Midnight claims in this issue published today in 1968 that a conspiracy was afoot to assassinate Richard Nixon during his presidential campaign, but with mid-century tabloids the question is always: Is this true? We found no mention of the plot anywhere, though Midnight is pretty authoritative in its assertions, claiming three men were involved, two of whom were in FBI custody, with the third having been picked up by Mexican police in Tijuana. But authoritative or not, the paper got this one wrong.

Weirdly, though, there may have been a plot to kill Nixon in 1968, but a week after the above Midnight hit newsstands. Though the episode is little remembered today, a man of Yemeni origin named Ahmed Rageh Namer was arrested along with his two sons Hussein and Abdo on November 12—a full eight days after Midnight made its arrest claims—and charged with conspiracy to assassinate Nixon, who had won the presidential election the previous Tuesday. You can see Namer under arrest in the photo just below.

The evidence against him and his sons was scant—an informant claimed the father possessed two rifles, had asked him join him in the killing, and had offered him money to do so. This was back before the word of a shady informant could get a person thrown in a black pit in Guantanamo for ten years, so the Namers actually got a trial and their defense lawyer of course shredded the case. All three men were acquitted in July of 1969.

But how weird is it that Midnight would fabricate an assassination story a week before the FBI uncovered what they thought was an actual assassination plot? Maybe Namer read Midnight and got the idea. Nah... he was probably just innocent in the first place. But still, how odd. Sometimes history is stranger than fiction. Elsewhere in the issue you get a bit of Hollywood gossip and a pretty cool photo of Maureen Arthur and another of Carmen Dene, below. See more Midnight at our tabloid index.

Check an English language bio on Gisela Fleischer and it’ll likely say she’s a West German woman who claimed to be Adolf Hitler’s daughter, and that the Swiss paper Tribune de Genève broke the story in 1966. Well, guess what? The above Midnight is from today in 1965, and inside, readers are told that Abigail Van Buren—aka Dear Abby—received a letter from West Germany that began: “I need some advice in a hurry. Should I marry a rabbi? I am the daughter of Adolf Hitler.” Fleischer’s mother Tilly Fleischer had competed in javelin at the 1936 Olympic games. According to Gisela, Hitler was impressed enough to invite her mother to the Berghof for dinner and that meeting in Obersalzberg was the beginning of an eight-month affair.

Fleischer was mostly ignored until she revealed all in a 1966 book called Mein Vater Adolf Hitler, published in France as Adolf Hitler mon père. Reactions to this event were skeptical, to say the least. A famous wit of the day wrote a satirical piece called, “I was Hitler’s toothbrush.” Fleischer kept her story alive with interviews in other magazines, but she had stiff competition—two people claiming to be the offspring of Hitler and Eva Braun had surfaced, a woman named Eleanor Bauer claimed to be Hitlerspawn, and the same assertion was made by a Frenchman named Jean Marie Loret. Even Martin Bormann’s son claimed to be in reality the result of an encounter between Hitler and a girl known only as Uschi.

We mentioned a while back that the cheapie tabloid Midnight was printed in Montreal, which made it more of a Canadian than American publication. Above you see a rare cover of Minuit. This hit newsstands today in 1966 courtesy of the publishing company Lido Ltée., and it’s basically a duplicate of the Nobu McCarthy cover we shared on this day last year. Well, not an exact duplicate. As you can see by looking at the image on the right, the cover text on the U.S. version says: “I’m wild, wicked, and willing,” but on Minuit McCarthy says, “Je dis ‘oui’ aux hommes,” which means, “I say ‘yes’ to men.” The sentiment is the same, but we're reasonably sure both lines were made up not by McCarthy, but by Midnight—and Minuit—editors.

Most 1970s tabloids espouse the idea of easy sexual availability of women for men, but Midnight, more than others, made that its reason for existence. You’ve seen the covers here before—a wild and willing Nobu McCarthy, the girl that seduces an entire town, mail-order love slaves, et al. In this issue published today in 1965, cover star Raquel Welch tells readers she thinks married men should be free to roam. She explains: “Most adulterous men get that way because their wives don’t know how—or simply don’t give a damn—on satisfying them emotionally. Adultery serves to get rid of tensions and restore a man’s faith in his desirability.” Music to Midnight’s male readers’ ears, we’re sure, but did Welch ever say that? The article sounds more like a bad high school essay than an interview. It even ends with this bit: “That’s why I claim that adultery can very easily save a marriage!” Which is more like the summation after a debate rebuttal than anything from a real interview. It’s like—“Tah dah! Thank you. Thank you very much.” So we’re thinking this all came from the typewriter of a really bad Midnight assistant editor. But we love the cover.

Above, a cover of the Montreal-based tabloid Midnight from today in 1965 with June Wilkinson on the cover and a header offering readers some marital advice. Our advice is never take advice from a tabloid. We’ve featured Wilkinson here quite a bit. You can see all those posts by clicking her keywords just below.

Today we have yet another cover of the tabloid Midnight, this time with Greek actress Evi Mirandi, better known as Evi Marandi, declaring she’ll marry any man who can tame her. We first encountered her a couple of years ago inside this issue of The National Star Chronicle, where she said “It’s easy to keep a man—if you have enough bed appeal,” and added that, “Every woman is a natural temptress.” So that raises a crucial question: Would you really want to tame a person like that?