Sodom-on-Potomac

Congressman Gary Condit has a bad history . And he knew he would. The aunt of the missing Shandra Livi told recently a lot of interesting things about what conspiracy measures the loving legislator took when meeting with his passion. Nothing has helped: Condit is already declaring that he has no intention of leaving Congress, a sure sign that the ground is on fire under his feet. Now Shandra's parents demand that the congressman be subjected to a lie detector test. However, he is not the first, he is not the last. Standing up in defense of moral values, politicians in Washington often do not consider it necessary to meet high standards in their own private lives.

Even 30 years ago, there were no "sex scandals" in Washington at all - not because politicians did not cheat on their wives, but because it was considered indecent to be interested in such stories. Watergate became a watershed: since the president did not hesitate to start a private detective office at public expense, why the hell should the press and the public be embarrassed? And scandals rained down one after another.

In October 1974, at 2 o'clock in the morning, a highway patrol stopped a car for speeding, which was driven by one of the most powerful legislators - the chairman of the lower house committee on appropriations, Wilbur Mills. The legislator was drunk, moreover, his face was scratched into blood. A cheerful company of passengers turned out to be a match for him. Not only that: the lady sitting in the front seat decided to freshen up and, getting out of the car, dived into a nearby pond. The congressman's companion, taken out of the water, upon closer examination turned out to be a well-known stripper in the city. Mills' wife was not in the car, of course. At first, the congressman was silent in the vain hope that he would carry it through, then he began to claim that the police had confused him with someone, and finally, he wove an intricate version of the incident. Meanwhile, however, reporters followed the trail and established that 65-year-old Mills is an avid visitor to the haunts of the capital and a longtime boyfriend of a stripper. The offending congressman lost his seat as head of the committee and in 1976 considered it good not to be re-elected.

In May 1976, 27-year-old Elizabeth Ray, who worked in the office of Congressman Wayne Hayes, declared that her main duty was to reciprocate the boss's sexual requests. Hayes, 64, headed the administrative committee, that is, he was in charge of the finances of the House of Representatives. Ray was assigned a separate office with a typewriter, two telephones and a sofa. Of the entire inventory, the sofa was mainly used: Ms. Ray did not even know how to turn on the typewriter, but read from warehouses. Hayes vehemently denied all allegations, but eventually resigned.

In April 1978, Congressman Fred Richmond was arrested for attempting to have sexual relations with a 16-year-old boy. Richmond complied, was forgiven, easily won the next election, but was caught four years later for drug possession and tax evasion. The result is resignation.

In 1980, two congressmen at once, John Hinson and Robert Bauman, were arrested on charges of "oral sodomy", the first doing it directly in the toilet of the House of Representatives, and the second with a teenager. Hinson retired. Bauman lost the election.

In July 1983, Congressmen Dan Crane and Gerry Studds were charged with sexual relations with underage messengers who worked in Congress: Crane had an affair with a girl, Studds with a boy. The ethics committee censured them, but one of the members of the House, its future speaker, Newt Gingrich, demanded expulsion. That was the first time that the issue of the sexual promiscuity of its members was discussed by the House in its entirety. Crane, the father of six, wept and begged for forgiveness. Studds declared that he was a homosexual and refused to ask for forgiveness. Crane was forgiven by colleagues, but not by voters. The electorate of Studds turned out to be more liberal.

In May 1987, the Miami Herald, whose correspondents followed Senator Gary Hart's home, reported that the senator spent the night with model Donna Rice while the senator's wife was away. Hart, who participated in the presidential campaign, tried to deny the information, but it immediately became clear that this night was not the only one about which one had to make excuses. The lady was not the only one. After Hart declined to answer a Washington Post reporter's question "Have you cheated on your wife?", the paper gave the middle name. The senator decided to withdraw from the race.

In 1992, 10 employees of the upper house of Congress at once accused Senator Bob Packwood of sexual harassment. Packwood said he was "very sorry" if his actions were unpleasant to the ladies. The case would have stalled, but feminist organizations took up arms against the senator. Not wanting to take the matter to a public hearing and vote, Packwood left on his own.

It would be superfluous to indicate the party affiliation of the above persons - both Democrats and Republicans are subject to immoderate lust. It would be ridiculous to argue that the extramarital affairs of people's deputies are not related to their legislative activities: a number of ladies who have been seen in ardent feelings for members of Congress are known as professional lobbyists, and the results of voting on bills in which the ladies were interested show that legislators know how to appreciate the attention given to them.

Naturally, a naughty politician runs the risk of being on a short leash with his opponents. There are many cases when an overly loving politician became the object of blackmail. However, it also happened that he paid the blackmailers in the same coin. The most famous story of this kind happened to John F. Kennedy. The president actually could not live a day without cheating on his wife, and he did it brazenly, in front of the whole country. He got away with everything for the reason we have already mentioned: there was no tradition in American political culture to look into someone else's bunk.

However, one of Kennedy's amorous connections nevertheless attracted the attention of Congress - the president's passion was suspected of espionage. We are talking about a German from East Germany, Ellen Romech. The connection took place in 1963, just at the time when a deafening scandal broke out in the British Isles - the Profumo affair. (United Kingdom Secretary of Defense John Profumo was found to have had an intimate relationship with Christina Keeler, an escort girl whose other regular client was Soviet naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov.) It turned out that the US president used the same firm as Profumo and Ivanov. The newspaper that found out about this did not have convincing evidence, and therefore limited itself to only transparent hints. However, the Kennedy brothers were seriously alarmed and escorted Romech to their historical homeland, paying a considerable compensation. But the Senate did not calm down and began to start an investigation. Then Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked the director of the FBI to conduct explanatory work among legislators. Edgar Hoover, who had no dossier except on the Lord, went to the Senate and explained to Democratic leader Mike Mansfield and Republican leader Everett Dirksen that if they delved into the president's bedding, the public would learn a lot of interesting things about the senators themselves. The case was closed by the Senate. But not Hoover. FBI agents interrogated both escort girls, Chinese Suzy Chan and Czech Maria Novotny. A close acquaintance of the latter, television producer Harry Alan Towers was suspected of having links with the KGB and emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1962. At the time of the assassination attempt on Kennedy, the investigation was still ongoing.

Another characteristic case occurred in 1988. A rumor has spread in Washington that Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Foley is a homosexual. The only openly gay member of Congress at the time, Democrat Barney Frank threatened gossip that if they did not calm down, he would announce the names of at least six closeted gay Republicans. The gossip was instantly extinguished. (A year later, Frank himself became the victim of a scandal. His lover began to provide paid services at home, and the young man lived in Frank's apartment. The House reprimanded Frank, but this story did not damage his reputation in the eyes of the electorate.)

Clinton defended himself in a similar way from attacks in 1998. The press very conveniently got to the bottom of the past extramarital affairs and illegitimate children of the most implacable supporters of impeachment, such as Senators Henry Hyde and Dan Burton. The speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, has resigned - the same one who burned with noble anger at the corruption of the pages of Congress. One of the charges brought against him was a divorce from his wife, chained to a hospital bed, for the sake of marrying a mistress who worked in the ward. At the same time, an interview with an activist from the 1976 Gingrich election campaign appeared in Vanity Fair magazine, who claimed that the speaker's modus operandi was oral sex, since in this case he can always say: "I did not sleep with her." Before the Republicans had time to elect Bob Livingston to replace Gingrich, adultery was revealed in his past. Livingston decided to leave not only the post of speaker, but also Congress, saying that by doing so he sets an example for Clinton.

Finally, this year, the ugly story about Pastor Jesse Jackson, who demanded a recount in Florida to the point of hoarseness, was publicized surprisingly at the right time. The pastor turned out to be the father of an illegitimate daughter, and the mother of the latter received considerable monthly sums from the budget of the African American civil rights organization headed by Jackson. As a result, Jackson licked off the TV screen like a cow with his tongue.

Have there been absolutely bad plots in the sexual-political history of the United States (sexpolitics is a term included in American dictionaries), associated with the death of characters? But how. The version of the murder of Marilyn Monroe is known - we will not repeat it. Another fatal incident involved a third brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, in July 1969 on Chappaquiddick Island. The car driven by the senator fell off the bridge into the water. In addition to Kennedy, an employee of his election committee was in the car. The senator escaped and fled the scene without calling the police and trying to secure an alibi. His companion drowned. Thanks to his family's connections, Kennedy avoided responsibility, but he permanently abandoned the idea of ​​becoming president.

Missing girl and congressman - Grani.Ru, 07/06/2001