Mary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace

by Peter Janney

  36. Adam Bernstein, “Antoinette Pinchot Bradlee, Former Wife of Prominent Washington Post Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, Dies at 87,” Washington Post, November 14, 2011.

  37. Letter to the editor, “The Angleton Children Tell Their Side,” Washington Post, December 2, 2011.

  38. Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 33.

  39. Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 286. Also, in an email to this author on July 27, 2010, author Sally Bedell Smith said she had conducted an extensive interview with Tony Bradlee in January 2001 and a follow-up in September 2001.

  40. Ibid. According to author Sally Bedell Smith, “After James Truitt’s interviews with the National Enquirer, Tony decided to destroy the diary. She called Anne Truitt (by then divorced from James), who lived across the street in Washington, and they watched the notebook burn in Tony’s fireplace.” p. 286.

  41. Bradlee, interview.

  42. Bradlee, Good Life, pp. 269-270.

  43. Ibid., p. 268.

  44. Bradlee, interview.

  45. Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 286.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 33.

  48. Smith, Grace and Power, p. 286.

  49. Timothy Leary, Flashbacks: An Autobiography (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1983), p. 194.

  50. Nancy Pittman Pinchot, interview by the author, November 18, 2009. According to Ms. Pinchot, a niece of Mary Meyer’s, this diary still exists somewhere in Milford, Pennsylvania. It contained an account of Mary’s struggle with her father Amos’s deteriorating mental condition, subsequent to his daughter Rosamund’s suicide, as well as at least one other relationship with a man Mary Meyer was involved with at the time, in addition to William Attwood. This particular diary was also read and referenced by Bibi Gaston in The Loveliest Woman in America (New York: William Morrow, 2008). Because of the nature of my book, the Meyer-Pinchot family denied me access to this earlier diary of Mary Meyer’s.

  51. Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 29.

  52. Evelyn Patterson Truitt, letter to Anthony Summers, March 10, 1983. The letter was shared with this author by Anthony Summers.

  53. Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008). pp. 277-283. In addition, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Thomas Mann told author Dick Russell that he “always suspected that he [Win Scott] might have been murdered … When you get involved in that sort of thing [the CIA and the world of intelligence], one is not surprised, if you know that world, when people drop dead real quick.” Russell also interviewed Winston Scott’s son, Michael, who told Russell that an ex-CIA colleague of his father’s had confided that “certain people” had come by to see Win when he was bedridden after his backyard fall, which everyone believed had precipitated his death. This CIA source, according to Michael Scott, “had expressed strong doubt that his [Win Scott’s] death was an accident.” Michael Scott then added, “I was told that James Angleton was on a plane to Mexico within an hour of my dad’s death, so quickly that he carried no visa or passport and was held for a while at customs. He finally arrived pretending to be there for my father’s funeral. But he had really come to get his files.” (Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003. pp. 295-297).

  54. Leary, Flashbacks, p. 194.

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

  56. Ibid. p. 29.

  57. Alexandra Truitt, interview by the author, October 11, 2005.

  58. Timothy Leary, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., November 7, 1990.

  59. Carol Felsenthal, Power, Privilege and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1993), p. 198n.

  60. Cord Meyer Jr., Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 143.

  Chapter 4. Deus Ex Machina

  1. “History, Hume, and the Press,” Letter to John Norvell Washington, dated June 14, 1807, The Letters of Thomas Jefferson: 1743–1826. (Located at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center). See the following: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefLett.html

  2. George Peter Lamb, interview by Leo Damore, May 23, 1991.

  3. Katie McCabe, “She Had a Dream,” Washingtonian, March 2002, pp. 52–60, pp. 124–130.

  4. Ibid., p. 55.

  5. Ibid., p. 56.

  6. Ibid., p. 55.

  7. Ibid., p. 56.

  8. Ibid., p. 60.

  9. Ibid., pp. 57–58.

  10. Katie McCabe and Dovey Johnson Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), p. 90.

  11. McCabe, “She Had a Dream.” p. 60.

  12. Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., November 4, 1990.

  13. Ibid.

  14. The fact that Ray Crump had been with a girlfriend named Vivian on the towpath at the time of Mary Meyer’s murder was revealed to attorney Dovey Roundtree by both Ray Crump himself and by his mother, Martha Crump. Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., April 4, 1992. See also McCabe and Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law, pp. 195.

  15. Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., April 4, 1992.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid.; Dovey Roundtree, interviews by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., February 23, 1991, and April 4, 1992. Roundtree’s conversations with the woman named Vivian are also covered in some detail in Justice Older Than the Law, pp. 195–196.

  20. Roundtree, interview, February 23, 1991.

  21. Roundtree, interview, November 4, 1990.

  22. Ibid.

  23. The distances mentioned were taken from 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, p. 119, pp. 710–711. The distances were measured again by the author on February 6, 2008, using GPS portable technology and found to be accurate within ten feet.

  24. U.S. Park Police officer Ray Pollan, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., December 19, 1990.

  25. Lamb, interview, May 23, 1991.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Crump v. Anderson, June 15, 1965, 122 U.S. App. D.C., 352 F.2d 649 (D.C. Cir. 1965). Circuit Judge George Thomas Washington pointed this out in his dissent during Crump’s appeal for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied.

  28. Trial transcript., p. 710.

  29. Blue v. United States of America, 342 F.2d 894 (D.C. Cir. 1964), p. 900. The case was argued on May 18, 1964, and decided on October 29, 1964.

  30. Lamb, interview, May 23, 1991.

  31. George Peter Lamb, interview by the author, May 12, 2010.

  32. U.S. v. Ray Crump, Jr., U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Criminal No. 930-64. CJ# 1317-64. “The Clerk of said Court will please enter the appearance of Dovey J. Roundtree and George F. Knox, Sr. as attorneys for defendant in the above entitled cause.” George Peter Lamb and the Legal Aid Association withdrew from the Crump case on November 3, 1964.

  33. Lamb, interview, May 23, 1991.

  34. Roundtree, interview, November 4, 1990.

  35. Ibid.; Dovey Roundtree, interviews by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., September 26, 1990, May 25, 1991, and April 4, 1992. In each of the interviews, Roundtree made it clear that her client, Ray Crump, was deteriorating mentally soon after entering his plea. She continued to believe that he was being abused by prison guards, in spite of daily visits from her and his family.

  36. McCabe and Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law, p. 193.

  37. Ibid.

  38. U.S. v. Ray Crump, Jr., United States Distr
ict Court For The District of Columbia. Criminal No. 930-64. Motion for Mental Examination. Filed November 12, 1964. Harry M. Hull, Clerk. The motion also supports Detective Bernie Crooke’s statement to Dovey Roundtree that he had smelled beer when he arrested Crump at approximately 1:15 p.m. on October 12, 1964.

  39. Superintendent Dale C. Cameron, MD, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., to Clerk of the Criminal Division for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, January 13, 1965.

  40. Crump v. Anderson, pp. 42–59. The transcript of the coroner’s inquest on October 19, 1964, is no longer available.

  41. Jerry Hunter, Esq., interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., November 6, 1990.

  42. Roundtree, interview, February 23, 1991.

  43. McCabe and Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law, p. 197.

  44. Roundtree, interview, February 23, 1991.

  45. River Patrolman police officer Frederick Q. Byers of the Harbor Patrol testified on three different occasions that he retrieved a jacket alleged to have belonged to Crump at 1:46 P.M on the afternoon of the murder. Trial transcript, p. 408, p. 409, p. 413. The distance computed to Three Sisters Island was from a GPS navigation instrument and Google Earth maps.

  46. Both Wiggins and Branch would testify at the murder trial that they had no knowledge of the ownership, the work ticket, or the ultimate disposition of the stalled Nash Rambler sedan or who owned the vehicle. Trial transcript, p. 254, pp. 312–313.

  47. David Acheson, interview by the author, Washington, D.C., December 10, 2008.

  Chapter 5. Trial by Fire

  1. Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., May 25, 1991.

  2. Charles Duncan, Esq., interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., December 20, 1990.

  3. Roundtree, interview, May 25, 1991.

  4. Ibid.

  5. United States Department of Justice, confidential memo addressed to “Mr. Conrad,” February 24, 1965.

  6. Roundtree, interview, May 25, 1991.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., February 23, 1991.

  9. Ibid.

  10. 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, p. 3.

  11. Ibid., p. 4.

  12. Ibid., p. 6.

  13. Ibid., pp. 6–7.

  14. Ibid., pp. 12–15.

  15. Ibid., p. 16.

  16. Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., April 4, 1992.

  17. Trial transcript, pp. 46–47.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Alfred Hantman, Esq., interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., May 21, 1991.

  20. Trial transcript, p. 47.

  21. Cord Meyer Jr., Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 143. Upon his return to Washington on the evening of Mary Meyer’s murder, Cord Meyer was met at the airport by his former brother-in-law and Washington attorney Steuart Pittman and career CIA official Wistar Janney.

  22. Trial transcript, pp. 75–76.

  23. Ibid., p. 70.

  24. Ibid., p. 96.

  25. Ibid., p. 383.

  26. Ibid., p. 575.

  27. Ibid., pp. 110–112.

  28. Ibid., p. 122.

  29. Ibid., p. 122.

  30. Ibid., p. 124.

  31. Ibid., p. 140.

  32. Ibid., p. 130.

  33. Ibid., pp. 131–132.

  34. Ibid., p. 134.

  35. Ibid., p. 136.

  36. Ibid., p. 710.

  37. Ibid., p. 137.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Ibid., p. 142.

  40. Ibid., p. 207.

  41. Ibid., p. 208.

  42. Robert S. Bennett, Esq., interview by the author, Washington, D.C., November 11, 2009.

  43. Trial transcript, p. 210.

  44. Ibid., pp. 237–238.

  45. Ibid., p. 241.

  46. Ibid., p. 306.

  47. Ibid., pp. 306–307.

  48. Hantman, interview.

  49. The distance from the 4300 block of Canal Road at the point that was directly across from the murder scene on the towpath to Fletcher’s Boat House was measured by both an automobile odometer and a GPS instrument and was found to be exactly 1.63 miles.

  50. Trial transcript, p. 343.

  51. Ibid., pp. 342–343.

  52. Ibid., p. 352.

  53. Roderick Sylvis, interview by the author, Wake Forest, N.C., July 23, 2008.

  54. Ibid.

  55. Trial transcript, pp. 345–347.

  56. Sylvis, interview, July 23, 2008.

  57. Trial transcript, p. 349.

  58. Ibid., pp. 349–350.

  59. Ibid., p. 350.

  60. Ibid., p. 351.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ibid., p. 342.

  63. Sylvis, interview, July 23, 2008; Roderick Sylvis, telephone interview by the author, July 30, 2008.

  64. Trial transcript, p. 359.

  65. Ibid., p. 379.

  66. Ibid., p. 381.

  67. Ibid., p. 370.

  68. Ibid., pp. 372–373.

  69. Ibid., p. 378.

  70. Ibid., pp. 407–413.

  71. Ibid., p. 395, p. 424, p. 564.

  72. Ibid., pp. 451–452.

  73. Roberta Hornig, “Teacher Says He Passed by Mrs. Meyer,” Washington Evening Star, July 27, 1965.

  74. Trial transcript, p. 657.

  75. Ibid., p. 634.

  76. Ibid., p. 658.

  77. Ibid., pp. 658-659.

  78. Ibid., pp. 766–767.

  79. Ibid., p. 803.

  80. Katie McCabe, interview by the author, September 22, 2008. The event was also mentioned by Nina Burleigh in A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer (New York: Bantam, 1998), p. 269.

  81. Trial transcript, pp. 943–944.

  82. Hantman, interview.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Edward Savwoir, telephone interview by Leo Damore. From Damore’s notes, this appears to have occurred during the winter of 1989, though it is not completely clear. Savwoir died in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 1989.

  85. George Peter Lamb, interview by the author, April 28, 2010.

  86. Roundtree, interview, May 25, 1991.

  87. Katie McCabe and Dovey Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), p. 218. Also, in two of author Leo Damore’s interviews with Dovey Roundtree (February 23, 1991 and May 25, 1991), she expressed her belief that Ray had been repeatedly beaten, abused, and “probably raped” during his eight months in jail before trial.

  88. Robert S. Bennett, In the Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer (New York: Crown, 2008), p. 36; Bennett, interview.

  89. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 336.

  90. Ibid., p. 281.

  91. Ibid., p. 275.

  92. McCabe and Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law, pp. 190–192.

  93. Ibid., p. 218.

  94. Ibid., p. 189.

  95. Roundtree, interview, April 4, 1992; Dovey Roundtree, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., March 4, 1993; McCabe and Roundtree, Justice Older Than the Law, pp. 205–206.

  Chapter 6. “Prima Female Assoluta”

  1. Ron Rosenbaum and Phillip Nobile, “The Curious Aftermath of JFK’s Best and Brightest Affair,” New Times, July 9, 1976, p. 25.

  2. Ibid., p. 33.

  3. Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1998), p.10. In this account, Gifford noted that his grandfather Cyrille was forced to leave France for participating in a plan to free Napoléon from the island of St. Helena. Cyrille Pinchot’s actions in France are also discussed in “Edgar Pinchot,” in Commemorative Biographical Record of Northeastern Pennsylvania (Chicago: T. H. Beer
s, 1900), p. 277; and Alfred Mathews, A History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: R. T. Peek, 1886), pp. 862–863.

  4. Nancy P. Pittman, “James Wallace Pinchot (1831–1908): One Man’s Evolution Toward Conservation in the Nineteenth Century,” Yale F&ES Centennial News (Fall 1999): 4.

  5. Char Miller, “All in the Family: The Pinchots of Milford,” Pennsylvania History (Spring 1999): p. 126.

  6. Ibid., p. 130.

  7. Elaine Showalter, ed., These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties (New York: Feminist Press, 1989), p. 126.

  8. Ibid., pp. 3-27.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ruth Pinchot to Amos Pinchot, July 2, 1923, Amos Pinchot Papers, 1863–1943, Family Correspondence, container 3, Library of Congress.

  12. William Attwood, diary entries, December 21, 1935–January 30, 1936. The Attwood family graciously allowed me access to Bill Attwood’s private diaries, which were extensive, right up until his death in 1989.

  13. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), p. 79.

  14. Ralph G. Martin, Seeds of Destruction: Joe Kennedy and His Sons (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. xxi.

  15. Choate School letter to Leo Damore, October 5, 1992. The letter documents William Attwood’s date for Winter Festivities Weekend, February 1936, and the fact that John F. Kennedy (Class of 1935) was in attendance.

  16. Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer (New York: Bantam, 1998), p. 57.

  17. William Attwood, diary entry, February 21, 1936.

  18. Ibid.

  19. William Attwood, The Reds and the Blacks: A Personal Adventure (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 133–134.

  20. William Attwood, diary entry, March 24, 1936.

  21. Ibid., May 11, 1939.

  22. Ibid., June 14, 1939.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Ibid, June 15, 1939.

  25. Bibi Gaston, The Loveliest Woman in America (New York: William Morrow, 2008), p. 32.

  26. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 61.

  27. Mary Pinchot, “Requiem,” New York Times, January 25, 1940, p. 16.