Diana De Veigh, now an old lady, has written about her affair with JFK which began in 1958 when she was a junior at Radcliffe, then the all female sister college of Harvard. JFK's secretary Evelyn Lincoln was one of JFK's aides that enabled this adultery. That is important because it shows much JFK trusted Evelyn Lincoln who JFK later told, in 1963, just a few days before the JFK assassination that he was dropping Lyndon Johnson from the 1964 Democratic national ticket. Evelyn Lincoln, like Jackie Kennedy was on the Air Force One plane ride back from Dallas after the JFK assassination. Evelyn Lincoln, like Jackie Kennedy, immediately and in real time suspected Lyndon Johnson in the JFK assassination. Both women were acutely aware of the poisonous relationship between the Kennedys and LBJ. Both women were correct about that and they knew it immediately: that LBJ had just murdered JFK.
Here is Diana de Vegh on her affair with JFK. It took her a long time to publicly tell this story. It began in 1958 when she was in college and age 20
Web link to Airmail:
https://airmail.news/issues/2021-8-28/j-f-k-and-the-radcliffe-girl
August 28, 2020 Daily Mail article on the JFK-Diana De Vegh affair
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9935921/JFKs-secret-mistress-breaks-silence-60-years.html
J.F.K. and the Radcliffe Girl
For the first time ever, one of the former
president’s lovers tells her story
It’s an old
story.
Really old: young woman, Great Man.
Predictable outcome: heartbreak for
her, no consequences for him. But wait … there’s a twist. He dies, abruptly,
although he lives on in song and story, in history and in her story. “She”—her,
me … I just plain live on. Flattened at first, marked by an invisible hoofprint
seared into my being, but then reconfiguring and gathering speed toward an
unexpected life.
Here’s what happened.
The Temptation of Light
“Well, my dear, you have the
advantage here. You know that I’m Jack Kennedy, but I don’t know who you are …
”
Neither did I … know who I was. But
I knew I was vibrating with excitement. My first political dinner, and for this
moment I was sitting next to him … the man of the hour, the evening, the
future. He had come to our table, he had noticed me, and he was talking to me!
It
was 1958: I was 20, a junior at Radcliffe College, and wishing I was not. Read,
take notes, write papers, pass exams, get good grades, repeat. Caged in
anonymous lecture halls and yearning for an exit from my life. Searching for a compelling
focus, and purpose.
was
wilting.
But here, now, in this ballroom,
adrenaline poured through me. A star galvanizing a crowd. Lights, candles,
action. Loud voices, gusts of laughter, and intermittent shouts of recognition,
and display. There he was. Center dais. Easy in the spotlight.
An evening demonstration of
Democratic hegemony in Boston. Kickoff for a senatorial re-election campaign,
even, maybe, the precursor to a national campaign.
After an hour of
introductions, jokes, and thanks to all the fine people who had made this
evening possible—The Speech. I would come to know it well. Humorous and
purposeful. A skillful invitation to commit to a better world. Change to come.
Cheers, and wild applause. I was on my feet. We all were. Finally, a place to
land. A place to belong. I just had to become part of this: glamour, drama,
suspense. How would it turn out? Then, suddenly, the senator was at our table.
Whom would he talk to? Who
would get the smile, the clap on the shoulder, the handshake? I wanted to be
one of the favorites. Actually, I wanted to be the favorite. I knew the protocol. I’d been brought up
by one handsome man who was almost always the center of attention. My father
moved through life radiating purpose and vitality. When he arrived home each
evening, it was like the curtain going up on an exciting, witty play where he
was the director, writer, and star. Here I felt the familiar flash, cross
wiring of eager and anxious, high seas ahead. I didn’t know the senator, but I
knew his energy. I felt it in my body.
The senator was standing directly across the
table. And he was looking … at me. Oh, God, don’t let me blush, I prayed.
Useless, of course. We all stood up. He gestured to us to sit back down. “This
is the table I need to be at. You young people will set me straight; the rest
of these guys just tell me what I want to hear … ” We glowed. We mattered. He
walked around the table to stand behind my date, hand on his shoulder. “James,
I hear you’ve done great things for us … Now I want one more effort.” James
leapt up: “Anything, sir.”
“Give
me your seat, so a tired old man can sit next to a pretty girl.”
“Now,
my de-ah”—this was Boston speaking—“who are you? What’s your name?” I could
barely gasp out my name, much less muster a coherent sentence.
“So, are you really interested in politics?”
“Oh, yes!”
Why couldn’t I think of something smart to
say? Everyone at the table was no doubt judging me for getting a turn they
should have had. They would be engaging with him on substantive issues. I tried
to remember what my date had been talking about with the other campaign workers
earlier in the evening. Nothing.
The senator was standing
directly across the table. And he was looking … at me.
This was not only embarrassing; it was
familiar. In my father’s house there was a question: What do you have to say
for yourself? Smart mattered. Articulate mattered. Literary, historical
allusions mattered. Best to respond with something sharp.
Scurrying thoughts, how to hold this man’s
attention? I had to justify my favored position, sitting next to him. Finally,
the right thought: “I’ve read your book.” A lie. But people liked it when you
said that.
“And?”
“And … it’s wonderful.”
A slight smile, he turned away to talk to the
group at large: “So how do you all think it went?”
“You were wonderful,” I breathed. Inane.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, but do you
actually have any experience in all this, or do you just feel sorry for an old
guy?” He laughed, high good humor, and suggested that we come to another event,
this time outside of Boston. He rose, signaled a man standing nearby, and
started to leave.
“I’m going to count on seeing you next week.
Dave here will give you the details.” Slight wave of the hand and he was off.
Dave
gave us the information: date, time, place, a community center in one of the
nearby suburbs.
I couldn’t wait. Ecstatic days. The landscape
saturated with color. Trees emitting a vapor, a special oxygen just for me, and
the branches waved me on into this dream of wild adventure.
In my closet, my dresses chittered and
chattered, fluffing their sleeves and whisking their hems, vying for my
attention. As I would be vying for his attention, as soon as I saw him again.
And when the actual evening finally arrived,
Driver Dave appeared at the door of Gilman House, my off-campus residence. Dave told me that James, my date
from the benefit, was needed at headquarters.
“The senator doesn’t want you driving around
the back roads with some kid who might get lost or drink too much. He’ll feel
safer having me drive you, O.K.?”
So O.K. I went to one rally, and then another,
giddy with the knowledge of my special place. In the car after a rally, the
senator would tease me: “You know I’m working pretty hard for just one vote
here … ” But underneath the teasing, our connection was tapping into a vein of
possibility. He said he could see there was “something special” about me. Could
that be true?
I didn’t realize then that I’d simply been
netted, separated from the other students, who might have offered some
emotional ballast in this situation. It wasn’t just he who paid attention to
me; I was entirely surrounded by his circle. They were so attentive, always
someone to talk to or bring me a cup of coffee, call me “sweetheart.” I thought
it was grand. What they were actually doing was making sure I was inconspicuous
at these public events and remained at an appropriate distance from the center
of attention.
What could I have been thinking? Obviously, I
wasn’t thinking. I was feeling, in full movie-star-infatuation mode. Only this
movie star was a worldly actor who was going to make everything different. And
I would be part of it, carried along in the wake of his power.
I didn’t realize then that
I’d simply been netted, separated from the other students. It wasn’t just he
who paid attention to me; I was entirely surrounded by his circle.
One of the many advantages of being in
movie-star-crush land was my happy inability to consider the facts. For
example, the fact of this man’s marital status. He never mentioned it, so … I
decided not to think about it. I stayed in my bubble. It was easy, and
emotionally convenient, because Mrs. Kennedy did not participate at this level of
suburban campaigning.
“I’m expecting great things from you, ya
know.” Always laughing, always looking at me in what I hoped was a special way.
It
became a routine. Dave would take me to an event. I would listen to the speech
and try to think of smart things to say. At the end of the evening I would get
back into the car, the senator would get in, and we would talk about what had
just transpired. I would be delivered to Gilman House, caught up in his
contagious vitality.
“You know how I feel about you … ”
I did? No, I didn’t, although I hoped I did.
He was so attentive, even if he did tease me.
“Listen, Dave, we have to put our best foot
forward here. We’re competing with … the library.” Always laughing, so much
fun.
“Dave, we’ve got a scholar
here. Now, explain to me one more time what you’re studying and why.” And I
would deliver myself of some sentences about how the Middle East was an
important arena for post-colonial international competition, talk about my
graduate-school plans to study Arabic.
“Hmm, so did we pick up any votes?” And that
would be my cue to make a megaphone with my hands and announce: “By
overwhelming majority, John Kennedy sails to victory!”
And he’d say, “I can tell that you are
special. You have a spark. I can see it.” A spark, a gift … for what? I may not
have been a dust ball in the corner, but what “spark” exactly had I
demonstrated? The gift of rapt attention?
Then one evening when he got in the car, he
said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go to the apartment. We’ll find something to eat.”
Ah,
yes, the apartment. The place he kept in Boston. There, I would find out how to
be special. It was much simpler than I thought and had little to do with what I
did or did not have to say for myself.
In this apartment, something different. He was
leaning toward me, with such a sincere gaze. Yes, I knew how he felt about me.
How could I doubt this moment of such profound connection? This was love, for
sure. And … now, it was sex, for sure.
His hand on mine. Mine were icy cold. Oddly,
my impulse was to flinch away. I didn’t, but what was the matter with me? This
was love … love not spoken, not the explicit words, but silently conveyed in so
many ways. So why the confusion?
After all, I was 20 years old, with a full supply of
hormones and madly in love with this compelling man. Why wasn’t I flinging myself into his arms?
First thought: fear. At some subliminal level, I knew the social cost of
“adventure.”
It was different then. There were consequences
for young women who might stray from the accepted path.
Nice girls didn’t have sex. If they did,
trouble started with a “bad reputation” and rolled downhill from there.
Choosing John Kennedy meant choosing a fast-track, super-highway exit from a
desirable position in the social order to which I belonged. Forecast for the
fallen: Not a nice marriage to a nice young man. Not a prosperous and
predictable life in New York City.
It had happened to my mother.
Writing to her best friend while living in
Berlin in the 20s, my mother announced, “My New Year’s resolution is to kiss as
many men of different nationalities as possible.” She was young and beautiful.
Why not? But then she made a mistake. Despite her parents’ strong disapproval,
she married a foreigner (my father, who was from Hungary and was not “one of us”).
At first, all was forgiven: lunch at the Cos
Club, bridge, children. Dinner parties, visits to friends with country houses.
But then, trouble: a divorce. She never regained the social ground she’d lost
even as my father re-married and forged forward in his life and profession. She
drifted out of my life, my stepmother becoming ever more dear to me. And I got
a message: men could be trouble, tears-and-long-days-in-bed trouble.
Ah, yes, the apartment.
The place he kept in Boston. There, I would find out how to be special.
Looking back at that moment in his kitchen,
were these the thoughts that preoccupied me? Of course not. But they were ever
present, an invisible riptide waiting below the surface of my decisions and
actions. I was not a natural rebel. I was afraid of losing my “nice” status,
but, at the same time, I yearned for vivid, breathtaking CinemaScope and
stereophonic sound. And it had brought me to this moment, with this man.
“Let’s go.”
He led. I followed.
Now, in twenty-twenty
hindsight, let’s pause and consider. Let’s think about loaded words: consent,
choice, abuse. Does it have to be abuse if an older man enchants a younger
woman? What if this particular young woman longed to be enchanted? I was past
the age of consent. Could it, should it, have occurred to him that at twice my
age there might be a power differential? That at least chronologically he was a
functioning adult and presumably capable of making a more thoughtful choice?
That respect for his family, his religion, the honor of his position, might
suggest a path of self-respect as opposed to the rut of self-indulgence? For a
Great Man, he was still in the throes of the male mythology of his time: see
pretty young woman, have pretty young woman.
Circling the Sun
The
affair began. Nineteen fifty-eight. For some months, the routine of the Senate
re-election campaign. Then less frequent meetings: he was away, launched in
full sweep along the presidential path. I read all about it and occasionally
heard all about it from him. A tryst at the Carlyle. Yes, I used
that word to myself; it was so romantic, and I wanted the language of
embellishment to prop me up during absences. The Carlyle, just like a movie:
large windows, soft sofas in pale colors, flowers, crystal glasses, a bar
tucked into a corner.
The Carlyle specialized in service and
discretion. I was so excited to see him. I rang the bell, the door opened, he
drew me in. Thousand-watt smile, full-body embrace. “Glad to see you …
great timing. There’s good news, we’ve—” A phone rang. I was released and
wandered over to the window. He answered the phone, beckoning me over to tuck
me into his free arm. But his body was stiff. Finished with the phone, we sat
down, he began to talk, I was at full rapt attention, but we were interrupted
again. More phone. He was distracted. He held up one finger and mouthed,
“Sorry, just one minute.”
Choosing John Kennedy
meant choosing a fast-track, super-highway exit from a desirable position in
the social order to which I belonged.
Hang up the phone, take my hand. “Now don’t
make that face at me. You of all people can understand what a campaign is.
We’ve been together in this from the beginning … ” Really? Even I should have
known that was too glib. But I was the French housewife, talented at turning
any scrap into a meal. Easy compliments and clichéd phrases passed as
sustenance. At least I finally had his attention. The circumstances and
reassurances were mollifying enough to carry on. But the evening was not the
romantic fix I had pictured.
I brooded, no one to consult. The next time we
met, I asked him, “Don’t you care about me anymore?”
“Yes,
of course I care about you … but you have to understand, so much is going on …
You’ll come to Washington, it will be better there.”
Well, yes, I understood, but reality was not
my strong suit.
I left graduate school and came home to New
York for the summer, to prepare for a move to Washington.
The diet of scraps continued. “I’m so
attracted to you, you’re smart, you have a spark … ” Meager rations. For me,
“You know how I feel about you,” while he held my hand, allowed me to connect
the dots of the unsaid things I longed to hear.
What did we talk about?
Please. There were no deeply meaningful conversations regarding our innermost
thoughts and feelings. It was chit and chat and then some sex and then go home.
I went for the daring adventure outside of my
world. If it involved sex for attention … well, O.K.
What would you have done?
Soon, a startling coincidence. My father left
one evening for a business dinner. Captain Charisma returned in high good
humor. A certain senator had been intrigued by what he had to say.
The next morning, the telephone: The senator
would like some private conversation with Mr. de Vegh. Would he be available to
accompany the senator on his flight back to Washington?
He would. He did.
I was catapulted into the surreal. My secret
love in “private conversation” with my father? What if my father found out
about “him” and me? An all-day vigil near the front door. Panic when the door slammed
and my father returned. Relief. My secret appeared safe.
The election was reaching a crescendo. His win
assured, I packed my bags for the move to Washington. Gossip, rumors,
headlines, all Kennedy all the time. The exquisite children, the beautiful
mother, the beaming paterfamilias. Despite the daily dose of photomania, I
still believed I was part of the whole enterprise. Distant, but special. I had
a job, I had an apartment, and life resumed with my secret love. If he didn’t
have any trouble with a double life, why would I?
Could it, should it, have
occurred to him that at twice my age there might be a power differential?
Then,
one evening during the inaugural festivities, I was invited to his Georgetown home. I expected
exuberance, gala good cheer. Instead, he looked at me with an expression
I had not seen before, almost hesitant. “So, are you any relation to the Swiss
banker I met this summer?” Swiss Banker? My dad was a Hungarian economist.
Well, so what? Foreigners sound foreign.
“Of course, he’s my father.”
Pause.
He had
put it together that the man he had met, and consulted with, was also the
father of the young woman he had seduced, who was standing in front of him
beaming expectantly.
Writing retrospectively, I wonder what might
have been going on in his head. In the moment, had he registered a worrisome
breach of the separation between the real world of men and the fringe position
of women? In any case, he was not pleased at this problematic wrinkle. And in
that displeasure, I realized that I was generic. Mine is a distinctive surname, yet it had taken him six
months to put it together.
The man with whom I believed
I was having a love affair did not want to connect certain dots. In fact, he
wanted me to be as isolated as possible, alone on the vast sea of his attention.
A full-body wave of fear pulsed through me.
Sweat ran down my body. No breath, no muscle, no bones. A bright flash: a doll
on the shelf. A stranger passing by picks up the doll: Nice, yes, this one.
“Charge and send, sir?”
“No, I’ll take it now.”
And he had taken me then, and I’d shone with
joy. But what to do with dolly now, given these new circumstances? Best to put
her back on the shelf, in a no-tears, no-upset kind of way. Nice dolly, nice
shelf.
It was all unraveling. Was he thinking about
his own daughter, small then, but future prey for men just as charming as he
was? I didn’t know exactly what was going to unfold, but I knew the shape of
trouble, the cloud of invisibility that was enveloping me. He did not want an
emotional scene; he did not want any scene.
“We’ll meet when all of this is over.”
And finally, at last, a flicker of my own
agency. No, I thought to myself, no, we will not meet when this is over. The
moment of clarity was short-lived, but it was a moment.
He bundled me off. “You’re tired. We all are.
We should get you home.”
Once there, I found a bottle of wine, got
drunk, got sick, and foggily wondered what would happen next. I couldn’t call
him, tell him that I wanted to talk. Maybe I hadn’t understood what he had been
saying, maybe … maybe nothing. The nature of one-way relationships is that only
one person initiates. The other person waits. And over time, the waiting made
me happy to hear from him.
“Hello, dear.” It was Mrs. Lincoln, his personal
secretary, on the phone, a few months later. “Are you well? Are you settling in
O.K.? He wants to see you. Can you come over at … ?” Whatever time, whatever
date. She couldn’t have been nicer. “Hello, miss, let me bring you upstairs.”
Yes
to conversation, yes to listening to Johnny Mathis, yes to dinner, yes to
afterward, yes to being driven home. Lovely? Lucky me?
Daedalus’s Daughter
Proximity to a supernova can cause
wild exhilaration. It is dynamic: I flew up, wings beating like mad. I hovered,
then, somehow, I deflated, floating down, my skirts outstretched around me.
Who was I now? Girl on her back. Big
ho hum.
This was a company town. I was
rumored to have “access.” Naturally, I was scrutinized.
In those days, dinners all took place in
private, at Georgetown houses. Round tables of eight with place cards and
floor-length tablecloths. There were candles with softly glowing light to show
off women at their prettiest. This particular evening, I was seated next to
Bobby Kennedy.
I don’t remember much of our conversation,
with the exception of the opening interrogatory: “Why are you here? What are
you doing in Washington?”
I was so terrified that I was afraid my hands
would shake and did not dare reach for a glass of wine, although my deep desire
was to drink a lot of it. I knew that the rapt attention I paid his brother
would not work with this man.
He
leaned in. “Well? You have a job, don’t you?”
“Yes,
sir. Research assistant at the National Security Council.”
I wanted to reach for a reassuring cigarette
in hopes of being enveloped in a cloud of smoke to avoid his laser stare. No
such luck.
“And how did that come about?”
Was this public humiliation? Deep breath. Calm
voice. Think fast.
“I was
studying Arabic in graduate school. I met Mr. Bundy because my father was on
two visiting committees at Harvard.”
I went for the daring
adventure outside of my world. If it involved sex for attention … well, O.K.
I suspect now that his job was to look me over
and decide if I might be potential trouble. Finishing with the first course,
blessedly, he turned to his partner on the other side. My shoulders began to
descend from my ears. Dinner rolled on. After dessert, I withdrew with the
other women to have coffee in the living room, leaving the men to brandy and
cigars. As I passed by the attorney general, he looked at me and gave a faint
nod: I’d passed.
It was all so amazing. But, no, it was not, no
matter how many times I told myself this was the best life ever. Actually, the
best part of any event was reading about it the next day in The Washington
Post. It confirmed to me that I was in the right place at the
right time. I’d always depended on the outside to know how to feel on the
inside. My values, beliefs, interests, were all layered onto me by the people
around me. I was lined with the most expensive wallpapers, reflecting the
training in manners and expectations that had been the story of my life so far.
But the guidance had not included how to be a good 22-year-old mistress.
I knew enough to write thank-you cards and
send flowers. I knew how to give dinner parties, featuring great wines courtesy
of my dad. But I did not know how to tell the truth, certainly not to myself,
mired in shame.
“We” were dwindling. We were
not meeting very often. He said I was “cold”; I thought he was. “What’s
happened to you?” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I just sat there. I don’t like this, came the unbidden, and very unspoken, thought. My
resentment shimmered. I would show him that I was independent. For our next
visit, in the Executive Office Building, I wore what I considered to be a
fashionable but decidedly casual ensemble—a striped Saint James sweater and a
navy skirt. “Don’t you have something better than this to wear in the White
House?” I did, but this was maximum defiance from a very good girl.
He had
brought me into his world: he had chosen me. But to be chosen means that one
could be unchosen.
What if the doll went back on the shelf? No
job, no invitations, no longer a person of interest?
Then I
began to hear certain names. I didn’t know these women, but I read about them
with obsessive interest. Not just the girls on the other side of the White
House, the trio of young, lively charmers about whom everyone chattered. Other
names—adults. Mary Meyer, Helen Chavchavadze … I was jealous … I didn’t care …
I did care.
I managed my feelings about them by clutching
my substantive job ever more closely as a marker of identity. But how had I
gotten that plum position at the National Security Council? I have since heard it was
payback from the president to McGeorge Bundy, who had suggested that the affair
with the Radcliffe student be terminated. Unasked-for advice, which in the end
terminated with “Meet your new staff member, Mr. Bundy.”
The job was déjà vu all over again, Radcliffe
on steroids. Papers. Piles, heaps of papers for me to read and organize.
Cost-sharing in NATO, the possibility of disarmament negotiations with
the Russians. The trust territories. Always the clock ticking through
the days, weeks, then months, between summonses.
Panicking, ruminating, hurling silent
accusations at our next tryst: “You don’t love me anymore and I hate you … ”
Yet he
had deftly avoided ever telling me he actually loved me: special, smart, a
spark … but not “love.” That was my embroidery,
the meticulous arrangement of my tattered fantasies. I had misunderstood much.
My problem, not his.
What I thought was the rapture of true love
was simply a feeling. He could twist the dial, flat to fluffy. He beamed, I
glowed: conferred radiance. Without him? Flat, stale, and self-critical.
In reality, our relationship was superficial
and circumstantial. Of course, I did not want to know this, and redoubled my
commitment to fantastical daydreams, to even the possibility of the next
summons. My mantra: “It will be better next time.”
When John Kennedy lost interest in me, I also
lost interest in me. Inexperienced in adult relationships, it didn’t occur to
me that women could be angry with men, so instead I turned on myself.
Paralysis, confusion, and ever more waiting ensued.
“Why are you doing this shit?” Marc Raskin, my
boss at the N.S.C., was standing in front of my desk.
Thus far, we had exchanged the bare minimum of
conversation. On this particular day, he paused to read the file titles on my
desk.
“What is this? You don’t like this. You’re
bored. Do something else.”
What? Would he give me the equivalent of a bad
report card?
But as one door was opening, another was
closing. I was called home. My father was ill, very ill. I took a leave of
absence and drifted through his last days. Unmoored, untethered, lost in a
futureless dream. Or, from a different perspective, released from a futureless
dream. I was in a daze, reminded of my reality by a phone call.
“Mrs. de Vegh? Hold, please, the president is
on the line.” I handed the phone to my stepmother. I didn’t want to hear that
voice. “Sorry … fine man, valued adviser … ” I started upstairs. Slowly it
dawned on me: the imperative of flight.
A good father figure, Mr. Bundy suggested I
come and see him. “Now, Diana, what are you going to do?” he asked.
And out of my mouth came the syllables of a
word representing a thought I had never thought.
“Paris.”
There was one final scene pre-departure.
Not a tryst, not an assignation, not a dinner.
Just two people. Standing where? I can’t remember. It had to be either the
residence or the Oval Office. No idea, though I think there was late-afternoon
sun coming into wherever we were. But that could just be a nostalgic shine to
add a theatrical glow to the proceedings.
He came
toward me and took my hand.
“I was
sorry to hear about your father, a remarkable man.” He looked at me intensely.
“How is your mother doing?” That was his charm. He knew to ask after her. I
loved my stepmother. I was glad of the gesture. “And I hear you’re leaving …
Well, I will miss you.”
Another
look, the sincere gaze that had so entranced me.
I took my hand back.
I said good-bye. I left.
Outside, I registered one breath of
disbelief.
It was a beginning.
A Clearer Light
I was lucky. The word “Paris” had
come out of my mouth. Literal-minded, I went there. I found another world. I
came back aglow for a life in the theater. Not my ultimate landing place, but,
oh, the people I met, the places I went …
Yet I still waited for the
phone to ring, hadn’t truly learned to count my blessings, rather than my phone
calls. I lived in a small apartment near the Eiffel Tower on Rue de
l’Université. During the day I studied with a woman; I spoke words in English
and she wrote them in French. One night, I was in a bistro, eating dinner
alone. Above the bar, a small television flickered, black and white veiled in
blue cigarette smoke. At once, the show stopped. A flurry of urgent voices in a
language I was still learning. Then I looked again, and I knew. You ask me now
what I felt and I wonder, still. To say I had no feelings at all was not
because I’d hardened my heart. But because I could not comprehend. I’d grown up
in a world where bad things did not happen to important people. I lingered for
some time, then walked through the city alone until I found my apartment, where
I remained all night, numb, alone.
Eventually I found my way to social work and,
ultimately, a private psychotherapy practice. In a funny way I came full
circle, but with a difference. Like my young self, I listen with rapt
attention. But no longer in hope of reflected glory. Now I listen to be of
service, to help people see and understand themselves in all the ways I was
once too frightened to do.
It took
me years to recover from my relationship with Kennedy, and almost as many years
to finally write this. So why now? It’s a question I ask my clients.
#MeToo has provided a specific context for
needed re-evaluation. Then there is the broader context of a world still obsessed
with stargazing. Inequality and idealization as the component parts of
celebrity glamour. The hovering promise: This, too, could be yours. Lock your
energy onto a mental picture of how it will be when …
But I’m also writing because I am old. Old
enough that I can look candidly and with compassion at why I was so easily
hooked. Why, all these decades later, for so many people, it is still an
ongoing project not to get hooked by a passing supernova. Why it is still so
easy for so many of us to abandon self-knowledge for the siren call of wealth
and prestige.
When I was 20, John Kennedy
had all the markers of a romantic hero. But this is not a romantic story. Back
then I thought it was. Was I a dope? For sure, so what? Twenty-year-olds are
not supposed to be wise. Ardent and hopeful, yes, heart on sleeve for sure.
Underneath, fearful, unmoored. How much I did not know.
What happens when the star strides on?
Useless, futile, ridiculous rage aimed at his disappearing back? A rapid ride
down the escalator of self-hatred? All of the above. But then what? In John
Kennedy’s compelling and shiny presence I could hide from my insecurities, my
lack of identifiable gifts or interests, my directionless rudder. I do not
believe I was the only young woman to prefer “swept away” to the contemplation
of “What next?” Job? Career? Future?
Terrifying.
Twenty-twenty hindsight: I needed a lesson in
pronouns. What I really wanted, though I did not know it then, was my vitality,
not his, my internal light board, not his thousand-watt smile, the
cellular explosion of my aliveness, not his star
power.
Back then, I thought my job was to become
pleasing, an enabling acolyte to a master of the universe. I know now that my
job was to become myself. To excavate my abilities and hone them. To live from
the inside out rather than the outside in.
Then, I was
young and dazzled. Now, I am old and blind. Let me tell you which I like
better: hands-down, old and blind. My version of old and blind, I hasten to
add, the good-fortune version, featuring health and resources. Now I have more
vision than sight, but every day I see truth and beauty in the lives of my
patients, my friends, and my family.
Good luck and hard rowing,
companions on the road who opened my heart, have brought me to this place. To
love and work, to usefulness, to freedom. To using accurate pronouns so we can
all live lit from within.
Eternal gratitude.
To hear Diana de Vegh reveal more about her story, listen to her
on AIR
MAIL’s Morning Meeting podcast
Diana
de Vegh is a New York–based psychotherapist
“During the
1960 campaign, according to Mrs. Lincoln, Kennedy discovered how vulnerable his
womanizing had made him. Sexual blackmail, she said, had long been part of
Lyndon Johnson's modus operandi—abetted by Edgar. "J. Edgar Hoover,"
Lincoln said, "gave Johnson the information about various congressmen and
senators so that Johnson could go to X senator and say, `How about this little
deal you have with this woman?' and so forth. That's how he kept them in
line. He used his IOUs with them as what he hoped was his road to the presidency.
He had this trivia to use, because he had Hoover in his corner. And he thought
that the members of Congress would go out there and put him over at the Convention.
But then
Kennedy beat him at the Convention. And well, after that Hoover and Johnson and
their group were able to push Johnson on Kennedy."LBJ," said Lincoln,
"had been using all the information Hoover could find on Kennedy—during
the campaign, even before the Convention. And Hoover was in on the pressure on
Kennedy at the Convention." (Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential, p.
272).
According to Lincoln, Kennedy had definite plans to drop Johnson for the Vice
Presidency in 1964, and replace him with Governor Terry Sanford of North
Carolina. In 1964, new President Lyndon Johnson gave FBI
director J. Edgar Hoover a lifetime waiver from the mandatory retirement age of
70 that Hoover would hit on 1/1/65! In other words, Hoover could live to age 120
and still be head of the FBI. In my
opinion, both LBJ and Hoover were conspirators, along with the CIA, in the JFK
assassination. LBJ’s and Hoover’s jobs were to cover up the murder.
Evelyn
Lincoln: In the famous photo of JFK and RFK huddling together, sitting on a
bed, at the 1960 Democratic convention, they were trying to figure out how to keep
Lyndon Johnson off the 1960 Demo ticket, but they could not because in the words
of Lincoln, “Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover had them boxed into a hole or
a corner. They were absolutely boxed in” in regards to Hoover’s sexual blackmail
of JFK. This shame is why the Kennedys never told anyone how LBJ got onto the
ticket.
https://isgp-studies.com/american-security-council-membership-list
Evelyn
Lincoln, President John F. Kennedy's personal secretary, claims in the FRONTLINE
documentary that Hoovers's files on Kennedy's personal life were used to pressure
Kennedy to choose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in the 1960 Democratic convention.
Mrs. Lincoln was the only other witness to some of the private conversations
between John and Robert Kennedy on the day Johnson was chosen. ''When I came in (the hotel
room), they were huddled together closely on the bed discussing this tremendous
issue about Lyndon B. Johnson being on the ticket,'' says Mrs. Lincoln. ''Bobby
would get up and go look out the window and stare. Kennedy would sit there and
think. In fact, they hardly knew I came into the room they were so engrossed in
their conversation ... trying to figure out how they could maneuver to get it so
he wouldn't be on the ticket.'' Mrs. Lincoln told FRONTLINE that what she
heard that day convinced her that the Kennedys were being blackmailed. ''One of the factors that made
John F. Kennedy choose Lyndon B. Johnson for vice president were the malicious
rumors that were fed to Lyndon B. Johnson by Edgar Hoover about his womanising,''
said Mrs. Lincoln. ''Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover had them boxed into
a hole or a corner. They were absolutely boxed in.''
"Hoover
and Johnson both had something the other wanted,'' said Robert Baker, the Texan's
longtime confidant. ""Johnson needed to know Hoover was not after his
ass. And Hoover certainly wanted Lyndon Johnson to be president rather than Jack
Kennedy. ""Hoover was a leaker, and he was always telling Johnson about
Kennedy's sexual proclivities. Johnson told me Hoover played a tape for him,
made by this woman who had rented an apartment to one of John Kennedy's girlfriends.
And she turned the tape over to the FBI. '' One senior official, William Sullivan,
said flatly that Edgar tried ""to sabotage Jack Kennedy's campaign. ''
Surviving records suggest agents in charge had standing orders to report
everything they picked up on him. ... Historians have tried repeatedly to analyze
the tense negotiations between the Kennedy and Johnson camps that led to Johnson
accepting the vice presidential slot. Kennedy himself told his aide Pierre Salinger cryptically
that ""the whole story will never be known. And it's just as well it
won't be. '' ""The
only people who were involved in the discussions were Jack and myself,'' said
Robert Kennedy. ""We both promised each other that we'd never tell
what happened. '' According to new testimony, what happened was blackmail.
For John Kennedy, a key factor in giving Johnson the vice-presidential slot was
the threat of ruinous sex revelations that would have destroyed the
""American family man'' image so carefully seeded in the national
mind and snatched the presidency from his grasp. The blackmailers, by this account, were Johnson himself
-- and Hoover. The new information comes from Evelyn Lincoln, John
Kennedy's personal secretary for 12 years, before and throughout his
presidency, and herself a part of the Kennedy legend. Sexual blackmail During
the 1960 campaign, according to Lincoln, Kennedy discovered how vulnerable his
womanizing had made him. Sexual blackmail, she said, had long been part of Johnson's
""modus operandi'' -- abetted by Edgar. ""J. Edgar Hoover,''
Lincoln said,
""gave Johnson the information about various congressmen and senators
so that Johnson could go to X senator and say, "How about this little deal
you have with this woman? ' and so forth. That's how he kept them in line. He
used his IOUs with them on what he hoped was his road to the presidency."
Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s personal secretary of 12
years, on 11-22-63 listed LYNDON JOHNSON
as her top suspect in the JFK assassination – listed in real time on the Air Force
One plane ride back from Dallas
Web link:
Evelyn Lincoln’s top suspects in the JFK assassination
were, in real time, as she wrote them on the back of an envelope on the plane ride
from Dallas, mere hours after the JFK assassination.
1) LYNDON JOHNSON
2) KKK
3) Dixiecrats
4) Jimmy Hoffa
5) Richard Nixon
6) Diem
7) Rightist
8) CIA in Cuban fiasco
9) Dictators
10) Communists
11) John Birch Society
Evelyn Lincoln was a firm believer that a conspiracy
composed of Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA, the Mafia and the
anti-Castro Cubans murdered John Kennedy
Key
point: all these groups knew each other, worked together and had a white hot hatred
of the Kennedys. She got it right.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337999/Who-killed-JFK-List-suspects-assassinated-Presidents-secretary-goes-auction.html
Look for James Fetzer’s comment in the comment section at the bottom.
James Fetzer published
the letter by Evelyn Lincoln to "Richard" dated October 7, 1994,
in Assassination Science (1998), page 372. Letter is also printed in
[Noel Twymann, Bloody Treason, p. 831] Preserving the punctuation, the spacing
of lines (including hyphens and such), that letter reads as follows:
Evelyn
Lincoln
4701 Willard Avenue
Chevy Chase, Maryland 20816
(301) 664-3670
October 7, 1994
Dear Richard,
It was a pleasure to receive your kind letter concerning your
desire to obtain my assessment of President Kennedy's administration
and assassination to pass along to your students.
I am sending along to you and article which was written by
Muriel Ressman for the "Lady's Circle" October 1964, and was recent-
ly reprinted in a current issue of that magazine, which will give you
an insight into my impression of the man.
As for
the assassination is concerned, it is my belief that there
was a conspiracy because there were those that disliked him and felt
the only way to get rid of him was to assassinate him. These five con-
spirators, in my opinion, were Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the
Mafia, the CIA and the Cubans in Florida. The House Intelligence
Committee investigation, also, came to the conclusions that there was
a conspiracy.
My very best wishes to you and your students.
Sincerely,
s/
Evelyn Lincoln
NOTE: The first few words of the third paragraph, "As for the . . .",
indicates that she began to write, "As far as the . . .", but did not.
John Simkin: “Evelyn Lincoln wrote a letter to Richard Duncan, a
teacher at Northside Middle School in Roanoke, on 7th October, 1994: "As for (sic) the assassination is concerned it is
my belief that there was a conspiracy because there were those that disliked
him and felt the only way to get rid of him was to assassinate him. These five
conspirators, in my opinion, were Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the
Mafia, the CIA, and the Cubans in Florida."”
Evelyn Lincoln: Evelyn Lincoln
(spartacus-educational.com)
More on Evelyn Lincoln: She suspected Lyndon Johnson
and the CIA in real time on 11/22/63
By Susannah Cahalan of NY Post, 12/10/10
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/jfk_aide_unusual_suspects_7oeoNgAM8ynCmDHRJQn2OO
John F. Kennedy's closest
aide was the queen of conspiracy theorists.
Evelyn
Lincoln, his personal secretary, wrote down a list of suspects in her beloved
boss' assassination -- and it included both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
The never-before-seen
personal note, scribbled by Lincoln as she sat aboard Air Force One return ing
to Washington on the day of JFK's death, lists those she thought might be
behind the pres ident's murder.
The note, estimated
to be worth $30,000, is now on the auction block.
Lincoln was Kennedy's
personal secretary from 1953 until his death on Nov. 22, 1963, and was riding
in the Dallas motorcade that fateful day. She died in 1995 at age 85.
THEORIES:
This list of suspects - jotted down by JFK secretary Evelyn Lincoln (here with
him and JFK Jr.) after the assassination - is up for sale.
Her note listed "Lyndon, KKK, Dixiecrats, [Teamsters boss Jimmy]
Hoffa, [the] John Birch Society, Nixon, [South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh] Diem,Rightist,
CIA in Cuban fiasco, Dictators [and] Communists."
On the back of the
list is another note, written more than 20 years later when she passed on her letters
to Kennedy collector Robert White.
"There is no
end to the list of suspected conspirators to Pres. Kennedy murder. Many factions
had their reasons for wanting the young president dead. That fact alone
illustrates how the world suffers from a congenital proclivity to violence,"
it reads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlpL7qZxPhA Bush's
friend E. Howard Hunt
CNN - Kennedy's
private secretary a confidant - March 18, 1998
Daily Mail, Dec. 13, 2020: “Who Killed JFK? List of suspects made
by secretary of assassinated President goes up for auction”
The former secretary of President John
F. Kennedy made a list of suspects she believed were behind his assassination
immediately after he was gunned down in Texas.
As she flew home on Air Force One
Evelyn Lincoln jotted down the names of those she suspected were behind the killing.
They included Richard Nixon and the country's
vice president Lyndon Johnson.
She also named the Klu Klux Klan, the
CIA and Communists as she mulled over who could have ordered the assassination.
Her thoughts
were scribbled down on a single sheet of paper.
The
never-before-seen note is now up for sale and is expected to go for more than
£20,000 at an auction next week.
JFK's assassination
in 1963 has long been the subject of conspiracy theories, ranging from those behind
the murder to doubts about the lone assassin theory.
But
even before those conspiracies were aired Lincoln had her own suspicions.
She was
riding in the motorcade with Kennedy when he was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald
in Dallas, Texas.
Lincoln jotted down names of people she
suspected could have been behind the killing, starting with Lyndon Johnson.
He took over from JFK after the murder that
shocked the world.
Her note also listed 'the KKK, Dixiecrats,
[Teamsters boss Jimmy] Hoffa, [the] John Birch Society, Nixon, [South Vietnam
President Ngo Dinh] Diem, Rightist, CIA in Cuban fiasco, Dictators [and]
Communists.'
On the
back of the list is another note, written more than 20 years later when she passed
on her letters to Kennedy collector Robert White.
'There is
no end to the list of suspected conspirators to President Kennedy murder. Many
factions had their reasons for wanting the young president dead. That fact
alone illustrates how the world suffers from a congenital proclivity to violence,'
it reads.
The 10-month
Warren Commission set up to investigate the assassination concluded that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone in assassinating the president.
The
note, consigned by the Gettysburg Museum of History, will be auctioned by
Alexander Autographs in Stamford, Connecticut on Thursday.
Lincoln was Kennedy's personal secretary
from 1953 until his death on November 22, 1963. She died in 1995 at age 85.
Evelyn Lincoln knew a LOT of dirt on John Kennedy, the man she
adored. She said “I spent half my time talking to women.
CNN - Kennedy's private secretary a confidant - March 18, 1998
March
18, 1998
Web posted at: 1:41 p.m. EST (1841 GMT)
NEW YORK
(CNN) -- For more than a decade, Evelyn
Lincoln was John F. Kennedy's personal secretary and one of his most
trusted confidants.
Lincoln
was by Kennedy's side from the time he became a U.S. senator until his death in
Dallas, during his presidency. She kept hundreds of things she had collected from
Kennedy until her own death in 1995, and she willed those items to collector
Robert White.
"I one time
asked her, 'Why pick through the trash and save his doodles?' and she said,
'because I knew he was special,'" White explained.
During Kennedy's presidency, Lincoln worked in a small
room next to the Oval Office. In a 1989 interview with CNN's Larry King, Lincoln
remembered Kennedy as a taskmaster.
"He wanted you to do the right
thing at the moment. He wanted it done."
Lincoln said Kennedy even asked her to
help sneak women into the White House.
"You know women chased him. Let's
face it. There were young women. There were older women. They all did. I spent
half of my time talking to women."
CNN's Tony Clark contributed
to this report
Wow.
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