The Peculiar Truth about President Harding’s Sex Scandals

• 2015: Peter Harding, a relative of long-deceased US President Warren G. Harding, contacted a man named James Blaesing. He asked whether Mr. Blaesing would submit a DNA sample to Ancestry.com in order to settle a controversy regarding their relatives. Blaesing said yes, and a century-old question was answered.

• 1905: Warren G. Harding was the editor of a newspaper in his native Marion, Ohio, a small city 50 miles north of Columbus.

• He rose through state politics to become Ohio’s senator in Washington, DC in 1914.

• Harding carried on two extramarital affairs throughout the years before he entered the White House.

• One was with a woman named Carrie Phillips. She was his neighbor in Ohio and married to Harding’s friend, local merchant Jim Phillips.

• Harding sent her amorous, erotic love letters - sometimes indiscreetly written on US Senate stationery. Phillips kept them all.

• In them, Harding referred to his penis as Jerry. Sometimes it was Mount Jerry. A standout quote: “Wish I could take you to Mount Jerry. Wonderful spot.”

• Another: "Jerry - you recall Jerry… He told me to say that you are the best and darlingest in the world, and if he could have but one wish, it would be to be held in your darling embrace and be thrilled by your pink lips…”

• “And Jerry came and will not go, says he loves you… He is so utterly devoted that he only exists to give you all. I fear you would find a fierce enthusiast today.”

• Harding also referred to Ms. Phillips lady parts as “Mrs. Pouterson.” “Still, when I saw Mrs. Pouterson, a month ago, she persuaded me you still loved. I had a really happy day with her.’’

• When rumors of her affair with the married Harding spread, Carrie Phillips and her young daughter fled to Germany. They would travel back and forth routinely.

• But with the outbreak of WWI, American officials deemed Ms. Phillips a potential German spy. She had indeed sided with Germany during the war and tried, but failed, to persuade then-Senator Harding to vote against US involvement in the conflict.

• Harding’s longtime affair with Carrie Phillips ended when he ran for president. He wrote to her that he would resign if she wished. Otherwise, he would pay her annually for as long as he was in office to remain silent about their relationship. Ms. Phillips, still married to her husband Jim, took the money and kept quiet.

• Meanwhile, Harding had been carrying on yet another affair with a woman in Marion, Ohio. Nan Britton was many years Harding’s junior.

• She claimed to have given birth to Harding’s illegitimate child in 1919. The daughter’s name was Elizabeth.

• After becoming president in 1920, Harding agreed to secretly pay Britton for child support - $300 per month (equal to $4,800 today).

• Scandals plagued his Administration, from mishandling of a railroad strike to vetoing promised financial aid to WWI veterans. The biggest scandal, however, was the Teapot Dome fiasco. Harding’s Interior Secretary accepted bribes in return for noncompetitive bids on oil land rights.

• Harding’s mistresses and their hush money payments were unknown to the public. News of Nan Britton and her love child came to light only after Harding died… just two years into his term.

• During a visit to San Francisco, Harding suffered a heart attack and died. Calvin Coolidge assumed the presidency.

• With Harding deceased, Nan Britton’s income ended. She asked the Harding family to continue providing for her child, but they refused and called her a fraud.

• So Britton wrote and published a tell-all book entitled The President’s Daughter. In it she detailed her affair with Harding in 1919. The book became a bestseller.

• The Harding family denounced her as a liar and declared that young Elizabeth was not the President’s love child. No conclusive proof was ever produced. Nan Britton vanished into obscurity.

• Elizabeth lived married a man named Blaesing and eventually had a family of her own. She lived 86 years and died in 2005.

• Peter Harding discovered that James Blaesing was Elizabeth’s son.

• So, to put an end to the debate, Peter Harding encouraged Mr. Blaesing to submit his DNA for testing.

• The finding: Genetic evidence proved that Elizabeth Britton was the daughter of Warren G. Harding.

• Nan Britton had in fact been well acquainted with "Jerry."