How The Mighty Have Fallen

JFK was my parents' president.  Both have vivid memories of where they were when they were told of his assassination.  How unbiased history may have judged him will never be known.  His death, in the minds of many, enshrined him among the presidential pantheon of Washingtons, Lincolns, and  Roosevelts.  He was, and, perhaps even more so after death, became the ideal embodiment of youth, energy, and the American spirit. That is what makes his moral demise even more devastating than his physical demise.

I have never idolized JFK as some have, but I have always respected him, and, in many ways, held him up as a truly great leader.  His presidency was marked by notable failures--the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the open ended escalation that would become the Vietnam War, to name two.  We would have disagreed vehemently on politics.  But in spite of all that, his dynamism and idealism extends even to today, echoing greatness.  The challenge to reach the moon and overcome other obstacles "not because they are easy, but because they are hard," his publicly strong and determined refusal to back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the inspiring call to "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country"--all encapsulate the best of what America, and Americans, can be.  More, then, is the pity and the sorrow when such are tarnished by the very man who espoused them.

I know JFK was an adulterer.  Covered up at the time, his numerous transgressions have gradually come to light in the 50 years since his death.  But I had never personally examined any of the particulars until today.  Following a link to the New York Post, I read about Mimi Alford and the upcoming expose of her 18 month affair with JFK.

Ms. Alford recounts how, 19 years old, 5 days into her internship in the White House press office, and one day after meeting the president at the White House pool, she was invited to an after-hours party by JFK's “first friend” Dave Powers.  The article recounts how she and two others were given several daiquiris by Powers as they waited for the president.  When he arrived, he whisked her away for a private tour of the residence, ending at Mrs. Kennedy's room.  There, he began to move closer, edge her toward the bed, and began to undress her.  The article continues:

He paused when he noticed her resisting.

“Haven’t you done this before?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. So he kept going, this time a little more gently.

“After he finished, he hitched up his pants and smiled at me” and pointed her to the bathroom.

When she was finished, he was outside in the West Sitting Hall, where their evening had begun.

“I was in shock,” she writes. “He, on the other hand, was matter-of-fact, and acted as if what had just occurred was the most natural thing in the world.”

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked. “The kitchen’s right here.”

“No, thank you, Mr. President.”

He called a car to come pick her up and take her home

On the ride home, it “kept echoing in my head: I’m not a virgin anymore.”

Other, more disturbing events followed.  At a Hollywood party hosted by Bing Crosby, Alford states:

“I was sitting next to him in the living room when a handful of yellow capsules — most likely amyl nitrate, commonly known as poppers — was offered up by one of the guests. The president asked me if I wanted to try the drug, which stimulated the heart but also purportedly enhanced sex. I said no, but he just went ahead and popped the capsule and held it under my nose.”

He didn’t try it himself.

“This was a new sensation, and it frightened me,” Mimi recalls. “I panicked and ran crying from the room.”

More disturbing still  was the President's solicitation on his "first friend" 's behalf during a noon swim at the White House:

Powers had rolled up his pants to cool his feet 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 **** ***.  I don’t think the president thought I’d do it, but I’m ashamed to say that I did . . . The president silently watched.”

Alford, then Mimi Beardsley, says that later the president apologized to them both.

But such an apology didn't keep the President from making similar solicitations.

One of their last times together was at a Boston Democratic fund-raiser. Ted Kennedy, the president’s baby brother, was in the room with them.

“I could see that mischievous look come into his eye. ‘Mimi, why don’t you take care of my baby brother? He could stand a little relaxation.’

On that occasion, Alford refused.

The last occasion of their meeting revealed even more:

About to be married to her college sweetheart, Tony Fahnestock, she met Kennedy for the last time at The Carlyle hotel in Manhattan on Nov. 15, 1963, just seven days before his assassination in Dallas.

“He took me in his arms for a long embrace and said, ‘I wish you were coming with me to Texas.’ And then he added, ‘I’ll call you when I get back.’ I was overcome with sudden sadness. ‘Remember, Mr. President, I’m getting married.’

“ ‘I know that,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘But I’ll call you anyway.’ ”

I am not like some, who for political purposes, can vilify Kennedy and excuse Alford.  She was 19 at the time--she should have known something of the folly of mixing alcohol and drugs with power and secrecy and attraction. She failed to refuse what she should have. And she showed no respect for Mrs. Kennedy or the the sanctity of the marriage.  The article states Ms. Alford "never once ran into Jackie during these flings and admits to not feeling guilty."

But I also have no problem whatsoever stating that the greater fault lies with the President.  He was well old enough to be her father (he was 45 when the affair began) and stood as the embodiment of the power and virtues of the nation.  For such a man to use the combined effects of alcohol, the naivete of youth, and the powers of authority, office, and ethos to defile the sacred vow made to his wife, strip such a sacred gift from a young woman within his care, and pressure the same to drug use and further promiscuity is inexcusable, disheartening, and deeply disturbing.

Another idol has been cast down; I will never view JFK the same--and that is a true sorrow. But perhaps the deepest sorrow is the vile shadow his immoral actions cast over all the greatness he espoused--for himself and for his office and for his country.

God grant me the courage to embrace and live out the high ideals that I espouse in every moment, thought, and action of my life.  And God give me the courage, when I fail, to return to that which is right and leave the evil far behind.
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Cynthia R. Fagen, Teen mistress addresses relationship, pol's Cold War fears in memoir, <http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/inside_my_teen_affair_with_jfk_FGF4aS7OdoQozP4tyySsmK>, 02/05/2010; accessed 02/06/2012