What might have been: the JFK yacht orgy pic
TMZ.COM is running a very peculiar picture:
In case it’s not too clear, that’s SUPPOSEDLY John F. Kennedy chillaxin while FOUR, count em, FOUR, babes frolicking naked. Cool huh? Well, under some circumstances it would most definitely be. However, SUPPOSEDLY, at this time, his wife was in the hospital struggling to deliver a still-born baby. The baby died August 23, 1956. This does look like summer. And, JFK did return to be with her from a yacht vacation in the Mediterranean. This rumor is not new. The pic is. How the pic wound up with TMZ is vague. But, it certainly looks sorta kinda like JFK, and the boat definitely resembles the Honey Fitz ( Manitou ).
The trim, the glass front, the framing. It fits. Given his reputation, that fits too.
I would have tucked this away on Moonagewebdream, but the ramifications of what might have been if this pic had surfaced at the time are too immense. Think about it.
For starters, JFK was not well liked within his party. He was not their chosen son. He was not their preferred presidential candidate. He was up and coming in 1959. Emboldened by being young and brash, JFK, pretty much the face for Robert Kennedy, took on the established Democrat leadership in a move they didn’t expect. Emboldened by his increasing popularity, Robert Kennedy made a gamble that probably cost him and John their lives. He offered the VP spot to Johnson.
Now, if this picture had been floating around at the time, things probably would have been a lot different. And, I do mean a LOT. Given Massachusetts’ odd penchant for adoring bad characters, he would have probably stayed in the Senate. There he would have continued to have been a junior senator throughout the 60′s.
Some things would have been a LOT different. Some people speculate that the election was stolen from Nixon and that if anyone other than Kennedy had run they would have lost to Nixon. I don’t think so. This would have predated the primaries, and therefore the primaries most likely would not have split the Democrat party as bad as it did. In the Democrat primary, Kennedy only got about 62% of the vote. In the general election, he only got 49.7%. If the Democrat party had been more unified, it would have been a wide margin. This was due in some part to Kennedy’s religion. Being a non-factor if Johnson had led the ticket, I think Johnson would have won handily. However, you would not have had the famous Kennedy-Nixon debate. Maybe Nixon would have done better without that. But, toss in 10% boost in Democrat support and I think Nixon would have been toast.
Lyndon Johnson would have been President 1960-1964. Things would have been a LOT different.
- Kennedy tried to policy-wonk Vietnam and got us into an arrangement that was unwinnable by relying on the South Vietnamese government to control our troops. I don’t think Johnson would have ever gotten himself into that predicament. My gut feeling is he would have been more compelled to fight a war to win from the start. If that’s true, 1968 would have been a hell of a lot different.
- Kennedy wasn’t the only champion of minority rights. A lot of people were. The deaths of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. sparked riots and distrust that last a generation. This picture could have prevented all of that and allowed the process that Johnson was already supporting to continue peacefully and at a controlled pace. Instead, their deaths ignited a powder keg that no one had an answer to.
- Kennedy ignored white racism. Johnson went after it. He confronted the KKK on national television and outed them for what they were. The effect of what the Kennedys did was it pushed minorities into a position they weren’t comfortable with, and whites resented. It didn’t address the wrong attitudes of the whites or blacks. It just forced them into situations of confrontation. Johnson’s allies were addressing the attitudes of whites and blacks. I think things would have progressed a lot smoother, and more amicably if Kennedy had never been president.
- Johnson had pushed through Medicare and Social Security. Public health care was being debated when Johnson chose not to run in 1968. Health care, due to the Vietnam War, Cold War, and other issues, became a distraction to Nixon. If Johnson wasn’t so demoralized by the protests of a war that might not have been happening, we might very well have had public health coverage already.
- Following up on the previous paragraph, Nixon and Gerald Ford would never have been President.
- If Ford had never been President, Jimmy Carter would have lost.
- If Jimmy Carter had lost to a more conservative president, Ronald Reagan would never have replaced Carter in 1980. And, we would never have had the Iran Embassy takeover or the Community Reinvestment Act.
- If Ronald Reagan hadn’t been President, George HW Bush would never have been Vice-President, and therefore President.
- Bush begat Clinton due to his political ineptness. We would never have had the internet since Al Gore would never have been VP without Clinton. Additionally, I’ve argued that if a more security minded person had been president as opposed to a policy wonk and social liberal, 9/11 would never have happened along with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Both were our “friends” until Clinton.
- Clinton begat George W. Bush due to his, well, Kennedyesque actions with women.
- And, George W. Bush begat Barack Obama because he became such a lightning rod for liberals, following his perceived efforts to emulate a Reagan that never would have occurred.
Pretty heavy stuff huh? Instead of all that happening, this pic apparently became a joke for a car dealer for 40 years.
OK.
Ohh-kayyy was right:
No sooner than TMZ ran the story, The Smoking Gun fired right back with the original, confirmed by Playboy. Most reports are quick to point out that it wasn’t JFK on the boat. He was shot in 1963, the pic in 1967. No word yet on how much TMZ paid for the crinkled up Playboy spread. I’m scouring Hustler for Ronald Reagan look-alikes tho.
