Woman alleges JFK fathered her wartime love child
Long before Kennedy became a well-known womaniser, the Austrian-American woman claims that she had an affair with JFK while he was recuperating from injuries in the US during World War II.
Lisa Lanett also said Kennedy had offered to marry her.
Lanett told Austrian newspaper Kurier, she had a two-year affair with Kennedy after they met in Phoenix, Arizona, during the Second World War.
Kennedy, then a young and single US navy officer, offered to marry her when she became pregnant with their son, Tony, but she turned down the offer, she said.
However, Kennedy did pay for the child’s education right up until he was assassinated, she added.
Lanett’s son Tony Bohler, who is now 63 years old, said he could never work out why he didn’t look more like the Mexican-born man he was originally told was his father.
“My mother always told me her former husband, Juan, was my father. I’d always had my doubts because he, being a Mexican, looked very Mexican,” The Telegraph quoted him as saying.
The same newspaper reported that, apparently, Lanett comes from an illegitimate branch of the Hapsburg family. Her father was the half-brother of Karl I, the last Austrian emperor and had been on holiday in Rome when the Nazis occupied Austria in 1938.
They decided not to return and moved to America instead.
After a brief marriage to a Mexican, she moved to Phoenix where her mother ran a motel called the Monterey Lodge.
Kennedy moved to the city in 1943 while recuperating from back surgery after he was injured when his torpedo boat was rammed by a Japanese cruiser. The met and fell in love and went on romantic trips.
“We went to Miami and New York. In the spring of 1945, I realised that I was pregnant. I told John and he offered to marry me,” she said.
“But I had a wonderful life to that point which I didn’t want to give up. Marriage was out of the question for me,” she added.
Kennedy paid for his son’s education at Peekshill Military Academy, a private school outside New York, until he was killed in 1963.
She said Kennedy carried on seeing his secret family after his political career took off.
The office of Senator Edward Kennedy, his brother, was asked to comment on the claims but has yet to respond.
Lisa admits that she has no way to prove the affair although it is true that Kennedy did indeed visit Arizona for a few weeks during his recuperation.
She would not offer an explanation as to why she has kept the affair quiet until now.
Kennedy’s legacy has been marred by dozens of allegations of extra-marital affairs, including an alleged tryst with Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe.
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