Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of, what historian David K. Johnson calls the lavender scare, According to author Christopher Bram (2012), her fictional account of the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt. Their very intimate relationship would last from those school days to Billings even having a room in the Kennedy White House distressing for the first lady to the day of Kennedy's assassination. [50] In 2006, looking back to the Kennedy Administration, Ben Bradlee said: "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay.It impressed me that Jack had gay friends. They remained close until Kennedy's assassinationBillings had his own room in the White House, and Joe Kennedy Sr. called him "a second son." (Which is odd considering JFK . Collier and Horowitz described Billings, later in life, as invariably enmeshed in his late friend's larger family. Lem Chesmore is a 34-year-old Billings native who grew up on the sport. As Vice President at the Emerson Drug Company in Baltimore, he was responsible for inventing the 1950s fad drink Fizzies by adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship" Kennedy knew Billings was in love with him (Billings declared his love and was rejected by Kennedy) and Kennedy liked that, the attention and knowing the power he has over billings also his wife Jackie Kennedy hated Billings and hated that he and . "Because of him," Billings once said. as not being gay since they only gave each other BJs (as in Lewinsky/Clinton sex?)! [54] Billings had his own room in the White House. Didnt Lem confess to a friend that he loved JFK? Born in 1916, he was the son of a Pittsburgh doctor. 'People think I'm a joke,' he once acknowledged. The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well. While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". [31] He accompanied the President to church,[32] launched a kite for the President's daughter Caroline,[33] and delivered pet hamsters to the Kennedy children. I have no evidence one way or another, but I would discount [any sexual activity.]. We might even call it a romantic friendship. ', But Billings was embarrassed about his effeminate mannerisms he'd remain publicly closeted for his lifetime. To order a copy, click here. [26] When the First Lady was away, Billings organized White House dinner parties for the President and old friends,[27] and when the President traveled he kept the First Lady company. Like the rest of the free world, Billings was devastated when President Kennedy was assassinated. Born in 1916, Billings was the son of a Pittsburgh doctor. Kennedy was allegedly on the receiving end of oral sex. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy, a distraught Ethel turned over her son, Bobby Jr., to Billings to act as his surrogate father, sparking her brother-in-law, Terrien RFK's roommate at the University of Virginia law school to wonder why she would allow 'Lem to have such an intimate relationship' with her troubled third born, who would go on to have a a bizarre relationship with Billings, including the taking of drugs. It is a historic rural cemetery. 228. [28] He sat with the President's family at the Kennedy inauguration and walked not far behind his widow at the Kennedy funeral. While Billings' missive is long gone, a startled Kennedy responded, 'Please don't write to me on toilet paper anymore. The murder of Curtis Lemansky marked the beginning of the end for the Strike Team. "I was never lonely.". As the then-Senator stepped up for his turn, Williams admired his body. We might even attach the adjectives exclusive and romantic to this youthful friendship. ', Jacqueline Kennedy was reportedly unhappuabout her husband and Billings' three decade long relationship. [66], In 1987, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin described how Billings structured her interviews with him. For Jack and Lem, the carefree period of their lives -- their school and college years -- were now behind them. In less than a year, the country would be at war." Kirk LeMoyne " Lem " Billings (April 15, 1916 - May 28, 1981) was an American businessman known for his close and long-time friendship with John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. In 1964, Billings was named to head a ten-person committee to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center. From there we would helicopter right to his father's front lawn. [19], In 1961, Billings declined Kennedy's offer to appoint him the first head of the Peace Corps, director of a new agency to promote tourism, the U.S. Travel Service, or ambassador to Denmark. The evidence presented indicates that Jack found out . ", Still, he was well aware of his proximity to history. While JFK is legendarily known as a master womanizer who frequently cheated on his first lady, his curious three-decades long intimate friendship with Billings suggests more than a simple bromance. During the night of May 28, 1981almost two decades after JFK's untimely death - 65-year-old Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. The one iconic photo of President John F. Kennedy up close and personal with a woman other than Jackie shows him and his attorney general brother, Robert, coming on to curvaceous Marilyn Monroe at a party. The affair was socially isolating for a very young and sexually un-liberated woman, causing her to deceive friends, boyfriends and ultimately her husband and children for most of her adult life. Both boys kept diaries on the trip, although Lem's was more of a scrapbook. [23] He represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963. Billings kept the letters JFK wrote to him between 1934 and 1939, and he donated the entire collection to the Library in the 1970s. Allegheny Cemetery is one of the largest and oldest burial grounds in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "And everything ready for a big, big party.". I don't know how we will carry on without him. In 1965, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede. . He once described the Kennedy family's lack of business awareness: "Listening to the Kennedy brothers talk about business was like hearing nuns talk about sex. Author Louis Bayard focuses much of his upcoming novel Jackie & Me on the relationship between Billings and Kennedy, too. They were bound together by a love of fun and practical jokes, resentment of Choate, and envy of their higher-achieving elder siblings -- Joe, Jack's brother, and Josh, Lem's brother." The two had been friends since meeting as teenagers in prep school, and Billings even had his own room in the White House, but were they merely friends? Another shows older daughter Caroline, who became the American Ambassador to Japan under Barack Obama, learning to ride her pony. Have you heard from him?' They soon began spiraling toward their eventual demise. Our most accurate accounts of JFKs emotional carelessness are not from Lem, who was loyal to his friend until his death, but from women who later came forward about affairs that now, in the era of #MeToo, sometimes raise harsh questions about whether some of these relationships were abusive. Ted Sorensen called him "an admirer almost a fawning admirer of his friend. While web sleuths and conspiracy theorists were looking for the person who killed her . JFK's Best Friend Lem: Transcript. Indeed, it often seems that Kennedy did treat people who loved him for granted. Lem never really left Jacks orbit after boarding school. Use Restriction Status: None. As one source told me, 'Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.'. When Jack discovered that Billings was gay once declining an amorous overture from Billings the friendship is thought to have gone on unharmed. In photos and excerpts from David Pitts's book Jack & Lem, we remember President John F. Kennedy through the lens of his lifelong friendship with Lem Billings. President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas 50 years ago, leaving behind a mourning nation and his gay best friend, Lem Billings. According to Pitts, Billings never recovered from the death of his friend, suffering from a "deep depression" in the weeks and months after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. John F. Kennedy, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated this year with a Kennedy Centennial postage stamp, TV memorials, a slew of books, and much media coverage, was revered as the 35th president of the United States. [4], In 1939, Billings graduated from Princeton where he majored in art and architecture[5] and wrote his senior thesis on Tintoretto. The . [6][7], In 1941, Billings failed medical tests required by the military. Now thats very exciting! said Kennedy with a grin.. Kennedy later graduated from Harvard, but the pair wrote letters back and forth, spent weekends together in New York and traveled to Germany in the summer of 1937. Although JFK embarked on affairs with women as a very young man, affairs that continued into his married life, Billings remained focused on an erotic life with men and never had a life partner. Joe generously paid for half the cost of Lem's ticket on the way over, saying Lem could pay at least part of it back when he graduated from Princeton. As Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee recalled much later, "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay.. They met in 1933 in their sophomore year at Choate Rosemary Hall, the exclusive Connecticut prep school, when both were teenagers, working together on their class's yearbook, and Billings instantly became attracted sexually and otherwise to the handsome scion of America's self-styled royal family. But even before then, Billings was a Kennedy fixture. With his political influence, Jack Daniels became a monopoly as the only legal whiskey distillery in 1947 in Tennessee. The 51-year-old daughter of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died Sept. 16 while working out at her Washington, D.C., gym. John F. Kennedy (right) and Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings sit in a wicker chair outside the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach. In many ways, Kennedy was also enjoying the kind of sex life that would later characterize the gay mens party of the 1970s. JFK appeared to be in love with the idea of Billings being in love with him. "[53] Though newspapers often mentioned Billings' attendance at major social events, they identified him either as the escort of a member of the Kennedy family or included him in a list of Kennedy friends. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. Those who knew Charles described him as a sour, angry man. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific until being discharged in 1946. "In many ways, Lem thought of his life as being over after Jack died," the younger Bobby Kennedy told Pitts for his book. Lem Billings Is JFK's 'Go-Between' During Courtship with Jackie as Imagined in New Novel PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at Louis Bayard's upcoming Jackie & Me By Sam Gillette Published on. His mother was a Mayflower descendant and his great-grandfather Francis Julius LeMoyne was a prominent abolitionist linked to the underground railroad who helped establish what is today known as LeMoyne-Owen College. Jack and Lem, as a reviewer for The New York Daily News put it in 1996, engaged in the kind of sexual experimentation not unknown at all-boys boarding schools.. Health Insurance data come from Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2014 pdf icon; 2014 birth data come from National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 'They make fun of my voice. Lem Billings and John F Kennedy were practically inseparable in prep school. (Page 24), Lem and Bobby, Waterville Valley, N.H., circa 1967"'When Bobby joined the political fray, no one was happier than Lem. Definitions: Cause of death vs risk factors. When they arrived at the cemetery, it was already in place to be lowered. I dont buy it. After Jack Kennedy's election to the presidency, Billings was a constant presence and overnight guest at the White House. Not just any member, either, he was an assassin and the leader of a Viet Cong death squad who had been targeting and killing South Vietnamese National Police officers and their families. JAMIE RICHARDSON: John F. Kennedy had no shortage of people who considered themselves friends of the 35th president. It was Bobby Kennedy Jr. who gave the eulogy. [8] In 1942, supported by a recommendation from Joseph Kennedy Sr., his friend's father, who called him "my second son," he won admission to the American Ambulance Field Service, where his poor eyesight was not a disqualification. The Depression had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship. JFKs sex life, and his attachments to men, also needs to be better understood for what it reveals about his inner life, and for a moment in United States political history when sex itself was undergoing seismic changes. Lem was no civilian; he was a member of the Viet Cong. Len Hauss, a rugged mainstay in Washington's offensive line who started 192 consecutive games at center in a 14-year pro football career that led him to the Super Bowl and five Pro Bowl . On some weekends, Jack and Lem would go up there. "The agency, which was the 13th largest in the United States in 1971, went bankrupt the following year, listing almost $11 million in liabilities. Lem Billings relaxed on the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate the summer of 1936. University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of "cocaine intoxication" after ingesting an unusually pure dose of the drug that stopped his heart within minutes, Maryland's chief medical . LeMoyne Billings and Ethel Kennedy attend Liza Minnelli Concert on May 23, 1970 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (Page 4), "When Jack wasn't trying to get Lem to sing on family occasions, he was cajoling him into playing sports -- usually touch football, a game Lem came to loathe. Ben Bradlee, a Kennedy friend who worked at Newsweek during the Kennedy Administration, and no friend of Billings,[40] said "they were childhood friends and stayed loyal to each other forever." Both men are being held in . [47], Billings spent less time with the President in the fall of 1963. In the summer of 1937 Billings and Kennedy took a summer trip through Europe which solidified their friendship. Sitelinks. Even worse, many such slurs aren't from men but 'I couldn't do it without you': Victoria Beckham poses with her whole family after her PFW show - as she Brooklyn Beckham puts on a loved-up display with wife Nicola Peltz as they head back to hotel after Cruz Beckham supports his mother Victoria as he carrying his very own VB handbag on the way to her show Like father, like daughter! Witch, Harridan, Harpy, and new insults like Karen and Terf. Kennedy. Billings remarked (at the end of the story) that had he married and settled down, he would not have been happier than he was as . Lem Billings was a lifelong friend of Kennedy's, beginning from when they were roommates at Choate, continuing til Kennedy's assassination in 1963. According to author Christopher Bram (2012), Vidal told the playwright he shouldnt cruise our next president, then repeated the remark to Kennedy. "[21] In September 1961, he accepted an appointment to the board of trustees of the planned National Cultural Center, which later became the Kennedy Center. He certainly didn't have the same interest in politics and women that Jack had. Having been given special access to the Billings papers by Robert Kennedy, Jr., Pitts was either unable to verify a sexual relationship, or he was unwilling to cite his source. John F. Kennedy's best friend for three decades was a gay man, according to a new book titled, "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings.The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship;" the book documents the relationship between the two men from its beginnings at a New England prep school in 1933 until the gunfire in Dallas in 1963. Lem Billings andBobby Kennedy Jr became close after JFK's death and allegedly took drugs together. Billings could best be described as Kennedy's "wingman", closest male friend, and boon companion as they moved into adulthood. ", As Pitts writes, Jack "wasn't going to let anyone control his life, and he certainly wasn't going to let anyone choose his friends.". A Catholic couple, the Kennedys hoped for more children: Jack had been one of nine, while Bobby and Ethel Kennedy had eleven. After the assassination of RFK in 1968, the flamboyant Billings transferred his obsessive affection for Jack, to handsome teenager Bobby Jr. David Pitts, the author of 'Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship,' told me, 'Lem was a gay man and he had a 14-year-old, good-looking kid living in his house with him and there had been rumors because of that. ', The Kennedy patriarch, Joe, a noted philanderer himself, was suspicious of Billings' sexual preference from the start of his son's close friendship with him. Quirk had met Billings in the mid-Forties when both were volunteers in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign. I was pleased to note that things picked up after your arrival,' referring to Montgomery's battle with Rommel at El Alamein. Kirk Lem Lemoyne Billings (15 Apr 1916 - 28 May 1981) 0 references . What is most interesting to me is the relationship between sexual abuse and power and how idolized men in particular seem to some along with this inability/unwillingness to be kind.Lems story seems tragic, good material for a play or musical. John F. Kennedy bi-sexual or gay? Lem (Kenny Johnson) refuses to live the rest of his life as a fugitive in Mexico.S5E11 - Postpartum (FX The Shield)I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE VIDEO CLIPS. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. Billings had once told Bobby that. His latest book, The Kardashians: An American Drama, will be published in September. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of Public Seminar. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women. Mid-1930s. Lem Billings and John F. Kennedy met as teenagers at their Connecticut prep school and remained lifelong friends. Although Jack and Bobby were of different temperaments -- Jack, detached and cerebral, Bobby, intense and emotional -- Lem saw so much of Jack in Bobby. Jack" he said as he gazed at him softly, It's been a long time. Pictures of the first family are typical of Cold War domestic norms: widely distributed before and after his death, these photographs show him as a conventional, heterosexual husband and a devoted father. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. [11], After working on Kennedy's successful campaign for Congress in 1946, Billings toured seven Latin American countries with Robert F. Because of him, I was never lonely, Billings said once. According to Quirk, Billings revealed that his friendship with the future president of the United States 'included oral sex, with Jack always on the receiving end. The pair matriculated at Princeton together in the fall of 1935, although Jack had to withdraw for health reasons, probably early signs of the Addisons disease that would plague him the rest of his life. On school breaks, Jack often brought Billings home with him, sparking Joe Kennedy to complain to his wife, Rose, 'Do we have to have that q***r around all summer?'. (Page 307)Listen to a short phone conversation between the two of them: DAVID PITTS is a longtime journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post and other leading newspapers. JFK's oldest and best friend was Kirk LeMoyne Billings, known as "Lem." The two became fast friends in prep school and, after graduation, they traveled to Europe together. Vidal thought Jacqueline Kennedy thought Billings "was kind of a nothing but Jack needed him and she was practical. Ethel's alcoholic, philandering brother, George Skakel Jr., actually booted Billings in the a** at the church, knocking him into the aisle. 12 pdf icon; leading cause of death data, including firearm, homicide, and drug poisoning mortality data, and infant mortality . https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/661850801540d07650fabf52ced798bc30b638466ac906855c1e19da231d68b5.jpg. 'It was very hard for him, but he wanted to do it and he stuck with it,' Lucretia added. This is fascinating, Claire. The Kennedys tolerated his homosexuality, which was considered taboo at the time, Lawrence J. Quirk, the author of'The Kennedys in Hollywood' said Billings and JFK's relationship turned sexual at a point. Eventually, the two friends made contact, however, and began exchanging letters just as they had when both were at home." [17] In 1956 he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean to Stephen Edward Smith. [10] In 1944 he received a commission in the U.S. "He did not want to hear one negative syllable, and there were a lot of negatives going along.". [36] When the Kennedys spent the weekend at Glen Ora, their Virginia estate, Jacqueline Kennedy invited Billings to join them more often than the President did. [28] One presidential aide later said that "some people saw him so much they thought he was the Secret Service. Have a nice one! myocardial infarction. "I just became fascinated with Lem because he was a closeted but as they used to say 'practicing homosexual,' and he was very much part of the inner Kennedy circle from very early in his life," Bayard said. In addition, gay and lesbian people often have reasons for not coming out, or not seeking the liberation of living in queer communities, lives that are worth exploring for what we might learn about queer milieus that do not fit a conventional liberationist narrative. The Cold War was still raging, and there was fear Russian agents might use the friendship against Kennedy. A crew jock, he met Jack at Choate, a boys boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut (it is now co-ed). Co-executive Editor, Public Seminar and Professor of History, The New School for Social Research, Photo credit: Cecil Stoughton/Wikimedia Commons. Still, Billings was viewed by many I interviewed for my biography of RFK Jr. as his gay Svengali who guided and literally tried to control every aspect of Bobby Jr.'s life from the time he was in his mid-teens. But the point of the picture is the grief any couple would feel at the loss of a much-wanted child. During that time, he told researchers, "All the kids came over to see me. Lem Billings may have been present for, but just outside the frame, of these pictures. Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his 'high, screechy laugh,' and 'high nasal whine of a voice.' EXCLUSIVE: Head teacher of leading grammar school is sacked for sending parents a list of striking teachers. Why should a historian care about Kennedys sex life at all? I'd read a bit about Lem Billings in various Kennedy bios . I'm not that kind of boy.' As we both know, homosexual relationships in English boarding schools were put down to adolescent hijinks and men *grew out of them*. [13] He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. 'I'm sure he's already organizing everything in heaven so it will be completely ready for us with just the right Early American furniture, the right curtains, the right rugs, the right paintings, and everything ready for a big, big party. In their own words: 'each death is attributed to a single underlying cause the cause that initiated the series of . [63], Billings served for many years along with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts,[65] working from an office in the Pan Am Building. [4], Some historians believe that Billings expressed his sexual interest in Kennedy in writing in 1934 and that Kennedy rebuffed his advances. He might have been the reason I never got married. Lem's team was attempting to take down a number of South Vietnamese officials. "Because of him, I was never lonely. William Lemp III died an untimely death of a heart attack at the age of 42. [60] In 1965, Jacqueline Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to President Kennedy at Runnymede. Jack's best friend was Lem and he would want me to remind everyone of that today." Still, the Kennedy clan accepted even welcomed Lem Billings into their exclusive inner-circle, practically adopting him, and he became a part of the family. He remained in the closet until his death in 1981 at the age of 65, according to Pitts. "[59], In 1964, Billings was named to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center. Yesterday was Jack's birthday. Wikipedia (3 entries) edit. The young Kennedys took the casket and carried it around the gravesite before returning it to the burial plot. ", So frequent a presence was he that Ted Kennedy, more than a decade younger than his brother Jack, said he "was 3 years old before it dawned on me that Lem wasn't one more older brother.". John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings, right, who was a classmate from the Choate School and Princeton University, outside a drugstore, ca. The two grew so close over the following months that Billings was invited to the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach, Florida, for the holiday season and, months later, to their Hyannis Port compound, where he was badly burned in a defective shower and hospitalized for three weeks. With so many people looking for a relationship with him as he rose through the political ranks, there was one man who stood out as one of JFK's near-constant companions. Lem, although said by Arthur Schlesinger to have been jealous of others who drew Jacks attention, was undoubtedly one of the personal assistants and friends who facilitated the Presidents daily need for sex by making sure that women were available when needed. By the time he became president, however, that revolution had been launched: the birth control pill, developed in the 1950s, became widely available in the 1960s and, more importantly, in 1964, Life magazine would publish a major photo essay about gay mens bars in San Francisco. His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. In the epidemiological framework of the Global Burden of Disease study each death has one specific cause. The book "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship," details the extraordinary relationship between two unlikely friends. 'Haven't heard a word from you,' Jack wrote. This essay was originally published at OutHistory.orgon November 22, 2013; it has been updated and re-edited. Lem profited from the friendship--he was an official member of the Kennedy clan, he went to fancy White House parties and even had his own friendship at the presidential mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. [68] He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[69]. Lem Billings is a member of famous Celebrity list. Williams, a handsome gay southerner, had already written seven hit plays. I have one additional comment, probably to be regarded as politically incorrect. Lem was a virtual fixture in the Kennedy family who even had his own room at the White House. And the White House itself seems to have been welcoming to other non-heteronormative men in the Kennedy years. [12], From 1946 to 1948, Billings attended Harvard Business School and earned an MBA. "[Billings] was a witness to so much of what was going on. [18], In 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. "Jack was anxious to reach Lem and to find out how he was doing. He became Jackies confidant and the trusted recipient of her views about the other women who flitted in and out of her husbands life. And all the while, Lem Billings was there: waiting, serving, comforting and helping the Kennedy family adjust to the public glare. He may have been the reason I never got married. 'I would take the shuttle down to Washington, go to the White House and we would be picked up by helicopter there -- flown to Andrews (Air Force Base) and taken by Air Force One to Otis on the Cape. Lem Billings may have been present for many of these events, but if he was, he was just outside the frame of these pictures. When Jack reached home, the two friends greeted each other like there was no tomorrow."