One can't turn on the television without seeing or hearing something about it. CNN especially, has turned into the President Trump vs. adult film actress Stormy Daniels show. The network even had the gall, the absolute gall, of describing Daniels fierce testimony on the stand this week, as breaking news.What happened to real breaking news?At least 26 women — several of whom came forward during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign with detailed accounts and lawsuits — have accused Trump of sexual misconduct or assault, which he has denied.But, aside from this ongoing court case, which may stretch into a few more weeks, women and the White House are no strangers.We only have to go back to President Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton, and intern Monica Lewinsky.Clinton would be impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate.Nevertheless, the sex scandal shook the presidency for months and months, as the media reported every salacious detail of the affair.The former White House intern said she fell for the president's "lethal charm" — as simple as that.President Gerald R. Ford was one of two presidents — the other being Jack Kennedy — who was accused of having an affair with an East German spy named Ellen Rometsch. The accusations came from a former Senate staffer named Bobby Baker, who worked closely with Johnson, according to The Washington Post.In an interview with Politico, Baker alleged that Rometsch had sexual encounters with Ford when he was a congressman, saying J. Edgar Hoover's FBI had a "tape" of one such encounter.Rometsch would later be quietly deported to East Germany..Friends of Ford say the allegations are uncharacteristic of the man they knew.President George H.W. Bush was married to his wife, Barbara, from 1945 until his death in 2018. The couple were said to have a storybook romance over their 73-year marriage.But the story had painful chapters. Susan Page's "The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty" says Barbara was suicidal in the 1970s after her husband was accused of having an affair with his aide Jennifer Fitzgerald.Rumors persisted for years of the affair, which all parties publicly denied.Perhaps the POTUS most associated with affairs, was none other than President John F. Kennedy.His list of alleged paramours is long and lengthy, and it's a miracle that the administration could keep it quiet during his term.What's interesting, is that none of these women went public, until many years later. And some, like movie star Angie Dickinson, never spoke of it.When asked by CBS News if she ever had an affair with JFK, Dickinson held her ground. "There was no reason or no grounds for thinking that I was seeing him, and I wasn't," she said. There would be no kiss and tell.However, rumours persist, that Dickinson did just that, often waiting at a booth at Chez Jay bar on Ocean Blvd., for the phone call, telling her the coast was clear, and she could head to the "Western White House."That was the name given to Peter Lawford's oceanside home, where JFK would be waiting for a tryst.If we believe half of what we read today, which includes many books on JFK's sex obsession, Dickinson is only one of many. It has been said that when Jack entered a room, every woman was devastated.Jack has even reputed to have shared a mistress, Judith Exner, with infamous Chicago mafioso Sam Giancana.There were Marilyn Monroe rumours too, and it's believed an angry First Lady Jackie Kennedy intercepted a call at the White House, brusquely telling the starlet to "leave her husband alone."Monroe is known famously for singing a breathy version of “Happy Birthday Mr. President," to him at Madison Square Garden, just months before her mysterious death..Interestingly, JFK’s affairs stayed out of the press not necessarily because journalists wanted to protect him, but because they just didn’t consider such things to be news. The times were much different.At one point during JFK’s presidency, the Secret Service tackled CBS journalist Marvin Kalb so he wouldn’t get a good look at a woman entering the president’s hotel room.Even though he’d been manhandled, Kalb later wrote: “never for one moment did I even consider pursuing and reporting what I had seen and experienced that evening.”The man who would take over for JFK, following his assassination in Dallas in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson, is also rumoured to have had several mistresses.Madeleine Duncan Brown was an American woman who claimed to be a longtime mistress of LBJ, claiming in addition that a son was born out of that relationship.Brown, during an interview on YouTube with a journalist, claims she and LBJ were seen embracing in a hallway by a maid.A week or so later, the maid disappeared ... vanished off the face of the earth. Not fired, but disappeared.And there were others, apparently.When Lady Bird died in 2007, The Guardian noted in her obituary: “[Lyndon] Johnson was so casual in his affairs with Alice Glass and his congressional colleague Helen Gahagan Douglas that Lady Bird … was openly humiliated.”This isn’t surprising, considering that LBJ was known for bragging that he’d had sex with more women than JFK — whose exploits were well-known in D.C.Then there is the curious case of President Ike Eisenhower, one of the most respected US leaders of all time.Historians still differ in opinions, but it is no secret that Ike clearly took a shine to his wispy chauffer, Kay Summersby..In correspondence during the Second World War, he talked of his "rather lonely life" abroad and how he yearned for "feminine companionship."The witty, gay, aristocratic Summersby may have reminded Ike of the Mamie he met in 1916.Almost three decades later, Mamie was frail, Kay was vigorous; Mamie was 3,000 miles away, Kay was next door.In her memoirs, Kay would recall Eisenhower saying to her: "Kay, there's nobody . . . I can talk to freely. They all ask to be promoted, or if I talk to the wrong person, what I say is reported all over the world. I know that I can let my thoughts flow with you."There was speculation on both sides of the Atlantic about a sexual relationship, but one general tried to quiet down the gossip by saying, "Leave Kay and Ike alone. She's helping him win the war."According to History.com, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a long-time mistress (and possibly others) that the public didn’t know about until after his death.FDR started his affair with Lucy Mercer, Eleanor Roosevelt’s social secretary, more than a decade before he became president. When Eleanor discovered some of their love letters in September 1918, she confronted her husband about them.The couple considered a divorce, but stayed together in order to protect their social standing and FDR’s career.FDR would maintain a relationship with Mercer until his death in 1945. In turn, Eleanor pursued relationships with women, finding a particularly significant partner in journalist Lorena Hickok.— with files from History.com/Business Insider
One can't turn on the television without seeing or hearing something about it. CNN especially, has turned into the President Trump vs. adult film actress Stormy Daniels show. The network even had the gall, the absolute gall, of describing Daniels fierce testimony on the stand this week, as breaking news.What happened to real breaking news?At least 26 women — several of whom came forward during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign with detailed accounts and lawsuits — have accused Trump of sexual misconduct or assault, which he has denied.But, aside from this ongoing court case, which may stretch into a few more weeks, women and the White House are no strangers.We only have to go back to President Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton, and intern Monica Lewinsky.Clinton would be impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate.Nevertheless, the sex scandal shook the presidency for months and months, as the media reported every salacious detail of the affair.The former White House intern said she fell for the president's "lethal charm" — as simple as that.President Gerald R. Ford was one of two presidents — the other being Jack Kennedy — who was accused of having an affair with an East German spy named Ellen Rometsch. The accusations came from a former Senate staffer named Bobby Baker, who worked closely with Johnson, according to The Washington Post.In an interview with Politico, Baker alleged that Rometsch had sexual encounters with Ford when he was a congressman, saying J. Edgar Hoover's FBI had a "tape" of one such encounter.Rometsch would later be quietly deported to East Germany..Friends of Ford say the allegations are uncharacteristic of the man they knew.President George H.W. Bush was married to his wife, Barbara, from 1945 until his death in 2018. The couple were said to have a storybook romance over their 73-year marriage.But the story had painful chapters. Susan Page's "The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty" says Barbara was suicidal in the 1970s after her husband was accused of having an affair with his aide Jennifer Fitzgerald.Rumors persisted for years of the affair, which all parties publicly denied.Perhaps the POTUS most associated with affairs, was none other than President John F. Kennedy.His list of alleged paramours is long and lengthy, and it's a miracle that the administration could keep it quiet during his term.What's interesting, is that none of these women went public, until many years later. And some, like movie star Angie Dickinson, never spoke of it.When asked by CBS News if she ever had an affair with JFK, Dickinson held her ground. "There was no reason or no grounds for thinking that I was seeing him, and I wasn't," she said. There would be no kiss and tell.However, rumours persist, that Dickinson did just that, often waiting at a booth at Chez Jay bar on Ocean Blvd., for the phone call, telling her the coast was clear, and she could head to the "Western White House."That was the name given to Peter Lawford's oceanside home, where JFK would be waiting for a tryst.If we believe half of what we read today, which includes many books on JFK's sex obsession, Dickinson is only one of many. It has been said that when Jack entered a room, every woman was devastated.Jack has even reputed to have shared a mistress, Judith Exner, with infamous Chicago mafioso Sam Giancana.There were Marilyn Monroe rumours too, and it's believed an angry First Lady Jackie Kennedy intercepted a call at the White House, brusquely telling the starlet to "leave her husband alone."Monroe is known famously for singing a breathy version of “Happy Birthday Mr. President," to him at Madison Square Garden, just months before her mysterious death..Interestingly, JFK’s affairs stayed out of the press not necessarily because journalists wanted to protect him, but because they just didn’t consider such things to be news. The times were much different.At one point during JFK’s presidency, the Secret Service tackled CBS journalist Marvin Kalb so he wouldn’t get a good look at a woman entering the president’s hotel room.Even though he’d been manhandled, Kalb later wrote: “never for one moment did I even consider pursuing and reporting what I had seen and experienced that evening.”The man who would take over for JFK, following his assassination in Dallas in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson, is also rumoured to have had several mistresses.Madeleine Duncan Brown was an American woman who claimed to be a longtime mistress of LBJ, claiming in addition that a son was born out of that relationship.Brown, during an interview on YouTube with a journalist, claims she and LBJ were seen embracing in a hallway by a maid.A week or so later, the maid disappeared ... vanished off the face of the earth. Not fired, but disappeared.And there were others, apparently.When Lady Bird died in 2007, The Guardian noted in her obituary: “[Lyndon] Johnson was so casual in his affairs with Alice Glass and his congressional colleague Helen Gahagan Douglas that Lady Bird … was openly humiliated.”This isn’t surprising, considering that LBJ was known for bragging that he’d had sex with more women than JFK — whose exploits were well-known in D.C.Then there is the curious case of President Ike Eisenhower, one of the most respected US leaders of all time.Historians still differ in opinions, but it is no secret that Ike clearly took a shine to his wispy chauffer, Kay Summersby..In correspondence during the Second World War, he talked of his "rather lonely life" abroad and how he yearned for "feminine companionship."The witty, gay, aristocratic Summersby may have reminded Ike of the Mamie he met in 1916.Almost three decades later, Mamie was frail, Kay was vigorous; Mamie was 3,000 miles away, Kay was next door.In her memoirs, Kay would recall Eisenhower saying to her: "Kay, there's nobody . . . I can talk to freely. They all ask to be promoted, or if I talk to the wrong person, what I say is reported all over the world. I know that I can let my thoughts flow with you."There was speculation on both sides of the Atlantic about a sexual relationship, but one general tried to quiet down the gossip by saying, "Leave Kay and Ike alone. She's helping him win the war."According to History.com, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a long-time mistress (and possibly others) that the public didn’t know about until after his death.FDR started his affair with Lucy Mercer, Eleanor Roosevelt’s social secretary, more than a decade before he became president. When Eleanor discovered some of their love letters in September 1918, she confronted her husband about them.The couple considered a divorce, but stayed together in order to protect their social standing and FDR’s career.FDR would maintain a relationship with Mercer until his death in 1945. In turn, Eleanor pursued relationships with women, finding a particularly significant partner in journalist Lorena Hickok.— with files from History.com/Business Insider
