JUDITH EILEEN KATHERINE IMMOOR - CAMPBELL - EXNER
Back in January, I elected art historian, Anne Pingeot, the long time Mistress of French statesman and President of France, Francois Maurice Mitterand, as Mistress of the Month. I've also posted, basically, that the attitude of the French towards their elected officials and politicians about having Mistresses was/is much different the American one. The French are concerned that the person do their job well and the person's intimate personal life isn't such an issue.
President John F. Kennedy and Judith Campbell Exner, born Judith Katherine Immoor, were not exposed by the media during their moment of in history either. During the era of United States President John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November of 1963, the press in the United States was still not reporting anything that might offend the conservative American people about a President's personal life or - I believe - hurt his wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy or his family. It was many years later that Judith Campbell Exner spoke about her experience and she did so under duress. She became more concerned about her own family than protecting the Kennedys.
From this distance in time, there have been many books exposing the fact that John F. Kennedy, before and during his one and only marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier, was a womanizer. The difficulty, for me anyway, because many others have called Judith a Mistress, and his Mistress, is that J.F.K. had so many involvements with women, I question which ones to consider as actual mistresses. I think I have to go with the reportage and consider the duration of the involvement and also, very much, what Judith's own testimonial about her life was.
A person can have many involvements at the same time, especially if they don't confuse sex with love, though I think a person can also love more than one person at a time. Judith says she was not sexually involved with both J.F.K and mobster Sam Giancana at the same time and she was never Sam's mistress - just friends. There is also the fact that labeling Judith Campbell Exner (Campbell and Exner being the surnames of her first and second husband) may have come from those who wanted to tell a different version of the story, to white wash it, to give the impression that the President was seduced. If she was a "party girl" or hanging out in Las Vegas, does that mean she was only in it for the sex? Don't "party girls" also have the ability to love? (Don't some women, just like some men, sleep around until they fall in love?) I'm tired of the sexist attitude of always blaming the woman for leading a man into adultery or whatever it is he does of his own choice, of excusing him and blaming her or saying he couldn't have been serious because she was only there for sex. As Judith has pointed out, he was married at the time, she was not.
Some of those who exposed or reported this involvement in various books, articles, and interviews, have even unfairly called Judith a prostitute, call girl, or a "Mafia Mol." (If you want to read about a true Mafia Mol, Virginia "The Flamingo" Hill was our Mistress of the Month in March 2013.) Once a woman has hung out with those known to be in the mob or "associated", it's easy to think she was a Mafia Mol, a woman who seems to only date mobsters. While I think Judith slept around between marriages, well, lots of people do, especially when they first marry very young and feel they have missed out on that experience.
A question I have around this story include: "Was Jackie, having taken up the French culture, European in her attitude about her husband's fidelity? Often that her own charming and handsome father was also a womanizer is used to explain her attraction to a husband the same way. Then there is the era these events occurred in, transitioning from 1950's values to 1960's values, influenced by the recent development of the pill and the sexual revolution in which many people abandoned the idea of waiting till marriage to have sex as well as monogamy. People experiment sexuality, sometimes to find themselves, their orientation. Some couples agree that one or both can have experiences or relationships outside of marriage
A deciding factor for me was, in determining that Judith was a Mistress, was the 2 - 2 1/2 years she was involved with John. As for the financial aspect, she might have had money as a result of her divorce from her first husband and was considered well off, though she did not have a job or career of her own. To me the years spent also mean that the involvement was mutual. The end of the involvement seems to have been her pregnancy. Yes, she could have had J.F.K's child. "What are you going to do?" the President first asked before remembering himself and saying "We."
Like our Mistress of the Month, January 2017, Sheryl Weinstein, who had a sweet hot extra-marital relationship with financial whiz and ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, a relationship that went on for years while both were married, there is also a question of how much Judith knew, how much she understood, if and when. Generally during her lifetime she claimed innocence, no knowledge of the communications between her lover, the President and her friend, Mafioso Sam Giancana. It's just that she was the courier.
I also have the question about Judith who had claimed that she was first unaware that Mafioso mobster Sam Giancana, who was the head of the Chicago Mafia, was who he was, saying she was introduced to him as "Sam Flood." She says her sexual relationship with Sam was a one time experience, and after he had offered to marry her when she came to him looking for help in getting an illegal abortion - JFK the father. However, when she acted as a courier, taking messages in envelopes back and forth between John and Sam, without questioning what she was doing or peeking in the envelopes to see what was written, I personally find it difficult to believe she was as unaware of the seriousness or importance of being between these two extremely powerful men. She claimed she was disinterested. Was she also afraid? Until Judith admitted her role between them, it was as if the till-then conspiracy theories about Kennedy (or his father, Joseph) and the Mafia were just theories.
So let's start with her innocence. Judith was born to a wealthy architect and her family socialized with some of the Hollywood Stars, including Frank Sinatra. (Barbara Blakeley Marx - Sinatra - twice a mistress and thrice a wife - was our Mistress of the Month in October 2018.) Her sister became an actress. Judith was a beautiful woman, with pale white skin, contrasting dark glossy hair, and unusual blue eyes, compared to Hollywood actress and star, Elizabeth Taylor. It's said she even sounded like Elizabeth - that voice. Her teenage years were motherless as her mom died when she was 14. She first married young at 18 to an actor William Campbell, who she says was never faithful to her. They were married from 1952 to 1958.
But when the marriage ended in divorce she was a free agent. Frank Sinatra was one of the people who thought of her as a family friend, a beautiful young woman who needed introductions but first they dated, briefly. In early 1960, the divorced and childless Judith, age 26 and the much younger woman, was introduced to J.F.K. in Vegas by Sinatra. This lead to Vegas, Introductions to the President, hanging with The Rat Back, and to "Sam Flood." Were these men passing women around? The relationship between Judith and John lasted from their first sexual experience together at the Plaza Hotel in New York on March 7, 1960 until eleven months before the President's assassination, after a visit by Judith to the White House in December 1962. The compliant Judith then kept her privacy.
In 1975 Judith remarried to a pro golfer, Dan Exner. In 1977, years after J.F.K's assassination in 1963, her book was published and revealed more than the press had previously. She and her husband remained together for over ten years. She was called reclusive. She died of breast cancer in 1999.
This month I'll post more about Judith, so keep reading!
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