NOTES FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
The idea for this play evolved a number of years ago when my friend (and Charleston Stage costumer) Barbara Young gave me The Ambassador’s Son by Homer Hickam for my birthday. This book is a fictionalized account of Jack Kennedy’s exploits in the South Pacific during World War II. Earlier Barbara had also given me Hickam’s The Keeper’s Son, a fictionalized account of the German U-boat raids along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. These books piqued my curiosity, and I decided I wanted to learn more about Kennedy and this period in history.
I remembered that Kennedy had spent some time in Charleston during World War II, so I began some research and came upon the Inga Arvad story. It is a fascinating tale. Only after the death of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1972, and the release of his secret and confidential files, did the full truth of this clandestine, World War II romance come to light. Even then, it was not until the publication in 1992 of Nigel Hamilton’s JFK: Reckless Youth, which exhaustively chronicled Kennedy’s younger years, that the story of Jack and Inga become public knowledge.
I’m sure many will ask, “How much of the play is true?” First, let me state upfront that Inga Binga is a work of fiction. That being said, the basic story is true. Inga Arvad, a former Miss Denmark, met Ensign Jack Kennedy in Washington in 1941. Soon after, a passionate love affair was underway. When Jack’s superior officers at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington learned of the affair—and that Inga was rumored to be a Nazi spy—they transferred Kennedy to Charleston. Inga followed, and she and Jack spent three weekends together—two at the Fort Sumter House and one at the Francis Marion Hotel. For dramatic purposes, I have combined these three weekends into one.
In real life Jack did have a lifelong best friend named Lemoyne “Lem” Billings. Lem made two trips to Charleston to visit Jack, though Lem and Inga were not actually in Charleston at the same time.
The press became very interested in the Jack and Inga affair, with a mention appearing in Walter Winchell’s nationally syndicated column in January 1942. From the FBI files we also know that Jack and Inga were fretting over a possible Life Magazine exposé.
Under orders from J. Edgar Hoover, Inga’s and Jack’s hotel rooms were bugged, their phones were tapped, and the FBI slipped into Inga’s Washington apartment and went through her files. The characters of the two FBI agents and the reporters in the play are fictitious, but are based on characters who would have been part of the real story. History doesn’t give us their names.
“Inga Binga” was Jack’s pet name for Inga Arvad. In turn, she often called him “Young Kennedy” because he was four years her junior. At other times she is heard on the FBI recordings calling him “Honeysuckle.” I gleaned these tidbits and others after reading all of the declassified FBI files associated with this case at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.
So, in the end, the play contains a lot of incidents that did happen and a lot that might have happened. Hopefully the two will give audiences a window into World War II Charleston and insights into a long ago love affair.
Julian Wiles,
Playwright