity to the president in jackie kennedy 's bedroom. sleep-overs at the white house and trips with the 35th president. mimi alford , good morning to you. and welcome. thanks for being here.

>> thanks for having me.

>> watching the interviews that meredith vieira did with you last night. you watched it as well --

>> i did.

>> i was struck by how you are still sad after 50 years. by all that's happened. what makes you most sad?

>> what really makes me most sad is not having been able to talk. not having been able to talk about what i was part of, what had happened to me. and that's what makes me the saddest.

>> you write --

>> and also that you know, going back and from hindsight, looking back as that relationship i had with president kennedy was, was so imbalanced. though there were lots of positive things about it for me. it was also imbalanced. so it wasn't, it didn't help me learn how to have a real relationship with a man.

>> so you're sad in part for that 19-year-old, happy, joyful, fun-to-be around girl, who suddenly lost her innocence?

>> yes. but she also had fun. i also had fun. so i'm sad for that, that she -- but i had a good time. i was there.

>> you write that for years afterwards, you were quote emotionally crippled. and you were struggling to overcome the consequences of that relationship. do you think we would ever be sitting here if you had not been outed in 2003 ?

>> i can't say for sure. but i don't think so. because so many things would have been different in my life, and what's given me the confidence to tell my story and to talk about my story now, is that i have a life and a relationship that has given me space to be myself. all of me. and i think that that's, that's what changed.

>> and so you tell the story now of this intern who on her fourth day as an intern at the white house , was invited to join the president, essentially, in a swimming pool . and then later on, being led then to private quarters, and then, invited by the president on a tour to mrs. kennedy 's bedroom. what happened in that bedroom, mimi ?

>> well the president had invited me to take a tour of the white house . of the upstairs of the white house . and i followed along behind him. and as i say in my book, really feeling as if i was being pulled by a magnet. and in the last room that we went into, was the bedroom. i learned that it was mrs. kennedy 's bedroom. and the president came very close to me and put his hands on my shoulders. and guided me down to the edge of the bed. and i lost my virginity right there. i feel that i was, it wasn't something that i had planned. and certainly not something that i was expecting to have happen. on the other hand, i think i allowed it to happen.

>> you didn't say no?

>> i didn't say no.

>> but at 19 years old, as you were in this situation, that you didn't expect, what did you think was happening to you?

>> i'm not sure i knew what was going to happen. and i think i was taken by surprise. and i think that i felt -- if i can recall my feelings from that moment, it would have been that it was almost what i was supposed to be doing. it's very odd to feel that way. but it was, i didn't, i didn't say no. and i didn't, i didn't feel like i was really being forced.

>> but you were definitely in a state of shock afterward?

>> i think i must have been, yes.

>> were you in a state of shock , do you think, during?

>> no. i don't think so.

>> you didn't tell your parents. you went home.

>> yes.

>> you didn't want to be around anyone. you took a shower.

>> well i went home, no the to my parents' home, but to where i was living in georgetown. and my roommate there, she wasn't home. and i did, i took a shower and i just tried to put my mind around what had happened. and i really, i didn't call my parents.

>> why not? why didn't you call your parents and tell them what had happened?

>> i don't know. i think it was an era when we really, when i didn't really have that kind of a relationship with my parents, that i would have told them. and that makes me sad, and i regret that today. i regret that my parents don't know. maybe not even at that moment, if i hadn't told them. but later on, because they would have known more about me.

>> but did you feel that they would have comforted you? do you think that would have understood? or do you think when you talk about this being that era, are you thinking that they would have condemned you?

>> i think at the time, i didn't think that. i just thought, this has happened. and i was just trying to understand it myself. so i didn't reach out to them.

>> after that, you were invited to another swim.

>> yes.

>> and there was a pivotal, you call it a pivotal moment.

>> uh-huh.

>> because you were pretty shocked as you write about it in the book, but you said yes.

>> i know.

>> why did you say yes?

>> well, you have to understand what it was like to be in the white house at that time. and this is president kennedy . and this was, i was being included in a small group of people that knew him. it was very, it was almost like being swept away.

>> but at the same time, you say you always called him mr. president. you didn't call him jack.

>> always mr. president.

>> there was always a separation. he was an older man, you were 19.

>> right.

>> you didn't have conversations about world events.

>> no.

>> he never kissed you?

>> that is right. the relationship was very imbalanced. i was 19, he was 45. but i accepted that imbalance. because i think i felt very special from having been included.

>> do you believe that if your story is true, do you believe that president john f. kennedy abused his power in having a relationship with a 19-year-old intern?

>> you know, as i've said before, he was extremely powerful. he was very alluring. he was very, he made you feel, made me feel as if i was the only person in his presence. and if that's an abuse of power, yes. but i didn't ever feel abused.

>> did you feel that you were in some ways being abusive, in the sense that he was married? did you think about mrs. kennedy ?

>> no.

>> were you aware, i'm having an affair with the president of the united states , who is married?

>> i hate to admit today, that i didn't feel guilty. but i was 19 years old. and i was very young. and i was being included in something so glamorous and special, that i didn't feel guilty. and today, i regret that.

>> do you feel guilty today?

>> i feel guilty about not having felt guilty about mrs. kennedy , yes.

>> what's also surprising is that at some point, you started to spend the night at, and you would actually walk past some of the president's i guess secret service agents on the way back downstairs to go back to work where you were an intern. how many people knew about this mimi ?

>> i don't know how many people knew. but certainly secret service that were there at the elevator on the second floor would have known. the thing that's so amazing to me is that those, that all felt very natural. and that's what's so interesting to me. looking back. i didn't feel like i was really hiding. i felt like it was natural.

>> so if what you're saying is true, it begs the question -- how was the president able to live in this kind of way? with a wife and children being present, being the united states and having as you put it, a relationship with a 19-year-old? there's something that mrs. kennedy said in some oral history just a few months after her husband's death. that it's interesting to listen to as we talk about this. let's take a listen to what she had to say.

>> he really kept his life in compartments, and the wonderful thing is that everyone in every one of those compartments was ready to die for him.

>> you wrote that the president's compartmentalizing allowed him to effectively segregate people in all areas of his life.

>> right. well that's how i felt and i also had read that. i hadn't heard mrs. kennedy 's tapes. but i had read that in ted sorenson 's book. a lot of people felt he compartmentalized. was good at that. and i think that's exactly what he did.

>> an example of that would be what you write about the president, as he was dealing with the cuban missile crisis , having you upstairs, in his bedroom.

>> yeah.

>> while he was negotiating a standoff with khrushchev. describe that time?

>> it's really ludicrous that i was there. i realized that today. but i wanted to be there. and obviously the president wanted me there, too. and i was there.

>> you also write about some very tough stuff that meredith also asked you about last night. let me ask you about, you say in the book, that the president encouraged you to try a drug at a party at bing crosby 's house. that the president emotionally abused you by suggesting that you sexually service another person, and that at one point you thought you were pregnant and you called the president. and what was his reaction?

>> it was to get help for me, to take care of that. but you know my, i included these dark, this dark side and these dark memories i have of the president in my book. because first, i had them in. then i would take them out, and then i would put them back in and take them out. and i really felt that i needed to do that. i needed to include them, because my book is about being honest. and i -- if i had kept all of that out, it would have been just another layer of a secret, really.

>> at the same time, mimi , you know that all the principles who principals are not around to defend themselves. what do you say to people who say look, you're profiting off a story. you're making money.

>> i know.

>> off of this. what do you say to that?

>> i wrote this book because of the secret that i held. and that was the focus of my book. there's no way i could have separated the kennedy 's name from the book. because that's part of the story. and that's how i feel. people will have their judgments. and they're entitled to them.

>> what about caroline, who is still alive? she's going to have to deal at some point with the fact of this. did you think about, as you talk about, unburdening yourself? the idea that you burdened other people with this?

>> well i don't intentionally burden someone else. i'm telling my story. and that is what i needed to do.

>> any push-back from the kennedy family ? yes or no?

>> no.

---------------
Chris Matthews Explains JFK’s Affairs: He Was Able To ‘Understand People’s Feelings And Not Be Moved’
Video
by Alex Alvarez | 9:54 am, February 10th, 2012
On Friday, the folks at Morning Joe invited Chris Matthews — who recently published Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, a book about (you guessed it!) John F. Kennedy — to the show to discuss Mimi Alford, a former White House intern who recently came forward with the story of her affair with the former President.
Joe Scarborough, for one, isn’t exactly shocked by the news that Kennedy engaged in an affair with a young press intern. He brought up two other interns — named “Fiddle and Faddle” by the secret service — and Joe Kennedy‘s rumored interest in his son’s dates.
Matthews called JFK’s actions “indefensible” and gave us some insight into what Kennedy was like as a person:
Part of it that’s indefensible is his tone of detachment, his ability to understand the feelings of those around him, and in fact track them and manipulate them, whether it’s Curtis LeMay or it’s his wife. I mean, his amazing ability to understand people’s feelings and not be moved by them at all. I think the word that’s been used recently is “heedless.” Cold detachment.
And the other part of it is the compartmentalization of his life where he could have what seems to be — if you’ve listened to all these tapes that have come out — a full marriage. Discussions about emotions and life, the normal things that most married couples think of as marriage, that sharing of emotions and life. And, yet, having these other compartments with these other women at the same time. He was able to keep them sealed off from one another in a way that was almost inhuman.
At the end of the segment, Matthews implored viewers to buy his book instead of Alford’s.

MIMI ALFORD---MY THOUGHTS

Please see all my other blogs via my complete profile. On the one hand, I have great misgivings about former JFK White House intern Mimi Alford, writing a book for (massive) profit a half century after the fact and including highly explicit details that no one can now corroborate, seeing that JFK, Dave Powers, and Ted Kennedy, among others, are deceased. However, that said, on the OTHER hand, Alford's tale adds further fuel to the fire for those (like myself) who believe several agents, disgusted with President Kennedy's private life, chose action via INaction on 11/22/63. Former agents Larry Newman, Tony Sherman, Tim McIntyre, and Joe Paolella, as well as Robert Bouck (again, to myself) waxed on about both their knowledge and anger over JFK's sordid extra-marital affairs to best-selling author Seymour Hersh for his 1997 book "The Dark Side of Camelot", as well as to Peter Jennings for the December 1997 ABC television special (and video) "Dangerous World: The Kennedy Years" (I have excerpts from this special in several videos).

Nonetheless, we have long known---for decades---that JFK was a womanizer: Judith Campbell Exner, (allegedly) Marilyn Monroe, secretaries "Fiddle" and "Faddle", etc.

Robert Dallek "smoked out" Alford in his excellent 2003 book "JFK: An Unfinished Life". In addition, the website THE SMOKING GUN offers further corroboration via a long-suppressed JFK Library oral history:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/jfk-had-intern-too


NBC's "Rock Center" aired a long interview with Alford on 2/8/12 and ended with the opinions of writers/ historians Chris Matthews, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Richard Reeves that, despite his dark side, President Kennedy's legacy, although taken down a notch from these latest allegations, is still secure as a statesman, leader, and cultural icon...I agree. Even Alford defended JFK, saying she still admires him and that she does not reget their 18-month affair, only keeping it a secret (she also said it was consensual, fun, and she would do it all over again).

Vince Palamara

Regarding Mimi Alford's book

I have tremendously flip flopped on the merits and substance of the book, as one can tell from my deleted and changed blogs and Amazon reviews LOL :O) I guess I must put aside the skeptic in me and put the best spin on her "tale": it further debunks Blaine's book and corroborates the 4 agents interviewed for Seymour Hersh's book, adding further fuel to the fire for the agents to have disgust over JFK's private life: motive for inaction on 11/22/63