Dr. Kate Lister
Appearances
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And then about 1900... journalists decided that they were going to be more respectable. The National Press Club was founded about that time. And they came to a kind of agreement that they would not report on these scandalous stories, that gentlemen reporters did not report on gentlemen politicians' love affairs. And so they just clammed up. They didn't report on Woodrow Wilson's mistress or
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I am so delighted to be here again talking to you, Kate. I always have such a blast.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
around the time of the First World War. They didn't report on Warren Harding in the early 1920s. He was right there behind Kennedy, I would have to say. Really? All of his women. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had several mistresses. Everyone knew. And then, of course, the worst was JFK.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And reporters would come into a hotel suite, see some naked actress running around or lying on the bed, and they were not allowed to report it. Now, what changed this was a few events. The Vietnam War really shook journalism, and the reporters realized how they were being lied to. Teddy Kennedy goes careening off a bridge, swims to safety, and leaves the young woman he was with to drown.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
That really shook a lot of journalists who knew for years he was just a drunken mess, waiting to harm someone, and they had never reported it. And then the final nail in the coffin of of this hands-off approach to President's sexual peccadillas was Watergate. And after that, journalists felt that presidents were not to be protected and respected, but to be investigated.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
So suddenly, all of these stories came out. This was only about a decade after the JFK scandals. Those people who were witnesses to his misbehavior or were his mistresses suddenly gave press interviews, wrote books. So that's how come we know so much about JFK.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Right, and he did not seem to be capable of understanding how much he was harming his wife. One of his friends said, you know, you are really hurting Jackie. And Kennedy said, no, I'm not. I give her everything she wants.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
So to get back at him, she would spend wildly. And at the last minute, as first lady, she would often refuse to go to events where people were lining up looking forward to meet her because she knew it drove him crazy.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Well, there are two issues of that. One is there was a potential for spies. You know, back in World War II, he was having an affair with a Swedish woman who was thought to be a spy for Hitler. Brilliant. Well done. The Olympics. And she thought he was a man with a very kind heart. She wrote that Hitler was a man with a kind heart. Jesus Christ. And so the FBI bugged their sexual encounters.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And so he was transferred to the Pacific. But even when he was president, 20 years later, he had an affair with a woman who was thought to be an East German spy and another woman called Judith Campbell, known as the Mafia Mole. She was the mistress of the crime boss of Chicago, the fellow who had taken over from Al Capone. So he was just setting himself up for blackmail, completely reckless.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
The other security issue is that these women would show up at the White House door and say, you know, the president invited me and the Secret Service knew he was not going to wait happily for them to, you know, check these women out. I mean, there was no internet. There was, I mean, how are you even going to check these women out at the door? So they would let them up
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And they were very worried because even if they didn't have a weapon on them, after sex, Kennedy would, he'd have some cold dishes prepared in the little kitchen up in the residence. And there were butcher knives up there. And the Secret Service was very much afraid they'd find the president stabbed to death in the shower one day and there was nothing they could do about it.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yes, there was one. It's not widely known. His name was James Buchanan, and he was the president before Abraham Lincoln. He's best known for just muddling politics so badly that he helped bring on the Civil War soon after he left office. He was the only U.S. president to remain a lifelong bachelor, but that didn't mean he led a celibate life.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
You know, as an American, I am so exhausted. I feel like for the past decade or so, I've been in a really horrible dream, very complicated and long, and I just want to wake up.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
When he was a young man, he met William Rufus King, who was what we might call flamboyantly gay, and they developed a lifelong relationship and often lived together. King was a senator from Alabama. So over the course of their 23 years as a couple, they would often socialize in Washington and they were known as Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan or Aunt Nancy and Miss Fancy.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
So those were terms usually used to denote gay men. And when King went to France to serve as US ambassador in the 1840s, Buchanan wrote to a friend that he was very lonely and that he'd gone a-wooing to several gentlemen, but they had all turned him down. So William Rufus King became vice president and died in 1853. And then a few years later, Buchanan became president.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And when Buchanan died, his nieces and nephews went through his papers and his desk and they were so horrified by whatever it was they found there that they lit a big bonfire in the backyard immediately. No.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Right, right. And it happened with Warren Harding in the early 1920s. When he died, his wife found these 50-page pornographic letters that he had written and women had written him. God damn it. It took her several days. There was a big bonfire in the backyard of the White House. And she'd come in after 12 hours of burning these things with soot and ashes all over her face.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yeah, this went on for several days. And there were still so many more that she took all of these boxes of, you know, some of them were official White House documents to her friend's house across town. And they spent several more days burning them, which led Congress to pass the Official Records Act,
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
that you cannot steal or damage or destroy any official records because there's actually very few left from the Harding administration. She had burned them all just to make sure all the pornographic stuff was gone.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Well, let's just examine the story and how it came about. When he was a young lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, he needed a couple of rooms to rent. And he met a young man named Joshua Speed, and they became roommates. And they slept in a single bed, which was very customary for the time. People didn't have their own space the way we do now.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
If you were a man traveling and you booked a bed in an inn, you might find two or three other people in the bed, complete strangers. Now, that didn't mean you were having a gay orgy. It just meant that's what the sleeping arrangements were for the time. True. had a member of the same sex, a lady-in-waiting, or a gentleman of the bedchamber sleeping with them, if only for warmth in the winter.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
It was usually so cold. So that's the story. They had a lifelong friendship. And then in 1999, a gay activist and historian named Larry Kramer claimed that he had dug up Speed's diary and all of these salacious letters about him and his sexual relationship with Lincoln. He never showed them. And he wrote a novel shortly afterward about this relationship.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Well, hopefully they'll have more clarity than we do. It's just a confusing, horrific mess in this country.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I think he was just doing this hoax to sell his novel. Now, if anyone found this material, that should be a nonfiction work, which would sell millions of copies. So I think that it's just a hoax.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yeah, they were roommates and good friends. I just, I don't see it as being a... a gay relationship, especially, you know, and the rumors didn't really come out until this man said he found the diary that he never showed anybody.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
No, and you know, I don't blame him to tell you the truth. I mean, that wasn't a situation like with Harding or with JFK, where they were just sexually depraved.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
FDR, you know, he married, he was a wealthy socialite in New England and New York, and he married Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a distant cousin of his, because, you know, she was just very intelligent and very serious and not like the flighty debutantes. But soon after the wedding... They realized they were just very poorly suited to one another. He loved sex. She hated it.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
He liked feminine, frilly women. With each year, she seemed to be getting a bit more masculine in her appearance and tastes. He had a great sense of humor. She had absolutely no sense of humor. And so over time, he fell in love with Eleanor's social secretary, Lucy Mercer, and they had an affair. And what happened was Eleanor found out and said, I'm going to divorce you.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And he was very happy to divorce Eleanor, despite all of the children they had by that time. But his mother wanted him to become president and said, And she controlled the purse strings in the family. She said, you know, I'm never going to give you another dime. You're going to ruin your political career. So it was a political marriage from that point out. Eleanor never had sex with him again.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And he soon started having an affair with his secretary, Missy LeHand. And then Lucy comes back into his life after he becomes president. She was actually with him the day he died in 1945. And Eleanor was aware of it and had, you know, had her own relationships. But it was a love story. Well, she had a gay affair with a woman named Hick, who was a reporter for a few years.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
She just became too busy, I think, as first lady to keep that going. And maybe she was afraid of scandal, but she supported Hick until her death. She got diabetes, Hick, she went blind, and Eleanor always took care of her and loved her. And then there were some rumors about some men, some dashing men, too.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yes, when he got really mad at people when he was in the Senate or the White House, he would take it out and wave it at them. I think as a show- So weird. Very weird. But he was a big, tall man and a rugged Texan. He was crazy about his wife, Lady Bird, but he just couldn't help himself when it came to women. One day, Lady Bird, as first lady, comes
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
walking into the Oval Office, and he's there having sex with one of his secretaries on the sofa. And Lady Bird knew all about this and forgave him because she loved him and knew he couldn't help himself. So she just said, excuse me, and walked out.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And Johnson was livid and had a buzzer installed so that his staff could ring it and let him know to pull his pants up by the time Lady Bird walked into the Oval Office. So that pretty much settled that.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
No, I don't. I think the hubris syndrome is too strong. It is a psychological disorder. It's like telling an addict, don't take that drug, or an alcoholic, hey, don't take this drink right in front of you. I also think, despite the scandals that have erupted in the past about a candidate's sexuality, Ultimately, I don't think we care.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Well, my first book was Sex with Kings, and I looked at the sex lives of European royals. The second book was Sex with the Queen. My third book was pretty much Sex in the Vatican. And then I did a lot of other books. And then this came out in 2020, Sex with Presidents. I figured I should turn my attention to U.S. history and really did a deep dive.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
When I look at, say, the Thomas Jefferson election, he'd had a relationship and several children with his enslaved woman, but he doubled the size of the country and he was very popular. The country was going very strong economically. They didn't care about his sex life. People vote in their own interests. Nowadays, we don't even really squeak and squawk as much as we did.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I just don't think we care. When you look at certain public officials and all these scandals, people just don't care anymore. I do think it would be interesting, you know, when you look at female leaders around the world, I have never uncovered a sexual scandal
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
With any of these women while in office or even before, as far as I can remember, I mean, Maggie Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Theresa May. They don't have this history. I don't think that the overweening sexuality that comes with a hubris disorder and power attacks them in the same way that it does men.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Right. Which is my last book off with her head, 3000 Years of Demonizing Women in Power. The standards are just completely different for men and women.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Jimmy Carter, who this week is celebrating his 100th birthday. He married when he was what, 19 or 20. She was 18, Rosalind. She just died a year or two ago. They were together something like 80 years. That was probably the sweetest. The Reagans too really adored each other.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And, you know, the thing about these happily married presidential couples is that you don't really think about their marriages because they're not on the front pages of the newspapers.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I'm at EleanorHerman.com. Look me up. I'd be happy to hear from you.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I'm more expert on European history, and I was shocked to learn a lot about my own nation's history.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yes, it's true. There's actually a psychological disorder. It was accepted as such by the psychiatric community in 2009 called – Hubris disorder.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Unlike most mental illnesses, which develop in early adulthood, this one is triggered by wielding power over a period of time. And when that individual loses power, the illness subsides.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And some of the characteristics of the disorder are recklessness, narcissism, believing that you're some kind of a messiah, that God has appointed you and you can do nothing wrong, not listening to the very good advice of your cabinet. feeling that you're a kind of God, only you can save the nation. The interesting thing about it is it affects women as well as men.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I mean, if you look at Maggie Thatcher in her last year or two, she was whacking that handbag of hers on the cabinet table, threatening to fire everybody. It happened with Golda Meir. It happened with Indira Gandhi. With men, however, The sexual recklessness comes into play. I haven't found in my research that any national female leader was, say, a JFK, for instance.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
They think that they can get away with anything. Their minds are not working. There's no logic there. They think even if it gets out, it won't really matter. Everyone loves them. They're this messianic figure, but they do risk everything. Their family, their legacy, their political career. It's really crazy.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And he actually did not cut down a cherry tree. Or was it an apple tree? But anyway, this story about George Washington and his so-called love affair is really a nothing burger. There's really no there there. And I'm surprised that this is actually a thing. The story is when he was a young man, late teens, early 20s.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
He was staying with his brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon, and they would often visit their neighbors, which was George Fairfax, who was a fabulously wealthy British gentleman, and his young and pretty wife, Sally. This couple would educate Washington on good manners and polite society, which I think indicates he must have been a bit of a hayseed. They would provide him with books to read.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
He developed quite a crush on the wife, Sally. And nothing happened. And when he was 25, he married Martha Custis and the two couples socialized till 1773 when the Fairfaxes returned to England. And he did write Sally a couple of letters saying that some of the happiest moments in his life had been spent in her company. And that's it.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I don't think there's a one, really. I think he was probably very boring sexually.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Right. So Thomas Jefferson, though he was a founding father of the United States and a brilliant man in several different respects, he was really not a decent human being in my view. I was shocked to discover that. But he had an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. He had gotten her pregnant when she was 16. She ended up having seven children with him.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And when he was president in the first decade of the 1800s, His political opponents got a tabloid journalist to dig into this story. I mean, many people knew about it. You know, they would see his son who looked just like him. Wow. And so these stories got out there.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
But, you know, Jefferson was such a successful president in many ways, and he doubled the size of the country by organizing the Louisiana Purchase. And so in the next election, people, you know, the voters just didn't really care about that he had this relationship.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Well, I think it was quite common, quite common indeed. I think the difference with Jefferson is that he was president and there were certainly people who disapproved, especially up in the non- slaveholding states in New England, for instance. They thought it was pretty disgusting.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I think he wanted them around him. He promised her. They were in France. He was the US ambassador. when she first became pregnant at 16. She had gone there to bring his daughter over. And he told her, you know, she knew that if she stayed in France, she would be free because France did not recognize slavery.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And he said, if you come back with me, I'll provide for you and the child, and I'll free all the children when they're 21. She ended up having seven kids, four of them survived infancy. And, you know, when they were 21, there was no freedom. Now, he did not put them in the fields or in the very arduous tasks. He taught them how to be carpenters so they had skills, they could earn money.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Some of them, you know, served in the house. But, you know, at a certain point, they all just left without his permission. They just left. Two of them could pass as white. And they changed their names and disappeared. Wow.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
She was. There was a legal thing that they did where she was just sort of freed. And that's what happened to her. But, you know, he spent his last few years entertaining lavishly and he did not have the money. And he knew as he was getting older that when he died, hundreds of his enslaved people were going to be put on the auction block and sold off and families split up.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
And that's exactly what happened to them. Instead of trying to free them, which wasn't always easy at the time legally, he just figured out they'd be sold and then the money would go to his daughters, pay off his debts for entertaining them.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yeah, when DNA first came out in the 90s, there were tests done. You know, the thing about DNA is sometimes it just gives you a general idea of where the DNA came from. So people who did not want to believe our founding father had all these children with his enslaved woman said it could be his brother.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
According to the DNA, it could have been the brother, except Thomas Jefferson kept a list every day of everything that went on in his household, on his plantation, who visited, how long they stayed. His brother lived some distance away, and over a period of a couple decades, he visited a handful of times, not one of which would have been around the timeframe when Sally Hemings got pregnant.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
So I think it's really safe to say that Thomas Jefferson was the father of her children.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Not even on the honeymoon. Kate, they went to Mexico for their honeymoon and they were at a very lovely soiree at some wealthy person's house. And he disappeared into a guest room with a blonde while Jackie's standing there feeling like a complete idiot. Wow.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Well, you know, in the White House, just as in Buckingham Palace, the male leader and the spouse each had separate bedroom suites. So there's the president's side of the residence and then the first lady's. So when Jackie was away, which was frequently, she just needed to get away from him, JFK would bring women up. Do you think he took them to his own bed?
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
He did not. He always took them to Jackie's bed where they would have sex on her bed. And then the staff, and this is the weirdest part, which I don't get, they wouldn't change the sheets. I don't know if they weren't, he didn't want them to or, Or if he used so many pairs of sheets every day with these women that they just didn't have enough of a supply.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
So the staff would have to pick hairs and bobby pins off of the sheets. And they would often complain, why didn't he bed brunettes? Because then Jackie would just think, well, they're my hairs and my bobby pins. But he always seemed to take blondes. One night, Jackie found a pair of underpants under her pillow. And she fished it out and said to her husband, can you find the owner of these?
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
Yes. She became severely depressed. You know, she had been warned before the marriage by his friends who really liked her saying, you know, this is not a good idea. He's never going to be faithful to you. I mean, not on day one. And she saw it as a challenge and thought, you know, wealthy and powerful men may have an affair. I'll change him. Yeah.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
She thought she would change him or maybe he'd have an affair now and then. I think she had no idea how sick his sexual behavior was. But, you know, she got depressed. And back in the 60s, doctors were just prescribing pills, uppers, downers, all kinds of pills. And so she got addicted to pills because of her depression.
American History Hit
Presidents' Private Lives
I'll tell you why. It's a very fascinating story. Ever since The advent of newspapers, pamphlets, broadsheets in the 1500s, the press had been very salacious, always seeking scandal because it sold them, right? Printers and publishers made a lot of money from these stories, whether it's witches in New England in the 1600s or the sex lives of kings throughout all of those centuries.