DOCUMENT: Celebrity, Sex

JFK Had An Intern Too

John F. Kennedy

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JFK Had An Intern Too

5/15 UPDATE: "Mimi" was identified today as Marion Fahnestock (nee Beardsley), a New York City church administrator. When questioned by the Daily News about her relationship with JFK, the 60-year-old woman acknowledged her affair with the 35th President.

MAY 13--A new biography of John F. Kennedy claims that the late president had an affair with a teenage White House intern. But while historian Robert Dallek's "An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963" does not identify JFK's young squeeze, documents recently unsealed by the Kennedy presidential library seem to put a name to the young gal--and it's Mimi.

As part of the library's oral history program, scores of Kennedy aides have provided recollections of their Camelot days, with interview transcripts being archived by library officials. Included in this group was Barbara Gamarekian, a White House aide, who was interviewed in 1964 by Diane Michaelis, who conducted some of the oral history Q&As.

During that discussion, Gamarekian said that the unskilled Mimi had a "sort of a special relationship with the president." Wink-wink. Gamarekian recalled that the JFK-Mimi interaction was "the sort of thing that legitimate newspaper people don't write about or don't even make any implications about. It was kind of a big joke. Everyone knew about it and there were a lot of sly remarks made."

While the bulk of Gamarekian's Q&A has been public for decades, the 17-page section dealing with Mimi had been sealed, at Gamarekian's request, since 1964. But with Dallek's book nearing publication, Gamarekian agreed to have the expurgated section--which you'll find here--released. The pages first became available on April 24 and were provided to TSG by a JFK library archivist. (17 pages)

At last, a frame of reference for L'Affaire Lewinsky.