AMERICA AND ITS PRIAPIC PRESIDENTS
The elite press of the United States still refuses to report that Kennedy was a
philanderer, says Mark Steyn New Hampshire SEYMOUR STREET and Seymour Hersh are several thousand miles apart, except when it comes to evaluating presidencies. The latter is a Pulitzer prize-winning author, the former is a thoroughfare in downtown Vancouver, where President Bill Clinton was for this week's Asia-Pacif- ic summit. I don't know whether his motorcade passed down the aforemen- tioned street but, if it did, he might have noticed the marquee above the Penthouse strip club: 'Welcome Prez Clinton, our lips are sealed' — i.e., he and the girls are old pals. It could be. If you'll forgive a little Maple Leaf pride, many of the most highly regarded strippers in the United States are Canadian, their whirling tassels extending even unto Little Rock, Arkansas.
But, on balance, I think the ladies were just having a joke. Though the President is said to be fretting about his place in histo- ry, on Seymour Street and elsewhere it's already secure: he's one of the great comic figures of the age. South of the border and back on the East Coast, Seymour Hersh can only marvel. He's just published a book about President Kennedy, who, even by the most tactful underestimate, had a sexual appetite that makes Bill Clinton look like Marie Osmond. 'You know,' JFK remarked to Bobby Baker, secretary to the Senate Democrats, in the Oval Office one morning, 'I get a migraine headache if I don't get a strange piece of ass every day.' And it seems he did, even in the White House: society gals, hookers, East German communists, three in a bed, two in a bath, with a secret service agent standing by to shove the girl's head underwater at a given signal, thereby causing vaginal contractions and thus intensifying the presidential orgasm. All ass, all the time, regardless of whether it was a quiet day with not much going on or the height of the Cuban mis- sile crisis.
Hersh is no right-wing, Kennedy-hating kook. As the man who alerted America to the My Lai massacre and CIA domestic spying, he has impeccable liberal creden- tials. The sex is in there only insofar as it impinges on national security, defence contracts and White House operations, and it's well-sourced — the whores and nude pics are confirmed by the gallery owner who framed White House photos for over three decades and by various secret service agents — all with names, potted biographies and even photographs. Yet The Dark Side of Camelot has been denounced as 'evil' and 'utterly without credibility' by Time, the Washington Post, the New York Times and even The Specta- tor's high life correspondent.
Camelot's 'fleeting wisp of glory', its `one brief shining moment' is proving sur- prisingly durable: a year into his second term, poor old Clinton is haemorrhaging staff day by day, whereas after 35 years Kennedy's vast army of sycophants is as fanatically loyal, as ruthlessly protective as ever. What on earth are they so steamed up about? Anyone who investigates the squalid, cheesy Kennedy White House comes to pretty much the same conclu- sions as Hersh does. The British author Nigel Hamilton wrote a cracking account of Jack's early years, JFK Reckless Youth, the first part of a two-volume biography. The second half never appeared. Hamil- ton, a Kennedy admirer, was so disgusted by what he uncovered about his hero that he abandoned the project. That's what so riles Hersh's detractors: this is all the stuff they were too dazzled to spot at the time.
Why is it that Seymour Hersh and even Seymour Street see more than the Wash- ington media? Well, for one thing, they don't want to see: the grandees of Ameri- can journalism approach the grubbier sides of Kennedy and Clinton the way Dan Maskell reacted to John McEnroe: there'd be ten minutes of racket-hurling and 'You cannot be serious, man!' after which Dan would murmur, `McEnroe still having trouble with his beckhend.' To dwell on the seediness would not only bring Ameri- can politics into disrepute but, worse, American journalism. For example, Bill Clinton is the first president in the history of the Republic to issue statements about his penis: the other week, his spokesper- son denied that there was anything unusu- al about the First Member; in other words, he didn't have Peyronie's disease and it wasn't bent — or, as President Nixon almost said, 'It is not a crook.' But, even though this was an official, on-the-record statement, the respectable press declined to print it. A week went by and then Maureen Dowd of the New York Times ran a witty col- umn alluding to the matter. But, if the Times was your only source of news, you'd have had no idea what she was on about.
What is the proper place of the presiden- tial penis in American journalism? In Hersh's book, Hugh Sidey, the veteran Time White House correspondent, pro- vides an answer. Sidey's been the most vociferous in trashing this 'evil book', so it comes as a surprise to discover that he's one of Hersh's principal sources. Presum- ably, he thought he was contributing to quite a different kind of book. At one point, he relates a meeting he had in the Oval Office with Kennedy: 'He looked up at me and says, "Come on, Sidey. Let's go swimming." I said, "Mr President, that's the one piece of equipment I never thought to bring when I came over for an inter- view." He said, "Oh, in this pool you don't need a suit."' Kennedy and Sidey head out to the White House pool, at which point the reporter finds himself facing one of those awkward questions of etiquette on which Miss Manners is silent: 'I'm confronted with this problem of who removes his trousers first — the President or the guest?' But you've got to be quick on the drawers to drop 'em faster than JFK `Obviously a man of practice,' chuckles Sidey — and soon interviewer and intervie- wee are splashing away like a nude syn- chronised swimming team. You couldn't ask for a better image of American politi- cal journalism: two members of the same cosy club gliding along side by side.
Needless to say, whatever distinguishing characteristics the President might have had, Time readers didn't get to hear of them. The American press likes to scoff about Britain in the Thirties, when, if you wanted to read about the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson, you had to buy a United States paper. Today, the Clinton presiden- cy has reversed the process. 'I've just got back from London,' Pat Buchanan told me a couple of years ago. 'I can't believe the stuff you guys are running about Paula Jones.' They put that in the papers?' said Eleanor Clift, doyenne of Newsweek and Hillary confidante. Not in the kind of papers Miss Clift reads.
History repeats itself — first tragedy, now farce. First, the Broadway company of Camelot, now the touring production of When Did You Last See Your Trousers? For most veterans of the Camelot era, the jour- ney from Kennedy (`One Brief Shining Moment') to Clinton (`One's Momentous Shining Briefs') undoubtedly marks a pre- cipitous decline in presidential glamour. But it makes the prissiness of the Washing- ton press seem even more ludicrous. Why should they be so concerned about the dig- nity of political office when the office- holders themselves aren't? On the eve of last month's gubernatorial election in New Jersey, Governor Christie Whitman went on the Howard Stern radio show. He con- gratulated her on cutting taxes, her pro- abortion stance and — last, but by no means least — her 'fantastic breasts'. Thank you, said the Governor. Uncon- cerned about motor insurance rates (the dominant issue in New Jersey), Howard was interested to know the state of Mrs Whitman's sex life. It was especially good at weekends, she said, when they were at their country place. Howard wanted her to know what a terrific body she had. 'Thank you again,' she said. He then shared with the tri-state listening audience some thoughts on what it would be like to 'do' the Governor.
Or how about Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York? A few months back, at a city gala, he appeared on stage with Julie Andrews, cross-dressing star of the Broad- way show Victor/Victoria. Miss Andrews was wearing a black tuxedo; His Honour opted for a spangled pink gown, a blonde wig and dazzling red lipstick. At the time, most of us assumed the Mayor's transvestism was a one-off and, given the Republicans' so-called 'gender gap', as plausible an attempt to get in touch with the party's feminine side as anything else. But, on last week's Saturday Night Live (an NBC comedy show), there he was again with another blonde wig, this time nicely set off by an enormous bosom, a floral print dress and rolled-down stockings. In this guise, he kissed a policeman and made a joke about 'master-basting'.
In such a world, it's not surprising that political correspondents have taken upon themselves the dignified part of the consti- tution. But, even so, the resilience of Camelot, in the face of all the evidence, is one of the marvels of the modern age. As the slogan puts it, 'If you loved his style, you'll love JFK PT wear'. PT stands for `Patrol Torpedo', a reference to JFK's sec- ond world war boat, PT 109. In this excit- ing new range of leisurewear by Kerry McCarthy, the President's cousin once removed (though it seems no Kennedy cousin is ever really removed), the clothes are not based on what the well-dressed PT crew member is wearing when the Japs slice his boat in two: that, after all, was one of the few moments in his life when JFK was not thinking about image. Instead, it's the sort of yachtwear — JFK cap, $19.95 — the President was wont to favour when mooching about off the Hyannis coast in less turbulent waters. Each item in this exclusive collection, how- ever, features a reproduction of the TT 109' insignia which the young Kennedy sent over to Kerry McCarthy's mom dur- ing the war. 'Now you too can wear John Fitzgerald Kennedy's PT patch', says the advertisement. 'You too can be part of that Kennedy style.' And, incredibly, the Kennedy style can still drown out the Kennedy syphilis, the Kennedy satyriasis, the Kennedy pill-popping.
If nothing else, Hersh's book and the sledgehammer condemnation of it raises the question of just how far the Washington media is prepared to take its lack of curiosi- ty. Hersh steers clear of Kennedy's assassi- nation, except for one passing observation. In September 1963, 'while frolicking pool- side with one of his sexual partners', the President severely tore a groin muscle and was prescribed a stiff canvas shoulder-to- goin brace that locked his body upright. `Those braces', writes Hersh, 'made it impossible for the President to bend in reflex when he was struck in the neck by the bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald's first successful shot was not necessarily fatal, but the President remained upright — and an excellent target for the second, fatal blow to the head.' It's an interesting theory, borne out by the available footage. 'Kennedy may have paid the ultimate price', Hersh con- cludes, 'for his sexual excesses and compul- siveness.' You don't have to swallow that whole to reflect on the broader possibilities. In all the flights of fancy the grassy knoll has spawned — was it the CIA? the FBI? LBJ? — for 34 years there's been a weird reluc- tance to look for an answer in the Kennedys themselves.
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