“There are no secrets,” writer Nora Ephron once opined.
asserted
Ephron → be → ?
Perhaps she should have added a corollary: “Kennedy secrets always sell books.”
asserted
secrets → add → books
Fresh case in point is “Ladies’ Man: The Careless Heart of John F. Kennedy,” a compendium of the love affairs of the 35th President, beginning when he was 17 and attending Choate, a Connecticut prep school.
asserted
he → begin → Choate
Author Laurence Leamer, who previously penned “Capote’s Women,” and “Hitchcock’s Blondes” inevitably goes over old ground in this new book, but the vast number of women and incidents he includes makes “Ladies’ Man,” if not edifying, certainly astonishing for sheer scope.
asserted
Man → pen → scope
It’s a wonder that Kennedy accomplished as much as he did, so frequently was he jumping in and out of bed.
asserted
he → ’ → bed
Keep the encounters brief, and the affairs — if you want to call them that — short-lived.
asserted
you → keep → them
Those around Kennedy were aware of his brazen promiscuity, but the general public remained oblivious during his lifetime.
asserted
public → remain → lifetime
He never suffered any consequences for behavior that was not merely unbecoming, but downright scuzzy.
asserted
that → suffer → behavior
Did Kennedy love any of his paramours?
asserted
Kennedy → love → paramours
Leamer makes the case that two Scandinavians captured his heart — at least for a time.
asserted
Scandinavians → make → time
The first, Inga Arvad, was a sophisticated older woman whom Kennedy met in November 1941 through his sister Kathleen, her colleague at the Washington Times-Herald.
asserted
Kennedy → meet → Herald
Then 24 and a naval ensign, Kennedy fell hard for the 28-year-old Danish journalist, and their letters reveal a passionate and confiding intimacy.
asserted
letters → fall → intimacy
“She came to understand him in ways no one else in his life ever had, to see him in all his flawed and fractured glory,” Leamer writes of Arvad.
asserted
Leamer → understand → Arvad
“As for Jack, he opened himself up to Arvad, exposing every emotion and concern.
asserted
he → open → emotion
Arvad was married, although estranged, from her second husband, movie director Paul Fejos.
asserted
Arvad → estrange → husband
More problematic were her links to Adolf Hitler, whom she had met and interviewed while working in Berlin.
asserted
she → meet → Berlin
The German leader praised her as the perfect example of Nordic beauty, and Arvad attended parties hosted by high-ranking Nazis.
asserted
Arvad → praise → Nazis
She was even photographed sitting next to Hitler in his box during the 1936 Olympics.
asserted
She → photograph → Olympics
After Pearl Harbor, the FBI began investigating Arvad as a possible spy.
asserted
FBI → begin → spy
That same month Kennedy was transferred to South Carolina, where, unbeknownst to the couple, their hotel meet-ups and telephone calls were recorded by the bureau.
asserted
ups → transfer → bureau
Kennedy’s father disapproved of his relationship with a married woman of dodgy reputation, and Arvad was involved with at least one other man, so the couple broke up in March 1942.
asserted
couple → disapprove → March
Gunilla von Post, a Swedish aristocrat, met then-Senator Kennedy when she and a friend were hitchhiking on the Cote d’Azur in July 1953.
asserted
she → meet → July
An old English friend of Kennedy’s offered them a ride and then, driving a few miles further into Cap d’Antibes, was surprised to spot the senator standing by the side of the road.
asserted
friend → offer → road
Kennedy, due to wed Jacqueline Bouvier two months later, was indulging in a last solo jaunt as a bachelor.
asserted
Kennedy → we → bachelor
The foursome went out for dinner and dancing that evening.
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foursome → go → dinner
Von Post, 21, was enchanted by Kennedy, and how, as the band played “I Love Paris,” he crooned the words into her ear.
asserted
he → enchant → ear
Later, as they stood on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, Kennedy declared: “I fell in love with you tonight.”
asserted
I → stand → you
Then he confessed he was heading back to America to be married.
asserted
he → confess → America
Von Post allowed Kennedy to walk her home, but when he asked to come in for a nightcap, she sent him away.
asserted
she → allow → him
Yet Kennedy continued to pursue von Post, writing from his Senate office, asking to see her again.
asserted
Kennedy → continue → her
He contrived to travel to Sweden two years later, with friend Torbert Macdonald as beard, to spend a week with his young lover, while wife Jackie, who had nursed him tenderly through back surgery, stayed home.
asserted
who → contrive → surgery
Von Post, later a neighbor of Leamer’s in Palm Beach, told the author that their time together was “one of the few weeks in [Kennedy’s] life that he was free as a bird.”
asserted
he → tell → bird
Von Post’s mother blocked Kennedy’s plan to install her in Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel where he could drop by regularly.
uncertain
he → block → Hotel
They met once again, by chance, at a banquet at the Waldorf Astoria in 1958.
asserted
They → meet → 1958
Von Post waited for Jacqueline Onassis to pass away in 1994, before writing and publishing a fond memoir titled “Love, Jack.”
asserted
Onassis → wait → memoir
Other young women were treated with far more callousness.
Kennedy picked up Diana de Vegh, then a junior at Radcliffe College, at a campaign fundraising dinner in Boston in 1958.
asserted
Kennedy → treat → 1958
The candidate, prowling the ballroom, spotted her and asked her date to give up his seat “so a tired old man can sit next to a pretty girl.”
asserted
man → prowl → girl
De Vegh was flattered by Kennedy’s interest, not anticipating that a couple of weeks later, after she’d accompanied him to other campaign events, he’d take her to his Boston apartment for “quick and efficient” sex.
asserted
he → flatter → sex
For several years Kennedy continued to hook up with de Vegh, and arranged a job for her in the White House after he was elected President.
asserted
he → continue → House
He’d hint to her that he’d like to be introduced to some of her friends.
asserted
he → hint → friends
…and 18 more, not listed.
The Aporia
