AT the height of secret negotiations to end the Vietnam war in 1972, Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state, shared an actress girlfriend with a Hollywood lawyer who became notorious for his mobster connections, according to a book published in America this month.

A controversial new biography of the late Sidney Korshak, known in Hollywood as “the Fixer”, claims that Kissinger was dating actress Jill St John while she was having an affair with Korshak, a married man 33 years her senior.

While Kissinger’s relationship with St John was widely reported — to the dismay of Richard Nixon, who thought his secretary of state received too much publicity for his fondness for beautiful women — only a few Hollywood insiders were aware of her links to Korshak, who is alleged to have wielded enormous influence because of mobster connections.

In Supermob by Gus Russo, an award-winning investigative reporter, Korshak is described as the most powerful lawyer in the world until his death in 1996. According to Russo, Korshak could make “the gambling debt of a celebrity’s son disappear, deliver an actor to one studio while still under contract to a competitor and make intractable (union) problems evaporate”.

One document which Russo found in FBI archives referred to St John — best known in Britain for her role as Tiffany Case in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever — as “Korshak’s only known weakness”.

“One has to give it to St John, who was able to simultaneously enthral both one of the country’s most powerful public officials and its most furtive power broker,” said Gusso. He quotes Tom Mankiewicz, a screenwriter and friend of St John, as claiming to be present when Kissinger telephoned her from secret Paris talks on Vietnam.

Mankiewicz doubted that St John ever slept with Kissinger and described the relationship as “for show”. But another friend of Korshak is quoted as saying that St John told Kissinger she “wouldn’t sleep with him any more” because of the carpet bombing of North Vietnam.

The book makes no suggestion that Kissinger was aware of Korshak’s ties to either St John or mafia interests.

Kissinger was travelling last week and a spokeswoman at his New York office said that he would be unable to comment immediately. St John has made no comment.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating