Forget Watergate. Did Nixon have a gay affair with a Mafia fixer?

[snagglepuss]

snip

A new biography by Don Fulsom, a veteran Washington reporter who covered the Nixon years, suggests the 37th U.S. President had a serious drink problem, beat his wife and — by the time he was inaugurated in 1969 — had links going back two decades to the Mafia, including with New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello, then America's most powerful mobster.

Yet the most extraordinary claim is that the homophobic Nixon may have been gay himself. If true, it would provide a fascinating insight into the motivation and behaviour of a notoriously secretive politician.

Fulsom argues that Nixon may have had an affair with his best friend and confidant, a Mafia connected Florida wheeler-dealer named Charles 'Bebe' Rebozo who was even more crooked than Nixon.

snip

Fulsom uses recently revealed documents and eyewitness interviews — including with FBI agents — to shed new light on long-standing suspicions among White House insiders that Nixon may have been more than just good buddies with Rebozo.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078822/Did-Nixon-gay-affair-Mafia-fixer-Forget-Watergate-A-new-book-claims-Americas-corrupt-President-hid-far-personal-scandal-.html#ixzz1hkme50iJ

[hifiguy]

1. That sounds pretty far-fetched.

Nixon was one of the most uptight people who ever lived.

Rebozo's many Mob connections are pretty well documented in Anthony Summers' Nixon bio "The Arrogance of Power" which I just happen to be currently re-reading. Fascinating stuff.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. I can't imagine Nixon having sex with ANYONE . . . .

[originalpckelly]

32. I know, nixon was like some undersea creature...

when he procreated he budded off and a new nixon was made.

[snagglepuss]

5. Far fetched yes but did you read the article? Rebozzo had a bedroom in the White House

and his own office and a security clearance that allowed him to go in and out without being logged by the secret service. That alone is shocking.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078822/Did-Nixon-gay-affair-Mafia-fixer-Forget-Watergate-A-new-book-claims-Americas-corrupt-President-hid-far-personal-scandal-.html#ixzz1hkpO4WbE

[MorningGlow]

17. Egad where have we heard that lately...?

The more things change blah blah blah...



(I have no idea why Monica is in the title of this graphic.)

[Enrique]

15. uptight people can be gay

relevant? documented? true? who knows?

Far-fetched? No, imho.

[snagglepuss]

23. Leading a double life, one that would utterly destroy one's life if exposed

would make anyone uptight.

[DURHAM D]

2. Their relationship was common gossip at the time so its not new news.

In fact, I remember reading a story about Nixon before he was elected President that he played "drop the soap" with Bebe. That was the first time I ever heard that reference.

And, JFTR - we would like to give Nixon back and trade for a first round draft pick.

[comipinko]

6. I seem to remember talk of "pajama parties"

[snagglepuss]

11. I'd be interested to know where you read that their friendship was sexual.

[DURHAM D]

14. I can't remember where I read it.

But I do remember how embarrassed my father was when I asked him (and he answered) what "drop the soap" meant.

[snagglepuss]

21. I'm not familiar with the term.

[11 Bravo]

49. Try to keep it that way. (hint: endeavor to stay out of prison)

[snagglepuss]

52. Thnx for the heads up but being curious and mystified I ended up googling the term.

I can report I'm no longer mystified.

[edbermac]

3. Maybe that's why they called him 'Tricky Dick'

[snagglepuss]

59. So much back then was hidden. The only way to address cetain topics was with

innuendo so if he was involved with Rebozo I don't think it's far fetched to assume this is why his nickname was Tricky Dick.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Don Fulsom was pretty good over the years on reporting

and exposed a lot of things however Pat Nixon had to deal with Dick in Bed and I think that was enough for all of humanity.

[snagglepuss]

9. According to the Fulsom they had separate bedrooms. I had an uncle who

was a closeted homosexual and he utterly destroyed his wife emotionally. On the surface an easy going guy, in private a sadistic misogynist. There is nothing humorous about people who use others to achieve their personal ambitions.

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. I hated tricky Dick

He was from my era. He was a twisted, petty individual who should have gone to prison. Fulsom was a very good reporter so who knows?

[snagglepuss]

20. About ten years ago, a KOS contributor, who described himself as a gay man

of a certain age" wrote a piece about the Velvet (gay) Mafia and its presence in Washington. I believe the contributor handle was Pangreig Pierce. Anyway that piece came to mind when I saw this story.

[11 Bravo]

43. My era as well. But don't you find it fascinating that today ...

Nixon would be anathema to the Republican party for being "too liberal"? That's how far to the right those whack jobs have swung!

[NYC Liberal]

46. Maybe, maybe not. Nixon would fit right in with the racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-choice

war-hawk wing of today's GOP and teabaggers.

I suspect he would be a birther and part of the "Obama is a Muslim" contingent, too. He might be smart enough not to be too overt or public about it, but I have little doubt he'd be on that side.

[11 Bravo]

47. Possibly, but the establishment of the EPA, his attempt ...

to establish a negative income tax, his devotion to affirmative action, and the policies of detente with the Soviet Union, and normalization of relations with the PRC would almost certainly have been met with scorn and derision in today's Repuke party.
(Don't get me wrong, Nixon was a prick. My point is that today's Republicans are so far out there that they should not be allowed in public unless they are muzzled and leashed.)

[Ichingcarpenter]

48. He was a protegee of the Nazi banker Sen. Prescott Bush

What and who followed was an increasing array of arrogance and lies. .... yea, its gotten very bad when we have Nixon as someone that looks like some of today's moderate politicians.

If Nixon had gone to jail it might have stopped some of the shit and decay we've seen of this nation over the decades.

[DURHAM D]

19. A lovely picture of Hoover, Bebe, and Nixon

at the link: http://dirtypolitics.50megs.com/dirty.htm

[newspeak]

35. the power hoover wielded

the lives he destroyed; only to find out after his death, his little secrets.

[xchrom]

8. ...

[Liberal Veteran]

10. Make mine a double.

[pintobean]

12. Why would it matter?

It's an irrelevant double edged sword.

[snagglepuss]

16. His willingness to destroy a woman's life to further his political aspirations for one thing.

To not see the contemptible duplicitious callous self serving narcissism is shocking.

[Dreamer Tatum]

22. Nixon should be jailed immediately, then. Nt

[pintobean]

24. Lol

[newspeak]

26. well, would it matter if there were mob connections with the murder of JFK?

A DU thread some time ago discussed a man in a european prison who claimed the mafia killed JFK. And, ruby was no friend to the kennedys and had mob connections.

[Jello Biafra]

18. Boning Bebe...Isn't that special.....n/t

[MineralMan]

25. Given the Daily Mail source, I wouldn't give this

a lot of credence, really. It borders on conspiracy theory garbage, frankly. Anyone can write anything, even frank untruths.

The bottom line is that we are not ever going to find out if this is true or not.

[snagglepuss]

28. WTF. This is a review of Fulsom's Nixon biography.

[MineralMan]

30. It's a bit more than that. It's actually a puff piece about the book.

I'm not someone who takes everything written by a biographer as the truth, necessarily. Why this did not emerge earlier, if it's true, would be one of my primary questions for this biographer. Given the nature of national politics, I'd have thought a story as devastating as this to Nixon would have surfaces long ago, if it was indeed true.

Believing everything written in a biography just isn't a smart thing to do. Unless such blockbuster information is corroborated elsewhere, I'm very skeptical about its truth.

Richard M. Nixon was a horrible little man and a terrible President. That does not mean that I accept everything written about him, especially major disclosures that have not surfaced before.

[snagglepuss]

31. Who on this thread says they believe everything written? AS for how long this story

took to surface is not unusal. How many years did Deep Throat wait until he was willijng to go public.

[MineralMan]

33. Nobody says that.

However, it would take more information than a biography to convince me of this. Besides, I don't really care about Nixon's sexual activities one bit. They are irrelevant to the issues of his Presidency, to be quite frank.

In any case, if this were true, it would have been used against Nixon long ago, since nothing of this sort can be completely hidden and there's always someone willing to blow the whistle on such a story.

So, yes, I doubt the veracity of the biographer, but would have to read the biography to see how it was framed, and I have no interest whatsoever in a biography of Richard Nixon. I already know more about him than I care to.

[newspeak]

36. I don't care about nixon's sexcapades

however, I do care more about any mob connection. Now, if nixon was one of today's bogus "family" values repugs, I'd care because of the hypocrisy.

[MineralMan]

37. Yes, the mob connections are relevant, and have been known for a long

time. Bebe Rebozo was an unsavory character, to say the least.

[hughee99]

27. This sounds like the find of story you find when someone is trying to sell a book. n/t

[snagglepuss]

29. Perhaps you care explian why Rebozzo had a bedroom and office at the White House.

Fulsom is not a 2 bit hack journalist though I imgine that is the tactic repukes will be using to discredit Fulsom.

[hughee99]

39. Well, if that's not proof of a hidden gay affair, I don't know what is.

Fulsom may not be a two bit hack, but the story will amount to little more than speculation.

Nixon will be just another in a long line of famous world leaders who had a "secret gay relationship". While it's not necessarily always false, it's virtually always done to sell books.

[snagglepuss]

41. Spare me the sarcasm. That is just one example. How many

other closeted US presidents had boyfriend's who were mob enforcers, had alcoholic and drug addicted wives who they beat?

[hughee99]

42. The fact that the president had a friend who was a mob enforcer is certainly a story

that he was closeted or it was his boyfriend is speculation.

I'll bet his wife wasn't the first addicted to drugs or alcohol, nor was she the first to be beaten.

[originalpckelly]

34. All I know is that Nixon still blows almost 20 years after his death.

[UTUSN]

38. R#7 & K, for his beating Pat is worst of just about all. n/t

[snagglepuss]

45. Being a closted homosexual who took his frustrations on his wife is the worst of it.

As I mentioned below, I had an uncle who was a closeted homosexual who utterly destroyed his wife. He was unbelievably cruel. His wife who was a devout Catholic confided in her MIL but my grandmother vilified her as did my mohter, my uncle's only sibling. In their minds my aunt was utterly insane. Pat Nixon would not have just been beaten but emotionally tortured as well by the fucker.

[UTUSN]

50. Agreed, on all points. I think that what's going on with those who are dismissing the story

whether calling it "gossip" (the word does NOT equate with UNtruth) is the syndrome of not wanting to admit the humanity of minority groups (whether Gay, Hispanic, Black, whatever) by acknowledging that nobody is exempt from the despicable end of the spectrum of behavior.

In our Dem confederation of sub-groups, whether of ethnicity or race or social justice or union or whatever, if any of our Dems is guilty of horrendous acts of criminality or breaches against humanity, we Dems should be the first to disown them. They cannot be "saved" by their being members of one of the Dem constituent sub-groups. The label of any sub-group is not a bad word, but membership in that group is not a free pass.

[barbtries]

40. i find this rumor hard to believe.

j edgar hoover, yes. nixon, mmmm....i dunno.

nor, frankly, do i care. watergate was far worse.

but then again, it's not the alleged behavior: it's the HYPOCRISY.

[snagglepuss]

44. Why would Fulsome a professor at American University in Washington

who teaches a course about Watergate destroy his reputation by printing unsubstiatiated rumors?

[barbtries]

51. i don't know.

i'm not familiar with him. maybe it's true.

[WinkyDink]

55. I find the incredulity in this thread hard to believe.

[snagglepuss]

56. Me too however I think UTUSN post #50, nails the reason. I quote

"... what's going on with those who are dismissing the story whether calling it "gossip" (the word does NOT equate with UNtruth) is the syndrome of not wanting to admit the humanity of minority groups (whether Gay, Hispanic, Black, whatever) by acknowledging that nobody is exempt from the despicable end of the spectrum of behavior.

In our Dem confederation of sub-groups, whether of ethnicity or race or social justice or union or whatever, if any of our Dems is guilty of horrendous acts of criminality or breaches against humanity, we Dems should be the first to disown them. They cannot be "saved" by their being members of one of the Dem constituent sub-groups. The label of any sub-group is not a bad word, but membership in that group is not a free pass."

[valerief]

58. Ha! Me, too! nt

[WinkyDink]

53. Some of us thought all this LONG ago:

http://www.historyforsale.com/html/prodetails.asp?documentid=1588&start=8&page=13






COZY TRIO:
http://ahabit.com/mob/

[snagglepuss]

57. Thanks for posting those links to Fulsom's articles about Nixon's association to the mob

and JFK's assassination. Very much an eyeopener.

[dflprincess]

61. True. I remember my mother

and one of her sisters speculating on this relationship a long time ago.

[HillWilliam]

54. The very thought makes me

hit my squick limit. Ew. Just ew.

[zappaman]

60. Does this mean we now know the identity of "deep throat"? n/t