Jackie Kennedy Knew About JFK's Infidelity — and That It Would Likely Continue in Their Marriage, Book Claims

In his new book, Camera Girl, author Carl Anthony explores what Jackie Kennedy knew about her husband's infidelities as she entered their marriage

Twenty-nine years after Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' death, the question remains, What did she know about her husband's infidelities?

In his new book, Camera Girl, author Carl Anthony explores the topic as he charts Jackie's formative years as a Washington Times-Herald columnist and photographer. In the course of his research, he found a few answers in the words of John F. Kennedy's close friend Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings.

Billings was a former Choate classmate of JFK, who, as a younger man, served as something of a "go-between" for a young Jack Kennedy and the woman who would become Kennedy's wife, Jackie Bouvier, in 1950s Washington, D.C.

Related:Remembering JFK's Bond with His Boyhood Best Friend, Who Never Got Over the Assassination

In Camera Girl, Anthony writes how a young Jackie, an eager columnist for the Times-Herald, at one point devoted her column to a screen siren who would later be connected to her husband: Marilyn Monroe, then the star of the movie Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, and who first became famous by posing in a bikini.

"What would you talk about if you had a date with Marilyn Monroe?" Jackie asked subjects in her column. "Do you sincerely think diamonds really a girl's best friend? Are women's clubs right in suggesting Marilyn Monroe be less suggestive? Do you think bikini bathing suits are immoral?"

Monroe would later make many headlines of her own with her alleged affairs with both President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

As Anthony writes in his new book, JFK's romantic dalliances weren't exactly a surprise to Jackie, who he says was fully aware going into the marriage that he had relationships with other women, and that it would likely continue.

Related:New Book Showcases Rare Photos of Jackie Kennedy: Get a First Look

Anthony also draws on a 1964 oral history interview given by Billings to the John F. Kennedy Library, in which Billings recounted how he had pulled Jackie aside just prior to President Eisenhower's inaugural ball in January 1953.

"I thought she ought to realize," Billings said later, that Jackie was "going to have to be very understanding" about Jack's lifestyle.

"It was his delicate explanation for the official record that his best friend was unlikely to be monogamous as a husband," Anthony tells PEOPLE of Billings' disclosure to Jackie.

As Anthony explains, Billings would "never have raised such a sensitive issue without Kennedy's permission." In fact, Billings said in his oral history interview that Jack was pleased his old friend had spoken to his wife.

"Perhaps odd by 2023 standards, it nevertheless suggests it was a way Kennedy could avoid hurting her feelings before any potential harm was done," Anthony says. "In that counterintuitive way, it can be seen as his effort to protect her, a gesture of respect. If she backed away from him because it was best for her, it would be better for him as well."

Anthony tells PEOPLE that Kennedy was aware that Jackie's own father's infidelities had taken an emotional toll.

"In fact, her tacit acceptance of JFK's certain infidelity seems to have been countered with her insistence that he agreed with Jackie's belief that, as she later wrote, 'marriage is permanent,'" Anthony says.

Related:Lem Billings Is JFK's 'Go-Between' During Courtship with Jackie as Imagined in New Novel

Indeed, in his oral history, Billings said that Jackie "was very understanding" and "accepted everything I said."

"Later ... I talked with Jackie on this subject again," Billings told the museum, "and she said, 'When you discussed that with me, I realized all that, and I thought it was a challenge.'"

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