Mary's Mosaic (75 page)

7
.    Ibid., p. xxii.

8
.    Martin Duberman,
Waiting to Land: A (Mostly) Political Memoir, 1985–2008
(New York: New Press, 2009), p. 288.

9
.    David Brooks, “Bookshorts: Kennedy’s Big Mess; Savitch’s Sad Life,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 16, 1988, p. 26.

10
.   Gale Reference Team, “Biography: Damore, Leo J. (1929–1995),”
Contemporary Authors
(Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thompson Gale, 2004).

11
.   Francis I. Broadhurst, “A Refreshing View of Kennedy,”
Cape Cod Times
, November 18, 1993.

12
.   Letter from Seymour Hersh to Mark O’Blazney, November 1, 1995.

13
.   Ibid.

14
.   James H. Smith, Esq. interview by the author, April 6, 2004. Smith recounted verbatim the conversation with his friend John H. Davis.

Chapter 1.
Fate’s Engagement

1
.    Mary Pinchot, “Requiem,”
New York Times
, January 25, 1940, p. 16. The poem was a tribute to her half-sister Rosamond Pinchot, who committed suicide in 1938.

2
.    The nature of Mary Meyer’s involvement with President Kennedy and their mutual concern with world peace initiatives, away from the Cold War, is the focus of this book and will be demonstrated throughout. Significant support for this perspective came from former presidential adviser Kenneth P. O’Donnell’s extensive interviews with the late author Leo Damore, shortly before O’Donnell’s death, as well as other sources and interviews with Damore. The most recent account of Mary Meyer’s influence in the Kennedy White House was provided by David Talbot in his book
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years
(New York: Free Press, 2007).

3
.    James McConnell Truitt, letter to author Deborah Davis, dated May 11, 1979. The letter was part of the files of the late author Leo Damore, and was confirmed by author Deborah Davis in 2005.

4
.    Mary Meyer’s intention to go public with her revelations about the CIA’s involvement in the Kennedy assassination has been documented in a number of sources. It was revealed, according to author Leo Damore, in Mary’s real diary, which Damore finally obtained and described in
detail to his attorney, James H. Smith, Esq., on March 31, 1993 (see
Appendix 3
). Mary Meyer’s awareness of CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination is also alluded to by Robert Morrow in his book
First Hand Knowledge: How I Participated in the CIA-Mafia Murder of President Kennedy
(New York: S.P.I. Books, 1992), 275–280, and in two transcripts of alleged conversations between CIA covert action specialist Robert T. Crowley and author Gregory Douglas on January 27, 1996, and April 2, 1996. The mutually reinforcing effect of these sources, and the way in which they aggregate, establish Mary Meyer’s intention to go public (after the Warren Report’s release in September) with all that she had discovered throughout the year of 1964, are discussed in greater detail in
chapters 11
,
12
, and
13
and the Epilogue.

5
.    Leslie Judd Ahlander, “Frederick Drawings Exhibited,”
Washington Post
, November 24, 1963, p. G10.

6
.    Leo Damore, interview by the author, Centerbrook, Conn., February 1992. Between 1992 and 1994, there were at least five face-to-face meetings between Damore and this author, in addition to numerous follow-up telephone conversations regarding the life of Mary Meyer, her death, and Damore’s research. Damore stated that Mary Meyer had sought out Bill Walton’s counsel in early 1964.

7
.    See note 4 above. Leo Damore, who had acquired a copy of Mary Meyer’s real diary, told his attorney, James E. Smith, on March 31, 1993, that Mary had made a decision to go public with what she had discovered, sometime after the Warren Report had been released. See
Appendix 3
.
Chapters 11
,
12
, and
13
also cover this arena thoroughly.

8
.    Ron Rosenbaum and Phillip Nobile, “The Curious Aftermath of JFK’s Best and Brightest Affair,”
New Times
, July 9, 1976, p. 29. “Mary Meyer was accustomed to leaving her diary in the bookcase in her bedroom where, incidentally, she kept clippings of the JFK assassination.” In 1976, the authors interviewed some of the people closest to Mary Meyer who had intimate knowledge of her habits during the last year of her life. In addition, according to Leo Damore, Mary also talked with presidential adviser Kenneth P. O’Donnell shortly after the Kennedy assassination. See note 2 above.

9
.    Nina Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer
(New York: Bantam, 1998), p. 304.

10
.   Anne and James Truitt had moved to Tokyo shortly after Anne’s sculpture exhibit
Black, White, and Grey
opened in January 1964 at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. Her husband, James, was Japan’s bureau chief for
Newsweek.

11
.   Morrow,
First Hand Knowledge
, p. 277. As noted in note 4 above, this event was also mentioned by former CIA official Robert T. Crowley in a conversation to author Gregory Douglas in January 1996. See Chapter 13 for further discussion of the way in which these sources are mutually corroborating.

12
.   Leo Damore revealed Mary Meyer’s altercation with Cord Meyer to his attorney, James H. Smith, Esq., during the above-referenced telephone call of March 31, 1993. Smith took six pages of notes on this call, which are reproduced in
Appendix 3
.

13
.   Confidential source who asked to remain anonymous, interview with the author, Washington, D.C., March 10, 2006.

14
.   Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 22.

15
.   I am indebted to award-winning Boston fine artist Shelah Horvitz for her insightful analysis of some of the last paintings of Mary Pinchot Meyer, as well as Horvitz’s overall knowledge of the Washington Color School artists.

16
.   Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 22. Part of this description was based on the authors’ interviews with principals in 1976, as well as the clothing Mary Meyer wore that day, which was documented in the trial transcript, United States of America v. Ray Crump, Jr., Defendant, Criminal Case No. 930-64, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., July 20, 1965. Volume 1: pp. 4-7.

17
.   Burton Hersh,
The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA
(New York: Scribner, 1992), p. 439.

18
.   Burleigh, A
Very Private Woman
, p. 11.

19
.   Damore, interview.

20
.   Ibid. According to Damore, Kenny O’Donnell had shared with him that Mary Meyer had pushed hard for President Kennedy to protect the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath area.

21
.   Herbert S. Parmet,
JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy
(New York: Dial, 1983), p. 306. In addition, Leo Damore said he had interviewed
Mr. Parmet, who gave him a number of other details about what he had learned about Jack’s relationship with Mary Meyer.

22
.   Bernie Ward and Granville Toogood, “Former Vice President of Washington Post Reveals JFK 2-Year White House Romance,”
National Enquirer
, March 2, 1976, p. 4. In addition, Leo Damore had interviewed an anonymous source who was a close friend of Mary Meyer’s who gave him more details about this encounter, which he discussed with me in 1992.

23
.   Ibid. Ward and Toogood,
National Enquirer
, March 2, 1976, p. 4. Damore interview with anonymous source, as with me in 1992.

24
.   The extent of John F. Kennedy’s difficulty with emotional intimacy, particularly with women, has been well documented in the following: Nigel Hamilton,
JFK: Reckless Youth
(New York: Random House, 1992), and two books by Ralph G. Martin:
A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years
(New York: Macmillan, 1983) and
Seeds of Destruction: Joe Kennedy and His Sons
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995). In addition, presidential historian Robert Dallek’s
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2003) further documents this arena thoroughly, as does Doris Kearns Goodwin’s
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1987). All five volumes address John Kennedy’s emotional maternal deprivation and the toll it took on him. President Kennedy’s sexual addiction and reckless philandering is further documented by Seymour Hersh’s
The Dark Side of Camelot
(New York: Back Bay Books, 1997). See also chapter 6 for further discussion.

25
.   Anne Truitt,
Daybook: The Journal of an Artist
(New York: Pantheon, 1982), p. 165.

26
.   Parmet,
JFK
, p. 306.

27
.   Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman
, p. 226.

28
.   See Chapter 8. Mary Meyer’s initial foray into psychedelics, according to James Truitt, appears to have taken place in the San Francisco Bay area during a late-1950s visit with Jim Truitt and his wife, Anne. Deborah Davis, interview by Leo Damore, February 23, 1991; Deborah Davis, interview by the author, March 17, 2009. During Davis’s research for her book
Katharine the Great
in 1976, she traveled to Mexico to interview Jim Truitt for more than ten hours over a three-day period. The two then corresponded further by mail. Nina Burleigh also references the likelihood
of Jim Truitt’s influence for “Mary’s initiation into drug experimentation.” See Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman
, pp. 171–172).

29
.   During his never-before-published two-hour interview by Leo Damore on November 7, 1990, Timothy Leary commented extensively on Mary Meyer’s experience with psychedelics and the impact it had on her worldview and in her life. Timothy Leary, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., November 7, 1990. See also
Chapters 8
and
9
.

30
.   Timothy Leary,
Flashbacks: An Autobiography
(Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1983), p. 129. Also, during his 1990 interview with Leo Damore, Leary spoke at some length about how Mary Meyer defined her mission with psychedelics. See chapter 9.

31
.   Leary, interview. See also Leary,
Flashbacks
, p. 156.

32
.   Ward and Toogood, “White House Romance,” p. 4; Damore, interview. Damore repeatedly stressed that Mary Meyer had been in large measure “a healer” in Kennedy’s tortured emotional life. Some of Damore’s insight had been based on his talks with Kenny O’Donnell regarding Mary Meyer’s influence on the president.

33
.   Leary,
Flashbacks
, p. 191.

34
.   Ibid., p. 162. In addition, since the first edition (1979) of Deborah Davis’s
Katharine the Great
(which was recalled and shredded due to pressure from Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham), there has been controversy over whether Phil Graham actually mentioned during his infamous “meltdown” in Phoenix at a newspaper convention in January 1963 the fact that Mary Meyer was having an affair with President Kennedy. Carol Felsenthal, whose 1993 book
Power, Privilege and the Post
was thoroughly checked and vetted, maintains that Phil Graham did, in fact, reveal the affair during his drunken tirade. In an interview for this book, Ms. Felsenthal stated the following: “Because of what happened to the Deborah Davis book, my book was vetted and re-vetted. I would never have been able to get away with something that wasn’t thoroughly checked.” In addition, Felsenthal also revealed that Ben Bradlee “told a journalism class at USC that he had read every entry [in the Felsenthal book] and he thought it was fair.” Carol Felsenthal, interview by the author, August 10, 2010.