David Powers

David Francis Powers (April 25, 1912 – March 28, 1998) was Special Assistant and assistant Appointments Secretary to U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Powers served as Museum Curator of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum from 1964 until his retirement in May 1994. Powers was a military veteran who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II from 1942 to 1945. Powers was also a close friend of Kennedy.

Life and career The son of Irish immigrants, Powers was born and raised in the Charlestown section of Boston. A Roman Catholic, he was chief usher at St. Catherine of Sienna Church in Charlestown.

Powers first met Kennedy in 1946, when Kennedy was a Democratic candidate for the Massachusetts Eleventh Congressional District. Kennedy had heard that Powers had an understanding of the people and issues in the district that would be vital to helping him win the race. Although Powers was initially skeptical at how "a millionaire's son from Harvard" could appeal to the working-class voters in the district, he joined Kennedy's campaign after being impressed by a heartfelt speech Kennedy gave to Gold Star mothers who had lost sons in World War II. After Kennedy was elected to Congress, Powers "was at Kennedy's side at every step towards the White House." Powers provided Kennedy with a kind of refuge from the burdens of the "political grind" of running for and serving in office. Powers had a "quick wit and easy regard for rogue politicians that endeared him to Kennedy...[he] enjoyed Powers's mischievous sense of humor."

When Kennedy was elected president in 1960, he appointed Powers as Special Assistant to the President. In this role Powers watched "over the President's needs, and was always with him on trips around the country and abroad. He usually was the first to see the President in the morning, and the last to see him at night. He was less a political adviser than simply a friend with whom Kennedy could relax. They would swim together in the White House pool, where Powers would use a breaststroke in order to keep up a steady chatter of amusing conversation that Kennedy enjoyed." Historian Robert Dallek wrote that Powers was part of the "Irish Mafia" - a small group of White House aides who were "uncritically loyal to Kennedy and had made his rise possible", and that "Powers was the first among equals" in this group. Among his duties, Powers greeted distinguished visitors to the White House and escorted them to the Oval Office, and kept track of Kennedy's extensive wardrobe. Powers said he began filming when the motorcade left Love Field but ran out of film at 12:17 p.m before reaching Dealey Plaza. They had three children and three grandchildren. In her book, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath, Mimi Alford claimed that while she was swimming with Kennedy and Powers one afternoon in the indoor White House pool, Kennedy swam to her and whispered a request for her to give oral sex to Powers. Alford wrote that she complied with President Kennedy's request. According to Alford, Powers arranged her first two trysts with Kennedy. Historian Robert Dallek has written that Powers was a "facilitator" of Kennedy's affinity for extramarital relations, discreetly arranging the time and places for trysts with a variety of women. Journalist Seymour Hersh interviewed former Secret Service agent Larry Newman. Newman told Hersh that Powers "would find the women or bring the women along" for extramarital trysts with Kennedy on presidential trips, and alleged that Powers and O'Donnell "could have been better friends, in my opinion...and also they could have had more respect for the security...they were really running a hard risk" in bringing women not checked by security into Kennedy's hotel rooms. In his 2008 memoir Counselor, Ted Sorensen wrote that he "would not be shocked" to learn that Powers had arranged extramarital trysts for Kennedy.