Hersh suggests that in 1947 Kennedy secretly married a Palm Beach socialite, Durie Malcolm, and never had the marriage annulled. Malcolm, who is still living, denies the allegation. But Kennedy friend Charles Spalding re-confirmed for TIME that the "childish scamp" of a marriage did actually take place.
The book also claims that Kennedy paid up to $2 million in bribes to win the key West Virginia primary in 1960, that he was heavily involved in plots to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro, that he had numerous love affairs in his last years in the White House and that he suffered for 30 years with venereal diseases.