Political philanderers past and present

FOR all that Bill Clinton might be defined by his marital transgressions, on the political stage he is far from alone: from earliest times, the dark arts have abounded with philanderers.

A previous White House incumbent, John F Kennedy, managed to keep his serial womanising out of the public eye during his lifetime; only after his assassination did the truth emerge.

In An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, author Robert Dallek revealed how President JFK, who claimed to get a headache if he didn’t have sex at least once a day, bedded countless party girls, starlets and White House staffers in an attempt to satisfy his voracious libido. Following his assassination his equally libidinous younger brother Bobby was said to have embarked on an affair with the widowed First Lady, which ended only with his own untimely death in 1968. A third brother, Edward, survived to old age, but never quite managed to live down the personal and political scandal of 1969 when he left the scene of a car accident in which a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, perished. Though not as politically active as their forbears, the sexual shenanigans of subsequent generations of Kennedys continue to keep the redtops in headlines.