The young intern at the centre of a furore involving United States presidential hopeful John Kerry is hiding out in Kenya. Alex Polier, 24, has been in the country for the past few weeks visiting her fiancee, Mr Yaron Schwartzman, who works with FilmStudios, along Nairobi’s Ngong Road. Ms Polier, who could end Senator John Kerry’s hopes of becoming the next president of the United States, is alleged to have had a two-year affair with the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
| Oooh! So he did catch her? Tusk tusk, John. A man of your age! Have you no dignity? |
"This is not going to go away," one American friend of Ms Polier said yesterday. "What actually happened is much nastier than is being reported."
| I guess the juice will be in the details. Or maybe it's dried by now... |
Ms Polier, a former intern who also spent some time in 1998 doing work experience at the Houses of Parliament in London, is in Kenya staying with Mr Schwartzman.
It was not immediately clear what Mr Schwartzman does at FilmStudios. Efforts to contact the family home in the leafy suburb of Lavington were fruitless.
Miss Polier and her fiance were believed to be hiding at the Nairobi home of Mr Schwartzman’s parents, who moved to Kenya from Israel. Mr Joseph Schwartzman is the chairman of the H Young group of companies. His wife, Hannah, is described by friends to be a devout Jew who was hoping to see her future daughter-in-law convert to Judaism before the wedding ceremony planned for some time later in the year. The Nation has established, however, that the couple were students together at Columbia University in New York.
Both have refused to make any comment on her alleged links with Senator Kerry, who is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, heiress to a food empire. Senator Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran dubbed the new JFK, has vehemently denied any relationship with Miss Polier and shrugged off allegations that he had a two-year affair with her from 2001. He said: "I just deny it categorically. It’s rumour. It’s untrue. Period."
| "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Polier..." |
Mr Kerry, married once before, was something of a playboy after his divorce, dating starlets Morgan Fairchild and Catherine Oxenberg. Mrs Heinz-Kerry, who has been a fixture on the campaign trail, is no shrinking violet. She once told a writer for Elle magazine that she would jokingly warn her first husband that if he ever strayed, "I’ll maim you. Not kill you, just maim you."
Mr. Kerry’s aides have blamed a dirty tricks campaign for bringing the allegations about Miss Polier into the public eye; they first surfaced last week on a right-wing internet site, the Drudge Report, which famously first broke the news of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
| Drudge, presumably, didn't make it up out of thin air. And I notice he's only "right-wing" when he's goring Dems... |
Ms Polier’s parents, Terry and Donna, from Malvern, Pennsylvania, added fuel to the fire by claiming that Mr Kerry did pursue their daughter. Said Mr Polier: "I think he’s a sleazeball. I did wonder if she didn’t get that feeling herself. He’s not the sort of guy I’d choose to be with my daughter. John Kerry called my daughter and invited her to be on his re-election committee. She talked to him and decided against it." Miss Polier, a journalist who once worked for Associated Press, apparently met the senator as she was beginning her media career. |