Nixon Had 'Crude Swingers' Teddy and Joan Followed

"She was going to wear hot pants but Teddy told her she couldn't"
By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 28, 2009 7:39 AM CDT
Nixon Had 'Crude Swingers' Teddy and Joan Followed
n this Oct. 28, 1965, file photo, Edward M. Kennedy arrives with his wife Joan in Vietnam.    (AP Photo, File)

Richard Nixon hoped to embarrass Ted Kennedy in a scandal and huddled with aides in 1971 to make sure people were keeping an eye on him, the AP reports. "You watch, I predict something more is going to happen," Nixon tells HR Haldeman and press chief Ron Ziegler in a taped conversation. They touch on Chappaquiddick and then-wife Joan Kennedy's scanty outfit at a White House event—"some leather gaucho, with a bare midriff or something," says Haldeman.

"She was going to wear hot pants but Teddy told her she couldn't," he says, prompting Nixon to add, "It's crude. What the hell's the matter with them? What's she trying to prove?" After Nixon makes his prediction about another scandal and says, "There oughta be a way to get him covered," Haldeman assures him that "they're keeping an eye on the family," which he derides as "super-swinging jet-set types." (More Joan Kennedy stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X