10 Most Scandalous DC Affairs
6. Wilbur Mills
Wilbur Daigh Mills was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Arkansas. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from January, 1939, to January, 1977, becoming one of the top three longest serving Arkansas officials, and was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He was briefly a candidate for President of the United States in 1972.
Mills was involved in a traffic incident in Washington, DC at 2 a.m. on October 9, 1974. His car was stopped by U.S. Park Police late at night because the driver had not turned on the lights. Mills was intoxicated, and his face was injured from a scuffle with Annabelle Battistella, better known as Fanne Foxe, a stripper from Argentina. When police approached the car, Foxe leapt from the car and jumped into the nearby Tidal Basin in an attempt to escape. She was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Mental Hospital for treatment.
Despite the scandal, Mills was re-elected to Congress in November, 1974, in a heavily Democratic year with nearly 60% of the vote, defeating Republican Judy Petty. On November 30, 1974, Mills, seemingly drunk, was accompanied by Fanne Foxe onstage at The Pilgrim Theatre in Boston, a burlesque house where she was performing. He held a press conference from Foxe’s dressing room. Soon after this second public incident, Mills stepped down from his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, acknowledged his multiple affairs and alcoholism, joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and checked himself into the Palm Beach Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida.
