July 24, 2005
The "Assassination" of Marilyn Monroe
by Mel Ayton
The purported affair between Marilyn Monroe
and Robert Kennedy as well as claims he may have had the actress murdered have
once again been resurrected with the publication of Matthew Smith's book
Victim
(2004) and the 2005 broadcast of the BBC's television series "Secret
Map Of Hollywood." Their stories follow on from Donald Wolfe's startling
allegations in his 1998 book
The Assassination of Marilyn Monroe.
The myth about the RFK/Monroe affair has
entered popular culture and has never been seriously questioned. It is accepted
my many writers and authors and has been repeated in television documentaries
ever since the publication of Anthony Summers' book
Goddess in 1986. The
possibility that the Kennedys and/or the CIA/Mafia/FBI murdered the actress has
also become part of the myth.
Consequently, the American and British
publics have become convinced that President Kennedy's brother Robert had a
brief affair with the movie actress in the months leading up to her death and
may have had a hand in her death.
Although the story has been repeated in many
books and documentaries, accounts differ in specific detail. There are common
threads: President Kennedy began a romance with the Hollywood actress, then
passed her on to his brother Robert who soon tired of her obsessive nature and
unstable personality. In the weeks leading up to her death, RFK issued
instructions to his aides that he did not wish to communicate with her. Fearing
Monroe was about to reveal her relationships with the Kennedy brothers to the
press, Robert and his brother-in law, Peter Lawford, decided to pay Monroe a
visit. A violent argument resulted with Monroe physically attacking RFK and
threatening him with her intention to tell all. Discarded and emotionally
wrought over the break up, she took her own life. Some authors go further and
state that either the CIA or the Mafia or the Kennedys with the FBI assisting in
the cover-up murdered her. As proof, a number of authors have claimed
incriminating audiotapes exist that supposedly record the fatal bedroom death
scene in which RFK's voice can be heard.
The story of the alleged RFK/Monroe affair
began a few years after her death in August 1962. There had indeed been rumors
of her affairs with both Kennedy brothers while John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe
were alive, but published stories of her affair began in 1964 with a pamphlet by
a right-wing extremist, Frank Capell. Ex-convict Lionel Grandison, a former
coroner's aide who said that the police had falsified Monroe's autopsy,
supported his allegations. Los Angeles Police Sgt. Jack Clemmons, the first
police officer to arrive on the scene after Monroe's death, supported his
claims. It was also given credence by author Norman Mailer, who stated in his
book
Marilyn that there may have been some truth to the story. He later
apologized for his speculative comments in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview with
Mike Wallace. Mailer's excuse was that he "needed the money." He eventually
concluded it was "10 to 1" that Monroe died of an "accidental overdose."
Frank Capell was the person responsible for
starting the rumor but he had assistance from those people who hated RFK. One of
the Kennedy-haters who pushed the story was right-wing columnist Walter Winchell,
aided and abetted by Kennedy nemesis J. Edgar Hoover. As FBI Assistant Director
William Sullivan noted in his memoirs, "The stories about Bobby Kennedy and
Marilyn Monroe were just stories. A so-called journalist, a right-wing zealot
who had a history of spinning wild yarns, invented the original story. It spread
like wildfire, of course, and J. Edgar Hoover was right there, gleefully fanning
the flames."
After Norman Mailer's allegations, Robert
Slatzer was next in line to promote the story of the Robert Kennedy/Marilyn
Monroe relationship. In 1972, Slatzer had approached a writer named Will Fowler
with an idea for a book "detailing the murder of the Hollywood actress." Fowler
read it and found it to be without merit. He told Slatzer that if the author had
been married to the actress then it would make a good story. Shortly afterwards
Slatzer got in touch with Fowler again and stated that it had slipped his memory
but he had indeed been married to Monroe for a period of 72 hours. It allegedly
happened in Mexico on October 4, 1952. Unfortunately, Slatzer could not produce
corroborative evidence or a marriage certificate, but he nevertheless stuck to
his story and published his book.
For the following 30 years Slatzer appeared
on television talk shows, documentaries and videos (e.g.: "Say Goodbye to the
President", 1985, "Marilyn Monroe -- The Final Day", 2000) without any solid
proof to his claims except for nine photographs of himself and the Hollywood
actress taken in the late 1940s and a brief mention in a 1961 Monroe biography.
The genie was now out of the bottle and
authors lined up to benefit from the dramatic story that had been sparked, in
part, by inconsistencies in the police investigation and contradictions in
witness statements. Tony Sciacca (1976) and Milo Speriglio (1982 and 1986), whom
Slatzer hired as an investigator followed Slatzer, and both authors took their
lead from Slatzer. In the 1980s and 1990s, Anthony Summers, Seymour Hersh (1997)
and C. David Heymann (1998) followed with their takes on the RFK/Monroe
"affair." They gave credibility to the story by their own reputations as gifted
investigative journalists as well as the fact they interviewed hundreds of
people connected to the case. Unfortunately, the reliance these authors placed
upon some questionable sources is a weak point in their books.
Up to the time of the publication of
Summers's book, the story of RFK's relationship with Monroe was based on
scurrilous gossip that originated, allegedly, with Kennedy-in-law Peter Lawford.
And, following the release of U.S. Department of Justice files in the 1980s,
telephone calls from Monroe to Robert Kennedy were interpreted in the worst
possible light. Monroe's phone records show eight brief calls (a minute or two)
at the end of June and early July. However, researchers soon discovered the
telephone calls were actually taken by RFK's secretary, Angie
Novello, who has stated Monroe had been upset; she had been arguing with the
studio bosses. Doubtless, she was also upset that JFK was distancing himself
from her. The calls proved nothing more than the fact that RFK and Monroe knew
each other. After all, Monroe was close to Peter Lawford, RFK's brother-in-law.
And, as RFK had always protected his brother's secrets, it was entirely
plausible these telephone contacts were connected to RFK's efforts to inform
Monroe that her gossip around Hollywood about her relationship with JFK was
doing great damage to the administration.
By the time the RFK/Monroe story took off,
historians had already established that JFK and Monroe had a brief, shallow
affair. It is plausible that JFK began his relationship with Monroe in the 1950s
when he was a U.S. senator. However, the only thing that can be definitely
stated is that Kennedy and Monroe met five times between 1960 -- the year when
Kennedy was elected president -- and August 1962 -- the time of Marilyn's death.
This was at a party at Peter Lawford's house in Santa Monica in October 1961; a
dinner party for the President at the home of Fifi Fell in Manhattan in May
1962; at Bing Crosby's house in Palm Springs on Saturday March 24, 1962
(according to Donald Spoto this was the only time a sexual "tryst" between the
two occurred); at Madison Square Garden for the President's 45th birthday gala
and afterwards at a private party (Close friend, Ralph Roberts, said a tryst
between JFK and Monroe was "impossible" – he gave her a massage after the party
and departed her apartment at 4 a.m. when she "was asleep".); and sometime
during the 1960 campaign, which was witnessed by Kennedy's friend, Charles
Spalding.
Marilyn's close friend, Susan Strasberg, said
Monroe denied any long term affair had existed, "Not in her worst nightmare,"
Strasberg wrote, "would Marilyn have wanted to be with JFK on any permanent
basis. It was okay for one night to sleep with a charismatic president -- and
she loved the secrecy and drama of it. But he certainly wasn't the kind of man
she wanted for life and she was very clear to us about this."
Historians also considered the possibility
that RFK had been dispatched to the West Coast with instructions to ask Monroe
to remain quiet about her relationship with President Kennedy. Many assumed RFK
was distancing the president from a woman who was becoming obsessive and
irrational in thinking there was anything more to the JFK/Monroe affair than a
brief liaison.
The publication of Summers's book provoked
many respectable writers, journalists, and authors to take another look at the
Monroe/Kennedys connection.
Summers's research led him to conclude that
Robert Kennedy was with Marilyn Monroe on the day of her death and that it was
likely she was romantically involved with him.
According to Summers, there was sufficient
evidence to suggest the Mafia and/or Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa were attempting
to gather evidence to blackmail JFK and his brother. Hoffa, a prime target of
RFK when he was U.S. attorney general, had purportedly used electronic
eavesdropping to gather his proof. Summers said Monroe had entered her final
year still obsessed by the Kennedys. He alleged Monroe spent her final months as
a highly unstable woman who was not in control of her life and was dependent on
alcohol and drugs to combat her chronic insomnia. Upset that President Kennedy
was distancing himself from her, she began an affair with his brother. When JFK
dispatched Robert to the West Coast to stop Marilyn from talking, an angry and
bitter argument occurred. Marilyn was either murdered to keep her quiet or she
committed suicide and the evidence of the Kennedys' relationship with the
actress was removed.
Researchers who examined the conclusions of
the original investigation into Monroe's death said there were many
inconsistencies in the timing of events and anomalies in the autopsy report.
They also pointed to the forensics evidence that they alleged looked suspicious.
Consequently, writers used these errors to construct alternative scenarios of
how and why Monroe died.
By the 1980s rumors of a cover-up involving
the Los Angeles Police Department, the CIA, the FBI, and the Mafia had spread.
It was alleged that on the afternoon of her death, either with Peter Lawford or
alone, Robert Kennedy arrived at Monroe's house and a shouting match over their
love affair took place. Monroe became upset and her psychiatrist was called to
calm her down. RFK and his aides left and Monroe remained in a narcotic haze.
Robert Kennedy was squirreled out of Los Angeles and a cover-up ensued. Some
writers intimated that Monroe might have been murdered to silence her. The
reasons for her demise, they alleged, centred around Monroe's desire to hold a
press conference to tell of her affairs with the Kennedy brothers and her
possession of a supposed diary detailing her relationship with the Kennedys. She
was also a purported security risk as RFK had allegedly told her of the U.S.
government plots to kill Castro. It is telling that all the books claiming
Monroe knew about the plots to murder Castro were published after the
well-publicized congressional hearings into the CIA's illegal activities.
Additional "proof" was given by author Donald
Wolfe to show Monroe had secrets that would "shock the world." Allegedly, on the
night before she died, she got or made a call to a Mexican fan, Jose Bolanos,
who had met the actress when she visited Mexico in 1962. He escorted her to
social functions during her stay. When he was told 24 hours later that she was
dead, he commented: "I was told something shocking, something that will one day
shock the world." So where is Bolanos and his shocking revelation? It is
reasonable to assume that if Bolanos had a story that would "shock the world" he
would have revealed it by now.
As the revelations about President Kennedy
and the CIA/Mafia plots were publicized in the 1970s, they became linked in the
minds of many writers with the death of Marilyn Monroe. Further reports of
Monroe's connections with the Mafia, through her friendship with Frank Sinatra,
led some to believe the Mafia had intended to blackmail President Kennedy. The
motive centered on the Mafia's fear that the Kennedy Administration intended to
destroy the criminal syndicate.
According to some authors, mob-connected
Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa sent his wire-tapper, Bernie Spindel, to bug Monroe's
house and the mob deployed Hollywood investigator Fred Otash to make tapes. It
was also alleged that Monroe had installed her own recording device to get proof
of her relationship with the Kennedy brothers, if and when she decided to tell
her story. When JFK and RFK learned about this they allegedly decided the Monroe
affair had gone too far. Monroe responded by telling intimates that she planned
to hold a press conference.
Bernie Spindel, a known boaster, had stated
as early as December 1966 that he had conducted electronic surveillance of
Monroe's home and obtained material "which…strongly suggests that the officially
reported circumstances of (Monroe's) demise are erroneous". However, he made
this statement after a raid on his home by the Manhattan District Attorney's
office in which evidence of illegal wiretapping had been seized resulting in the
arrests of 28 people. Days later Spindel claimed the tapes had been stolen. The
district attorney's office concluded that Spindel's story had been a fraud.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Ronald Carroll wrote in his report, "Spindel's
asserted desire to have the tapes made public appears to have been a ploy...The
(Spindel) tapes were in fact heard by staff investigators and none of the tapes
contained anything relating to Marilyn Monroe."
Reason and logic seems to escape those
authors who believe the tapes actually existed. If Robert Kennedy had been
compromised by tape recordings that had been made for Kennedy's enemy, Teamster
boss Jimmy Hoffa, or Hoffa's Mafia associates, then they surely would have been
used to prevent the corrupt union boss from going to jail. And if the Mafia had
come into possession of the tapes, it would have used them to prevent the
attorney general's crackdown on organized crime. Nothing of the sort happened
because the tapes never existed.
Most conspiracy accounts of Robert Kennedy's
relationship with Marilyn Monroe rely on four crucial witnesses: Peter Lawford,
brother-in-law to the Kennedy brothers and close friend of Monroe; Robert
Slatzer, a self-professed ex-husband; Jeanne Carmen, a supposed friend and
neighbor, and Fred Otash who, allegedly, had Peter Lawford's Santa Monica beach
house wiretapped. Many others, including Marilyn's housekeeper Eunice Murray,
have told writers and investigative reporters that they saw RFK and Monroe
together, but they have not testified to an "intimate and close" relationship.
All the RFK/Monroe affair authors have
constructed their stories around statements made by these witnesses. Matthew
Smith (1996) in his books
The Men Who Murdered Marilyn
and Victim
(2004) and Donald H. Wolfe in his 1998 book The Assassination of Marilyn
Monroe are the latest conspiracy authors to give credence to the four
witnesses' accounts.
Smith, Wolfe and Summers believed Slatzer and
stated that they had interviewed a number of people who could testify to
Slatzer's friendship with Monroe. But author Donald Spoto discovered that none
of the people who were close to the actress had even heard of Slatzer. Spoto
wrote in his definitive biography
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography (1993),
"...not one of Marilyn's friends, relatives, business associates, colleagues,
spouses or lovers could even recall meeting him (much less Marilyn ever
mentioning him) nor is he to be found in any of her personal telephone or
address books." This was confirmed by Hollywood journalist James Bacon, a friend
of Monroe's, who said he talked to her friends and they said they had never
heard of him.
During his research, Spoto discovered that
Slatzer's claim that he had been married to Monroe was pure invention. Spoto
found out that Monroe was in Beverly Hills on the day of the alleged marriage on
a shopping spree and she signed a check dated Oct. 4 to pay for articles she
purchased. Since Slatzer says that the couple left for Mexico on Oct. 3 and
stayed for the following weekend, Spoto's research demolishes the story that
should have been investigated by conspiracy writers. Spoto also demolished the
story of Monroe's "red diary" that purportedly revealed information about her
affairs with the Kennedys and plots to kill Castro. The "red diary" was Monroe's
simple address book that was on the table next to her bed after she was found
dead. Conspiracy writer Matthew Smith in his book Victim claims three
sources testify to the existence of the diary – coroner's aide Lionel Grandison,
purported Marilyn friend Jeanne Carmen, and Robert Slatzer.
Grandison turns out to be a less than
credible source as he was dismissed from the Corner's Office for "crimes
involving the theft of property from dead bodies."
Authors Summers, Seymour Hersh, Matthew
Smith, Donald Wolfe and C. David Heymann place heavy reliance on Jeanne Carmen
as a witness. Carmen was a late-surfacing, supposed intimate of Monroe. She
purported to have been a friend and neighbor of Monroe's when the actress lived
in Doheny Drive before she bought her home in Brentwood, a Los Angeles suburb.
Carmen began to tell her story after Robert Slatzer published his invented
story. Donald Spoto discovered that Monroe's neighbors at Doheny Drive and
Monroe's friends at the time had no knowledge of Carmen.
Conspiracy authors bought into Carmen's
uncorroborated stories because she was the person who could provide the most
salacious details of the alleged RFK/Monroe "romance." Carmen is the source for
the oft-repeated story of how RFK and Monroe visited a nudist beach and RFK was
disguised in a wig and dark glasses. It was likely a total fabrication, yet the
story has been used in nearly every book that purports to reveal the RFK/Monroe
affair.
By the late 1990s Carmen apparently decided
she was running out of new revelations. She told C. David Heymann that she had
had an intimate relationship with JFK. For the previous two decades she had
apparently forgotten to tell this sensational aspect of her story. It was, after
all, the president of the United States she claimed she had been sleeping with.
Donald Wolfe purportedly found someone who
could testify to the fact that Carmen had known Monroe. He was Brad Dexter, an
actor and a friend of Frank Sinatra. Dexter could go no further than to say
Carmen and Monroe knew each other. There is no indication in Wolfe's book that
the actor thought the Carmen/Monroe friendship was anything other than an
acquaintanceship.
Curiously, Frank Sinatra's valet George
Jacobs said Carmen was Monroe's "best-girlfriend" and one of a number of women
Sinatra used for sexual purposes. Jacobs stated that he had heard rumors about
RFK's visits to Monroe's home and that an affair was possible. Jacobs wrote,
"Marilyn would tell me breathlessly about Jack though she never mentioned
Bobby…the weasel (RFK) wasn't her type….".
In any case, Carmen's statements about RFK
should not have been accepted without corroborative evidence. And if Carmen had
really been a close friend then why didn't Marilyn's many friends come forward
to support her allegations?
Carmen herself produced no factual and
verifiable evidence to support her story. She maintained that Monroe had sent
her a birthday card shortly before Monroe's death and yet it has never been
produced. One would have expected the card would have been kept as a treasured
memento especially since it would have been the last correspondence Monroe had
sent. Furthermore, no photographs exist of Carmen and Monroe or any documentary
evidence to prove they were close friends.
The third main witness to the RFK/Monroe
alleged relationship is Fred Otash, who claims to have heard tape recordings of
RFK and Monroe. In 1985, the former Hollywood private investigator told The
Los Angeles Times that on the night of Monroe's death he had received a
panicky late-night phone call from Peter Lawford saying Monroe was dead. Lawford
allegedly told Otash that Monroe and RFK had a screaming fight about their
relationship the evening she died. Otash said RFK arrived at Lawford's house,
nervously telling Lawford, "She's ranting and raving. I'm concerned about her
and what may come out of this."
Otash went on to tell The Los Angeles
Times that Lawford begged him to rush to Monroe's house and "pick up any
information that linked her to the Kennedys" before it could get into the wrong
hands. Otash said he sent an assistant to do the sweep. (The assistant has never
been named and has not come forward to corroborate Otash's statement.)
Later, in 1991, Otash told author James Spada,
"He (Lawford) told me that Bobby Kennedy had broken off the affair with Marilyn
and that she was hysterical and calling the White House and the Justice
Department and Hyannis Port, insisting that Bobby get in touch with her. And
that the Department of Justice had called Bobby in San Francisco and told him,
'You'd better get your ass down to LA because she's out of control.'"
However, a close friend of Otash, acclaimed
novelist James Ellroy, author of
American Tabloid, said Otash had
confided in him his belief that the RFK/Monroe affair was bogus. Ellroy told the
Richmond Review, "As much research as I've done, one fact stands fast --
I think Robert Kennedy was a great man, perhaps the chief crime fighter of the
20th century in America, and a paragon of moral rectitude. Parenthetically he
did not play bury the brisket and pour the pork with Marilyn Monroe...I used to
be friends with Shakedown Freddy Otash, private eye to the stars in LA circa
1955 to 1965. God bless him, Freddy died recently at the age of 71...Freddy told
me he is convinced that Bobby never had an affair with Marilyn Monroe that, at
the time of Marilyn's death, Bobby was interceding on Jack's behalf, trying to
get this crazy woman to quit calling the president of the United States at the
White House. She just kicked off coincidentally."
Witnesses such as Jeanne Carmen, Robert
Slatzer and Fred Otash have little or no credibility. Peter Lawford, on the
other hand, is an authoritative source simply because he was the president's
brother-in-law and his story cannot be dismissed easily. Unfortunately, there
have been so many versions of "his story" that it is difficult to sort fact from
fantasy. In the final few years of his life, Lawford was dependent on drink and
drugs and was altogether destitute. Perhaps he saw the embellishments to his
story as a way of resurrecting his failing career. No one will ever really know.
A number of authors claim to have interviewed some of Marilyn's friends who said
Lawford had told them about the supposed RFK/Monroe affair. Incredibly, C. David
Heymann claims he spoke to Lawford a year before the actor's death. He said that
Lawford described, in full detail, the RFK/Greenson "conspiracy" to subdue
Monroe on the afternoon of the star's death. According to Heymann, Lawford told
him, "I certainly think Marilyn would have held a press conference. She was
determined to gain back her self-esteem. She was unbalanced at the time -- and
Bobby was determined to shut her up, regardless of the consequences. It was the
craziest thing he ever did -- and I was crazy enough to let it happen."
If Lawford's comments to Heymann are correct
-- and until this time he had consistently denied RFK was anywhere near Monroe's
house on the day of her death -- then the scenario changes. But this does not
mean that the Kennedys had a hand in her death or that RFK was having an affair
with the actress. It only means that RFK took the opportunity, on his West Coast
trip, to visit with the actress and tell her to stop contacting himself and his
brother. There is no credible evidence available that would lead to the
conclusion that RFK had engaged in an affair with Monroe or that the Kennedys
had her killed in order to silence her.
The first issue to consider in examining
Lawford's remarks to Heymann is why the actor chose to make his statements to
this particular author one year before his death. If Lawford had opened up to
Heymann, it would have been a definite change of heart. Lawford consistently
refused to talk about the Kennedys even when they had snubbed him after his
divorce from Patricia Kennedy Lawford. On his deathbed on Christmas Eve 1984,
Lawford told a Los Angeles Times reporter: "Even if these things were
true (Monroe's relationship with the Kennedys) I wouldn't talk about them.
That's just the way I am."
In the years before his death, drink and
drugs had taken their toll on Lawford, who frequently said things in a drunken
state to his wives and friends that he later regretted. Deborah Gould, Lawford's
third wife for a brief period of time, stated to a reporter that Lawford had
informed her that RFK had indeed been at Monroe's house the day of her death and
that RFK and Monroe had been having an affair.
Lawford's last wife, Patricia Seaton Lawford,
contradicts Gould's statement. Patricia Seaton had been a common law wife to
Lawford for 11 years and married him on his deathbed. In statements made to the
New York Post, Patricia Seaton Lawford said that Gould had invented the
stories about the Monroe/RFK relationship. She also told the Post's Neal
Travis that C. David Heymann fabricated stories about RFK and Monroe in his
book,
RFK: A Candid Biography.
According to Patricia Seaton Lawford her
husband discussed the Kennedys and Monroe with her on many occasions. Her
account of the Kennedy/Monroe story is credible and authoritative precisely
because she was close to the actor for 11 years, unlike Gould who had a stormy
and superficial relationship with Lawford for a brief period of time -- their
relationship lasted for only a few months. But why do murder conspiracy authors
choose Gould over Seaton as a credible source for Lawford's RFK/Monroe story?
Simply stated, it is because Gould's account supports the murder conspiracy
theory. Patricia Seaton Lawford is adamant that the RFK/Monroe stories have no
basis in truth. And, according to author Donald Spoto, all of Peter Lawford's
closest friends, including William Asher, Milton Ebbins, and Joseph Naar,
"insist the Monroe/RFK friendship was platonic."
To deal with witnesses whose credibility is
unsound is one thing. Much more difficult is tracking the changes these sources
make to their stories. Surprising new details emerge in the re-telling. One can
only speculate that memory improves with age -- or that some sources have an
inherent difficulty in sticking to the truth. For example, hairdresser Mickey
Song told James Spada of the time he was asked to add the finishing touches to
Monroe's hair for her appearance at JFK's birthday party at Madison Square
Gardens. Song said, "While I was working on Marilyn she was extremely nervous
and uptight. The door (to the backstage dressing room) was open and Bobby
Kennedy was pacing back and forth outside, watching us. Finally he came into the
dressing room and said to me, 'Would you step out for a minute?' When I did, he
closed the door behind him, and he stayed in there for about fifteen minutes.
Then he left and I went back in. Marilyn was all disheveled. She giggled and
said, 'Could you help me get myself back together?'"
We are thus left with the impression that
Robert Kennedy spent an intimate 15 minutes with the Hollywood actress. However,
three years later Song gave an interview to Donald Wolfe and a different
impression is gained as to what exactly happened. Song now said, "While I was
working on Marilyn, she was extremely nervous and uptight. The dressing room
door was open and Bobby Kennedy was pacing back and forth outside, glaring at
us. Finally he came into the dressing room and said to me, 'Would you step out
for a minute?' When I did, he closed the door behind him for about 15 minutes."
So far there is nothing different in this version until Wolfe writes: "While
waiting in the hall outside the dressing room, Mickey Song could hear Kennedy
and Marilyn having an argument. The attorney general's voice was growing louder
and louder, and he was using expletives. When Kennedy came out he said to Song,
'You can go in now', and then unexpectedly grabbed Song by the arm and demanded
'By the way do you like her'? Song recalled nodding enthusiastically that he
did. 'Well I think she's a rude fucking bitch!' Kennedy exclaimed as he stormed
down the hall." The implication from this account is that Robert Kennedy was
angry at Monroe for her tardiness in keeping the president waiting, and not
spending an intimate 15 minutes with her.
Wolfe also uses Patricia Seaton Lawford,
Eunice Murray, and Murray's son-in-law handyman, Norman Jefferies, as sources
for the mythical June 23rd dinner party at the Lawfords and RFK's subsequent
visit to Monroe's house the next day. Wolfe wrote, "On Saturday June
23rd...Bobby Kennedy flew to Los Angeles and Peter Lawford arranged for Marilyn
and Kennedy to meet. Kennedy was to attend a dinner party at the Lawford beach
house, and Marilyn was invited...According to Patricia Seaton Lawford, the
purpose of Bobby Kennedy's visit was to stop Marilyn from trying to contact the
president...The following day (Sunday June 24, 1962) Bobby paid a visit to
Marilyn's home..."
There is certainly no mention of that
particular weekend visit in Patricia Seaton Lawford's memoirs. Eunice Murray
later retracted her story about Robert Kennedy's "visit" – "I don't recall him
being there at all…(in July and August 1962)," she said. In any case Murray's
only statement about an RFK visit to Monroe's house was in connection with the
day the actress died -- a statement that she retracted before her death. Wolfe's
singular source must, therefore, be Norman Jefferies who related his story about
the death of Monroe for Wolfe's 1998 book The Assassination of Marilyn Monroe.
But Jeffries's account lacks credibility, coming as it does 36 years after
Monroe's death and, more importantly, many years after his mother-in-law's
'confession'.
The unreliability of Wolfe's sources become
irrelevant when various pieces of documentary evidence are considered that prove
that RFK's whereabouts during 1962 speak for themselves. Desk diaries, telephone
logs for 1961 and 1962, and FBI files (Hoover logged everything RFK did and even
had his FBI agents spy on the attorney general in the hope of gathering
discrediting information) show that RFK and Monroe met three times at large
dinner parties at Peter Lawford's Santa Monica house -- Oct. 4, 1961, Feb. 2,
1962 and June 26, 1962 (he arrived in Los Angeles that afternoon for a dinner
party the next evening, returning to Washington D.C. the morning of June 28,
1962). On two other occasions in 1962, when RFK was in Los Angeles (March 24 and
25, and July 26), Monroe was in Palm Springs and Lake Tahoe. Telephone records
document a telephone call on Monday June 25, 1962 that Monroe made to RFK's
Washington office to confirm Kennedy's presence at the Lawford's on the
following Wednesday evening; she spoke to RFK's secretary Angie Novello and the
call lasted about a minute.
If RFK had been with Monroe the previous
Sunday then why would she need to call him on the Monday to remind him about the
Lawford's party? And why would RFK make two journeys to the West Coast with only
a one-day interval in Washington D.C.?
"Sightings" of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles
on the day of Monroe's death have been included in every book that purports to
show sinister reasons for her death. Many are credible coming as they do from
sources that cannot be dismissed. Daryl Gates and Tom Reddin, ex-Los Angeles
Police chiefs, said that "informant sightings" of RFK at the Beverly Wiltshire
Hotel on August 4, 1962 had been reported to police.
From the evidence obtained from FBI files and
from statements made by RFK's host that weekend, the host's family, and workers
on the ranch near Gilroy, Calif., it is impossible that the attorney general
could have been in Los Angeles that day. Robert and Ethel Kennedy flew to San
Francisco on Friday, Aug. 3, 1962 and were met by their friend John Bates, his
wife and family. They all insist that RFK had been in full sight of one member
of the family or ranch workers for the full day. Dinner ended at approximately
10.30 p.m. and the party retired to bed shortly afterwards. The nearest airstrip
was in San Jose, an hour away by car. The deep canyons in the Santa Cruz
Mountains made the ranch inaccessible by helicopter and the ranch was five hours
away from Los Angeles by car. On Sunday morning the Bates and Kennedy families
attended mass in the town of Gilroy. The Bates family stories have been
rigorously researched and, unlike many tales about this sorry event, have the
ring of truth.
FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, who hated
Robert Kennedy and had kept a file on Monroe ever since she married Arthur
Miller (Hoover viewed the playwright as a left-wing subversive). According to Ed
Guthman, a close aide to the attorney general, "It would have been impossible
for Hoover not to have known about such goings-on had they occurred and he
certainly would have used this information during Bobby's later campaign for
office."
Hoover biographer, Curt Gentry, said the FBI
knew no more than the average person did about the connection between Monroe and
Robert Kennedy. Gentry wrote, "Had he (known more), Hoover would almost
certainly have used this information against Kennedy at a later date, when he
ransacked his files for every bit of derogatory material he could find." And had
RFK contacted Hoover to have the FBI retrieve telephone company records, Hoover
would have created a record to protect himself and to use as leverage.
Some writers have used FBI documents to
"prove" Robert Kennedy had been having an affair with Monroe, but they fail to
discriminate between those reports emanating from agent observations and those
resulting from "informant information." It was an informant who prompted agents
to report that, "Robert Kennedy was deeply involved emotionally with Marilyn
Monroe…" It was the same type of informant information that resulted in an FBI
memo concerning John Kennedy's relationship with Inga Arvad to report her as a
"German spy." This information, of course, was erroneous.
In his recent book Victim (2003), JFK
conspiracy writer Matthew Smith published extracts from Monroe's secretly taped
sessions with her psychiatrist Dr. Greenson. Assistant D.A. John Miner told
Smith he had listened to the tapes (which were destroyed) and reconstructed them
from memory. They are altogether inconsequential "free associating" musings --
apart from Miner's detailing of Monroe's comments about JFK and RFK. Miner tells
of how Monroe wanted to break off a relationship with "Bobby", "…but because I
know how much he'll be hurt I don't have the strength to hurt him." Yet this
revelation comes after decades of conspiracy writers' attempts to prove RFK was
the one who was trying to break off the "relationship." Furthermore, because the
exact context of Monroe's free associating is never presented, they cannot be
credibly used without reference to Monroe's inherited mental illness, her
frequent drug use and her ability to fantasize -- (She believed there was a
chance she would replace Jacqueline Kennedy as first lady).
The most recent examination of the RFK/Monroe
affair was by acclaimed historian Michael O'Brien (John F. Kennedy,
2005), who concluded, "Dark suspicions purport to prove that Robert Kennedy also
had a passionate affair with Monroe. When the romance soured, the story goes,
with the connivance of the FBI, the CIA, or Communists, RFK arranged to have
Monroe murdered, and then orchestrated an elaborate cover-up. None of these
allegations have been substantiated…suggestions that they enjoyed anything but a
polite social relationship are unfounded, as are the scurrilous reports that he
was somehow involved in her death."
Ed Guthman traveled all around the country
with the attorney general. He was with Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe on at
least two occasions. Guthman told author James Hilty, "I know there was no
affair." Close friend of RFK's, Kenneth O'Donnell, told writer Lester David, "I
knew this man as well as anybody. I was intimately associated with him for years
and knew everything he ever did, and I know for a fact that this Marilyn Monroe
story is absolute bullshit."
There is no credible evidence establishing
that Monroe and the president's brother had an affair and, contrary to the
claims made by conspiracy writers, no part of the FBI files can safely
substantiate an RFK/Monroe affair. The truth of the matter is that RFK had only
a passing acquaintance with the Hollywood actress. Documentary evidence in the
form of court transcripts, letters or phone records proving such a relationship
do not exist. A letter from Jean Kennedy Smith, RFK's sister, is the only piece
of documentary evidence that possibly can be misinterpreted. It refers to Monroe
and Robert Kennedy as an "item," but Jean Smith has gone on record as saying the
phrase was used as a "joke," no doubt in reference to Monroe's admiration for
the president's brother and her determination to impress him with her knowledge
of current affairs. Similarly, C. David Heymann wrongly used notes/letters
passed between RFK and Pat Newcomb to substantiate an affair between those two.
The letters can only suggest a light-hearted communication between friends.
As Donald Spoto has recounted in his
definitive biography of the movie star, there are less sinister conclusions to
draw when the full circumstances of Monroe's death are considered. And, as Spoto
discovered, Monroe's psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson, her physician Dr. Engelberg and
the housekeeper, Eunice Murray, are the keys to an understanding of what went on
that night. What they did explains all the anomalies and inconsistencies in the
evidence and testimony gathered at the time of Monroe's death.
In their accounts to investigators of the
early hours of the Sunday morning when the police were called to Monroe's home,
these three witnesses put the time of Monroe's death at 3 a.m. At this time,
according to Murray, she saw a light shinning from beneath Marilyn's bedroom
door. This was the first inconsistency in Murray's story -- a new thick-pile
carpet had only recently been laid and it was impossible to see light emitting
from the room. Thus began the chain of inconsistencies, which eventually led to
the bizarre and untruthful murder scenarios. If Murray had been lying, what was
she covering up?
Spoto paints a picture of Dr. Ralph Greenson
as a Svengali-like figure who had an unhealthy control over his famous patient.
In turn his ego depended on his relationship with the actress. But Greenson, in
the name of therapy, was cutting Monroe off from those people she considered her
friends, not least baseball legend Joe DiMaggio whom she intended to re-marry.
Monroe was determined to rid herself of both Murray and Greenson. She guessed
that Murray had been placed with her to spy for Greenson, according to make-up
artist Allan Snyder and Marilyn's publicist Pat Newcomb.
Monroe told Murray that she was not needed
anymore and there is strong evidence that she was angry and upset with Greenson
and saw no place for him in her new life with DiMaggio. This fact alone makes a
supposed relationship with RFK preposterous. On the Thursday before her death
Monroe told store owner Bill Alexander: "...I'm so happy because I'm going to be
married to someone I was married to once before."
As Monroe's masseur and close friend, Ralph
Roberts, said: "She deeply resented Greenson's use of her...He had tried to get
rid of almost everyone in her life. But when he tried it with Joe (DiMaggio) --
I think that's when she began to reconsider the whole thing." Monroe was
rebelling against Greenson who had controlled her life for too long not least in
the way he used drugs as a control mechanism.
During her last day alive Monroe engaged in
what amounted to a day's therapy session with Greenson, starting at 1 p.m. and
lasting until about 7 p.m. with a break between approximately 3 p.m. and 4.30
p.m. By 4 p.m. when she visited the Lawford beach-house she appeared drugged and
nervous. From the evidence Donald Spoto gathered it appears likely that in the
all-day session with Greenson she discussed the termination of her therapy with
him.
At 5 p.m. Monroe took a call from Peter
Lawford who was trying to assemble friends for a Saturday night supper. She
declined but he said he would call back later. Around this time Greenson
contacted Hyman Engleberg to come and give Monroe an injection which would help
her sleep. Engleberg declined and Greenson was left to cope on his own. At 7:15
Greenson departed asking Murray to stay over at Monroe's house that night
because he "didn't want Marilyn to be alone."
Over the years Greenson and Murray have given
inconsistent accounts. As a result, the truth has escaped investigators mainly
because of their repeatedly changing accounts of what exactly happened. But two
telephone calls, according to Spoto, provide important clues to a final
resolution of the Monroe mystery. The first call was from Joe DiMaggio Jr., son
of Monroe's second husband, Joe DiMaggio, at 7 to 7:15 p.m. The conversation was
pleasant and Monroe seemed in good spirits. The second call came from Peter
Lawford at 7:40 or 7:45 p.m. Her speech was now slurred and almost inaudible.
She said "Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the president and say goodbye to
yourself because you're a nice guy." Lawford tried to call back but the line was
engaged. Frantic, he telephoned his manager, Milt Ebbins. Ebbins told him not to
go over to Marilyn's -- how would it look?, "You're the president's
brother-in-law." Lawford's maid and his friend George Durgom insisted Lawford
never left his house that evening.
Within the space of half an hour Monroe had
changed from laughing and chatting to a state of dying. Ebbins called Milton
Rudin, Marilyn's attorney. Rudin then telephoned Eunice Murray who told him she
had checked on Monroe and everything was fine. However, Rudin had the feeling
she had not checked at all. Rudin then called Ebbins who reported to Lawford
that all was well but still Lawford was worried. Rudin then received a call from
Greenson well before midnight to say the actress was dead. He drove to Monroe's
house and encountered Greenson and Murray. The head of Monroe's publicity
company, Arthur Jacobs, joined Rudin after he received a telephone call.
According to Rudin, Greenson said, "God Damn it he (Engleberg) gave her a
prescription I didn't know about." It is likely an ambulance was called around
midnight, but by this time the actress was dead and, as California law
prohibited the transport of corpses by ambulance, it returned to base.
But the police were not called until much
later -- around 4 a.m. -- why? According to Greenson it was because they had to
get permission from the publicity department of Monroe's studio -- an absurdity.
When the police arrived Eunice Murray was operating the washing machine -- yet
another bizarre event in this sorry tale.
Donald Spoto maintains that the most logical
reasoning for these strange events that Saturday night was that Greenson had
asked Murray to sedate Monroe with a drug laden enema -- this would account for
the purple discoloration of the star's colon. He could not reach Dr. Engleberg
and, therefore, he had used Murray to carry out the process. The reason for
sedating Monroe was to end the conversation Monroe had been having with Greenson
-- Greenson perhaps hoped that when Monroe awoke the next morning she would have
changed her mind about ending Greenson's services. However, in asking Murray to
carry out the act of sedating the Hollywood star, Greenson was committing an
unprofessional act and if it were ever revealed it would be the end of his
career. Both Murray and Greenson thus had something to hide.
Unaware of exactly how many Nembutal pills
Monroe had ingested (she had probably been taking them throughout the day),
Greenson sedated Monroe with chloral hydrate. Its interaction with the Nembutal
probably tipped Monroe over the edge. The coroner who performed the autopsy
found no pills in Monroe's stomach therefore it would seem, at first, unlikely
she committed suicide. (However, Noguchi did say that the hemorrhaging of her
stomach lining was consistent with oral ingestion of a drug overdose.)
Furthermore, there were no signs of needle marks. What the coroner did find was
a colonic discoloration consistent with the use of an enema. Monroe frequently
used them but, unfortunately, this enema contained chloral hydrate, which is
potentially lethal when taken with Nembutal -- a fact that would not have been
known to Monroe. But because Greenson was unaware of how many Nembutal the
actress had taken, he was not in the position to make an informed judgment when
the sedative was administered.
Greenson and Murray needed time to consider
the awful circumstances they found themselves in and this would account for the
elapsed time between Monroe's death and the arrival of the police.
It is possible Monroe delivered the enema
herself. She had been upset when she learned Pat Newcomb had experienced a good
night's sleep the previous evening and she hadn't. Perhaps she was making sure
she slept that night by administering to herself the chloral hydrate.
The idea that a "hot shot" was given to
Monroe is out of the question, according to experts – it would have resulted in
instantaneous death and left a much higher residue of barbiturates in the blood.
The only rational alternative reason for Monroe's demise (aside from Spoto's
thesis and suicide) is to consider her addiction to drugs as fundamental to the
anomalous occurrences in the state of her body at the time of her death. Monroe
was a drug addict and drug addicts tend to increase the dosage in their bodies,
developing a tolerance for the drug. As the dosage increases, the addict feels
no different from when he/she started with the original dose (ably demonstrated
with reference to Elvis Presley's drug taking). But now the effects become
dangerous or perhaps fatal. Monroe increased her levels to the point where it
would not have been difficult for her to cross the danger line. Barbiturates
present problems because they are also habit forming, and the fatal dose is not
much more than the normal therapeutic dose. Thus they are truly dangerous drugs
and are widely used by suicides. They also present the danger of automatism,
that is the patient may take a dose, leave the bottle on the bedside table, and
then, when half asleep, forget that the dose has already been taken and take
some more.
How to account for the lack of drug residue
in Monroe's stomach? An addict's stomach becomes used to the drug of choice and
it easily passes into the intestines. Addicts routinely die with no trace of the
pills in the stomach and, in Monroe's case, this is entirely consistent with the
coroner's report. An empty stomach does not preclude the possibility that she
digested the pills over a number of hours and the high levels of barbiturates
found in Monroe's liver testifies to this. Noguchi said that those who claim
there should have been traces of the yellow dye from the capsules are
misinformed. The coroner also said he would call Monroe's death a "very
probable" suicide (which, of course, has been challenged by many doctors and
toxicologists).
Monroe often took her pills with a glass of
champagne. (Although no glass was found in her bedroom, Murray could have
removed it when she cleaned the house up after she called Greenson.)
Barbiturates and alcohol are eliminated by the same system of enzymes in the
liver. This means that consumption of the two chemicals at the same time can
lead to a build up of the toxic drug in the liver, resulting in liver failure
and death.
It has not helped matters when authors of
popular biographies or murder conspiracy books have deliberately or
unconsciously ignored, manipulated, or misused facts to pursue their
investigation into Marilyn Monroe's death. But matters are not improved when
authoritative historians enter the field giving credence to incredible theories.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, British historian, Paul Johnson reviewed
C. David Heymann's 1998 biography of RFK. Johnson wrote, "When Jack wanted to
discard Marilyn Monroe he passed her on to Bobby, who used her and discarded her
in turn. He clearly bears some responsibility for her suicide..." Thus the
waters again become muddied and murder conspiracy authors are given credence by
a reputable but unwitting historian.
Both Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Kenneth
O'Donnell, who were close to RFK until his death, have stated that RFK had a
strong marriage but he did stray at times. According to O'Donnell, "Bobby
discovered girls." However, as Evan Thomas, an acclaimed RFK biographer, wrote,
"A small publishing industry has grown up devoted to proving…that RFK not only
slept with Marilyn Monroe, he then arranged to have her snuffed out – and
covered up the sordid mess. Although widely believed, these conspiracy theories
have no real evidence to support them…One of Kennedy's alleged trysts…was said
to have occurred on a date when they were not even in the same country…all that
is certain and provable is that RFK knew Monroe and saw her on four occasions,
probably never alone."
Key sources like Patricia Newcomb, friend and
assistant to Marilyn Monroe, and Ralph Roberts, Monroe's masseur, who was
constantly in her company, have been ignored. This is a central weakness in
books that posit a Robert Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe affair or seek to popularize
murder conspiracies involving the Kennedys. As Newcomb told author, J. Randall
Taraborrelli (1997): "I knew Bobby very well, better than Marilyn did in a lot
of ways. However, you didn't even have to know him well to know that he would
never have left Ethel. And with all those children? Come on. I think she may
have come on to him, but I don't believe anything happened between them; just
from the little things he said to me about her, I don't think so."
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. interviewed Roberts
for his book
RFK And His Times (1978). Schlesinger wrote, "In other moods
she (Monroe) spoke more reasonably. She once mentioned the rumors about Robert
Kennedy to her masseur Ralph Roberts (Author's note: Roberts was described by
Donald Wolfe as an "honest and straightforward man"), with whom, according to
(Norman) Mailer she had a 'psychic communion that is obviously not ordinary...'
It's not true,' she said to Roberts, 'I like him (RFK), but not physically.'"
No one can state with absolute certitude
whether or not RFK took advantage of the Hollywood star's fascination with the
Kennedys and then embarked on a short love affair with her. What can be stated
confidently is that no credible evidence exists which can tie the Kennedys (nor,
for that matter, the Mafia) into a murder plot.
Mel Ayton is the author of
The JFK Assassination:
Dispelling The Myths (Woodfield Publishing 2002) and
Questions Of
Controversy: The Kennedy Brothers (University of Sunderland Press 2001).
His
latest book,
A Racial Crime – James Earl Ray And The Murder Of Dr Martin
Luther King Jr., was published in the United States by ArcheBooks in
February 2005.
In 2003 he acted as the historical adviser for the BBC's
television documentary "The Kennedy Dynasty" broadcast in November of that year. He
has written articles for Ireland's leading history magazine History Ireland,
David Horowitz's Frontpage magazine and History News Network.
