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Inga Arvad (1913-1973) was a Danish journalist, noted for a romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy from 1941 to 1942 and for being Adolf Hitler's companion at the 1936 Summer Olympics. She was born Inga Maria Petersen but changed her name in 1931. She was the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende's beauty queen of 1931.^[1] She attended the Columbia School of Journalism in New York, and then moved to Washington D.C. where she worked as a columnist at the Washington Times-Herald. She met Kennedy in Washington through his sister Kit[1]^[1] nineteen years before he was sworn in as President of the United States. She was investigated by the FBI due to their suspision that she may have beena spy for Nazi Germany.^[1] In 1935, she interviewed Hitler with whom she may have developed a crush. In her article, a description of Hitler was later translated into English as: You immediately like him. He seems lonely. The eyes, showing a kind heart, stare right at you. They sparkle with force.^[1] It was rumored that she had had affairs with Hermann Göring and Hitler. However, all of her contact with these men was years prior any signs of their later activities in Nazi Germany, such as the 1939 invasion of Poland.^{[citation needed]}

Inga was Hitler's companion at the 1936 Summer Olympics, which led to her being investigated in America as a potential spy. Hitler had told her that she was a perfect example of Nordic Beauty. A photograph of her with Hitler surfaced and the FBI followed her, finding out that she was dating an American ensign. That the naval soldier was JFK led to only greater scrutiny and suspicions that were never substantiated.

Arvad married young, and her second husband was Hungarian Film director Paul Fejos. Arvad appeared in two Danish films- "Storm Varsel" and the Paul Fejos directed 1934 film she starred in, "Flugten fra Millionerne." Arvad was still married to Fejos when she travelled to the United States, as well as during her affair with Kennedy.

As an enemy of the Kennedy family, J. Edgar Hoover, then acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sought blackmail material to exert political influence on the Kennedys.^{[citation needed]}In November of 1941, while John F. Kennedy served as an ensign in the US Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, he and Arvad began a romantic relationship.^[1] Arvad was already being followed by the FBI due to allegations that she was a German spy, as well as her previously being photographed with Hitler. When the FBI discovered that the "ensign Jack" that had been visiting the married Arvad was, in fact, a Kennedy, they extended their investigation. Hoover then had his men photograph the couple and record their bedroom activities with hidden microphones, as reported by Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who first broke the My Lai massacre and Abu Graib torture stories, in his book The Dark Side of Camelot. Hersh maintains that Kennedy tried to recover those audiotapes throughout his presidency. Kennedy nicknamed Arvad "Inga-Binga" and she nicknamed him "Honeysuckle".^{[citation needed]}

Hoover hoped that Arvad, already suspected of being a Nazi spy for her activities with high-ranking Nazis in the 1930s, would incriminate Kennedy enough so that he could have Kennedy discharged from the Navy and lay ruin to the Kennedy political dynasty.^{[citation needed]} However, Kennedy was suddenly reassigned to a desk job in South Carolina in January, 1942 and the relationship ended after a few brief encounters. Kennedy and Arvad knew they were being followed, and in the FBI transcripts of their encounters they sometimes spoke to 'whomever is listening.'

Inga went on to marry American actor Tim McCoy in 1945. With Tim, she had two sons, Ronald and Terence McCoy.