JFK took the virginity of a 19-year-old White House intern in Jackie Kennedy's bed, before engaging in an 18-month affair that ended with his assassination
President John F. Kennedy took the virginity of a 19-year-old White House intern in his wife Jackie's bed before engaging in an 18-month-long affair with the young girl that continued up until his assassination in 1963.
The scandal is told by DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan in her new book 'Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed', which is being published exclusively by the Mail in a major new series.
In 1962, JFK's right-hand man Dave Powers would invite intern Mimi Beardsley to join JFK at one of his infamous 'pool parties' – an almost daily occurrence at the White House involving young female staffers.
President John F. Kennedy took the virginity of a 19-year-old White House intern in his wife Jackie's bed before engaging in an 18-month-long affair with the young girl that continued up until his assassination in 1963. (Pictured: Mimi Beardsley, the White House intern).
in 1962, JFK's right-hand man Dave Powers invited intern Mimi Beardsley to join JFK at one of his infamous 'pool parties' – an almost daily occurrence at the White House involving young female staffers.
Shortly after the swim, and just four days into her internship, Beardsley received another call from Powers, this time inviting her to an informal gathering in Kennedy's family residence.
Shortly after one swim, and just four days into her internship, Beardsley received another call from Powers, this time inviting her to an informal gathering in Kennedy's family residence.
There, Callahan writes, JFK 'got [Beardsley] drunk' (drinking daiquiris), before taking her on a private tour of his home. When they reached his wife Jackie's bedroom, he guided her to the bed and took her virginity.
Beardsley published a book about her experience in 2011, in which she recalls: 'The next thing I knew he was standing in front of me, his face inches away. He placed both hands on my shoulders and guided me toward the edge of the bed.
'Slowly, he unbuttoned the top of my shirtdress and touched my breasts. Then he started to pull off my underwear.'
She added: 'I'd always imagined that my first time would be with the man I loved on my wedding night. Could I have done anything to resist President Kennedy? I doubt it.'
Mimi has professed that she does not feel guilt for her long affair with JFK – who was 26 years her senior.
'I wasn't invading the Kennedys' marriage; I was merely occupying the President's time when his wife was away. If he wasn't troubled, why should I be?' she said.
JFK was serially unfaithful to his wife, so much so, Callahan writes, that Jackie suspected he had even slept with her sister, Lee Radziwill.
Jackie and JFK cutting their wedding cake after their marriage in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 12, 1953.
JFK and Jackie sit together at his family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, a few months before their wedding.
Jackie makes a private trip to London with JFK for the christening ceremony of their niece Anna Christina Radziwill, held at Westminster Abbey in 1961.
JFK is surrounded by a group of admirers at Santa Monica Beach in California, in 1962.
JFK is pictured on board the torpedo boat he commanded in the South West Pacific during World War II in 1943.
JFK on holiday, August 1956, with 'starlets and bikini babes' in the South of France.
Just after their wedding in 1953, Jackie had caught Jack — then a US senator — receiving oral sex in his office, from a young girl under his desk.
Jackie wasn't naïve: she'd known from the start that Jack wouldn't be faithful, but she hadn't known just how promiscuous he was. He didn't even try to hide his affairs.
Three years after they married, in August 1956, Jack made a last-minute run to become the vice-presidential candidate.
Jackie, having suffered two miscarriages, was finally carrying a baby to the third trimester.
The baby was stillborn.
Her lost pregnancies were likely caused by all the sexually transmitted diseases — asymptomatic chlamydia among them — that Jack had passed to her.
Jackie retreated to her mother's Rhode Island estate, where she mourned her baby and her marriage.
'How could I have been so stupid?' she'd ask through tears.
Jack's father, Joe, knew Jackie was a high-value asset. He paid her $1 million to stay in the marriage, and offered millions more if Jack ever gave her a sexually transmitted disease again.
Jackie Kennedy contracted multiple sexually transmitted diseases from her husband and only agreed to remain married after her father-in-law paid her $1 million
Jackie gave birth to her first child, Caroline, in November 1957. John Jr. followed in 1960.
In 1957, Jackie gave birth to their first child, Caroline. She'd often refer to this as the happiest day of her life.
But there were so many women. Jackie suspected that even Lee, her sister, had slept with Jack once.
She knew about Jack and Pamela Turnure, her own press secretary.
She knew about Jack's euphemistic 'pool parties' held almost daily in the White House — often attended by his brothers Ted and Bobby and various lackeys — and the young secretaries who'd join them.
Women ran up and down the back stairs whenever Jackie was away, leaving behind blonde hairs and bobby pins.
She knew about his penchant for picking up girls while traveling. But did Jackie know about the three-ways, four-ways, and five-ways? About swapping hookers with his buddies? About the 15-year-old babysitter Jack had impregnated back when he was a senator?
'Jack needs to expel some kind of hormonal surge,' she said. 'I don't think he even has affection for them. It's just this intrinsic part of his life, a vicious trait he inherited from his father.'
For a man with such a high libido, Jackie continued, Jack was terrible in bed. Was it her fault? 'He just goes too fast and falls asleep,' she said.
She wasn't to know that this was the complaint of every woman who'd had sex with Jack Kennedy: no kissing, no build-up, no intensity or sensuality or fun. He never lasted longer than three minutes and didn't even seem to enjoy sex. It was like a compulsion; there was never anything personal about it.
Her Doctor friend advised Jackie to tell her husband she needed more affection, that foreplay would be his gift to her.
Jackie did just that, and Jack's response surprised her. He had no idea that sex was so important to her, he said. Her interest was impressive. How had a nice girl like her become so intrigued by all things sexual?
JFK and Jackie arrive at Dallas Love Field airport on the day of his assassination: November 22, 1963
John F. Kennedy and Jackie arriving in Dallas on November 22, 1963 - the day JFK was assassinated
JFK, Jackie, Texas Governor John Connally, and others smile at the crowds lining their motorcade route in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Lyndon Johnson is sworn in as U.S. president beside his wife 'Lady Bird' and Jackie after JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963.
Jackie stands with her children, Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr (saluting), as well as her brother-in-law Bobby at JFK's funeral on November 25, 1963.
Jackie Kennedy stands between JFK's brothers, Bobby and Teddy, during his funeral.
One week after the assassination, Jackie summoned the historian Theodore White to her house on Cape Cod. She offered him an exclusive interview for Life magazine, so long as she had the final edit.
'How do you want him remembered?' White asked.
'One thing kept going through my mind,' she said. It was a lyric from a song in the musical Camelot: 'Don't let it be forgot that, for one brief shining moment, there was Camelot.'