Jean Gordon (February 4, 1915 – January 8, 1946) was an American socialite and a Red Cross worker during World War II.

[14] According to writer Nancy J. Morris, Gordon's long romantic involvement with General Patton began during one such vacation in the 1930s.

Morris writes: "When Beatrice's niece, Jean Gordon, visited, Patton began a flirtation with the girl.

Gordon was a recent Boston debutante, pretty, lively, and the best friend of Ruth Ellen, the Pattons' daughter.

He later told General Everett Hughes, his close friend serving on Eisenhower's staff, that he wanted to keep her presence a secret.

"[34] Beatrice Patton clearly believed that Jean Gordon was intimately involved with her husband and wrote to him repeatedly to express her concerns, prompting his cavalier dismissals and a dishonest denial that he had even seen her.

[Note 4] Yet her posthumously published memoirs, as well as her nephew Robert's work on the Pattons she collaborated on, reveal that the family considered Gordon and Patton to have been in a romantic relationship; Ruth Ellen herself suspected that the romance had begun as early as 1934, which makes her father's assertion of a 12-year affair more credible.

[44] Dennis Showalter believes that Patton, under severe physical and psychological stress, made up claims of sexual conquest to prove his virility.

[45] Carlo D'Este agrees that Patton's "behavior suggests that in both 1936 [in Hawaii] and 1944–45, the presence of the young and attractive Jean was a means of assuaging the anxieties of a middle-aged man troubled over his virility and a fear of aging.

"[46] According to the noted film and military historian Lawrence Suid, the family's fear that a movie might portray the extramarital affair was a major contributing factor to their ongoing opposition to any production.

However, since in 1980 Irving hired the handwriting expert Molly McClellan to decipher it and transcribe its 900 pages,[50][37] most historians have used the diary as a source, while refraining from giving a definite verdict on the nature of the relationship.

"[55] According to Carlo D'Este, shortly after Patton's death his wife Beatrice arranged to meet Gordon at a Boston hotel where she furiously confronted her over the supposed affair.

[Robert Patton writes that she] 'had an understanding of him that was insightful and not frivolous, ample reason for his wife to deem her a serious rival.