Bobby Baker and the Women that Almost Took Down JFK

Bobby Baker and the women around JFK are interesting historical figures that could have taken down the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. This is story not often heard about regarding the assassination of JFK. Did his assassination save his reputation and his presidency? We remember Kennedy as a hero for his work in civil rights, and eradicating corruption. Most of us know now Kennedy had a darker side around his sex life. It was there that Bobby Baker and the women almost took the president down.

Bobby Baker came to Washington, D.C. as senate page while still in school. The year was 1943. Baker stated all the soldiers marching around the capitol scared him, as it was during WWII. By 1955, he was secretary to the Senate Democrats. The New York Times stated, “He became one of the most influential nonelected men in the American government of the 1950s and early ’60s.” (Genzlinger, 2017) This is how he affected President Kennedy.

Kennedy was a notorious womanizer and most insiders knew it. He was an aristocratic man born into one of the richest families in the United States. JFK’s father Joe Kennedy was a banker and a womanizer himself. Most rich men and their wives knew it was part of the lifestyle, there would be other women. That last line was taken from a documentary called JFK’s Women. What the women understood or agreed upon in their marriages maybe an entirely a different thing. Jackie Kennedy’s father was also a womanizer, so as it is told by journalists, she knew what she was getting into with Jack Kennedy.

Many knew of his exploits. In 1958, a landlord Florence Kater knew one of her tenants (Pamela Turnure) was having an affair with JFK. It is said she went to 35 different journalists to tell the story and no one would report on it. (Film Ideas, Inc, 2016) It was a time when men had the power, and it was recognized that there was a private and a public life. Most of the reporters were men and they were not going to report on the then married senator.

Bobby Baker by the age of 20 was secretary to the Senate Majority. Throughout his career he was an ambitious man and had various businesses on the side, real estate, hotels and vending. It was his vending business that initially focused a light of investigation on his activities. He promised a man a contract for vending and then reneged. Though this would only be part of his undoing.

His work led him to become friends with then Senator John F. Kennedy. Baker said he was a Baptist married to a Catholic, saying he understood the senator’s point of view. The senator would ask Baker, “Do you think that a Catholic could be elected President?” It was Senator Kennedy’s vote on the Jury Trial Amendment that helped seal his fate. The amendment was opposed by Mrs. Roosevelt among other leaders. At that time, many senators expected and supported JFK becoming president. That vote for the Jury Trial Amendment won him much support in the south and created a pathway to him becoming president. (Purdum, 2013)

So, Bobby Baker had this high-rise condominium in the city. He would bring his high-profile Washington insiders over to meet with women who were not their wives. He was also the co-founder of the Quorum Club, located in the Carrol Arms Hotel. The Washington Post said, “It was a place where lawmakers, lobbyists and other interested parties would drink, play cards and dally with young women.” (Thurber, 2017) The club was outfitted with a buzzer that would alert the senators when they needed to run across the street for a vote. There were calls for an investigation, and it is said the Senate Democrats did a kind of inquiry. For the time being it stopped there.

One of the big issues with John F. Kennedy was his pick of women, they were high profile, and some liaisons even dangerous for a Senator, not to mention a President. Three were exceedingly high profile; Inga Arvad, Marilyn Monroe and Ellen Rometsch. One of his first scandals though was really a British scandal, the Profumo Affair.

In 1963, Kathleen Keeler, a show girl/call girl (a term she hated) was having an affair with both British Secretary John Profumo and Yevgeny Ivanov who was considered a Soviet spy. She was dating both men at the same time. When discovered by the press it was called, “The sex and security scandal that rocked Britain.” (Yeunger, 1976) John Kennedy followed this scandal with vigor, at first it was pure tabloid fodder. As it went on, meetings were being held behind closed doors. Stephen Dorril who authored a book on the tabloid scandal “The Secret World of Stephen Ward: Scandal, Sex and Deadly Secrets in the Profumo Affair stated, “There was growing concern about the Profumo case in Washington, D.C. There were reports that Americans maybe involved in this scandal.”

A call girl in the Stephen Ward circle named Mariella/Mariana Novotny said that President Kennedy had slept with her on several occasions while she worked in New York. It was right before his inauguration into the presidency. There is an FBI document that states she was part of a call girl ring close to the President. She claimed to be closely related to the Czechoslovakian communist president. Was she a plant by the Soviets? An American paper printed the story, The New York Journal American. It was a right-wing paper and part of the Hearst Corporation. It also received some information from J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, not a fan of the Kennedys. John F. Kennedy wanted to be reelected and this was one of many possible scandals that could stop his reelection. They published a story but did not name the president. They referred to him as, “High U.S. Aide”. It said in the article, the person held a “very high elected office”. Though reporters and Washington insiders knew they were referring to the president, ordinary citizens did not.

The documents also referenced a Suzy Chang. She was a communist from China who also “knew” Kennedy. She was a call girl and a procurer with a large FBI file. The bureau was trying to determine if they had a case against her using the White Slave Traffic Act. She was part of the same call girl ring as Novotny.

When Novotny went back to Britain from NYC, Stephen Ward introduced her to Yevgeny Ivanov whom she began sleeping with. Remember, this was December 1960 right before the inauguration. She also was offering information to the KGB she gained from her work. Both Chang and Novotny had involvements with members of the communist party at the height of the cold war, who were our mortal enemies. Most younger people do not understand the threat of living during the cold war, when you could have an atomic bomb attack at any time. Americans did though, they built bomb shelters in the back of their homes to protect themselves. These women were major threats to Kennedy’s reelection.

Bobby Kennedy, Attorney General summoned the editors from the NY American Journal. At the meeting there was a liaison from the FBI who took notes. Bobby asked for the source’s names. The paper refused. He asked who the high official was, and they honestly told him it was John Kennedy. At that time Bobby Kennedy, the president’s brother threatened the Hearst Corporation with anti-monopoly laws, and the paper never again published the stories. JFK had dodged a bullet in the election year. Now on to the three major players in the JFK’s women’s scandals.

Inga Arvad was a beauty queen born in Copenhagen, Denmark. A separated but not quite divorced woman (scandalous at that time), she was married to Paul Fejos when she started a romantic relationship with JFK. She had attended Columbia school of journalism. She once interviewed Adolf Hitler, a fact that haunted her the rest of her life. Even though she despised Hitler, the FBI followed both Arvad and Kennedy. She met John Kennedy in 1941 while he was an Ensign working at the U.S. Navy Office of the Naval Intelligence. (Matthews, 2011) The navy reassigned Kennedy when learning about Arvad. They saw her as a Mata Hari figure. It was Joe Kennedy’s reputation that kept Kennedy from being booted from the Navy. So, John Kennedy was reassigned to South Carolina in 1942 which ended the liaison.

Marilyn Monroe’s birthday song to then President John F. Kennedy is so famous, it can still be found on You Tube. Marilyn a meteoric Hollywood star and considered emotionally fragile (some considered her mentally ill). Though to be fair she was taking a lot of prescribed medication, and it was a term assigned to emotional women at the time. The birthday song was her last night with Kennedy. It is also rumored she then turned to Attorney General and the brother of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy for comfort. She died in August 1962; she was discovered at home in her bed. Marilyn was holding a piece of paper in her hand. The paper had the White House telephone number on it. (Film Ideas, 2016) There is still much controversy on how she died and how it was handled by the L.A. Coroner. Her affair with one or both brothers could have created such a scandal that reelection of John F. Kennedy would have been impossible. The Christian values of the general population at that time would prevent ordinary citizens from accepting his affair.

The most compromising affair of John F. Kennedy was with Ellen Rometsch. She was born in Germany and rumored to be an East German spy for the Soviets. Rometsch was assigned a cover to the West German Embassy in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s. She also frequented the Quorum Club and was introduced to President Kennedy by Bobby Baker. The FBI was also investigating her as she was born in East Germany a then communist country. It was said she was a beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor, a true party girl. She was so desired that one politician paid her $5,000 dollars in 1960’s money to have a date with her. The average house in early 1960’s was 11,000. A car cost about $2800.

Bill Thompson was President Kennedy’s wing man, he went to Baker and asked if this beautiful woman would have dinner with the President. She went to the White house on many occasions after their initial date. Most believed Ellen was a spy. The Presidents connection to a woman with communist ties, was one more time, a threat to his reelection and many believed to the security of the U.S. Bobby Kennedy acted quickly and revoked her visa in August of 1963, sending her out of the country. She could have ended his presidency either by preventing his reelection or by causing his impeachment. One more time JFK avoided scandal.

That year in September 1963, a political scandal did explode. Senior secretary to the Senate Bobby Baker was caught up in a scandal that threatened all politicians. It threatened to expose JFK’s affair with Ellen Rometsch. It was said Baker was providing call girls for the highest politicians. To stem off some of the potential danger, Baker resigned his position in the Senate.

By that time, Baker was a millionaire. He hoped resigning would slow down or end the investigation, thus protecting the men he arranged dates for. They were comparing the Baker scandal with the Profumo scandal. NY Daily News was starting write about the young German woman who was deported for an affair with a ‘high frontiersman’ in the executive branch. So, they were not yet naming names. What the paper had written was a coded term. Kennedy had said his presidency aimed for a ‘new frontier’. At this time, the White House reached out to the FBI asking them to squash the story. J. Edgar Hoover said it was not his job. So, Bobby again contacted the writer of the piece, and he would not reveal the aim of the piece. It is assumed the reporter was threatened. As no more stories were written. Bobby Kennedy again came to the aid of his brother. New York Daily News reporter Claude Mollenhoff published no more stories about the President and Rometsch.

At this point an investigation was under way and the only thing that protected President John F. Kennedy was his trip to Dallas, Texas and his subsequent assassination. Eventually Bobby Baker went to prison, and years later Kennedy’s scandals are all out in the open. That said millions of Americans still see John F. Kennedy as great leader interested in a moral approach to leading the nation, getting rid of organized crime, shutting down the CIA, protecting the U.S. from communism and promoting equal civil rights. It just reminds me of how human and flawed we all are, and how our culture figures into what we deem acceptable behavior. Like Clinton, Obama and Reagan he was a charming man, and frankly I admired what he was trying to accomplish. When I am reading about the assassination of JFK, this part is mostly left out. It could be said his assassination saved his presidency for posterity.