Back to JFK!
Patrick -- Kennedy's drug use is well documented. From the NYT: "By the time of the missile crisis, Kennedy was taking antispasmodics to control colitis; antibiotics for a urinary tract infection; and increased amounts of hydrocortisone and testosterone, along with salt tablets, to control his adrenal insufficiency and boost his energy."
And, "The records show that Kennedy variously took codeine, Demerol and methadone for pain; Ritalin, a stimulant; meprobamate and librium for anxiety; barbiturates for sleep; thyroid hormone; and injections of a blood derivative, gamma globulin, presumably to combat infections.
"In the White House, Kennedy received "seven to eight injections of procaine in his back in the same sitting" before news conferences and other events, Dr. Kelman said."
Again from the NYT, "As president, he was famous for having a bad back, and since his death, biographers have pieced together details of other illnesses, including persistent digestive problems and Addison's disease, a life-threatening lack of adrenal function." (Pat, there's the life-threatening illness you wondered about, that JFK hid and lied about.)
"But newly disclosed medical files covering the last eight years of Kennedy's life, including X-rays and prescription records, show that he took painkillers, antianxiety agents, stimulants and sleeping pills, as well as hormones to keep him alive, with extra doses in times of stress."
If you have any question about the side effects of just one of these drugs, do a quick google search. Now throw them together into a twelve, ten or eight-drug cocktail. You get the potential for explosive abuse.
The nation should have been told about Kennedy's health problems and need for drugs, before JFK got elected. It is a key issue. Instead, Kennedy lied to the nation, to project his false image of strength.
JFK's womanizing: the fact of it is beyond question. It created problems for him. Here is how JFK biographer Robert Dallek describes Kennedy's affair with the East German woman in 1963...
"The most reckless one, of course, was the affair he had with a woman named Ellen Rometsch, who was of German origin.
"She grew up and lived in East Germany for a while.
"There were suspicions that she may have been an East German spy.
"That's never been proved, and is probably false, but even the perception that he was having an affair, or had sex, with an East German woman who could be accused of spying was a very dangerous thing to do.
"In the background, of course, in the spring of '63, was the Profumo scandal.
"The minister of war in Great Britain and the Macmillan Government, that was driven out of power over this scandal because the call girl, Christine Keeller, that Profumo was having an affair with was also having an affair with a Russian Embassy official. (And you question, Patrick, that Kennedy could be blackmailed?)
"So Kennedy knew about all this, and Robert Kennedy, Jack's brother, in cahoots with J Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, they deported this Ellen Rometsch, sent her back to Germany so that she could not be around to talk to the press or testify before a Senate committee because there was some discussion on the possibility of having a Senate committee investigation.
"Now, Kennedy got wind of it and he told Ben Bradlee, this Washington Post editor, that if the Senate decided on some kind of investigation of sex activities at the White House, it was going to rebound against them because Kennedy said a lot of these senators were carrying on as well and the Kennedy White House, it was implied, was going to leak to the press all the information about the senators' transgressions."
How sweet. JFK screws around with a woman who may have been a spy. (Many others have no doubts on that count. e.g. George Stephanopolous, on CNN, called her an East German spy.) Kennedy's brother, who conveniently happens to be AG, immediately deports her. JFK then threatens blackmail to keep the affair secret. As Bradlee wrote in his book, "Conversations With Kennedy": ''There is something incredible about the picture of the President of the United States and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation looking at photographs of call girls over lunch.'' Of course, it's not incredible, if Hoover is using that information to influence JFK. That is called blackmail.
A little more from Dallek, on how Kennedy's thirst for women led him into dangerous waters...
"Kennedy would use the White House swimming pool for these sex parties, and there was a guy named Bobby Baker who was the secretary of the Senate and he would bring over call girls to the White House.
"But it wasn't just at the White House - Kennedy would go off on these trips and they would bring call girls to him."
It's also well documented that the Secret Service procured women for JFK.
Sex scandals can and have brought down national leaders. Knowing this, Kennedy still went way over the top. He put his presidency in peril. He then abused his power to cover it up. Stephanopolous even called that technique the Rometsch Strategy.
This is getting long. So part two -- I'm sure everyone is waiting for it with bated breath -- to come.