Finally, hard evidence proving Bill Clinton was not the pimpest of presidents. TMZ has a photo depicting a mid-1950s John Kennedy lazing on a yacht with gorgeous naked ladies. Fascinating, perplexing, historic—but, is it real? No, it's fake.

Update: Now TMZ says the photo is a fake. The naked ladies are from a 1967 Playboy photo shoot. Still, that doesn't explain why there would be a 1960 FBI memo, as dug up by The Smoking Gun, that describes a photo of "Senator Kennedy and other men, as well as several girls in the nude... taken aboard a yacht or some type of pleasure cruiser." Perhaps this photo was simply a doctored photo to fit the rumor?

  • I believe them. TMZ says it consulted all kinds of experts, and they wouldn't lie about that. Say what you will about the propriety of their sources, TMZ's big breaks generally stand the test of time. This qualifies as a big break, and they know it. Update: Nooo! TMZ, you giveth and taketh away, despite my desperate longing for this one glorious image to be true. Cruel mistress, I will trust your sneakily-gotten hospital reports and invasive stolen legal documents never again.
  • The back story is based in fact. That it is insanely juicy, oh-so-scandalous fact only sweetens the deal:

  • There are numerous articles and books on President John F. Kennedy which mention a 2-week, Mediterranean boating trip that JFK—then a Senator—took in August, 1956, with his brother Ted Kennedy and Senator George Smathers. The trio reportedly entertained a number of women on the yacht. Jackie Kennedy was pregnant at the time and was rushed to the hospital while JFK was on the boat. Doctors performed an emergency C-section, but the infant was stillborn.

  • Lest you be confused by how this meshes with the last season of Mad Men, the baby described here is Jackie's first, Arabella, whose stillbirth occurred in 1956. In 1963, when the Draper household was falling apart, Jackie's youngest, Patrick Bouvier, died at the age of two days of a respiratory disease.
  • But here is a question: Who took the picture? The angle suggests they are either (a.) docked, and the cameraman is on land (b.) beside a second boat, and the cameraman is on that (c.) alone, and the cameraman is treading water and angling his camera lens up, which doesn't seem likely, because cameras did not come waterproofed back then. Was there some 1950s paparazzo lurking about, and if so, does he have a whole role of sordid naked yacht pics? Or was Teddy aboard a second, even wilder pleasure yacht?
  • And: Who are these randos who keep popping up with intimate imagery of JFK cavorting with naked girls and Marilyn Monroe smoking "weed", anyway? How would such a picture come to exchange hands in the first place, and why did the old guy fold and unfold it so many times? He knew it was the president, and valuable, so unless he carrying it around in his back pocket as a talisman, there can't be much reason for the crappy shape the photo's in.

[TMZ]