On the night of Kennedy’s assassination, Alford was with her fiancé, Anthony Fahnestock, at his parents’ house in Connecticut. Their wedding was just weeks away. JFK, whom she had continued to see in spite of her engagement, had given her $300 as a wedding gift (with which she bought a grey, wool suit). Distraught over the death of the president, Alford came clean to Fahnestock about their affair. Her future husband – then only 23 – told her that, if they were to go through with the marriage, she must never mention the Kennedy name again. She was to remove her time at the White House from her CV. She dutifully agreed. “Young women are so different today,” she says of her decision. “I think they are stronger, and they have been brought up to say: 'No, I don’t want to do this’. They make their own choices.”