Ted Kennedy ‘rented brothel for night’ in Chile in 1961

A YOUNG Ted Kennedy arranged to rent a brothel for a night while visiting Chile in 1961, a year before he was elected to the US Senate, according to a newly-released FBI file.

The previously edited State Department memo, dated December 28, 1961, was released by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based organisation that said it obtained it through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

According to the memo, the Massachusetts Democrat, younger brother of then president John F Kennedy, made arrangements to rent the brothel “for an entire night” in Santiago earlier in 1961.

“Kennedy allegedly invited one of the embassy chauffeurs to participate in the night’s activities,” according to the memo.

One State Department official described Kennedy as “pompous and a spoiled brat”, according to the memo. He was making a fact-finding trip to several Latin American countries, and met “a number of individuals known to have communist sympathies”.

Kennedy was a 29-year-old assistant district attorney in Boston at the time of the trip. He was elected to the Senate in 1962 and served more than four decades until his death in 2009.

His family had no immediate reaction to release of the memo.

The documents from Judicial Watch provides no indication of the source of the allegations or whether the FBI believed the allegations were true. Judicial Watch said it waged a “tough” fight with the Obama administration for access to the previously secret documents.

Last June the FBI released more than 2,300 pages of documents from Kennedy’s file, many containing information about various death threats against Kennedy and his family. Some of the material was redacted by the FBI.

Some of the threats prompted investigations and some resulted in warnings to Kennedy or local law enforcement authorities.

The FBI has additional documents on threats to Kennedy, that it plans to make public once the agency finishes reviewing them.