by Paul Wolfe
“He boasted to me the CIA can get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl. A couple of hundred dollars a month!”
I told her Phil Graham had almost come to blows with the French ambassador one night at his house over Phil’s belief that the United States should never get involved with the French in Vietnam. The ambassador, kind of a jerk, as I recall—he kept rubbing my hand, I think his name was Bonnet—said America was cowardly for not helping France resist Communism. Phil almost slugged him in the face. Katharine deliberately knocked over a tray just to distract them.
Robin laughed and finished her milkshake, making loud sucking noises with her straw. “I’m not answering my phone tonight.”
MAY 10
Smoky molecules of Acapulco Gold snaked through the fissures of my brain. Life turned Technicolor, my senses and nerve endings catapulted to high alert, as I walked the cobblestone hill again, the hill that leads to the Potomac and dies down by the towpath. Once they hauled coal from the Allegheny Mountains through this sanctuary by the river. Now it’s a primeval wilderness wrapped around a thin canal, a simulacrum of Eden slicing through Georgetown, through this madhouse of politics, and I with so little appetite for politics. I am not so much apolitical as postpolitical. Let’s be blunt about it, life is consciousness, involved in some mysterious way with flesh. And flesh, in some mysterious way, is involved with the perpetuation of itself. The scrimmage of appetite everywhere, wrote some poet. Someone must lose for someone else to win. Such is the terrain of my mind when I smoke Acapulco Gold.
I crossed M Street and gazed left to the crossroads, to the fork of M and Pennsylvania Avenue, where the Esso station sells cigarettes, and I was put in mind of crossroads. Once Cord and I linked arms at the crossroads of an old idea, the World Federalist Party in 1947, the dream of a world fashioned anew. We were not long married, and envisioned a honeymoon for the world. It failed, as all politics fails ultimately, and we just go on.
I walked the towpath, so thin with gravel, toward Fletcher’s Cove. Someone had dropped an engine in the canal; its rusty haunches jutted from the brown water like a submarine that had lost its way and no one cared. How will we move beyond power, I thought, beyond the imperative to dominate called war, just as this towpath moved beyond commerce and became purposeless? No longer coal-bearing, it had become a song to weedy love. How could we move beyond purpose to love?
It tapped my brain. The only hope for the world is intelligent women.
MAY 11
The only hope for the world is intelligent women. These words have taken root in my heart. They speak in the language with which I compose the earth each day. I was at Packer’s having a strawberry shake when the song came on. “Chantilly Lace.” Ain’t nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl. And thus I have a name for the project of my dreams: Chantilly Lace. The power of women and the power of chemistry. LSD. Two forces mobilized against the impulse of domination etched in our neurons. I think of bloody creatures battling bloody creatures for dominion, stretching backward through eons of unrecorded time, stretching forward through secret corridors in Washington. Who said “All the civilized nations at war. All the savages at peace”?
Chantilly Lace. Turning men on, but not to propagate the species. Turning them on neurologically, to preserve the species. Ushering in a reign of peace in the new chemical era. I see a psychedelic sisterhood reaching out to a threatened planet from the precincts of Washington, DC. Women turning on the Cabinet. Chicks turning on the Senate. Sisters turning on Central Intelligence.
And I will turn on the president of the United States.
MAY 13
I walked into a blaze of sunshine in Montrose Park to read Understanding Thermonuclear War. It was penned by a great fat man squeezed into the poop deck of the military-industrial complex. The fat man is the lord of megadeath. He actually coined the term: megadeath, the measure of human lives incinerated in a nuclear confrontation. Only a man could concoct such a word. Only a man could devise the profession of sitting quietly in a room filled with computers, measuring the dead and the dying. The men of megadeath will have us in thermonuclear conflict by the end of the decade if left to their own (nuclear) devices. I will put Understanding Thermonuclear War under Jack’s pillow and remind him that he can’t leave the planet in the hands of cold men and imbeciles.
I continue to think. Taking the men who determine the destiny of this planet and turning them on to LSD. Could Chantilly Lace lift their cold fingers from the buttons of power and, as with some global TV set, change the neurological channel? Could we alter the course of evolution? The men who control—yes, they are clearly all men—control simply because they’re men, because neurochemistry urges them to kill for some delusion of security. Could we destroy that evolutionary strategy? Could we stop World War III?
I am thinking: the way to a man’s DNA is through a woman. A crusade to save the planet with the power of acid and the power of woman. The ladies of Chantilly Lace: Evangeline Bruce, Anne Truitt, Georgette LeBlanc, Anne Chamberlain, Cicely Angleton. No, James Angleton will never take LSD. Maybe Katharine Graham and Pamela Harriman? Lorraine Cooper? Bebe Highsmith? We could all band together, the women who control the men who control the world. If we can turn on and transform ourselves, we can transform our husbands and lovers. I have been reading Timothy Leary, a psychologist at Harvard researching LSD, orchestrating psychedelic journeys with students, professors, artists, and mental explorers of every stripe. He will be my contact. He will be my source.
Megadeath.
MAY 15
Roxanne Arcturis says the Age of Aquarius will begin when the vernal equinox moves out of the constellation of Pisces and into the constellation of Aquarius. As we enter the Aquarian Age, everything will change. The structure and hierarchy of power that has dominated our history will be obsolete. The age of masters, experts, and tyrants will end. In this new age, we will each become our own guru. I can’t escape the sense that if someone found me reading this book, I would be shot.
MAY 20
Kenny O’Donnell was beside himself. He called to say Jack was in trouble—it was an emergency, he needed me immediately. A car was on the way. I had never been the object of such urgency before. I have never played a central role solving a crisis, like Bobby or Kenny O’Donnell or Ted Sorensen or Robert McNamara. I am a painter and a mother.
So I was tense on the ride down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, a journey I had made so many times. When I got to the Lincoln Bedroom, Jack was unusually upset. “Mary, I need you to handle something very important,” he said. Whenever he started with my name, it indicated concern. “Please go into the next room, and you’ll see what you have to do.”
I felt like a playing piece in some board game, a mystery game, very conscious of my hand turning the knob, of opening the door and walking into the small room adjoining the bedroom. I closed the door behind me. The room was not well illuminated. When I looked up, Marilyn Monroe was there. She wore a flesh-colored skintight dress shimmering with rhinestones and was sprawled out in a chair, her hair askew, her lipstick smeared.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked.
“My name is Mary.”
“Well, so is mine . . . sort of. Did the birthday boy send you back here to handle me, to try to make me behave? Does the president himself not have the fucking balls to talk to me and tell me the truth? Is he so ashamed to be seen with me in the White House! I wanna see Bobby!”
I realized Jack wouldn’t have chosen me for this situation were it not a genuine crisis, and one he trusted me to solve.
“Bobby’s not here,” I said, “but we can talk.”
“Who are you, his girlfriend for tonight? Or this hour?”
“Look, Marilyn. Can I call you Marilyn?”
“Don’t care what you call me. You have very nice skin.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, it’s so natural. I used to have skin like that, but now it takes me five hours to get ready because
I have to be Marilyn Monroe. Tell Jack to get his fucking ass in here now. I’m not going away just because he feels like throwing me into the toilet!”
“Marilyn, he doesn’t feel like throwing you into the toilet. I’m an advisor—I work with Jack, and he’s spoken very highly of you. He really cares for you.”
“You’re an advisor? Jack doesn’t take advice from girls. He just fucks them.”
“Yes, we speak a lot about peace. I want the Cold War to end—”
“Great. You end the Cold War, and I’m CALLING THE FUCKING NEWSPAPERS TO TELL THEM WHAT THE KENNEDY BROTHERS DID TO ME! I’m not just another blond slut. I’m somebody.”
“Of course you’re somebody. You’re a very talented somebody, but you’re somebody just like all of us. Women are special somebodies.”
I didn’t know where what was coming out of my mouth was coming from, but Jack obviously thought I could defuse the situation. I heard she had sung “Happy Birthday” to him earlier in the evening, but the birthday bash had obviously devolved into a situation. Maybe Marilyn Monroe was more dangerous to him at this moment than Cuba.
“What do you mean, women?”
“Women are special. You know that. We are the nurturers of the world. We are the caretakers of the world. Men run around and build things and then tear things down and fight over them, but women are the ones who are left to take care of things when all is said and done.”
“That’s right. Fucking and fighting. Even the smart ones. Even the artistes! Fucking and fighting. That’s a man for you. Especially that man in the White House, over there in the next room.”
“Of course, but we don’t tell them that because we need to build them up, to make them feel important. Even though we know the truth.”
“Make them feel important! That’s right, Mary. I really like your hair.”
“I don’t do much with it. I’m a painter, so I don’t have a lot of time to fuss with it. I just keep it short and let it do whatever it wants.”
“Painter? That would be fun. By the time I finish painting my face, who’s got time for a landscape? I wish I could just let my hair do what it wants. I wasn’t always a blonde, you know.”
“No?”
“I was a brunette, but then I had to do a shampoo commercial, so they bleached it blond. When I was done, men started going crazy, so I kept it. I am so tired of men going crazy. You know what it means when men go crazy over you?”
“No.”
“It means everyone you meet is crazy. So then suddenly I was a blonde, and I invented it.”
“Invented what?”
“The whole thing. Marilyn Monroe. I invented the whole fucking thing, and now I’m stuck with it. It’s like a prison.”
“You’re not stuck.”
“What?”
“I said you’re not stuck. You’re a free woman. You can do anything you want.”
“Oh, that would be nice. I invented myself and then forgot who I was before I invented myself, so now I do what men tell me to do. Directors, lawyers, doctors, presidents of the United States. They all tell me what to do. You know what my husband Arthur Miller wrote? ‘I thought I was marrying a goddess, then one day I discovered I had married a whore.’ That’s what he wrote. I read it. Can you believe he said that? He’s an asshole too.”
“No, I can’t believe it. It’s a terrible thing to write, and it must have really hurt.”
“They want me to be Marilyn, and I want to be me, but there’s no me to be, so they win.”
“Marilyn, listen to me. You don’t want to go crazy. You don’t want to be hysterical. You don’t want to cause trouble. That’s what men want you to do. They want you to be ditzy. They want you to be a crazy blonde. But that’s not what you are. We’re women. We’re not just projections of men’s fantasies.”
“I really like you, Mary. You know, all the men in the world want to be with me, but no one man. Isn’t that pathetic?”
“I like you too, Marilyn.”
“Can we be friends?”
“Of course. We’re going to be good friends. What you need to do now is go home, get out of this dress—”
“This stupid dress.”
“This stupid dress, and take a bath and let Jack run the country. I’ll tell him what a brave woman you are, and he can be your friend too, but you need someone who will love you. That’s what you deserve. Jack’s got no time for you. He doesn’t even have time for his own wife. You deserve better.”
“I deserve better.”
“Say it again. I deserve better.”
“I deserve better.”
“Do you want to stay at my house tonight, and then we can figure out getting you home? I’ll show you some of my paintings, we’ll take a nice bath, get some sleep . . .”
“I love paintings. I’d love to see your paintings.”
“OK, we’re going to go through that door, say good night to Jack, and then go to my house.”
I held Marilyn by the hand and walked into the Lincoln Bedroom. Jack was in the rocking chair, looking tense.
“Good night, Jack,” I said. “We’re going to my house, and I’m going to show Marilyn my paintings.”
“Yes, Mr. President, I’ve got to look at some paintings. Good night.”
We walked out slowly, leaving Jack rocking. Kenny O’Donnell whisked us out of the White House and into a car.
MAY 21
She wore my pajamas and woke up late in the morning. I had a cup of coffee ready for her. “This is the first night I can remember not going to sleep with a Nembutal,” she said. “This is such a beautiful little house.”
Kenny had called to say that Jack now regarded me as a miracle worker, and a car would be picking Marilyn up at one to take her to the airport. I told him all was good, in fact I was enjoying it, and Kenny reiterated what an important service I had done for Jack.
Marilyn washed off her makeup, and I gave her some capri pants and a sweater to wear on the plane. I put her shimmering Happy Birthday dress in a Gold’s Department Store shopping bag. She said she felt relieved of the burden of being Marilyn Monroe. I said that in this house she was not Marilyn Monroe, she was just Marilyn, and I was Mary. She said she didn’t remember what it was like just dressing any way you felt and not caring how your hair looked.
She saw a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius on my desk. “I love that book!” she said. “Do you know I had a copy on the set once, and Billy Wilder told me to put it away and not to be seen carrying it. It would ruin my image!”
I shook my head.
Everything went wrong after The Misfits, she said. She started overdosing on prescription drugs, and they sent her to the Payne Whitney clinic. She thought it would be a rest cure, but it was more like being sent to prison for a crime she hadn’t committed. “I was locked in a cement block cell,” she said. “Cement. I had forced baths, no privacy, bars on all the windows, insane patients running around. I remembered a movie I had once done where I smashed a chair against the window in the door to break it, so I did it for real at Payne Whitney, just trying to get their attention. But the more I tried to get out, the crazier they thought I was and the more I needed to be there. I’d still be locked up in hell if my ex-husband Joe DiMaggio hadn’t stormed the place and threatened to destroy it brick by brick unless they let me out. Then he left. Just like a man.”
What a tragically sensitive soul. I thought of the sad transaction of fame, this illusion of intimacy with someone you’ve never met. How in the orgy of scandal, divorce, and crack-ups, meaning is restored to the lives of the unfamous, to the lives rendered meaningless by the fame of others. In the crucifixion of the star comes the resurrection of the fan.
I hugged Marilyn when they arrived to bring her back to Hollywood. “I love you, Mary” was the last thing Marilyn Monroe said to me, and I kissed the lips so many had dreamed of kissing.
MAY 28
I had lunch at Le Bistro with Lorraine and Kay Graham. Ever a fashion innovator, Lorraine
appeared with an odd but striking scarf around her neck. “A unique scarf,” I said. “You didn’t buy that in Georgetown, I dare say.”
“It’s not a scarf,” she said. “It’s one of John’s ties. It looks better on me than him, don’t you think? Besides, he’s got millions of them.”
Kay seemed quiet. She is never the life of the party, but now I noticed that her neck was covered up just like Lorraine’s, without a necktie, and there were bruises on her arms.
“Kay, spill the beans,” Lorraine said, noticing the bruises. “We’re friends here.” But Kay was not forthcoming.
“About what?”
“How are you and Phil getting along?”
“We’re great. The same. We’re OK.”
“So what’s that on your arm?”
“What on my arm? Oh, I fell.”
“You mean in love?” Lorraine continued, but Kay had sealed the door to her marriage and was not about to open it with a Lorraine witticism. “All right, Katharine, but you know we’re here for you, and I don’t give a hoot in hell how smart or magnetic or magnificent Phil is. He’s just another news guy to me, and you’re my friend.”
“Just finish your drink,” Kay said.
Lorraine turned on a dime toward me. “Mary, I know you’re into this spiritual thing.”
I felt called upon to answer seriously. “Well, there is consciousness, and it’s involved in some way with the body . . .”
“No, don’t get crazy on me. I haven’t had enough to drink. I have a question about heaven.”
“I don’t think it’s about religion,” I said. “Someone had an experience of the truth and tried to formalize and concretize and contain it, so they created religion.”
“There you go again, Mary. My question is this: When we die and go to heaven, who’ll be waiting for us, our husbands or our lovers?”
She had lifted Kay out of her mood, and even distracted me momentarily from my mission for world peace. “Oh, I hope to God it isn’t our husbands,” she went on.
JUNE 3
I called Harvard University and asked for Dr. Timothy Leary. How odd it sounded, uttering his name. To the operator it was just another extension on the Harvard network, one more wire snaking mysteriously from her office to the Center for Personality Research on Divinity Avenue. Divinity Avenue! She collected her salary, went for coffee breaks, hung her coat in some tiny academic closet, and had no idea that her switchboard was now linked to a new dimension in human consciousness.