JFK's gay friend

A new book will reveal that one of former US President John F Kennedy's closest male friends was in love with him.

Lem Billings first met JFK when they attended the same school, and their friendship lasted until his 1963 assassination.

Jack and Lem, by David Pitts, published in the US later this month, documents the friendship.

One of Lem Billing's lovers, Larry Quirk, told author: “There was a sexual element to his attraction to Kennedy.

"Billings loved Kennedy all his life beginning in the 1930s... Billings was the only person who loved Kennedy unconditionally, who didn't want anything from him except to be with him, and he recognised that.”

The book also reveals that Lem was offered a job in the Kennedy White House, but felt that he could be a liability if his homosexuality was exposed.

Gore Vidal, the gay writer who was a cousin of JFK, had a proper bitch about Billings' relationship with the President.

"He's the guy who carries the coat.... He's the guy who runs errands.... To Jack, Lem was a kind of idiot friend," Vidal told the author.

Catty.

Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship is published by Carroll & Graf.
Available from April 28th.