New Book Suggests President Nixon Had Gay Past
President Richard Nixon has gone down in history for being one of the most despicable presidents to take office. He has been labeled as a crook and convicted of lying to the American people about his involvement in the infamous Watergate scandal, which lead to his impeachment. A new book by veteran reporter Don Fulsom suggests that Nixon also lead a secret life and had an affair with longtime friend and businessman, Charles "Bebe" Rebozo.
Fulsom’s book, "Nixon’s Darkest Secrets," also suggests that Nixon loved liquor, often beat his wife and was linked to the Mafia, the Daily Mail reported in a Dec. 26 article.
Rebozo was a banker and business owner from Tampa, Fla., and had a close connection with Miami’s Mafia leaders. Rebozo was a "short, swarthy, good-lucking Cuban-American," the Daily Mail writes. Dan Rather said that Rebozo "transmitted the sense of great sensuality," and he had a "magnetic personality" as well as "beautiful eyes."
In his book Fulsom uses recently discovered documents and interviews that point out that Nixon and Rebozo were more than just friends. The reporter says that his 53-year relationship with his wife Pat was a total lie. According to Fulsom, Nixon called her a "fucking bitch," and physically assaulted her for years.
The couple did not share the same bed or even slept in the same bedroom during their time in the White House. They would often vacation in Key Biscayne staying in a resort near Miami but Nixon’s wife did not even sleep in the same building as the president but Rebozo would stay right next-door.
Fulsom also writes that some of Nixon’s aides would "teach him how to kiss his wife" so they would look like a normal, loving couple. A former "Time" reporter tells Fulsom about an incident during a Washington dinner. The reporter picked up a fork off the ground and saw Nixon and Rebozo holding hands under the table. In addition, during another event, a journalist said that after throwing back a few drinks, Nixon put his arm around Rebozo in "the way you’d cuddle your senior prom date."
Nixon first met Rebezo in 1950 when Nixon just won one of California’s U.S. senate seats. He was extremely stressed and Senator George Smathers suggested that Nixon take a vacation to Florida. Smathers had his old school friend Rebozo show Nixon a good time.
Since then, the two men became very close and were attached at the hip as Rebozo would come on family vacations and was an uncle figure to Nixon’s two daughters.
Rebozo and Nixon would often go to Key Biscayne without Nixon’s family as well. The pair would swim, work on their tans and discus their love of Broadway musicals.
The men kept their relationship extremely under wraps -- so much so that the "New York Times" did not report on it for nearly two decades.
Several people noticed the pair’s intimacy when they were drunk. An aide saw the men playing a pool game while in Key Biscayne and commented that, "It was late at night, the two men had been drinking. Nixon mounted a rubber raft in the pool while Rebozo tried to turn it over. Then, laughing and shouting, they’d change places."
When Nixon became president, he gave Rebozo his own office and bedroom at the White House. He also gave him security clearance so he could enter and leave the White House without being monitored by the secret service.
When Rebozo was not spending his time with Nixon he was surrounded by beautiful women and often threw lavish parities in Miami.
When Rebozo was 18-years-old, however, he allegedly had an affair with a young man named Donald Gunn. Rebozo ended up marrying his Gunn’s sister but the sexless marriage only lasted four years. Rebozo married again when he reached middle age.
Anthony Summers also wrote a biography about Nixon and was told that Rebozo was "definitely part of Miami’s gay community." The author and co-writer, Robbyn Summers, however, don’t think there is enough evidence to support that Nixon was gay.
"They held hands on occasion, and both men had problems with consummating physical relationships with women, but we found no evidence that Nixon was actively homosexual," Summers told the Daily Mail.
Nixon hasn’t been the only American president that has his sexuality called into question. Many believe that Abraham Lincoln was gay. Gay activist C.A. Tripp suggests that Lincoln had close relations with several men and that two were possibly intimate.
One of those relationships was with David Derickson, Lincoln’s bodyguard. The men were companions and even shared a bed together during the absences of Lincoln’s wife, Marry Todd.
James Buchanan, the U.S.’s 15th president, was also speculated to be gay. People believed Buchanan’s close friend Alabama Senator William Rufus King was also his lover due to their close emotional relationship.
In a similar story, EDGE reported that Glen Maxey, a gay politician from Texas, recently published an e-book titled "Head Figure Head: The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry." The book recounts a number of Perry’s gay sex rumors and alleged encounters that involved the GOP candidate.
