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The Kennedy Curse, Part 8
35 Plays8 days ago
We are getting into the JFK of it all. When Nikki wrote the scripts for the JFK episodes, she planned on four episodes. Welp, we already had to make the first episode into a part one and part two. Sure, there's a ton of info and theories and whatever, but the length is more likely because JOY'S BACK!
In part one of part one of the JFK episodes, we talk about Jack and Jackie's wedding, the babies they lost, and Jack's compulsive sexual behavior with women, even in the White House.
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates, RFK Jr.: The Rise and Fall by Vincent Isabel
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I have ADHD. Joy is autistic and we are letting our hyper fixations fly. Today we are fixating on the Kennedy curse.
00:00:12
Speaker
Music
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone.
Joy's Return and Neurodivergence Discussion
00:00:24
Speaker
After a brief hiatus, we have Joy back to the pod. Hello. Hello. Thank you for understanding my little time away. i ah i get a little insecure sometimes about my struggle to find words and ah I don't speak coherently. And i was I was having a hard time with that. But at the same time, it was absolutely driving me crazy not to be able to, because I had things going into my mind that I wanted out there. So I'm trying to be back. so
00:00:52
Speaker
And be patient with me, guys. I'm i'm not the ah smoothest talker in the world. Yeah. But, you know, that's that's kind of the point of why we do it. We are neurodivergent. We do things weird sometimes. We do things different sometimes. We do things the way that works best for our brain and we lean into it. And that's what we do.
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah. I have some tangents. Nikki's really good at, like, keeping a topic going. I'm really good at... um fixating on some tangents here and there. So bear with me. Yeah. But especially for these next few episodes, they're tangents that I didn't think about. So it's just, it's great.
00:01:25
Speaker
It's so exciting. Well, and there's so many endless tangents in this whole story, but I have
The Kennedy Curse: Joe Kennedy Jr. and WWII
00:01:30
Speaker
so many. couple of good ones. so Yes, exactly. So before we get too far, once again, the sources are all listed in the show notes because as always, there are far too many to say here.
00:01:41
Speaker
All right. So just to get me back up to speed, last week we talked about Joe Kennedy Jr., right? We did a little bit. He was firstborn son yep of Joe Sr. and Rose Kennedy. He was JF Kelly's eldest brother. And he tragically tragically lost his life attempting a daring World War II mission.
JFK and Jackie: Marriage and Challenges
00:02:00
Speaker
So today we're going move on and we're going to get a little bit more into JFK or as we will from here on refer to him as Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Yep. Kind of about their, basically about their marriage, kind of some of the the strains they had in life and the battles, struggles they had for some fertility struggles. lots of infidelity issues um and loss, but that they also had a deep bond and a shared purpose in building a family and and and their political career together. So I think today that's that's what we want to dive into. Yeah. They're one of the Kennedy couples that I think they had deep they did have deep love for each other. And ah a controversial take is
00:02:41
Speaker
that they respected one another. And I say it's controversial because of how terribly Jack treated Jackie when she wasn't around, if that makes sense, is anything but respectful. But as I keep saying, the Kennedys have just so many dichotomies. And I think that's one of them. I think Jack really loved Jackie and she was treated like a queen when he was around. But as soon as she was away, he he she didn't exist to him yeah and i do think that he i think he really did respect her mind and her yeah yeah very much and and i think he utilized her yeah a lot even with speech writing and um and her diplomatic abilities but i mean her actual being a somebody he could speak to intelligently and and have educated conversations with she understood these things She had a photojournalism background, which she fully prepared to to continue on until Mr. Jones Sr. jumped in and and put it a stop to that. But I mean, she went on to become an editor. She's in and of herself ah a very strong woman. And oh yeah hopefully that comes across. Yeah. And we'll actually have some ah Jackie later in life episodes as well. So we get to hear all about like
00:03:57
Speaker
Just such a cool life, hard life, tragic life still in some ways. But she really stepped out of the the Kennedy umbrella and became her own entity. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think it helps explain her early Kennedy life, too, I think, by seeing her whole life out there. Mm-hmm.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I know a lot of writers along those lines have talked about how for Jackie, the person she respected and loved and looked up to most in her life was her father.
Jackie's Upbringing and Infidelity Norms
00:04:29
Speaker
And he was also known for his indiscretions and infidelity. And so maybe in some ways she internalized that and... In her mind, it helped her balance the idea of of of loving someone and being committed to someone even with their flaws and the infidelities.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and that that she also married into a family with that same value system, question mark, if values is the right way to phrase it. But yeah, very much so. We'll see when we start talking about the other siblings, um when the daughters would- you know, get cheated on by their spouses, Rose would say, you go back.
00:05:08
Speaker
You don't, you make it work. You deal. You. Yeah. And so it's, she was hearing that from both sides of her family. And she also will come to have a tremendous respect and love for Rose as well.
00:05:21
Speaker
Right. Right. I think it's that whole ability to love and including when you love somebody, you love their flaws too, or accept them. Yeah. So. Yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
All right. But I know we're starting with the marriage, but there is one thing I have to throw in there in my research that I kept finding. Okay. And it was that some say, there's rumors, that JFK actually, Jackie was actually not his first wife, that he married a woman named Dury Kerr. She later went by Dury Malcolm in around 1947.
00:05:59
Speaker
in around nineteen forty seven And apparently she was a socialite who lived across the way or as neighbor at um at the family's Palm Beach vacation home. Oh, yeah. And so they had like a kind of a an affair, summer-winter fling um And it was said that during that time, by some, ah that they eloped or for different reasons and that it was short lived. Obviously, Joe Sr. got wind of it and put a big end to it. And the the story goes that he was able to get all the records expunged. Okay.
00:06:38
Speaker
And I'm guessing probably managed to get, like, if it is true, Joe Sr. would be able to pull the strings to get an annulment, not a divorce. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. And I don't know, i didn't get the feeling that it was like anyone was even claiming it was like a church wedding or maybe it never even got fully filed. I don't know. But I mean, it does come up a lot. It's not just here and there. And it does come up in some of the fairly well researched books and genealogy accounts. So it doesn't seem like complete bunk like it's completely debunked, but I also, i don't know.
00:07:13
Speaker
There's a lot of different versions of it. So I don't know. Yeah, don't But did seem like an interesting woman. Like this woman in herself, I won't get too much into her, but she was married like five times. And every marriage was still some amazingly famous or successful person. So she must have been quite the catch. Seems like. So I don't know. What do you think? you think something? Didn't you say you saw like some places it was like, this is 100% true. And everywhere other places were like, this is 100% untrue. Yes. Exactly. Yes, absolutely. So I don't know if I believe it or not.
JFK's Affairs and Their Impact
00:07:46
Speaker
Like what I would believe is that when Joe and Rose got wind of it, if it happened, they would have made it so it wasn't ever something that could be proven. One thing I even read said that like she like they they did it because. She was, would not have sex before marriage. And essentially that guy caught up in the moment and I don't know, kind of seemed like went to the courthouse.
00:08:07
Speaker
Now, I have a whole hard time believing that because i think it was like, I think she had already been married at least once or twice before. so I'm like, hmm. But I don't know. Yeah. Maybe the paperwork just never got filed. I don't know.
00:08:18
Speaker
But she was, I mean, it is documented that he did date her. They did have a relationship. Yeah. And she was, ah again, like the the thing about these these people that Jack had affairs with and stuff, they were um but like they were in and of themselves very interesting people. He was definitely drawn to. Yeah. Every single person.
00:08:34
Speaker
Well, and throughout the series so far, any single, like, what I keep saying is tangential, but that doesn't feel like the right word. just When I say that, it just means characters who aren't, like, directly related to the Kennedys. So the these tangential characters we're talking about, like, we could have entire episodes just about them.
00:08:51
Speaker
And speaking of which, actually, before I forget, last week, the podcast And That's Why I Drink was covered the two women we talked about at the end of Joe Jr., Athalia and I can't remember the other woman who was also murdered, um who was also very interesting. She was the journalist that was writing a book about Athalia's murder. um But they did an episode talking about those two murders that are on paper still unsolved. So if you do want to learn more about then the little bit we we talked about, check out that podcast. They did not mention the Kennedy connection, though.
00:09:26
Speaker
It's crazy, all these these connections. ah But that's I think that goes to like exactly what we're saying. They're so interesting. You don't have to talk about the Kennedy kennedy connection about Athalia yep for it to be a compelling story. Exactly, exactly.
00:09:42
Speaker
All right. But on to the real thing. Yep. So we're talking JFK, who we are calling Jack going forward, and jackie Jacqueline Bouvier. all right. So do you want to talk a little bit about the wedding? Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah. So they were married right on September 1953. Yeah.
00:10:03
Speaker
And, you know, I think Jackie was like a socialite from a wealthy family. And so she kind of had like that old money aristocratic side. but I don't think quite as much money. and then And then the Kennedys were like kind of new money. Yeah, a little more flamboyant. And so at the wedding, it was said that like it was very defined, like whose side of the wedding was which. and and and And actually, it was like Jackie's side that was more like...
00:10:31
Speaker
dressed out and you know, like in a classy way, like not in a, like Jack's side was a little bit more over the top boisterous, yeah you know? Um, yes. So, uh, so that was a wedding. Now the wedding itself though, it was the beginning of them presenting their lives, like creating the public vision around them. And it was like a major cultural event. i don't think that can be understated. Um, in fact, it's been referred to as America's Royal Wedding. Which anyway, I've seen pictures. you for sure. I was just going to say that. There was 750 to 800 guests at the Catholic Church ceremony. And that included politicians, diplomats, high society figures. We're not just talking. They're like, you know, college friends, right? Yeah. Because there's enough Kennedys that there could have been 750 family members. Fair.
00:11:22
Speaker
And they had like the whole streets of like people like watching him arrive. And I mean, it did have that definite royal feel to the whole thing. Yeah. So then they followed up with like a reception. And the reception was like a thousand to twelve hundred people.
00:11:36
Speaker
That's when all the cat the cousins showed up. yeah there Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they say like at the receiving line just to get through meeting the wedding party and stuff.
00:11:47
Speaker
Two hours long. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I wonder if that's miserable. Oh my gosh. Nothing to eat. You know Jackie had to be like those shoes had to be killing her. It had to be like truly like Kennedy trial by fire. It's like the first test is this receiving line.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah. and And it's an endurance test too. But okay. So then I'm just going to go off. this is This is definitely a tangent about the dress, but it's worth it we talk about the dress for a little bit? Okay. Okay.
Anne Lowe's Journey as a Dressmaker
00:12:21
Speaker
Yes, please. I see the dress. I'll talk about the but it's kind of a metaphor in my mind for their marriage. We'll see if after we talk through it, you agree with me on that. But so her dress was one of the most photographed wedding dresses in history. And and it is it's it's beautiful.
00:12:38
Speaker
um It's like an ivory silk taffeta with a bouffant skirt with indricate intricate flounces made of 50 yards of obviously exquisite fabric.
00:12:50
Speaker
Her veil was a little more sentimental. Like that actually they had used um lace that was originally her grandmother's. Oh, I love that. I'm looking up the dresser. Yeah. But the whole thing was this isn't really Jackie style.
00:13:01
Speaker
like It's beautiful, but it's not what she wanted. She wanted more of like a French, simpler, sleeker dress with like firm lines that complimented her tall, slim figure. I picture her, if if if any of them if you know the dress that Carolyn Bessette wore. Yeah. for sure i I pictured that's what Jackie wanted I don't know yeah but but that's not what she got because uh you know when your father-in-law steps in and uh intervenes on your dress can you imagine your father-in-law my gosh one thing for your mother-in-law so anyways
00:13:38
Speaker
Joe Sr., of course, intervened, and he insisted on something traditional, a grand princess now, to fit these political aspirations. I do think that a lot of people ah had opinions. A lot of a lot of John Jr.'s family had opinions about Carolyn's dress as well. So that's just so interesting. Okay. Here's a tangent on a tangent, but we were in a negative way or in a positive They wanted more input than she was willing to give.
00:14:07
Speaker
And I don't think anyone ever said after the fact that they didn't like it. I'm not – I could be wrong, but I've never – I don't remember seeing that. But I know people had opinions they wanted her to listen to and she was not interested. Hands down the most beautiful wedding dress I've ever seen. Other than my daughters. But yes, hands down. i So classy. So classy. But we digress. Okay. Carrying on. so All right. So we got this dress. Did you look at the picture? What do you think? um I think the neckline is stunning. Off the the off the shoulder is – everything else is kind of like, okay.
00:14:41
Speaker
I mean, it's it's it's a beautiful dress, but I understand. It's almost like what when they get like all big like that, it's kind of hard to even zero in on anything. And she's so tiny. It just like swallows her whole.
00:14:53
Speaker
So the dress, of course, everyone wanted to know who was the designer of this beautiful dress. And as it turns out, it was actually designed by little known croutier called Anne Lowe.
00:15:06
Speaker
And she was an amazingly talented Black woman, a dressmaker, who worked for some of America's most elite families. So she worked for like the DuPonts. the roosevelts the rockefellers oh wow and of course the kennedys in fact she had started she had made jackie's like a dress for jackie's mom previous so that's how they i guess knew about her okay but like she was not really known like she was amazing and if you were like yeah if you knew you knew but um so so this woman although she went on to work for all these people she struggled her entire career with racial discrimination well yeah yeah i wonder if that's why they didn't
00:15:44
Speaker
people didn't share her name so publicly, right? Well, interesting you say that. So I guess, first of all, like we talking about curses, we yeah we do have to tell the story of um of Jackie's wedding dress. I don't know if everyone, if this is well known, but so Anne was commissioned to create Jackie's dress and all the bridesmaids dresses.
00:16:04
Speaker
I think in some of the mother's dress, it was like 15 dresses that she was commissioned to make. This is a big one. Yeah. So about 10 days before the wedding, um a water line in her studio broke and it spewed gallons of water, ruining the dresses. Oh my goodness. This 10 days before, right?
00:16:24
Speaker
And i mean, obviously this woman knew it this would ruin her career. um And so she quickly went to work. She personally purchased all the replacement, exquisite fabric, right? This is not cheap fabric.
00:16:40
Speaker
Hired yeah extra staff. And they worked day and night to remake the dresses from memory. Oh my gosh. She also didn't want to stress the bride out or the bride's mother.
00:16:53
Speaker
So never told them that this happened. Sure. In fact, I believe it was like years later they found out. They never knew. And here's the sad thing. Oh my gosh. So the assignment, which um i apparently Anne had expected to profit about $700 from, which doesn't seem like much to begin with. But in the end, she took a $2,000 loss to cover all the extra help and and fabric.
00:17:17
Speaker
Oh She never really told them till years ra until they found out years later. But she got it done. And here's the great part. So when she went to she went to hand deliver the dresses prior to the wedding,
00:17:28
Speaker
And a staff member told her that she needed to go enter through the service door. And she said, if I can't enter through the front door, i will take the dresses back. Heck yeah. she entered through the front door. I love her. So um that was really that was really cool. So then, yeah, everyone was asking her, yeah, who you know who did this? like it was like invalu It would have been invaluable like publicity for Anne. yeah But when asked, Jackie said, a colored dressmaker did it.
00:17:56
Speaker
Later, Joe Sr. kind of reiterated the same thing. Maybe with even less tact. So yeah, they never she never got any publicity for for it. Something that could have you know really changed her life. So that said...
00:18:11
Speaker
Ann felt no animosity toward the Kennedys, and she went on to do much more work for them. So she still worked for them for years. like yeah Years later, toward the end of her career, she started to lose her eyesight and her business actually due to back taxes.
00:18:27
Speaker
And an an anonymous benefactor stepped in to help her financially. And she always felt that it was Mrs. Kennedy and that she did so because she learned of the wedding dress disaster and Anne's integrity in writing the situation. I would totally believe that. Yeah, I do too. I'd like to believe that too. Because nothing, i haven't seen terribly, like I think any wealthy white person at that time, especially in the Boston area, wasn't non-racist, if that makes sense. But I haven't seen anything outwardly that
00:19:02
Speaker
screams like the Kennedys were a racist family. The Kennedys didn't like people of a different skin tone. And then we'll get to like RFK, who even there's some iffy things about about him and ah civil rights before he ran for president, like he became a civil rights, you know, kind of champion.
00:19:19
Speaker
And so I think it it probably makes sense to me that it was easier at the time to just not speak about something like that and keep it to yourself for fear of like being publicly called out perhaps for like using a black woman as the dressmaker you know yeah yeah crazy story but all right i get back to you that was my whole dress story so that is such a crazy story oh my goodness Well, we know that there their marriage was definitely politically advantageous, but they, I think they, like we kind of said, they for sure loved
Political and Personal Dynamics in JFK and Jackie's Marriage
00:19:55
Speaker
each other. it was like a ah politically advantageous thing that worked out. And both families benefited from this relationship. Yeah. I think it was ah definitely a negotiated relationship yeah that was okay for the parties involved.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But love did ensue. I mean, although I don't know that immediately, that was the driving factor. I mean, I i believe. Yeah. Yeah. So up front, I do think it was a little bit more of a, like you said, a arranged partnership of sorts. but Yeah. But yes, certainly they developed. Yeah, and when we talk about, actually when we talk about Bobby and Ethel's marriage, I would say they were the two that were the most in love, actually. um And we'll get to it, but it looked different than Jack and Jackie's in that way. So when we get to them, we'll talk about that. Yeah, so let's, we're going to fast forward a bit. I i didn't include a lot of of random things about Jack Kennedy because he is, I would say,
00:20:55
Speaker
the most well-known Kennedy. um People have talked about him and you know looked at his politics and done all the things with him, I think, more so than any of the other Kennedys. Perhaps not as much as the Kennedy in our face right now, but maybe. I still think so, yes.
00:21:11
Speaker
So I really wanted to focus on the things that we would identify as like the curse or the tragic things that we're talking about when we're talking about all of the things that befalled have befallen this family, right? So we're going to kind of skip over.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yes, he got elected. He's the first Irish president. He took up the mantle for his older brother who died Joe Sr. put his all of his aspirations on Jack after Joe Jr. died. We're going to fast forward through that.
00:21:39
Speaker
That's understood. So we're going to talk about the ah miscarriages that Jackie suffered, including some, you they had some pretty, really, really intense infertility stuff. And so that's where we're going to start.
00:21:53
Speaker
Like all good Catholic families, and especially wealthy Catholic families in the public eye, Jackie and Jack were expected to have many, many children. Jack himself was one of 11? think 11. Yeah. oh jackie's Jackie, their family nine. Nine. I think they're nine, and it's Bobby and Ethel have 11. Okay. Okay.
00:22:12
Speaker
Let's just say some nice big Catholic families. Yeah, lots of kids. But Jackie didn't. It was just her and her sister, I believe. I think so, too. Yeah. um So their first Jackie first got pregnant in 1955, and she miscarried that pregnancy pretty early on.
00:22:29
Speaker
a year later, on August 23, 1956, Jackie gave birth to a stillborn baby. This little girl they would go on to call Arabella.
00:22:40
Speaker
One night, Jackie awoke covered in blood, and she was rushed to the hospital and delivered Arabella via C-section. Jack's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, or as we'll call Bobby, was actually the person with her. And when she woke up from surgery, he was the one to tell her that the baby had had been lost.
00:22:59
Speaker
Jack was on a yacht with his friends in the Mediterranean Sea. When he got word that they had lost the baby, he initially didn't want to leave his vacation and return home. His family's a little weird about their vacations.
00:23:11
Speaker
They love their vacations, right? His friend George Smathers told him, quote, You better haul your ass back to your wife if you ever want to run for president.
00:23:21
Speaker
Mm, kind of good, but kind of bad. You think maybe you could just like that. Maybe you should just haul your ass back. Right. Maybe you should haul your ass back to your wife, period.
00:23:33
Speaker
Jack initially lied to the reporters and said that Jackie hadn't wanted him to ruin his vacation by coming home. Jackie was so deeply hurt by this that she went so far as to wanting the Catholic Church to annul the marriage.
00:23:48
Speaker
She had nursed him through four back surgeries. ah When they got married, she hadn't been told about the debilitating back pain and Addison's disease that Jack had suffered from. They only told her about all his health issues after the
JFK's Health Struggles
00:24:06
Speaker
wedding.
00:24:06
Speaker
He also dealt with severe gastrointestinal issues, hyperthyroidism, and frequent urinary tract infections. Did you want to talk about Addison's disease? Yeah. So i looked up um I looked up Addison's disease a little bit more. I didn't know much about it. Yeah. um And as it turned out, so he was not diagnosed with the Addison's until 1947.
00:24:30
Speaker
Now, granted, before he got married to Jackie, but what it seems to me like, so Addison's disease is an an adrenal disorder where your body doesn't produce ah enough of hormones, some cortisol and aldosterone. We won't won't get into that too much, but but one of the major treatments for it is um a lot of medications, but also including a lot of steroids, which have a lot of implications and could go on about maybe how those they have some other aspects of his life.
00:25:01
Speaker
That said, I think we hear, ah we've always heard about Jack being a sickly child. and And for years I wondered like, what? I don't get like, what? Why was it? What was sickly about him? It was always kind of ill descript. Yeah. That's in like just about everything I read.
00:25:17
Speaker
it was like, he was sickly. He was a sickly child. yeah you're right. But anyways, now after researching about the Addisons, I think almost everything was connected back to that. So he had like, because it, because it yeah irritable bowel syndrome, which is yeah very much connected to Addison's back pain, osteoporosis. Um, he, I mean, he also had some back injuries in the war and playing sports too, but the osteoporosis that would have been caused from the Addison's disease and from the required taking the required steroids. Definitely would have made him more susceptible to that. So um it also, I mean, if you really look into it, there's the treatment as well as the disease itself could have made it the way he dealt with stress and very stressful situations come into question. And it may have played a role in that.
00:26:08
Speaker
in that also. Absolutely. But there was, i believe there was at least another another member of his family who had Addison's or a similar auto, it's an autoimmune disorder. And it's not something that is curable, um but it is just managed with medication. And we know he was on a lot of medication, right, over the years. Yes, he was. Yeah. So yeah, that's what ah his, I think that's what the the root of so many different, maybe that and possibly STIs, but that's But ah yeah that's a little different. That's a little down in the line, but we'll get there too.
00:26:43
Speaker
So that's my Addison's the interruption. All right. Well, thank you. Knew it could depend on you for medical things. So there was a rumor that persists today that Joe paid Jackie a million dollars to stay in the marriage. And I've actually heard. I fully believe that rumor.
00:27:02
Speaker
It was upon Her having a successful childbirth. Oh, okay. I didn't see I don't know if that was more. I would believe that too. Yeah, it was the marriage, but like a portion I think of which would only be paid out when she carried a baby to term and had a successful birth. Okay. Interesting. I do think though that this was a huge turning point.
00:27:24
Speaker
in how Jackie viewed their marriage. I think it was at this point that she kind of accepted that there's a big part of it that is for how it looks for politics. And and that that she accepted that that you know it it is about family and love, but she's a part of the whole political machine and this marriage is part of the- And that there would be consequences for her if she did stand up and fight because during this time, Jack hospitalized her.
00:27:51
Speaker
to, quote, cure her depression, which I would say is grief, but whatever. She received three rounds of electroshock therapy in one week, and Jack never called or visited during this time.
00:28:02
Speaker
And yeah, I think you're right This is when she had to accept her role as a political prop. You know, Jack, well, I mean, I think a woman always adapts, and especially if you're very young and you get nine and...
00:28:15
Speaker
know, are unformed. You really become the kind of wife that you you can see that your husband wants. And I mean, hopefully see that she was prop for him. But also, I mean, she was a big player, too. I mean, yeah. I think that's one thing we'll see is that she always maintained her own power, even if it had to be kind of interwoven in the politics of the rest of the family. Yeah.
00:28:37
Speaker
So ah Arabella was buried in Rhode Island until Jack's
Jackie's Enduring Connection to Her Children
00:28:42
Speaker
death. Jackie, still recovering physically and emotionally, was too weak to attend the burial.
00:28:48
Speaker
After Jack died and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Jackie had Arabella's remains moved. So ah she would be with her father.
00:28:59
Speaker
But the grave marker there, it didn't actually have her, what they called her on it. It just said daughter. And it probably, probably the Kennedys never had formally named her because there wasn't a birth certificate.
00:29:15
Speaker
And so officially she didn't have a name. I think they just together called her Arabella. Joe and Rose really didn't understand Jackie's grief after these two losses, the miscarriage and then the stillbirth.
00:29:29
Speaker
And they really judged her about it actually for not being strong enough. Many years later, it would be discovered that Jack had likely passed along STIs to Jackie, which likely led to the miscarriage and the stillbirth. So I find this interesting because I did want to and i want wanted to look into that a bit more. And...
00:29:49
Speaker
Most likely it was um asymptomatic chlamydia is what what she had yeah from Jack, which is known to cause like serious pregnancy issues, including recurrent miscarriages, stillbirth, premature labor.
00:30:04
Speaker
um Ironically, was easily treatable with antibiotics. And I wonder if that is, you I mean, had she, and maybe even if she had it more symptom symptomatically or somewhere in in but in in this time, before her other children were born successfully, she was able to just treat it. Like it's like a week of antibiotics. So yeah now that all said, we do have to you know acknowledge that um doctor doctors have also pointed out that jet Jackie herself was a heavy smoker during her pregnancies, which can also be a compounding factor in contributing to the low birth weight and premature delivery. So it could be little both.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah. Well, on August 7th, 1963, Jackie gave birth to Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. She had two pregnancies between Arabella and Patrick. Caroline was born on November 27th, 1957, and John Jr. was born on November 25th, 1960. So she had those successful pregnancies.
00:31:13
Speaker
Hopefully she got her money. ah Jack was on Air Force One. When the baby was born, she had an emergency C-section and Patrick was born five and a half weeks premature.
00:31:27
Speaker
Patrick had developed infant respiratory distress syndrome within minutes of the birth. Jack sent for a chaplain to baptize the baby as soon as he got to the hospital.
00:31:38
Speaker
It seemed like Jack kind of saw the writing on the wall, um even if Jackie wasn't really accepting, accepting that their baby born. was likely not to survive.
00:31:49
Speaker
Patrick was placed in an incubator with 100% oxygen and pressurized to more than one atmosphere. it don't super know what that means, but it sounded important.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was, but I still don't think it was ultimately the treatment that needed. And we'll go on. You you finish what you're goingnna say and then well I'll talk. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:11
Speaker
So this treatment was revolutionary. it was a revolutionary new treatment for premature babies with breathing conditions. Patrick only lived for 39 hours and 12 minutes.
00:32:25
Speaker
Jackie had to be sedated ah during the duration of his life pretty much and especially after he passed. Yeah. A small funeral was held on August 10th.
00:32:35
Speaker
Rose was in Paris, and she told Jackie that she would not come back for the ceremony. But Jackie's sister, Lee Radswell, did fly in from Greece to be with her sister.
00:32:48
Speaker
Patrick's death made 1963 a, quote, pivotal year for neonatology. Huge advancements were made in learning about respiratory distress in newborns.
Patrick's Legacy in Neonatology
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think that public awareness around this event um that is said to have burn spurred the birth of modern neonatology. And so without getting too granular on this, so at the time what they they diagnosed him as was having highline membrane disease, it is what we now call respiratory distress syndrome.
00:33:22
Speaker
i mean, it is not terribly uncommon. um At the time... Like you said, they tried to and put him in the in the hyperbaric chamber with the oxygen. What they now know is that you needed – they treat with more of like a CPAP machine, which is like where it's a pressurized oxygen into the airway. Opens up the lungs. Okay. Yeah.
00:33:46
Speaker
So they were kind of doing that they were doing that, but with two separate means of doing it that should have been somehow together. Right. They were doing the best they had. And and again, like it almost seems like, so with this event um and this this public awareness, that drove um rapid development, like federal funding in researching this more and then really inspiring. Like you said, they kind of they kind of had the the backbones for what needed to be done. it was just kind of putting it all together. And at that point, yeah, there was new treatment for respiratory distress. And that while tons of thousands of babies born in like the 60s and you know presumably before that would die from this, it is now ah has a 95% survival rate. And we can largely, um we you know, we can credit- yeah
00:34:35
Speaker
We can try credit i mean this tragic loss with at least partially having a ah good outfit as finding new treatments that now impact us every day. Yeah. Dear listeners, i' because I don't want to stop, I'm just going to say my mother and my daughter just got back from a weekend trip away And they're upstairs clomping around, putting their stuff away. And I'm so sorry. I said we were going to pause, but now I'm like, I don't want to stop. So you're going to hear things. And yeah I have a new microphone and it actually picks up sound.
00:35:05
Speaker
So sorry, but we're going to go on. Now, I do wonder. So two of my kids, when they were born, inhaled meconium and both ended up in the NICU. But my youngest, it actually like hit her lungs. Mm-hmm.
00:35:18
Speaker
And I feel like that's what she was also diagnosed with. I think that's like what she was – I'm just thinking about that now. For my son, he got it out quick and they just kind of kept an eye on him. But she was in the NICU for about a week. Okay.
00:35:32
Speaker
And probably with, yeah, some kind of breathing – I mean probably some kind of pressurized oxygen. d My son had – was like – so i I have huge babies. So was hilarious that my huge babies ended up in the NICU. Yeah. Um, so my son's like the little bassinet he was in had a 10 pound weight limit and he was like nine, seven, and but they put him, we called it his little astronaut helmet. So he was laying in the bat in the, the bassinet. It was covered, but then he had like a clear, like dome around his face, around his head. and he was my little astronaut baby.
00:36:12
Speaker
A big child baby. And they will wait. You're the big monster. Yeah. neonatal baby. I did. They loved having my huge babies and they would, because one nurse would be with two babies. So they would pair like a a pretty medically fragile baby with my baby because it was like my baby's easy they're like we could change your baby's diaper it's fine
00:36:34
Speaker
okay back to this the loss of Patrick really brought Jack and Jackie closer together Arabella and Patrick's bodies were reinterred after Jack died to be in Arlington National Cemetery with him right, let's move on to we're going to talk about just a few of Jack's extramarital affairs.
JFK's Affairs: Emotional Disconnect and Presidency Impact
00:36:57
Speaker
So Jack was a notorious philanderer, like his father, like his brothers, like everybody, every man in the family. So we're going to talk just a couple of the women, mostly the ones we know the most about.
00:37:11
Speaker
But just please know, like, these these were not it. There was a huge string of women that don't even want to say Jack had an affair with because was Was that makes it sound too ah emotional and too close.
00:37:30
Speaker
And it certainly wasn't. So we're going to talk specifically about two women that we know about him sleeping with when he was in office. So when Jack was in office, he had a daily routine of using the White House pool every morning. It helped his back pain.
00:37:49
Speaker
To note, that this pool has since been removed. was It was removed in 1970 by richard nix yeah Guess he wasn't into the same kind of things. I think it's safe to say Richard Nixon was into the exact opposite. And I just imagine Richard Nixon always in a suit, like sleeping in a suit, showering in a suit. like
00:38:10
Speaker
so um Anyways, just had to mention that. So at times, Jack's pain was so bad that he would work, like he would run the country from his bed. He had even, so he was in constant pain from his teenage years. He actually had a metal plate on his spine and the surgical wound never fully healed.
00:38:29
Speaker
I can't imagine the pain from that alone. I know. You could see the plate through like a tiny hole in his back. i'm like ah So it's safe to say he was on loads of medications.
00:38:42
Speaker
So during his pool time, there were very few people allowed to be at the pool with him. His brothers, Bobby and Ted, were allowed, and two of his trusted aides, Kenny O'Donnell and Dave Powers.
00:38:56
Speaker
And not even the Secret Service was allowed in. The Secret Service was also not allowed to discuss pool time. And they weren't told the true identity of the women who would join for pool time.
00:39:09
Speaker
This is very much ah against what the Secret Service is supposed to do. But they were dedicated to maintaining the image of Jack as an ideal family man. It was almost like keeping this secret for the president and listening to him and not not being around.
00:39:26
Speaker
was for the benefit of the country. But how torn they must have been. Because obviously was a huge security breach also. Yeah. Of course, pool time is where Jack would meet with women who worked at the White House.
00:39:41
Speaker
So near the pool, there was a gymnasium. where specifically what we know are two women nicknamed Fiddle and Faddle would go through to meet men at the pool. It was also rumored that Peter Lawford, who is Jack's sister Pat's husband and also very famous Hollywood actor, would bring Jack, how do I say this, a meal nitrate, which are poppers.
00:40:08
Speaker
It's like the most 60s thing. Yeah.
00:40:13
Speaker
I'm glad to know our president's taking these during his working hours. Now, I obsessed with Peter Lawford and this friendship relationship. Yeah. We're going to do whole episode. We are. You promise. Okay. All right. Okay. We're going to talk all about Pat and Peter. They are getting their own episode.
00:40:30
Speaker
So we will get there. was going to get in this whole aside and Nikki's like, no no, no, no, no. We will get there. um So Jack would give these poppers to fiddle and faddle.
00:40:40
Speaker
As it would always go, Jack would be in the pool naked and the women would join. So publicly, Jack wanted to always wanted to be seen as this like cool young guy who loved his family, all-American guy. So he had to hide his affairs and his illnesses. But in reality, his ego was completely defined by the women he could seduce.
00:41:00
Speaker
I think it comes from a combination of... his cold mother and the Kennedy kind of ideal or value of like needing to depend on a woman was weak.
00:41:13
Speaker
I also believe that you, every human being, greatest predictor of who they are going to become is the same sex parent in their household.
00:41:25
Speaker
So I know I especially say it with, I'm like, girls always turn into their mothers. They just do. I don't care how hard you try. yeah But I mean, ah the same can be true for boys.
00:41:36
Speaker
And I think that's all the way his father philandered throughout his life was modeled exactly that behavior. and And if that's all you've ever seen, and that's how you know. Yeah.
00:41:48
Speaker
And what you were raised with a is the only women that are valuable are the ones you're related to. Every other woman is a means to an end. Because, you know, we'll see with his, the besides his sisters, he only really had surface level relationships with most women. And we do need to remember that these these girls, but they were young. i mean, they weren't, they were of age. They were of age, yeah, but they were young. Yeah, and they were certainly in, there was certainly a power dynamic issue. um So yeah, it must've been overwhelming and frightening for them at the time.
00:42:22
Speaker
Absolutely. he put in this position. Yeah. um Jack also grew up seeing his father, as we just said, cheat on his mother over and over and his mother having to stay silent. So this was normal for him.
00:42:35
Speaker
I also think um pro promiscuity allowed for both momentary closeness, but also like maintaining independence. So we got that warmth from And then was able to kind of like survive on that for a little bit and be like, I don't need you.
00:42:53
Speaker
And then he'd have to. Yeah. He'd have to find it again and again and again. Quick fix. Yeah. Jack once told the British prime minister that he got headaches if he went more than three days without sex.
00:43:06
Speaker
His aides began calling his sexual partners, quote, the president's aspirin. And he basically had a UTI at all times from the amount of sex he was having.
00:43:19
Speaker
It was way more that he had a UTI than not having one. I think especially right now in light of some of the things that are going on, um obviously, i mean, I think these are like there was a lot of founded fears, not just about his personal habit, but when we like right now, when we're learning so much about like the Jeffrey Epstein files and the increased public understanding of how personal indiscretions can be weaponized, and to compromise politicians, officials. And a lot of times that's the aim of them. um I think we can see like exactly beyond just a threat of someone doing damage to him.
00:43:58
Speaker
how this could have been construed and very well may have ah been used to blackmail him and in different areas of his life. I think what we now refer to it as compromise. I'm not sure if they called it that and it comes from a Russian word, but, but I think that this is, i won't, I won't say the beginning of when we started seeing it i think it's been going on forever. Right. But this is ah an example throughout history of where, um,
00:44:22
Speaker
where I think we could look back and say, you know, very possibly things were happening that that put him in a compromising position.
Conspiracy of Silence and Blackmail Fears
00:44:29
Speaker
Of his own doing, absolutely. Of his own doing. But to go with that, his aide, Dave Powers, along with several members of the Irish Mafia, organized these sexual encounters for Jack when Jackie was not at the White House. Which I think is so key. Like right there. yeah I don't know. To me, that's just, if you're trying to get something.
00:44:51
Speaker
I mean, I guess it just watch any of the news programs today about what was happening. it's it's it's The goal is to get somebody into – to do something, to get be in this position. And then you have that blackmail over them.
00:45:07
Speaker
And so yeah especially if we're talking the Irish mafia is encouraging this. Yeah. And we know that they – we will find out they they are to be investigated. There's definitely some investigation issues down the road. and Whether he was being blackmailed or not, it had to affect, um you know, how he proceeded with any type of.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So from the book Ask Not, which I highly recommend, it's about how how Kennedy men were basically terrible to women, but it was a really great book.
00:45:40
Speaker
There was a, quote, conspiracy of silence to protect his secrets from Jacqueline. But I'd have to also imagine from the public, too. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:45:51
Speaker
He slept with White House staffers and invited his friends to indulge in these rendezvous, but also began bringing women from outside of the White House, and his staffers were forced to pretend like nothing was happening.
00:46:04
Speaker
As we said, the Secret Service had an incredibly difficult job, The woman coming in could have had listening devices, been taking photos, could have brought in poison to try to kill him. And this led to a lack of morale amongst the Secret Service agents, who at times also had to help facilitate Tris.
00:46:22
Speaker
They were forced to look the other way as Jack behaved recklessly. And some of these agents really idealized him and struggled with justifying his behavior with the man that they believed him to be.
00:46:34
Speaker
So just about every single woman Jack had sex with said he was not good in bed. It seemed sex was more of a compulsion for him.
00:46:45
Speaker
It wasn't about enjoyment. And he didn't think it was about power. i think it was about power. I think he really did feel like he was in physical pain, like the president's aspirin thing.
00:46:56
Speaker
hmm. Mm hmm. Um. it it seemed like it was something he had to do in order to get along. It's like taking his meds. Yeah. To get through the day. And whether that's true or not, that's what he believed and told himself, I think.
00:47:12
Speaker
It's like maybe putting on some like Ben Gay. It puts your mind up. You focus on the, you focus on that. ah Exactly. Versus the pain for a short period time. Exactly.
00:47:24
Speaker
So let's talk specifically about these women. we I don't think we ever find out who fiddle and faddle actually are. Yeah, i don't i don't I don't know. I mean, it may be out there somewhere in the books. but It could be, but I don't, if I'm remembering correctly, I don't think they are.
00:47:39
Speaker
But we are going to talk about a couple of women who we do know because they have since come forward and shared accounts. So let's start with Mimi Beardsley Alford. She got a call on the fourth day at the White House and Dave Powers invited her to a welcome party for new staff at the pool.
00:47:56
Speaker
So in the pool, like gym area locker room, Jack had bathing suits in all sizes and styles for his
Mimi Alford's Story: Power Dynamics and Realization
00:48:04
Speaker
guests. So somebody was wearing them. Yeah. At least for a while.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yep. ah She was only 19 years old at the time. When she got there, two other girls were already there and they all started drinking. Jack gave Mimi a tour of his private quarters where Jackie had her own bedroom apart from Jack.
00:48:24
Speaker
He pushed a woozy Mimi onto Jackie's bed and immediately thrust himself into her. It was her first time ever having sex. Three minutes later, he got up and pointed to Jackie's bathroom and told her to get cleaned up.
00:48:40
Speaker
This relationship continued on this way with her being called for a swim and then moving to the private quarters when Jackie was away. And in a weird way, Mimi started to feel very special because she was always the one that was called. yeah I could see that.
00:48:57
Speaker
At that age? But the president? Yeah, especially at that age. Yeah. Yeah. It's got very – it's very much Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky vibes, you know, that – That power dynamic, just yikes.
00:49:13
Speaker
But pretty quickly, Mimi began realizing how toxic the entanglement was. Jack invited Mimi to stay with him when Patrick died and Jackie was recovering in the hospital.
00:49:24
Speaker
Jack never used protection in any of their encounters. And she, at the around this time, did discover that she was pregnant. After she told Jack, he had his aide, Dave Powers, call her with the phone number of a woman from New York, New Jersey, who knew an abortion provider. So I think that's so interesting because it's like Jack gave the number to Dave, who gave the number of a woman that that knew somebody. So it's like enough people in between that there is so much room for deniability. Mm-hmm.
00:49:55
Speaker
Good point. And you you have to feel like maybe this wasn't the only time it happened. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But it's the Newark, going to New York, Newark at this time for it is, was, ah Newark was one of the poorest cities in the country.
00:50:11
Speaker
So there is even like another step of Jack Kennedy, the president and one of the, well, from one of the wealthiest families in the country would never send somebody to here for any sort of medical procedure.
00:50:24
Speaker
It hadn't occurred to her then, but would later that this was certainly, as you said, not the first time this had happened. Makes you wonder if there's little, kennedy offspring out there burned up through some of the dna yeah new 23 and me i'm i'm sure there are and maybe not necessarily even jack but all those all the brothers Yeah. Jack started degrading her in front of other men, kind of making her the butt of the joke.
00:50:55
Speaker
On one of their encounters, she realized that he had drugged her, like actually finally figured out that she had been drugged and she fled. She ran away. He went to spend the night with Marilyn Monroe instead and did not check on her.
00:51:10
Speaker
Dave Powers took her ah took care of her and calmed her down he really kind of stepped in and and made sure she was okay she considered Dave to be a father figure however one day Jack asked her to help Dave quote relax and watched as she performed oral sex on him that's just heartbreaking ah yeah she was just she was so ashamed This is crushing moment.
00:51:35
Speaker
He once took her on a weekend trip to Boston. And when they arrived, she was surprised to find Ted in their hotel room waiting for them. Jack asked her to help Ted, quote, relax. And she refused.
00:51:49
Speaker
Good for her. Yeah. Mimi was told that she would stop attending events with him as White House staff. But he would also like, so he's starting to ice her out, but he would also continue to give her gifts.
00:52:01
Speaker
So it's very much like a he's pushing her away but doesn't want to lose that power over someone perhaps or gifts to stay quiet. You know, I don't know.
00:52:12
Speaker
Very manipulative. Very manipulative, yeah. So Mimi would move on with her life. She married a man named Tony who she did share about her relationship with Jack.
00:52:23
Speaker
ah They divorced. Mimi remarried, had two kids, and started working a fulfilling job in Manhattan. Historian Robert Dalek discovered information about Jack and Mimi and wrote in the New York Daily News, quote, JFK had a Monica. I think this was the late 90s.
00:52:43
Speaker
Because this was now discovered and out so publicly, Mimi decided to find a publisher and began working on her memoir, demanding respect for her role in his life and the presidency.
00:52:56
Speaker
She knew she was a part of his history, but didn't realize she was a part of the legacy of of his presidency. And she also didn't know how many people actually knew about the affair. She didn't know who he told. She didn't know who the person from the paper relayed the information to. So she kind of wanted to control her own story. she didn't know how many people he had affairs with either.
00:53:19
Speaker
How prevalent it was. I was just going to say, yeah, exactly that. She, through this, is when she learned that she was not the only mistress, the only White House mistress.
00:53:30
Speaker
So let's talk about Diana DeVay. She met Jack in 1958 when she was 20 years old. Now, they met outside the White House,
Diana DeVay's Affair and Career Implications
00:53:39
Speaker
correct? and I don't think she was. a Yeah, she originally was not a White House employee. Yeah.
00:53:44
Speaker
Right, right. Now, with Diana, this affair, it was prolonged. this was a This was like a four-year affair. This wasn't just fleeting. Yeah. I think he had a bit more – I think he had more respect for her and enjoyed being with her yeah a bit more.
00:54:00
Speaker
i think she was a pretty independent, career-minded person in and of herself, which I think we'll talk about yet in a minute. Yeah, yeah. So a week after they met, Dave Powers brought her to the White House.
00:54:12
Speaker
Diana moved to D.C. after she graduated from college to be closer to Jack. He was cold to her on a night that she attended a party at his home while his family was there, but would be lovely and charming in private.
00:54:27
Speaker
What we would now call grooming was happening, ah resulting in Diana losing her virginity in the same way Mimi had. Over the years, Diana felt strung along, as we will find Marilyn Monroe also did.
00:54:40
Speaker
Jack ended up getting Diana a job at the National Security Council. So at the time, he didn't get along with the National Security Advisor, Mick George Bundy. Well, and I'll note, when you said this, I thought...
00:54:54
Speaker
you know, light bulb went on national security council. Like, was this, um you know, some type of spy or, but, but when I did read, i mean, again, she was pursuing like she, Diane was pursuing her own career and she landed this job at the national security council.
00:55:13
Speaker
She only later realized that Jack had pulled strings to make it happen. She thought she accomplished this yeah on her own. And she was very proud of her career and took it very seriously. So I,
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah. I do want to give her that, that she was. Absolutely. She was, she's, she was a smart woman, very independent who was building her own career. Yeah. Yeah. A serious career. I mean, it was. Yeah.
00:55:38
Speaker
I also love the name Mick George.
00:55:42
Speaker
but So Bundy knew it was dangerous to have Diana around and wanted Jack to get rid of her. But this was kind of Jack's way of being like, well, now you have to deal with her.
00:55:55
Speaker
um I do think I also kind of piggybacking off what you said, I think the National Security Council is important because i think no matter what job you have at that council, it is you are keeping secrets.
00:56:09
Speaker
that's why and so would surprised me that That's why it me that that is where she ended up. And again, maybe that's what she was sort of pursuing anyways. And he then pulled strings instead of directing her there. I'm not quite sure about that because it does seem like.
00:56:26
Speaker
Well, the way I see it is we are just talking about the blackmail possibilities and things like that. Right. Now she is in a job where her job is to protect the security of.
00:56:37
Speaker
the nation and when affairs like this at that time of course they don't anymore now but at that time could like destroy a man's career and especially the president we're gonna put her right into position where she has to keep this quiet to protect the country yeah that's kind of what i saw so funny how yeah so funny how you can like you can look at the same thing and see it from so i know i love that's why i love this about us yes But yeah, she did. i mean, it this, she was definitely piecing together at this point, exactly what was going on. And she was getting smart enough to know things, things were being hidden. Yeah. um her And when she started, so they were trying to pull things over wall over her And when she started speaking up, he started retaliating against her very intentionally with hurting her after her father died 1962. Yeah.
00:57:27
Speaker
And I should say, I believe that Jack knew her family. So that's why this isn't weird that he called their family. But I realized they didn't actually say that. it's just like, oh, yeah, he just called people who died. He called their homes. But he so he called Diana's home, but asked only to speak to her stepmother and intentionally didn't speak to her to give condolences to her, even though she was a worked there as well.
00:57:54
Speaker
So our our buddy, McGeorge Bundy, started to realize what was happening in terms of kind of like this intentional pain Jack was causing Diana. And he started protecting her. He became really endeared to her, I think.
00:58:10
Speaker
um And even though he was annoyed with the situation, i think he started seeing what was happening. And he actually helped her flee. And she started a new life in Paris with his help. Yeah. I mean – And Diana claims she was truly in love with Jack. She thought it was a love affair. Yeah. And Oum, you know, only in reflection realized that he didn't see her that way.
00:58:35
Speaker
And she would use the term, she would, you know, say, I love you. And he, you know, he would kind of, you know, respond in a way, but she realized later that his response never was...
00:58:47
Speaker
I love you. He never spoke those words her. So I can only hope, I mean, throughout this entire, the Kennedy story, there's all these connections back to Paris. um Maybe they're all coincidental, but I do have, I mean, I hope she went on to have a ah long, cy successful life. and Yeah, yeah.
00:59:06
Speaker
Well, despite the tumultuous relationships with him, both Mimi and Diana were traumatized after the assassination. In 2003, Mimi reached out to Diana after Diana's affair with Jack became public.
Reflections on Trauma Post-Assassination
00:59:21
Speaker
Mimi would say that she wrote her memoir with the goal to reclaim her significance in history and not to badmouth Jack. I think two things can be true, but you know.
00:59:33
Speaker
um Her memoir, Once Upon a Secret, My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath, was published in 2012. The book was denounced by the media, but became a number one New York Times bestseller and was called, quote, entirely credible by a prominent JFK biographer.
00:59:53
Speaker
Diana published an essay in 2021 detailing her relationship with Jack. I believe there was a nice write-up in People Magazine. They did a profile and it was hu Well, in 2021, we're still in the Me Too era, um and the essay went viral and allowed her to drop at what she said she was able to drop the emotional weight she'd been carrying for most of her life. So Diana is quoted as saying, I was young and dazzled.
01:00:22
Speaker
Now I'm old and blind. Let me tell you which one i like better. Hands down, old and blind. ah ah So good. But so sad. But so good. But so good. So jack Jack seemed to lose respect for women once he, quote, caught them.
01:00:40
Speaker
He seemed to revel in the link between sex and humiliating the women. And he had power over Mimi and Diana and all the other women because they had to keep his secret for the good of the country.
01:00:52
Speaker
I think this is like such a good explanation as to why sometimes women don't come forward with things like this or sexual assault. The power dynamic is terrifying. And I imagine, just imagine Joe Kennedy finding this out and the media campaign to destroy all of these women's lives he would have taken. And it would have worked. Yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And you get the shame. And you have some bit of loyalty to Jackie in some ways. Yeah. yeah Want that hurt and pain to come out.
01:01:28
Speaker
just at so many levels of. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, guys, we thought we could keep this to one episode. We were very mistaken.
01:01:38
Speaker
So we're going to cut off right here. Our intrepid editor, Andrea, is going to make the call where, quote, right here is. But she's got it. We trust her. And we will be back next week with part two of our JFK saga.
01:01:54
Speaker
Well, I guess technically part three. Part two of part two. Right? Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, we'll see you guys next week.