by David White

In case our readers are not surfeited on the recent flood of Kennedy reportage, Charleston Inside Out revisits the story of the future president and a Danish femme fatale in the Holy City, as recounted by Nigel Hamilton, English author of JFK: Reckless Youth, (Random House, 1992).

The story begins in the nation’s capital as winds of war were gathering in 1941. Ensign Jack Kennedy, US Navy Intelligence, age 24, was stationed in DC, where he met a very blonde Danish beauty, four years older and much worldlier than he. Her maiden name was Inga Arvad. At age 16, Inga had been crowned Beauty Queen of Denmark. As a news correspondent in the 1930’s, Inga had travelled to Berlin and became acquainted with Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, and Rudolph Hess, not to mention Adolph Hitler, who described her as “a perfect example of a Nordic beauty.” She spoke and wrote in four languages.

Inga migrated to the US with her second husband, Paul Fejos, a World War I Hungarian cavalry officer (who also happened to have a medical degree). He lived mostly in Hollywood as an émigré film maker, while Inga remained in New York and later moved to Washington to become a correspondent for the Times Herald. Ensign Kennedy met her through his sister Kathleen and was captivated. In short order, he became a frequent overnight guest at her apartment on 16th Street.

The star-crossed lovers were unaware that their phone calls had been taped, their room at the Fort Sumter Hotel bugged and their tryst recorded by the FBI.

Unbeknown to the star-crossed lovers, Inga was suspected by the FBI of being a Nazi spy and was the subject of close surveillance under the personal supervision of Director J. Edgar Hoover, who is said to have briefed FDR on her case.

On January 12, 1942, Walter Winchell’s widely read syndicated gossip column jeered: “One of Ex-Ambassador Kennedy’s eligible sons is the target of a Washington columnist’s affections. So much so she has consulted her barrister about divorcing her exploring groom. Pa Kennedy no like.” (Ambassador Joe Kennedy’s pre-war tolerance of Nazi Germany did not suit FDR, and he was back in the US, planning the careers of his sons.) Within 24 hours after Winchell broke the story, an anxious naval command caused the Ensign to be transferred (some said, banished) to the Charleston naval base. He rented a private brick home on Murray Avenue, not far from the Fort Sumter Hotel, and sported a 1940 Buick convertible around town.

Neither the opposition of Ambassador Joe nor the machinations of the federal government could keep the passionate couple separated. Inga visited Charleston several times, checking into Room 132 at the Fort
Sumter on Friday, February 6, 1942, using the pseudonym, “Barbara White,” where she and the Ensign spent a long night, unaware that their telephone calls had been taped, the room bugged, and their tryst recorded by the FBI, whose agent also trailed them the next day as they attended Mass at the Catholic Cathedral on Broad Street and window shopped at Shindler’s antique store on King Street.

Inga evidently appreciated Charleston, recalling in one letter the tiny streets, the beautiful old iron gates, and the drive to Middleton Gardens. The Ensign was not happy here, mostly because he was frustrated with his desk job. He was desperate to get out. He wanted action.

Inga’s final visit to the Ensign in Charleston was the weekend of February 22nd. By then, aware that he had been under surveillance by naval security at the Fort Sumter, Jack arranged a room for her at the Francis Marion under the name of “Barbara Smith.” Once again the room was bugged, and FBI agents reported that “the subject was quite worried [about pregnancy] as a result of her two previous trips to Charleston . . .”
Jack made a rushed trip to Washington on February 28 for a final visit with Inga at her apartment. Hamilton observes: “. . . Jack’s friends . . . knew, his relationship with Inga was much more than an amour. From Jack’s reluctant heart an extraordinary woman – part siren, part mother, part heroine – teased out the only admission of profound love Jack would ever make . . .” But, alas, it was not to be. As Hamilton observed: “The ex-ambassador’s master plan for Jack, however, was not one that would ever include Inga. Though they remained lovers, it soon became clear that Jack was not proposing to marry her.” In the meantime, unbeknown to the Ensign, Inga had resumed a liaison with an old Danish boyfriend, Nils Blok, who was making overnight visits to the 16th Street apartment.

Somehow, this much documented romance, flaming in the heart of the Holy City for those few weeks after Pearl Harbor, has been little noted in South Carolina. For example, no whisper of it was uttered fifteen years later when the glamorous, unmarried P. T. Boat hero, then a young Senator from Massachusetts, addressed the graduating class of 1957 on the horseshoe of the University of South Carolina. He didn’t tell us he had worshipped at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, let alone about love down among the sheltering palmettos.