Read “The Scarlet Letter” and you’ll see how one single blemish to a clean moral record can screw up your entire deal. Morality. It’s a good thing, so far as I can tell.
Does the name Mimi Alford ring a bell?
In 1962 she was a teenager interning at the Kennedy White House press office, and having an affair with the president.
I caught her on a show early this winter doing press for her book, titled “Once Upon A Secret,” and I was interested in her story. I wasn’t interested in it solely because it dealt with sexy White House history; I was interested mostly because, well, two things.
One hears so much about JFK and his gals that it’s hard to know what to believe. This woman I saw on the show seemed honest, and I wondered if I’d get real information about the JFK and women rumors from her writing. I also thought the book would contain information about the “inside” the day to day details of what goes on in the busiest household in our land. The book came trough on both counts.
Mimi’s story wreaks believability to me, and, there were plenty of details about what day to day work was like at the White House in 1962, specifically working in the pressroom, and being on the presidents staff. The book was well done I think and was mostly a story about how certain specific details of Mimi’s early life led her to become involved with the president.
If you’re asking yourself how the heck a 19-year-old becomes the lover to President of the United States Kennedy, the book will tell you in a way that makes sense. It does not focus on the sexy stuff per se.
Most books I read send me off wondering about my life and why it is how it is, which I feel is a good thing to wonder about. I give Mimi lots of credit for at least attempting to figure out her life through writing (and selling, hey, whatever). You know what, read the book; it’s easily as entertaining, and more informative as a well-written T.V. movie, with a good sprinkling of documentary feel to it. I was glad I read it.
Rusty DeWees tours Vermont and Northern New York with his act “The Logger.” His column appears weekly.
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