Anything sensational involving JFK and sex is grist for the mill of bottom-feeder websites like TMZ.
TMZ has obtained a never-before published photograph which appears to show John F. Kennedy on a boat filled with naked women — it’s a photo that could have altered world events.
We believe the photo was taken in the mid-1950s. It shows two naked women jumping off the boat and two more naked women sunning on the top deck. Just below the top deck — a man appearing to be John F. Kennedy is laying on a deck, sunning himself.
TMZ had multiple experts examine the photo — all say there is no evidence the picture was Photoshopped. The original print — which is creased — was scanned and examined for evidence of inconsistent lighting, photo composition and other forms of manipulation. The experts all concluded the photo appears authentic.
Professor Jeff Sedlik, a forensic photo expert, says the print appears to be authentic. Sedlik says the photo is printed on paper consistent with what was used in the 1950s. The emulsion on the surface of the print has numerous cracks — the result of aging and handling.
[Click to continue reading The JFK Photo That Could Have Changed History | TMZ.com]
except that within a few hours The Smoking Gun tracked down the original color photograph, published in a November 1967 issue of Playboy. Doh! These so-called forensic photo experts should be pretty embarrassed, and TMZ’s corporate parent1 better hope TMZ didn’t pay too much cash for the photo.
The Smoking Gun’s post, in part:
the photo appeared in story about Playboy’s “Charter Yacht Party: How to Have a Ball on the Briny with an Able-Bodied Complement of Ship’s Belles.” As seen in the below page from the November 1967 issue, the Playboy photo is in color. The “Exclusive” TMZ image is the same photo, just reproduced in black and white. [Click here for a side-by-side comparison of the original Playboy photo and the watermarked version published today by TMZ.] According to the web site, the photo was “eventually given to a man who owned a car dealership on the East coast. The man kept it in a drawer for years, and would brag to friends he had an image of JFK on a boat with naked women. The man died 10 years ago and one of his sons inherited the photo.” The gossip site offered no further details about the photo’s provenance or what they paid for the image. The site noted that “we believe the photo was taken in the mid-1950s,” likely while Kennedy was on a two-week “Mediterranean boating trip” with his brother Ted and Senator George Smathers. TMZ claimed to have consulted with “multiple experts,” including a forensic photo expert and two unnamed JFK biographers, as it sought to confirm that the late president was photographed surrounded by a quartet of naked women. According to the caption accompanying the Playboy photo spread, four couples were enjoying themselves on a trip to Petit Rameau, an island in the Grenadines. As “Andy” sunned himself on deck, “Elaine” dove naked into the water while “Roxanna” provocatively shimmied up a ladder. In an interview, Larry Dale Gordon, the Playboy photographer who took the yacht image, said that the man TMZ identified as Kennedy was a “paid model,” as were the naked women featured in the shot.
[Click to continue reading TMZ Falls For JFK Photo Hoax – December 28, 2009]
Too funny. And why would have been such a big deal anyway? JFK was a player, so what?
Footnotes:- Time Warner, Inc., which coincidentally also owns The Smoking Gun [↩]