Episode Information

This is a film about the real John F. Kennedy – the President who was prepared to risk his political career in return for sex. In a terrible irony, as the American Press finally braced itself to reveal the story in 1963, he was assassinated in Dallas. It took his life, but it may have saved his reputation.

Using new documentary evidence and recently-released FBI files, the film reveals his long string of affairs and lovers. His recklessness, and his belief that he was untouchable, threatened to lead to his political downfall.

By the autumn of 1963, the American press was on the brink of exposing him. In Britain, a sex and spying scandal caused the resignation of MP John Profumo. One of the women involved in the Profumo scandal, Mariella Novotny, claimed to have had a relationship with JFK. An American newspaper picked up the story and published an article with coded references to the President, suggesting he was involved in a vice scandal.

Perhaps it was only that fateful bullet which kept JFK’s reputation intact.