Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (20 page)

Therefore, our conclusion stands up to intense scrutiny. Marilyn Monroe, to the logical exclusion of all other possibilities, was murdered via a drug-filled syringe-type enema. The evidence itself confirms that the victim was murdered. And please note that we intentionally use the word “murder” rather than “homicide.” The legal definition of homicide is that the death was simply facilitated by the actions of another person. That means that homicide includes the possibility that a doctor accidentally over-drugged a patient, as was the case with Michael Jackson’s death. Murder implies intent. So it’s 100% certain that it was a homicide; and furthermore, appears to be First-Degree Murder.

That’s more than simply a conclusion—it’s an
inevitability
determined by the evidence:
Marilyn died from a lethal enema
that was
not
administered accidentally via a medical miscalculation, and was
not
administered herself as a method of suicide. Therefore, we can conclude from a standpoint of science and logic that Marilyn Monroe was murdered and, furthermore, she was murdered not on August 5, which is officially the date of her death, but on August 4, between 8:00-10:00 PM.

As the Deputy D.A. concluded:

“I don’t know who killed her.
But I do know that she didn’t
kill herself.
So someone must have killed
her.”
¹⁵²

Let’s also take a quick recap of some of the circumstantial evidence. No suicide note? An
actress
? Committing
suicide?
Because of a huge
drama?
And
no note?
You
gotta
be kidding ...

Would she really make an appointment to get her hair done (as has been confirmed that she did at 9:00 p.m. on the night of her death) if she was about to commit suicide? Would you? Would anybody?

And if she had and was about to take enough sleeping pills to kill an elephant (many times a fatal dose) then why would she ask her doctor if he had taken her Nembutal? Why would she reportedly call an old friend shortly before her death and ask her if she had any sleeping pills? Jeanne Carmen was Marilyn’s friend and she certainly believed that she was murdered. Why else, she reasons, would Marilyn have called her up late on the evening of her death to ask if she could bring over a sleeping pill? According to Carmen, Marilyn said:

“Carmen, do you have any
sleeping pills? If you do, can
you bring them over?” And I
said “I can’t.”
¹⁵³

Jeanne Carmen had been a neighbor of Marilyn’s at the home she’d had prior to Brentwood. The actual level of their friendship has been disputed by researchers, many of whom feel that there are “hangers-on” who attach themselves to the Marilyn story for their own personal aspirations to fame. Many researchers classify Robert Slatzer in that category, and some also include Jeanne Carmen. However, it seems clear that she and Marilyn were, at the very least, one-time neighbors and casual friends.

If you’re wondering what Jeanne Carmen’s conclusion about it all was, here it is:

“I would bet my life on the
fact that she did not take an
overdose. She was murdered,
period.”
¹⁵⁴

The fact that Robert Kennedy had an affair with Marilyn Monroe was still a career-killer as late as 1985 when ABC News’
20/20
produced an extremely well-researched segment for the show that was cancelled at the last minute by an ABC executive closely linked to Ethel Kennedy. Research from the segment, however, still exists. Sylvia Chase asked former housekeeper Eunice Murray if Marilyn was romantically involved with Robert Kennedy. Murray responded by detailing a visit of Robert Kennedy’s to Marilyn’s home in June, 1962 and said
“I would call it a romantic involvement—yes.”

Former U.S. Senator George Smathers, a personal friend of JFK’s, also disclosed that President Kennedy had confided in him that Bobby and Marilyn were having an affair after his own affair with Marilyn basically ended.

An even more explosive aspect of the ABC
20/20
segment was the fact that they established a highly credible link concerning the Mafia blackmailing of the Attorney General and President of the United States. In their interview with surveillance expert Fred Otash, he documented that he had been contracted by the Kennedy brothers’ arch enemy—Mob-affiliated Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa—to wiretap and record Marilyn’s liaisons with Robert and President Kennedy. The tapes clearly demonstrated the sexual nature of their relationships with Marilyn. The potential for blackmail was blatantly obvious.
20/20
segment producer Stanhope Gould spelled it out crystal clear:

“It was the documentation,
coupled with the Mob angle
that made it a story—the fact
that the President and the At torney General of the United States had put themselves in a position to have the nation’s most powerful criminals eaves drop on their affairs with the nation’s most famous actress, and were exposed to blackmail. That was one hell of a story.”
¹⁵⁵

You can judge the gravity of an event by its fallout: Hugh Downs, Sylvia Chase, and Geraldo Rivera all protested what they viewed as censorship and then resigned from ABC.
¹⁵⁶

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

By 1962, in addition to most “industry people” in Hollywood, most politicians in Washington also knew of JFK’s affair with Marilyn, and the pressure was increasing to break it off before it threatened the upcoming elections. For example, when it became known that Marilyn planned to sing
Happy Birthday
to the President at his gala event at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Kennedys advised her not to attend, and Marilyn’s studio sent her attorney a two-page legal threat of dismissal for contract violation if she went to the party. When Marilyn asked the Kennedys to use their influence with the board members of her studio, whom they knew, the Kennedys declined. Reports of the outrage of Democratic Party leaders were reaching JFK and prior to the event, three Democratic Senators and six Democratic Congressmen went so far as sending telegrams to the President urging him to cut Marilyn from the program at the huge birthday ceremony.

The heat was
on.
Marilyn went anyway.

In an event that mirrored the dissolving distance between the private and public lives of President Kennedy, the gala event held in honor of his 45
^th
birthday was a celebration of 15,000 friends, colleagues and contributors—including reporters from around the world—that was held on May 19, 1962 at Madison Square Garden in New York City and was nationally televised. The entertainment included a song for the President from Marilyn, whom many knew was engaged in a romantic affair with President Kennedy.

Marilyn almost seemed to be making a “go-for-it-all” attempt to capture President Kennedy by strongly implying what many already knew. To sweeten the pot, she appeared on stage dressed in a form-fitting see-through gown. The revealing dress was actually a sheer slip, so tight against her naked body that she—quite literally—had to be sewed into the dress. The sequin-studded slip was composed of 2,500 luminous rhinestones and prompted UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson to remark:

“I don’t think I had ever seen anyone so beautiful as Marilyn Monroe that night. She was wearing skin and beads- I didn’t see the beads.”
¹⁵⁷

The event was so dramatic that when Marilyn finally walked out on stage, there were audible gasps:

“The figure was famous and, for one breathless moment, the 15,000 people in Madison Square Garden thought they were going to see all of it. Onto the stage sashayed Marilyn Monroe, attired in a great bundle of white mink. Arriving at the lectern, she turned and swept the furs from her shoulders. A slight gasp rose from the audience before it was realized that she was really wearing a skintight flesh-toned gown.”
¹⁵⁸

As Hugh Sidey of
Time Magazine
put it: “When she came down in that flesh-colored dress, without any underwear on, you could just smell the lust.”
¹⁵⁹

Marilyn then stunned the crowd by singing a long, slow, and slutry song to President Kennedy—actually a slowed-down and very sexed-up version of “Happy Birthday (Mister President).” Reporter Dorothy Kilgallen noted that it was like “making love to the President in the direct view of forty million Americans.”
¹⁶⁰
First Lady Jackie Kennedy wasn’t steaming in the shadows because she was smart enough to have seen the whole thing coming. The moment that she heard that Marilyn would be singing at the event, she canceled her plans to attend the party and left town. All indications are that she was all-too-aware of the affair between her husband and Marilyn.

The combination of the sultry song, the mesmerizing performance, and the dress that left little to the imagination, certainly captured the complete attention ofeveryone in the arena. It was a very difficult situation to handle, yet, true-to-form, President Kennedy handled it well. After the song, he went to the podium, smiled with a commandeering charm and then stated, very underwhelmingly:

Emblematic of the event’s significance, the dress she wore that night was sold at auction at Christie’s in New York in 1999 for $1,260,000.

“I can now retire from politics after having had
Happy Birthday
sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.”
¹⁶¹

White House control over the press was exercised forcefully. Following the party after the event at Madison Square Garden, U.S. Secret Service agents reportedly seized photos of the Attorney General dancing with Marilyn. At 2:30 AM, Secret Service agents knocked on the hotel door of White House reporter Merriman Smith:

“They wanted to make sure I didn’t write about Marilyn and Bob-by.”
¹⁶²

Early the next morning, U.S. Secret Service agents went to the photo lab of
Time Magazine
and demanded they hand over the photographs of the Kennedys and Marilyn at the party.

After the party, President Kennedy broke off the affair, and Marilyn never saw JFK again. Since it was more for political purposes than personal reasons, it’s not too hard to see how things got quite dicey. Taking the counsel of Washington insiders, JFK cut off all contact with Marilyn—her calls were no longer accepted at the White House switchboard, and the private number that the President had given her to contact him at was disconnected.