Warren G. Harding served as the 29th president of the United States from 1921 to 1923. He died while in office. Before and even while being commander-in-chief, he was something of a ladies' man. He was married to first lady Florence Harding, but that didn’t stop him from sleeping around. He had multiple affairs, including one with his Ohio neighbor, Caroline “Carrie” Phillips.
Warren wrote Carrie dirty letters. She later blackmailed him with them when he was running for president. He even nicknamed his penis Jerry, the letters reveal. The letters were released in 2014 by the Library of Congress and can be found in a new book called Are You Prepared For The Storm Of Lovemaking?: Letters of Love and Lust from the White House by Dorothy Hoobler.
Carrie and Warren’s affair began in 1905. Warren was the editor and owner of a newspaper in Ohio. Carrie was recovering from a kidney infection. Warren’s wife Florence was known as “the Duchess” and was known for being pretentious and cold. It was the perfect storm.
One of the letters contained a poem Warren wrote for Carrie. “I love your poise/Of perfect thighs/When they hold me in paradise,” one line stated. “I love you garb'd/But naked more…” gushed another line.
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In another letter, Warren recalled a lusty New Year's Eve when the couple had sex right as the clock was striking midnight. He nicknamed his penis Jerry and her vagina Mrs. Pouterson, perhaps as a code in case the letters ever fell into the wrong hands.
“I stopped play to have sandwiches and crack a bottle of wine, so I could dwell with my thoughts,” he recalled fondly. “You can guess where they centered — on the New Year's beginning a year before, when the bell rang the chorus while our hearts sang the rapture without words and we greeted the New Year from the hallowed heights of heaven…”
Another letter showed Warren getting antsy for the company of Carrie. "Honestly, I hurt with the insatiate longing, until I feel that there will never be any relief until I take a long, deep, wild draught on your lips and then bury my face on your pillowing breasts..," he wrote. "Wouldn't you like to get sopping wet out on Superior — not the lake — for the joy of fevered fondling and melting kisses? Wouldn't you like to make the suspected occupant of the next room jealous of the joys he could not know, as we did in morning communion at Richmond?"
In 1920, their love affair had run its course. Warren was now running for president and Carrie and her husband used the letters against him. Ned McLean, who owned The Washington Post at the time, helped pay them off.
Carrie received a lump sum of $25,000 and a monthly stipend of $2,000. She and her husband used it to travel around the world. Warren went on to become the 29th president of the United States, winning the election on his birthday.
