Warren Harding love letters to provide insight on U.S. affairs, possible spying

When the family of Ohio's Warren G. Harding asked the Library of Congress to wait until 2014 before publicly revealing love letters he wrote to a longtime mistress [Carrie Fulton Phillips] before becoming the nation's 29th president, it hoped to avoid the fever of tabloid sensationalism associated with political dalliances....

The trove of letters that Harding wrote to her on subjects ranging from sex to whether the United States should enter World War I was hidden in a box at her home in Marion when she died in 1960. A lawyer for Phillips wanted to provide them to a Harding biographer after her death, but was blocked when Harding's nephew, Dr. George Harding, filed a lawsuit.

According to the Library of Congress, an Ohio probate judge sealed the papers on July 29, 1964. The litigation concluded with George Harding buying the letters from Phillips' daughter, Isabelle Phillips Mathee, and donating them to the Library of Congress with the stipulation that they not be unsealed until 50 years after the probate judge closed them.