Posted on 05/16/2003 2:43:56 AM PDT by kattracks
JFK's Mimi stepped out of history's shadows yesterday as new details emerged about the life of the striking woman who kept her White House affair a secret for more than four decades.Braving a thicket of reporters, Marion (Mimi) Fahnestock, now 60, confirmed to the world how, as a prep school senior, she caught the eye of the world's most powerful man.
"From June 1962 to November 1963, I was involved in a sexual relationship with President Kennedy," Fahnestock said in a short statement. "For the last 41 years, it is a subject I have not discussed."
Fahnestock's statement indicates the affair with Kennedy continued even after a September 1963 newspaper announcement of her engagement to Anthony Fahnestock, a recent college graduate who was serving in the Army.
The couple married Jan. 5, 1964, six weeks after Kennedy's assassination Nov. 22, 1963. She wouldn't say when or why the affair ended that ill-fated month - and did her best to bury it for good.
Fahnestock, a grandmother of four, broke her silence after the Daily News tracked her down this week.
One of her oldest friends shrugged off the affair.
"Good for her," said Joan (Bitsy) Tatnall, 59. "She was a young girl, he's a glamorous guy. ... I think it was an adventure."
Facing the glare of a New York media frenzy, Fahnestock strode out of her upper East Side apartment building yesterday morning and handed out copies of her remarks before hopping into a taxi.
Visit in 1961
The then-Mimi Beardsley was a stunning prep school senior when she met the handsome President during a White House visit in 1961.
That fall, she went off to Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., as planned.
But things quickly changed when the White House called to offer her a prestigious summer internship in the press office.
Jaws dropped as Fahnestock frolicked with JFK at pool parties. She even flew on Air Force jets to accompany him on overseas trips to resorts and summit meetings.
"Obviously, she had a special relationship with the President," said Barbara Gamarekian, now 77, the White House press aide who mentioned Mimi in a 1964 interview released this week.
Mimi seemed infatuated with the charismatic JFK and her new life but found time to giggle and swap secrets with other attractive young women rumored to be sleeping with him, Gamarekian said.
The furthest thing from her mind was going back to the boredom of college English literature and writing classes. "She loved the summer job, so she didn't want to go back to school," Gamarekian recalled.
Hiding places
It didn't take long for Fahnestock to get another call to meet her lover in the White House.
Weeks after Kennedy stared down the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile crisis, she was flown to Nassau, the Bahamas, in December 1962, where Kennedy was meeting with British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan.
When Kennedy left a few days later, aides spotted the intern hiding on the floor of a limousine in his entourage.
The affair stretched through the next summer, and she was rewarded with a staff job. College would have to wait.
By then, she was dating Anthony Fahnestock, a recent graduate of preppie Williams College who had enlisted in the Army. The couple announced their engagement after Labor Day.
Still, she maintained her special link to JFK.
A couple of days after the President delivered his speech at the Berlin Wall, Mimi called him directly to complain about being left behind in Washington. A furious Kennedy nearly fired her boss.
It is unknown whether Anthony Fahnestock, an investment banker, knew about his wife and JFK. The couple divorced, and he died of cancer in 1993. His second wife refused to say whether he knew about the affair.
"This story doesn't involve my husband," said Andrea Henderson Fahnestock, a curator at the Museum of the City of New York.
Originally published on May 16, 2003
At the time when she was nineteen, I was fifteen and I didn't know anyone who would bonk a married man, president or no president.
At age 19?
Likely, she's trolling for a million dollar book deal...
February 1962 Moves into house she has bought in Brentwood, LA
1 February 1962 Dinner in honor of Robert Kennedy
5 March 1962 Marilyn wins Golden Globe Award, Worlds Film Favorite
24 March 1962 Marilyn and JFK spend weekend together in Palm Springs
23 April 1962 Begins work on Something's Got to Give 19 May 1962 Sings "Happy Birthday" and "Thanks for the Memory" to JFK at Madison Square Garden
28 May 1962 Nude pool sequence shot on Something's Got to Give
1 June 1962 Marilyn's last day at work at Fox and final public appearance
7 June 1962 Fox fires Marilyn for breach of contract
23 June 1962 Bert Stern begins first of three photo sessions for Vogue "The Last Sitting"
28 June 1962 Negotiations resumed with Fox about Somthing's Got to Give
29 June 1962 George Barris spends three days shooting Marilyn for Cosmopolitan
4 July 1962 Begins extensive interview, her last, with Richard Meryman
6 July 1962 Allan Grant shoot for Life Magazine
12 July 1962 Meets Fox studio chiefs
20 July 1962 Allegedly enters Cedars of Lebanon hospital for abortion
28 July 1962 Weekend at Cal-Neva Lodge
1 August 1962 Fox rewrites Marilyn's contract for double the salary and restart production of Something's Got to Give
3 August 1962 Appears on the cover of Life for last time
4 August 1962 Marilyn's last day alive includes a 6hr session with Greenson
5 August 1962 Police called to Marilyn's home. Official day of death. Autopsy performed
The photos are about to come out in a near future issue of Playboy or Penthouse. Grainy old black and whites of the 19 year old tart, and grainy new air brushed photos of the 60 year old tart. We already know what she is, they are only haggling about how much.
Just a typical RAT.
Hmmm.
Obviously, this is a vast right-wing conspiracy against John F. Kerry (he of the "call me JFK" fame), an attempt to destroy any link the JFK now crowd hoped to establish with the JFK then crowd, since linking the JFK now with the JFK then would tend to establish some masculine presence for the JFK now, since he has been emasculated by the Ketchup Queen, so showing the connection...wait, wait, I've got a point here...what was it?
Oh, yeah, let's see, make JFK then a scapegoat, then JFK now will appear manly...no, no, that wasn't it.
Let's see, make JFK then a low-life, adulterous, lying POS and JFK now will look life he would never be such a person...wait, wait...no.
Damn, my head hurts. I wish the Dimbulbrats would stop this convoluted right-wing conspiracy thing.
I can't keep up.
Let's not forget that one of the stalwarts in Klintoon's media kneepad brigade, Eleanor Rodham Clift, uttered these immortal words of his involvement with Monica Lewinsky,
"Well, he’s been elected twice with people knowing he has had affairs. Now is the fact that this woman is 21. I mean, she’s still of age, I suppose. You know, I think that the distaste that people may feel for this will also be because of the fact that the probing into this person’s private life has occurred. I think past Presidents, Lyndon Johnson for one, certainly Jack Kennedy, these things went on, you know, libido and leadership are linked."
Amazing, isn't it, how when Bill Clinton was President, boinking everything in a skirt while ignoring those who seek to destroy us was not considered an overload of testerone but rather evidence of being a great leader, but with George W. Bush as President, being faithful to his wife while destroying those who seek to destroy us is considered an overload of testosterone and bad leadership.
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