Warren G. Harding Used the Secret Service as Lookouts While Having Illicit Sex in a White House Closet
America’s 29th president, Warren G. Harding (1865 – 1923), is consistently ranked amongst the country’s worst, and his administration, from 1921 until his death in 1923, is best remembered for scandals, sexual and official. The most salient scandal was Teapot Dome, in which Harding’s Secretary of the Interior took bribes to lease oil fields to private oil companies at low rates, without competitive bidding. Other scandals involved his Attorney General taking bribes from bootleggers, and his director of the Veterans Bureau enriching himself by engaging in massive graft. Revelations about affairs with mistresses inflicted yet more damage on Harding’s reputation.
In today’s blizzard of scandals, shenanigans like those of Harding and his administration would probably occupy the news cycle for a few days, tops. However, the 1920s were a more innocent era, and such scandals shook the country. Between the corruption and the details of the sexual escapades with his mistresses, Harding’s public regard, which had been exceptionally high at the time of his death, took a nosedive and was replaced with contempt.
Starting in 1899, Harding worked his way up the political ladder from Ohio state senator to failed Republican nominee for governor, to winner of a 1914 election to the US Senate. Throughout most of his political career, he had carried on an extramarital affair with Carrie Fulton Phillips. As historians would discover from love letters he wrote her, Harding referred to his penis as “private chief of staff”, but more often he referred to it by the nickname “Jerry”.
In one such letter, Harding wrote to Phillips: “Jerry — you recall Jerry…— came in while I was pondering your notes in glad reflection, and we talked about it…He told me to say that you are the best and darlingest in the world, and if he could have but one wish, it would be to be held in your darling embrace and be thrilled by your pink lips that convey the surpassing rapture of human touch“. He ended the affair after 15 years in 1920 while running for president.
The Phillips affair was low-key. A more explosive one was with Nan Britton, who wrote a tell-all book after Harding’s death, The President’s Daughter, in which she alleged that Harding had fathered an illegitimate daughter upon her. Britton described salacious details that make the Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair look like amateur hour. Among other things, Warren G. and Nan got it on in White House closets, with Secret Service agents posted as lookouts to turn away intruders. After she gave birth, Nan alleged that the president paid her child support of $500 a month – a considerable sum back then.
Understandably, Harding’s family rushed to defend what was left of his reputation, and denied the affair. Painting Nan Britton as a liar, they alleged that the 29th president had been infertile, and so could not have possibly fathered a child upon Nan. Things remained in a he-said-they-said standoff until 2015, when a DNA test conclusively proved that the daughter, Elizabeth Ann Bleasing, was, indeed, Harding’s child.