Ellen Rometsch

Last updated

Ellen Rometsch (born Bertha Hildegard Elly, [1] September 19, 1936 in Kleinitz, Germany) is a German former model who was alleged to be an East German Communist spy who was assigned on diplomatic cover to the West German embassy in Washington, D.C., during the early 1960s. During that time, Rometsch was widely thought in some Washington journalism circles to have been a mistress of President John F. Kennedy. However, the FBI never turned up "any solid evidence" that Rometsch was a spy or that she had relations with President Kennedy. [2]

Contents

Early life

Towards the end of World War II her family, in which she was one of seven children, fled Kleinitz (since 1945 Klenica, Poland) and settled in Kreinitz near Riesa (in the Soviet occupation zone, since 1949 part of East Germany), where her parents were given an estate in Kreinitz. [3] Ellen was a member of the Free German Youth and worked as a stenographer for the Socialist Unity Party (SED) district administration. [1]

When agriculture was to be forcibly collectivized in East Germany, the family moved to West Germany in 1955, [3] and her parents leased an estate, Gut Oberberge, near Schwelm. [3] There she did a business apprenticeship, got married for the first time and was divorced shortly afterwards. In Siegburg she married German air force sergeant Rolf Rometsch, [4] took his family name Rometsch and had a son in 1958. On April 6, 1961 Sergeant Rolf Rometsch was assigned to the German Logistic Office in Washington, D.C., with his wife and son. The couple lived on Military Road in Arlington County, Virginia until August 1963. [5]

Alleged affair with John F. Kennedy and FBI suspicion

She first appeared in Washington as a photo model under the pseudonym Ellen Rometsch. She met Nancy Carole Tyler, the secretary of senate staffer Bobby Baker. Baker later found her a job as a hostess for the Quorum Club at the Coroll Arms Hotel on Capitol Hill, adjacent to a Senate office building. It was a private club, founded by Baker requiring annual membership dues and was used by lawmakers and other influential men to meet for food, drink, and engage in dalliances with ladies away from the press that were constantly downstairs at the bar in the hotel lobby. [6] It was during the summer of 1963 that, according to later claims by Baker, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, met 27-year-old Ellen Rometsch and allegedly began an affair with her. Rometsch had worked in the Quorum Club for about two years before allegedly starting her affair with Kennedy. [5]

Rometsch had apparently disclosed details of her illicit relations with highly placed government officials that she had met at the club, to a former FBI informant of questionable reliability. Because she had been born in East Germany and was rumored to have once worked for Walter Ulbricht, the FBI decided to investigate her. [7] Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was informed of the planned investigation on July 3, 1963. On July 12, 1963, Rometsch was interviewed by the FBI and it was concluded that the security allegations against her were not warranted and the high-level sex contacts were unsubstantiated. [8]

However, due to the sensation that the Profumo affair in the United Kingdom had created in the press and because the US State Department could not remove Rometsch without disclosing a specific reason to the West German authorities, it was decided that the information developed by the FBI would be transmitted via liaison to the State Department and then be made available discreetly to West German authorities. [9] On August 14, 1963, Sgt. Rometsch was informed by his superiors of the allegations being made against his wife and that he was therefore being recalled back to West Germany in one week. [10] Rometsch was expelled from the U.S. on August 21, 1963, "because of her behavior in Washington", behavior which according to media reports threatened to have scandalous overtones reminiscent of the Profumo affair. [11]

The allegations involving Rometsch and her subsequent removal from the U.S., were brought to the public's attention through a front page article written by Clark R. Mollenhoff in the October 26, 1963, issue of the Des Moines Register . [12] Mollenhoff said her circle included "several congressional figures" and "several high executive branch officials" and "moved in a crowd that included some well-known New Frontier figures", [12] and that she led a life that "could not be financed on the pay of a non commissioned West German soldier." [13] A few days later Clark Mollenhoff asked President Kennedy at a live televised press conference if he is fulfilling the requirements of his Code of Ethics. In his response Kennedy seemed to make a veiled reference to the Rometsch story Mollenhoff had just written by saying, "I have always believed that innuendoes should be justified before they are made, either by me and the Congress, or even in the press." [14] Years later however, in 2013, Bobby Baker seemed to have corroborated some of the claims made by Mollenoff by confirming that he was the one who introduced Ellen Rometsch to one of President Kennedy's closest friends, Bill Thompson [15] while they were at the Quorum Club. Thompson allegedly asked if Rometsch could accompany him for dinner at the White House and Baker arranged for Rometsch to be taken to Bill Thompson's apartment where they drove to the White House together to have dinner with the President "on many occasions". [6] Baker also claimed she had a relationship with then-Congressman and future president Gerald Ford. [16]

Rometsch was an alleged call girl, which she denied, and was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine if she had been working as an East German spy. [17] Although FBI director J. Edgar Hoover met privately with Senators Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirksen telling them there was "no evidence" that Rometsch was a spy, he then proceeded to tell them details about the senators who had been "entertained" by Quorum Club girls. [2] [18]

According to reports, Robert F. Kennedy desired to squelch any press reports of his brother's alleged involvement with Rometsch, which led him to seek Hoover's help in discouraging any mention of the Rometsch "allegations" in the Senate investigation of Bobby Baker, who held the post of Senate Secretary for the Majority until he resigned on October 7, 1963. [18] [19] According to biographer Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy had Rometsch deported to cover-up an alleged extramarital affair John F. Kennedy had with her. [17] Rometsch denied the sexual and spying allegations. [17] Rometsch's husband likewise denies newspaper reports that payments to a Liechtenstein account were made to the couple. [1] Although it became public that Ellen Rometsch was suspected of espionage, John F. Kennedy's name did not appear in this context. The press release on Ellen Rometsch was published in November 1963. [20] The FBI created a 478-page file on Rometsch with the code number 105-122316, which was only closed in 1987 and is now publicly available. According to the documents, Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson requested "a summary of the Ellen Rometsch case" in February 1964. The FBI assigned Rometsch to a group of women, the majority of whom were of German origin, "who offered their services as 'play girls' to various people inside and outside the government." Some of them are said to be prominent and to be in the public eye. According to the allegations in the file, this ring was responsible for "personal escapades, prostitution, partying, sex orgies, and so forth." [1]

After the expulsion

On September 27, 1963, one month after their expulsion, she was divorced from her husband at the Bonn Regional Court because of "the woman's sole fault" and moved to live with her parents on the Westphalian Oberberge estate near today's Schwelm. [10] She worked as a milkmaid on the farm, helped out with the beet harvest and raised her son. There she was tracked down in late October 1963 by media representatives. The British tabloid Daily Express offered Rometsch 55,000 Deutsche Marks for her memories. [1] In October 1964 she gave a short interview to the Hamburg magazine Stern .

Rometsch lives near Bonn, has remarried Rolf Rometsch and is avoiding the public. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Edgar Hoover</span> American law-enforcement administrator (1895–1972)

John Edgar Hoover was an American law-enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as director of the Bureau of Investigation—the FBI's predecessor—in 1924, and in 1935 Hoover became instrumental in founding the FBI, where he remained director for 37 years until his death in 1972. Hoover expanded the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency and instituted a number of modernizations to policing technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Hoover also established and expanded a national blacklist, referred to as the FBI Index or Index List.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren Commission</span> U.S. commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the Kennedy assassination

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy that had taken place on November 22, 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Profumo affair</span> 1960s British political scandal

The Profumo affair was a major scandal in twentieth-century British politics. John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, had an extramarital affair with 19-year-old model Christine Keeler beginning in 1961. Profumo denied the affair in a statement to the House of Commons in 1963, but weeks later a police investigation exposed the truth, proving that he had lied in his statement. The scandal severely damaged the credibility of Macmillan's government, and Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister in October 1963, citing ill health. Ultimately, the fallout contributed to the Conservative government's defeat by the Labour Party in the 1964 general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Keeler</span> English model and showgirl (1942–2017)

Christine Margaret Keeler was an English model and showgirl. Her meeting at a dance club with society osteopath Stephen Ward drew her into fashionable circles. At the height of the Cold War, she became sexually involved with a married Cabinet minister, John Profumo, as well as with a Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. A shooting incident involving a third lover caused the press to investigate her, revealing that her affairs could be threatening national security. In the House of Commons, Profumo denied any improper conduct but later admitted that he had lied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. Howard Hunt</span> American intelligence officer and author (1918–2007)

Everette Howard Hunt Jr. was an American intelligence officer and author. From 1949 to 1970, Hunt served as an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), particularly in the United States involvement in regime change in Latin America including the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Along with G. Gordon Liddy, Frank Sturgis, and others, Hunt was one of the Nixon administration "plumbers", a team of operatives charged with identifying government sources of national security information "leaks" to outside parties. Hunt and Liddy plotted the Watergate burglaries and other clandestine operations for the Nixon administration. In the ensuing Watergate scandal, Hunt was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping, eventually serving 33 months in prison. After release, Hunt lived in Mexico and then Florida until his death.

Sir Roger Henry Hollis was a British intelligence officer who served with MI5 from 1938 to 1965. He was Director General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Ferrie</span> American who was accused of involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy

David William Ferrie was an American pilot who was alleged by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Garrison also alleged that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Ferrie denied any involvement in a conspiracy and said he never knew Oswald.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Bentley</span> Cold War Soviet spy

Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American spy and member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). She served the Soviet Union from 1938 to 1945 until she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence by contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and admitting her own activities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inga Arvad</span> Danish newspaper reporter and gossip columnist (1913–1973)

Inga Marie Arvad Petersen was a Danish-American journalist who was a guest of Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Summer Olympics and also had a romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy in 1941 and 1942. The juxtaposition of these facts led to suspicions during World War II that she was a Nazi spy. Secret U.S. investigations uncovered no such evidence, and her past did not harm her professional life or social standing in the United States. She was a motion picture writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1945 and a Hollywood gossip columnist, and from the late 1940s until her death, she was the wife of wealthy cowboy actor and military officer Tim McCoy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John F. Kennedy</span> President of the United States from 1961 to 1963

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to his presidency.

Robert Gene Baker was an American political adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson, and an organizer for the Democratic Party. He became the Senate's Secretary to the Majority Leader. In 1963, he resigned during an investigation by the Democratic-controlled Senate into Baker's business and political activities. The investigation included allegations of bribery and arranging sexual favors in exchange for Congressional votes and government contracts. The Senate investigation looked into the financial activities of Baker and Lyndon Johnson during the 1950s. The investigation of Lyndon Johnson as part of the Baker investigation was later dropped after President Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's ascension to the presidency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert F. Kennedy</span> American politician and lawyer (1925–1968)

Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was a leading presidential candidate. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, he was a prominent member of the Democratic Party and is viewed by some historians as an icon of modern American liberalism.

The CIA Kennedy assassination is a prominent John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. According to ABC News, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is represented in nearly every theory that involves American conspirators. The secretive nature of the CIA, and the conjecture surrounding high-profile political assassinations in the United States during the 1960s, has made the CIA a plausible suspect for some who believe in a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists have ascribed various motives for CIA involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy, including Kennedy's firing of CIA director Allen Dulles, Kennedy's refusal to provide air support to the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy's plan to cut the agency's budget by 20 percent, and the belief that the president was weak on communism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spygate (conspiracy theory)</span> Conspiracy theory by Donald Trump that the FBI improperly spied on him

Spygate is a conspiracy theory promulgated by President Donald Trump in May 2018 that the Obama administration had put a spy in his 2016 presidential campaign for political purposes. On May 17, 2018, Trump tweeted: "Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI "SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT." In that tweet, he quoted Andrew C. McCarthy, who had just appeared on Fox & Friends repeating assertions from his own May 12 article for National Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories</span> Conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of JFK

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 spawned numerous conspiracy theories. These theories allege the involvement of the CIA, the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of these individuals and entities. The original FBI investigation and Warren Commission report, as well as an alleged "benign CIA cover-up", have led to the claim that the federal government deliberately covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the assassination. Former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi estimated that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused at one time or another in various conspiracy scenarios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Three tramps</span> Unidentified group allegedly involved with the assassination of John F Kennedy

The three tramps are three men photographed by several Dallas-area newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Since the mid-1960s, various allegations have been made about the identities of the men and their involvement in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. The three men were later identified from Dallas Police Department records as Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Stockdale</span> American politician

Edward Grant Stockdale, was a Florida businessman and friend of President John F. Kennedy who served as United States Ambassador to Ireland from 1961 to 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trump Tower wiretapping allegations</span> 2017 US political controversy

On March 4, 2017, Donald Trump wrote a series of posts on his Twitter account that accused former President Barack Obama's administration of wiretapping his phones at his Trump Tower office late in the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump called for a congressional investigation into the matter, and the Trump administration cited news reports to defend these accusations. His initial claims appeared to have been based on a Breitbart News article he had been given which repeated speculations made by conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch or on a Bret Baier interview, both of which occurred the day prior to his Tweets. By June 2020, no evidence had surfaced to support Trump's claim, which had been refuted by the Justice Department (DOJ).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination</span> United States Supreme Court nomination

On July 9, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. When nominated, Kavanaugh was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a position he was appointed to in 2006 by President George W. Bush.

As part of a large, sprawling, baseless conspiracy theory, Donald Trump posited that Barack Obama had spied on him, which Trump described as "the biggest political crime in American history, by far." The series of accusations have been nicknamed Obamagate. Obama had served as President of the United States from 2009 until 2017, when Trump succeeded him; Trump served as president until 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Banse, Dirk; Nagel, Lars-Marten; Müller, Uwe (December 29, 2013). "John F. Kennedy und seine Geliebte aus der DDR" [John F. Kennedy and his lover from the GDR]. Welt am Sonntag (in German). Retrieved August 21, 2020.
  2. 1 2 Thomas 2000, pp. 255–256.
  3. 1 2 3 "Die wohl letzte Geliebte John F. Kennedys" [Probably the last lover of John F. Kennedy]. Westfalenpost (in German). January 3, 2014.
  4. ↑ Thomas 2000, p. 255.
  5. 1 2
  6. 1 2 Purdum, Todd S. (November 19, 2013). "Sex in the Senate: Bobby Baker's salacious secret history of Capitol Hill". Politico.
  7. ↑ Courtney A. Evans memo to Alan Belmont FBI File 105-122316 Vol.1 Subject: Ellen Rometsch (July 3, 1963). Rometsch Internal Security-East Germany (Report). FBI. p. 2 of 478.
  8. ↑ W.R. Wannall FBI File 105-122316 Vol.1 Subject: Ellen Rometsch (July 12, 1963). Rometsch Internal Security-East Germany (Report). FBI. p. 5 of 478.
  9. ↑ W.R. Wannall FBI File 105-122316 Vol.1 Subject: Ellen Rometsch (July 31, 1963). Rometsch Internal Security-East Germany (Report). FBI. p. 51 of 478.
  10. 1 2 Braley, Russ (October 29, 1963). "Ousted Model Is Protected By Armed Man". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  11. ↑ Reuters, U.S. 'Profumo' Scandal About to Break", Toledo Blade, October 27, 1963
  12. 1 2 Mollenhoff, Clark (October 26, 1963). "U.S. Expels Girl Linked to Officials, is sent to Germany after FBI probe". Des Moines Register. Des Moines Register and Tribune Co. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  13. ↑ Clark R. Mollenhoff, quoted in United Press, "Paper Says Senate Inquiry to be in Secret", Toledo Blade, October 27, 1963
  14. ↑ Kennedy, John (October 31, 1963). "News Conference 63" (Interview). Interviewed by President Kennedy's News Conferences. State Department Auditorium: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
  15. ↑ Smathers, George A. (September 5, 1989). "Oral History Interviews; Interview #4: Kennedy and Johnson" (PDF) (Interview). Interviewed by Donald A. Ritchie. Washington D.C.: United States Senate: Senate Historical Office.
  16. ↑ Purdum, Todd (November 19, 2013). "Sex in the Senate". Politico . Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  17. 1 2 3 Thomas, Evan (June 2, 2017). "We may owe our lives to a back channel with Russia". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
  18. 1 2 Thomas 2000, pp. 263, 268.
  19. ↑ "Investigations: Bobby's High Life". Time . Vol. 82, no. 19. November 8, 1963.
  20. ↑ "Ellen Rometsch: 88-63-85". Der Spiegel (in German). November 5, 1963.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.