If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission.
John F. Kennedy‘s reputation as a womanizer has lived on even 60 years after his assassination. The former president is rumored to have had flings with stars like Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and many White House staff members all while married to Jackie Kennedy.
Though Jackie’s marriage to JFK has long been held on a pedestal, both then and now, it has been said that the former first lady was all too aware of her husband’s infidelities. In fact, in a biography about Jackie, Senator George Smathers is quoted as saying that Presidents Truman and Nixon were the only two of the 11 presidents he knew who were “totally one hundred percent faithful to their wives.” He continued: “Jackie knew that too. She dealt with it.”
Yet in the many years of chatter about JFK’s rumored trysts, there is some key context missing. In the 1960s, awareness about power imbalances and sexual coercion was severely lacking but today, in a world post #MeToo where we now know Monica Lewinsky should never have been blamed for her affair with President Bill Clinton, it’s hard not to question why JFK’s legacy has never been held to the same standard.
That’s where Mimi Alford comes in. Alford, who began working in the White House in 1962, has bravely spoken about her fling with JFK and, in doing so, has shed a light on the complexities of how such an affair happens when one party is a 19-year-old girl and the other is one of the most powerful men in the world.
Here are all the complex details of their affair and Alford’s battle with how she views their time together now that she’s an adult.
Mimi Alford’s Affair With JFK Began in 1962
In her bombshell 2012 memoir, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath, Alford writes that her affair with the then-45-year-old president began on her fourth day working in the White House when, at just 19, she lost her virginity to the leader of the country.
According to an excerpt from her book published in the Daily Mail, Alford, then Mimi Beardsley, met JFK a year earlier when her work for her school’s newspaper granted her a trip to the White House. A year later she started working there as an intern.
Days into her time there, she received a call at her desk from Dave Powers, an assistant to the President, who invited her to join him and two other female staffers in the White House pool. It didn’t take long for JFK to arrive.
“‘Mind if I join you?'” Alford recalls him saying in her biography, “He was remarkably fit — flat stomach, toned arms — for a 45-year-old man. After sliding into the pool, he floated up to me.”
They spoke only briefly but, later, Alford would receive a call from Powers inviting her to drinks with some staffers and the President in the West Sitting Hall.
Alford Says They Were Intimate for the First Time in Jackie Kennedy’s Bedroom
At the drinks, JFK offered Alford a solo tour of the White House living quarters and, before long, ended up in Jackie’s bedroom. The First Lady and the couple’s two children were away for the summer.
“The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of me, his face inches away, his eyes staring directly into mine,” Alford recalls being frozen as he pushed her on to the bed. “Slowly, he unbuttoned the top of my shirtdress and touched my breasts. Then he started to pull off my underwear.”
She says she told him it was her first time and he proceeded. After it was over she was “shocked” while he “acted as if what had just occurred was the most natural thing in the world,” before calling a car to take her home.
“I wasn’t revolted or appalled, but I was certainly confused,” she writes. “Back in my room, after a shower to wash off the smell of his 4711 cologne, I thought: ‘So that’s sex?’ I didn’t know if it had been good, bad, or indifferent.”
The Affair Lasted for 18 Months, Until JFK’s Death
Alford writes that, after that night, she continued to swim with the President and then wait for a phonecall summoning her upstairs if Jackie was out of town.
She says that, though they never again entered Jackie’s bedroom, they would busy themselves with baths and night in his chambers.
Alford recalls being unbothered by the judgement of other staff members, regularly showing up in the same outfit two days in a row after spending the night with the President.
“It shames me to admit that I don’t recall feeling any guilt. In my 19-year-old mind, I wasn’t invading the Kennedys’ marriage,” she writes. “I was merely occupying the President’s time when his wife was away. If he wasn’t troubled, why should I be? It was hardly by chance that in the 18 months I knew him, I never once met his wife.”
Alford Also Alleges That She Was Pressured by JFK and Other Members of His Inner Circle
In one of the more harrowing moments in the book, Alford claims the President once coerced her to perform oral sex on Powers during one of their swimming pool hangouts.
“JFK swam over and whispered in my ear: ‘Mr Powers looks a little tense — would you take care of it?’” she writes. “I’m ashamed to say that I did. It was a pathetic, sordid scene, and I can hardly bear to think about it. Dave was jolly and obedient as I stood in the shallow end of the pool and performed my duties.”
She alleges that a similar exhange happened a year later during a meeting with Teddy Kennedy, but she bravely refused.
“Once again, he tried to show off his power over me, this time suggesting: ‘Mimi, why don’t you take care of my baby brother — he could stand a little relaxation.’ This time I felt a flash of anger. And for the first time, I stood up to him,” she writes.
Alford Now Has Conflicting Opinions on the Affair
Alford recalls that in the year’s since the affair some friends have urged her to think of JFK as a predator but, despite her increased awareness that there was a severe power imbalance at play, she doesn’t see it that way.
“I think he did take advantage — I was so young,” Alford told People in 2012 of that first intimate encounter. “But I liked feeling special.”
Mimi Alford’s 2012 Biography Confirmed Her Affair With JFK
After many years of speculation, Alford is one of few people who have admitted to having an affair with the President.
Her brave account of the fling and its aftermath is one of few honest portrayals of the affairs so often glorified as part of JFK’s legacy.
“I did not write this book to hurt Caroline Kennedy,” Alford told People. “I had to tell my story.”
Leave a Comment