The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [274]
Jack had a serious personal matter on his hands during the crucial West Virginia primary. His personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, put in her private files a handwritten, two-page letter dated April 8, 1960. Three days later his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, who has no memory of this incident, sealed the letter while being witnessed by his assistant. The letter stated:
I talked today with bobby baker [a top Lyndon Johnson aide]. He informed me that three weeks ago an attorney he knew named Mickey Wiener from Newark (?) Hudson Co. called him. Wiener stated that if Sen. Johnson would give $ 150,000 to the wife of “a well known movie actor” (baker did not know her name or who the actor was) she would file an affidavit that she had had an affair with me. Baker said he thought it was blackmail, and did not inform Johnson of the matter. He did tell Joe Alsop that he was concerned about an attempt at blackmail of me and did not go with the details….
John Kennedy April 8th
In his sexual adventures, Jack had begun a descent into provinces he once would never have visited. He had indeed seen a woman who was married to “a well known movie actor.” She was Alicia Darr, the former wife of the French actor Edmund Purdom. Darr had apparently first met Jack in 1951, when, according to FBI reports, she was running a “house of prostitution” in Boston. Darr moved to New York City, where, the FBI said, she rendered the same services but with the highest class of client. Darr made the transition from whore to mistress to wife of a movie star. Her marriage failed, however, and in the spring of 1960, Darr was in such financial trouble that she had been jailed for cashing bad checks, according to European papers.
Clark Clifford, a powerful Washington lawyer and lobbyist, recalled that in the spring of 1960 he had been asked by Jack to deal with a matter so serious that “public knowledge could have blown the Kennedy nomination out of the water.” If this was indeed the matter, whatever Clifford may have done to end this threat, there is no evidence that Darr blackmailed Jack.
The Kennedys were in what they considered the most difficult, most crucial campaign of their lives, and they threw every weapon they had into the fray. Politicians trade in whatever commodity is cheapest to them, be it access, votes, promises, flattery, or money. The Kennedys were wealthiest in money, and they spread their lucre around West Virginia in large amounts, mainly in cash and doubly in silence.
The sheriffs controlled both the law and politics, and they were the ones whose palms were most generously greased. One of Joe’s rich friends, Eddie Ford, got up from his table at Chicago’s Statler Hotel, where he held court daily, and drove down to the Mountaineer State in a big Cadillac with Illinois license plates, carrying with him a suitcase full of money. “He’d pick up a sheriff who was powerful,” recalled Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, “and he’d say, ‘I’m a businessman from Chicago, and I’m on my way to Miami. I think this young Kennedy would be great for the country, and I’d like to give you three thousand dollars to see if you can help him. I’ll be coming back this way, and I’ll be happy to give you a bonus if you’re able to carry the town.’”
Jack met with Raymond Chafin, the political boss of Logan County, and tried to convince the man that he cared about West Virginia’s problems; if elected, he would do more than Humphrey for the state. After Jack left, his minions worked on the man some more. Chafin had immense power in the poor county. He controlled all the Democratic election officials—amiable folks always ready to help instruct voters in how to mark their ballots. He got along with the UMW leaders and the bosses at the Island Creek Coal Company. And he was always ready to