FBI docs reveal Ted Kennedy rented brothel

WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Edward Kennedy, before for his first U.S. Senate run, allegedly rented a brothel in Chile and ate with a Colombian investigated as a spy, an FBI memo reveals.

The allegations about the late Democrat's 1961 Latin America tour, obtained by the conservative Judicial Watch, were detailed in an FBI memo written several months before he returned to the United States. Kennedy, then an assistant district attorney, traveled to Latin America to bolster his foreign policy credibility before his U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts the following year.

Up for debate, however, was how much influence the FBI memos, posted Monday on the Judicial Watch Web site, would have on supporters and detractors of Kennedy, a member of one of America's pre-eminent political families who went on to become one of the nation's most powerful lawmakers, The Boston Globe reported.

One historian told the newspaper he considers the memo a Cold War footnote.

Then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover "thought the more dirt you had on any important person, the better, because you never know when it might come in handy," said David Kaiser, a historian at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and the author of two books about the Kennedys.

Conversely, Watch President Tom Fitton said, "The FBI's reluctance to follow the law and release this material shows that it, too, is not above politics. Our tough fight with the Obama administration shows that it was not keen on letting the American people know that Ted Kennedy, one of Obama's leftist politician heroes, liked to hang out with communists and prostitutes."

The FBI has been releasing documents since Kennedy's death in 2009 after serving nearly 47 years in the Senate, a process pushed along by a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch. Previously released documents indicated the FBI took scrupulous notes on Kennedy's journey, and photocopied a travel diary he inadvertently left on a plane.