Ellen Rometsch (born Bertha Hildegard Elly, September 19, 1936 in Kleinitz, Germany) is a German former model who was alleged to be an East German Communist spy who was assigned on diplomatic cover to the West German embassy in Washington, D.C., during the early 1960s. During that time, Rometsch was widely thought in some Washington journalism circles to have been a mistress of President John F. Kennedy. However, the FBI never turned up "any solid evidence" that Rometsch was a spy or that she had relations with President Kennedy.
Early life
Towards the end of World War II her family, in which she was one of seven children, fled Kleinitz (since 1945 Klenica, Poland) and settled in Kreinitz near Riesa (in the Soviet occupation zone, since 1949 part of East Germany), where her parents were given an estate in Kreinitz. Ellen was a member of the Free German Youth and worked as a stenographer for the Socialist Unity Party (SED) district administration.
When agriculture was to be forcibly collectivized in East Germany, the family moved to West Germany in 1955, and her parents leased an estate, Gut Oberberge, near Schwelm. There she did a business apprenticeship, got married for the first time and was divorced shortly afterwards. In Siegburg she married German air force sergeant Rolf Rometsch, took his family name Rometsch and had a son in 1958. On April 6, 1961 Sergeant Rolf Rometsch was assigned to the German Logistic Office in Washington, D.C., with his wife and son. The couple lived on Military Road in Arlington County, Virginia until August 1963.
Alleged affair with John F. Kennedy and FBI suspicion
She first appeared in Washington as a photo model under the pseudonym Ellen Rometsch. She met Nancy Carole Tyler, the secretary of senate staffer Bobby Baker. Baker later found her a job as a hostess for the Quorum Club at the Carroll Arms Hotel on Capitol Hill, adjacent to a Senate office building. It was a private club, founded by Baker requiring annual membership dues and was used by lawmakers and other influential men to meet for food, drink, and engage in dalliances with ladies away from the press that were constantly downstairs at the bar in the hotel lobby. It was during the summer of 1963 that, according to later claims by Baker, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, met 27-year-old Ellen Rometsch and allegedly began an affair with her. Rometsch had worked in the Quorum Club for about two years before allegedly starting her affair with Kennedy.
Rometsch had apparently disclosed details of her illicit relations with highly placed government officials that she had met at the club, to a former FBI informant of questionable reliability. Because she had been born in East Germany and was rumored to have once worked for Walter Ulbricht, the FBI decided to investigate her. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was informed of the planned investigation on July 3, 1963. On July 12, 1963, Rometsch was interviewed by the FBI and it was concluded that the security allegations against her were not warranted and the high-level sex contacts were unsubstantiated.
However, due to the sensation that the Profumo affair in the United Kingdom had created in the press and because the US State Department could not remove Rometsch without disclosing a specific reason to the West German authorities, it was decided that the information developed by the FBI would be transmitted via liaison to the State Department and then be made available discreetly to West German authorities. On August 14, 1963, Sgt. Rometsch was informed by his superiors of the allegations being made against his wife and that he was therefore being recalled back to West Germany in one week. Rometsch was expelled from the U.S. on August 21, 1963, "because of her behavior in Washington", behavior which according to media reports threatened to have scandalous overtones reminiscent of the Profumo affair.