‘Nixon’s Darkest Secrets’: New biography digs up rumors of Richard Nixon’s gay affair with Mafia banker
Former White House reporter Don Fulsom’s book says 37th President was a drunk and a wife beater
Wednesday, December 28 2011, 4:13 PM
John Rous/AP
President Richard Nixon and his pal Bebe Rebozo in Key Biscayne, Fla., in 1969. A new book by a former White House reporter claims the two may have been lovers.A new book by an ex-White House reporter claims that President Richard Nixon was a mobbed-up drunk who beat the First Lady and may have had a decades-long gay affair with a shady Miami-area businessman.
In the shocking new biography "Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President," former United Press International Washington bureau chief Don Fulsom writes that Tricky Dick had mob ties for more than 20 years before he was elected in 1968 and lusted after his best pal, dashing Cuban-American playboy Charles (Bebe) Rebozo.
Nixon and Rebozo, who the feds believe laundered money for mob kingpins in Florida and Cuba, swam, sunbathed and dined together during guys-only vacations in exclusive Key Biscayne, Fla., and were once spotted holding hands under the table during a dinner with K Street power brokers, according to a report on the book in the Daily Mail.
Another Washington reporter told Fulsom that he once spotted a boozy Nixon nuzzling Rebozo "the way you'd cuddle your senior prom date."
The pair's friendship was no secret to Washington insiders, and the book claims that there were whispers that the two were more than just pals up until Nixon's death in 1994. (Rebozo was by his side. He died four years later.)
White House aides at the time said Rebozo was nothing more than "the guy who mixed the martinis" and showed the notoriously stuffy Nixon how to hobnob, the Mail said.
The new book also charges that Nixon guzzled bathtubs of booze — earning the name "Our Drunk" from his own staff — and abused First Lady Pat Nixon.
Fulsom writes that an aide had to coach Nixon on how to kiss Mrs. Nixon so that they'd come across as a loving couple, the Mail said.
But behind closed doors, Nixon called his wife a “f------ b----” and often beat her before, during and after his presidency, the book claims.
Macmillan, the book's publisher, said that "Nixon's Darkest Secrets" is based on Fulsom's reporting during the Nixon administration, along with interviews with members of Congress, former White House staffers and others from the 37th President's inner circle.
He also covered the Johnson, Ford, Reagan and Clinton presidencies and teaches a course on the Watergate scandal at American University.
The Nixon Foundation has not commented on the book.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nixon-darkest-secrets-biography-digs-rumors-richard-nixon-gay-affair-mafia-banker-article-1.997960#ixzz1hx0XqhZ6
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