by Peter Janney
28. Gaston, Loveliest Woman, p.18, p. 253.
29. Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 25.
30. A former 1942 Vassar classmate of Mary Meyer’s who asked to remain anonymous, interview by the author, November 27, 2009.
31. Cord Meyer Jr., Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 34.
32. Croswell Bowen, “Young Man in Quest of Peace,” PM Sunday 3, no. 237 (March 21, 1948): p. 8.
33. Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 29.
34. Anonymous Meyer classmate, interview.
35. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, pp. 72–73.
36. Robert L. Schwartz, interview by the author, New York, N.Y., October 16, 2008.
37. Ibid.
38. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 76.
39. Schwartz, interview.
40. James McConnell Truitt to Deborah Davis, January 30, 1979.
41. Schwartz, interview.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
Chapter 7. Cyclops
1. Croswell Bowen, “Young Man in Quest of Peace,” PM Sunday 3, no. 237 (March 21, 1948): p. m6.
2. Cord Meyer Jr., “Waves of Darkness,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1946, p. 77.
3. Ibid, p. 80.
4. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m 7.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Charles Bartlett, interview by the author, Washington, D.C., December 10, 2008.
8. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m7.
9. Cord Meyer Jr., Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 4–5.
10. Merle Miller, “One Man’s Long Journey: From a One World Crusade to the ‘Department of Dirty Tricks,,’” New York Times Magazine, January 7, 1973.
11. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m8.
12. Cord Meyer Jr., Journal, 1945–1967, September 1944, box 5, Papers of Cord Meyer, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
13. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m8.
14. Ibid., p. m6.
15. John H. Crider, “Veterans Caution on Parley Hopes,” New York Times, May 3, 1945.
16. Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 702.
17. Ibid., p. 700.
18. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), pp. 114–116.
19. Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), pp. 34–35. See also Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer (New York: Bantam, 1998), p. 315–20.
20. U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Restricted, top secret testimony given by Joseph W. Shimon, September 12, 1975. The document was provided to the author from Joseph Shimon’s daughter, Toni Shimon.
21. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m7.
22. Bartlett, interview.
23. Cord Meyer Jr., Journal, 1945–1967, entry dated November 2, 1945, box 5, Papers of Cord Meyer, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
24. Hamilton, JFK, p. 703.
25. Ibid., pp. 690–691.
26. Anne Truitt, Daybook: The Journal of an Artist (New York: Pantheon, 1982), pp. 200–201.
27. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m9.
28. Cord Meyer Jr., “A Serviceman Looks at the Peace,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1945.
29. Bowen, “Young Man,” p. m 9.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Hubert H. Humphrey to Cord Meyer Jr., October 21, 1949, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress..
33. Wesley T. Wooley, “Finding a Usable Past: The Success of the American World Federalism in the 1940s,” Peace & Change 24, no. 3 (July 1999).
34. “Young Men Who Care,” Glamour, July, 1947, pp. 27–29.
35. Meyer, Facing Reality, p. 55.
36. Meyer Journal, January 3, 1950.
37. Ibid., March 18, 1950.
38. Ibid., May 24, 1951.
39. Ibid., June 8, 1951.
40. Ibid., March 31, 1951.
41. Allen Dulles to Cord Meyer Jr., February 23, 1951, and March 31, 1951, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Cord Meyer Jr. to Allen Dulles, March 14, 1951, and May 23, 1951, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Cord Meyer Jr. to Gerald E. Miller, May 23, 1951, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Dean Acheson to Cord Meyer Jr., February 8, 1951, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer. There were also letters between journalist Walter Lippman and Cord during 1951 that might have suggested Lippman’s assistance to Cord in procuring some kind of job as a journalist, but nothing specific.
42. Meyer, Journal, December 10, 1945.
43. Ibid.
44. Victor Marchetti, interview by the author, Ashburn, Va., October 4, 2007.
45. Meyer, Journal, January 3, 1950.
46. Anonymous source, interview by the author, February 3, 2004.
47. Meyer, Journal, February 26, 1953.
48. Ibid., September 7, 1953. Here, Cord wrote several pages on what had occurred on the afternoon of August 31.
49. Meyer, Facing Reality, pp. 70–71.
50. Meyer, Journal, February 1, 1954. Cord recorded here the outcome of his trip to New York.
51. Ibid., November 8, 1954.
52. Benjamin C. Bradlee, A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 159.
53. James McConnell Truitt letter to Deborah Davis, May 11, 1979. The letter was part of the files of the late author Leo Damore and was subsequently verified by author Deborah Davis.
54. Meyer., Journal, October 18, 1955.
55. Ibid.
56. James McConnell Truitt letter to Deborah Davis, January 30, 1979. This event was also reported in Deborah Davis’s Katharine the Great (p. 230) and Nina Burleigh’s A Very Private Woman (p. 204).
57. David, Acheson, interview by the author, Washington, D.C., December 10, 2008.
58. Meyer, Journal, December 30, 1956.
59. Ibid., January 15, 1957.
60. Cord Meyer Jr., “Notes” 1957, box 5, Papers of Cord Meyer.
61. Truitt, Daybook, p. 165.
62. Meyer, “Notes.”
63. Ibid.
64. Meyer, “Waves of Darkness,” p. 80.
65. Miller, “One Man’s Long Journey,” p. 9.
66. Victor, Marchetti, interviews by the author, Ashburn, Va., November 18, 2005, and October 4, 2007. See also Carl Bernstein, “The CIA and the Media,” Rolling Stone, October 20, 1977.
67. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 330.
68. Scottie Lanahan, “Are You Playing the Games by the Rules in Washington?,” NEWS to Me …, Washington Post, April 2, 1967, p. H2.
69. Letter from the office of William Sloane Coffin Jr. at Yale University to the entering class of 1972, August 8, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Cord Meyer, Jr. to Bishop Paul Moore, September 13, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Cord Meyer Jr. to Cyrus R. Vance, September 26, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Cord Meyer Jr. to Dean Acheson, September 26, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Cord Meyer Jr. to William P. Bundy, September 26, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Bishop Paul Moore to Cord Meyer Jr., September 13, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer; Dean Acheson to Cord Meyer Jr., October 1, 1968, box 1, Papers of Cord Meyer.
70. Marc D. Charney, “Rev. William Sloane Coffin Dies at 81; Fought for Civil Rights and Against a War,” New York Times, April 13, 2006.
71. Miller, “One Man’s Long Journey,” p. 53.
Chapter 8. Personal Evolution
1. Gerald Clarke, Capote: A Biography (London: Cardinal, 1989), p. 271.
2. Gore Vidal, Palimpsest: A Memoir (New York: Penguin, 1995), p. 311.
3. Peter Evans, Nemesis (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 29–33.
4. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys: An American Drama (New York: Summit, 1984), p. 209. Another source confirmed this account as early as 197
8; see Kitty Kelley, Jackie Oh! (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1978), pp. 57–58.
5. Edward Klein, All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy (New York: Pocket Books, 1996), pp. 220–221.
6. In 1931, the state of Nevada reduced the residency requirement for divorces to six weeks using the catch-all grounds of “mental cruelty.” This made Nevada the go-to place for a divorce. Because a woman who wished to avoid the embarrassment of getting a divorce in her hometown could be incognito in sparsely populated Nevada, this choice was popular with many women from prominent families.
7. Michael O’Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (New York: St. Martin’s, 2005), p. 441.
8. Ibid., pp. 441–442.
9. Mary P. Meyer v. Cord Meyer, Jr., Case No. 175609, Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decree, Second Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada, August 19, 1958.
10. Confidential source, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., 1991.
11. Robert Schwartz, interview by the author, New York, N.Y., October 16, 2008.
12. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, p. 442.
13. Kenneth Noland, telephone interview by Nina Burleigh, September 13, 1996.
14. Schwartz interview.
15. James McConnell Truitt letter to Deborah Davis, May 11, 1979.
16. Deborah Davis, interview by Leo Damore, February 23, 1991; Deborah Davis, interview by the author, March 17, 2009. During Deborah Davis’s research for her book Katharine the Great in 1976, she traveled to Mexico and interviewed 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 on “Mary’s initiation into drug experimentation.” See Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unresolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer (New York: Bantam, 1998), pp. 171–172.
17. Laura Bergquist, “The Curious Story Behind the New Cary Grant,” Look, September 1, 1959.
18. Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion (New York: Grove, 1985), p. 93.
19. Ibid., p. 51.
20. Ibid.
21. Alfred Hubbard, interview by Dr. Oscar Janiger, October 13, 1978. A number of sources have referenced this interview, including the best history of the entire era ever written: Lee and Shlain’s Acid Dreams, cited in note 18 above.
22. H. P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments (Walterville, Ore.: Trine Day, 2009). pp. 350-352. See also: H. P. Albarelli Jr. and Jeffrey Kaye, “Cries From the Past: Torture’s Ugly Echoes,” Truthout, Sunday, May 23, 2010. www.truthout.org.
23. Albarelli, A Terrible Mistake. This is, by far, the most thorough account of Frank Olson’s death and the history of the CIA’s MKULTRA program.
24. Ibid.
25. Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, pp. 52–53.
26. Robert Budd, interview by the author, January 21, 2004.
27. Morton Herskowitz, D.O., interview by the author, May 17, 2004.
28. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 165.
29. Budd, interview.
30. Noland, interview, September 13, 1996; Kenneth Noland, interview by Nina Burleigh, Carlyle Hotel, New York, N.Y., December 1996. In a follow-up email to me on July 6, 2005, author Burleigh shared the fact that Ken Noland and Mary frequented jazz clubs in Washington, D.C., and that Noland had talked with Burleigh “abt [sic] their LSD use.” Despite my own association with Kenneth Noland when he and Mary Meyer taught art at Georgetown Day School in the 1950s, he declined to speak with me. I am indebted to Nina Burleigh, who graciously shared a copy of her notes taken during these interviews.
31. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 175.
32. Confidential source, interview.
33. Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 235.
34. Ben Bradlee, interview by the author, Washington, D.C., January 31, 2007.
35. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 180.
36. Confidential source, interview.
37. Ibid.
38. Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, p. 192.
39. Ibid., p. 133.
40. Ibid., p. 189.
41. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, p. 176.
42. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), p. 152. See also Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, p. 176; Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (New York: St. Martin’s, 1987), p. 838; Ralph G. Martin, A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years (New York: Macmillan, 1983), p. 240. During an interview with this author in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 8, 2009, Priscilla J. McMillan claimed to have no recollection of making the quoted statements, or of the interviews she had given to David Horowitz and Robert Dallek. Both authors, however, confirmed with me that they had, in fact, interviewed Priscilla J. McMillan, and that she gave the statements as quoted in their respective books. David Horowitz confirmed this with me by telephone on July 13, 2009, and Robert Dallek confirmed it via email on July 14, 2009.
43. Martin, Hero for Our Time, p. 240.
44. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, pp. 837–838.
45. Dallek, Unfinished Life, p. 152.
46. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, p. 194.
47. Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (New York: Random House, 1992), pp. 690–691.
48. Dallek, Unfinished Life, p. 84.
49. Ibid., p. 85.
50. Goodwin., Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, p. 848.
51. Ibid., p. 858.
52. Dallek, Unfinished Life, p. 154.
53. Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (New York: Back Bay Books, 1997), pp. 234–236.
54. Anonymous source, interview by the author, November 14, 2009.
55. Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, p. 237.
Chapter 9. Mary’s Mission
1. Timothy Leary, Flashbacks: An Autobiography (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1983), p. 128.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 129.
4. Timothy Leary, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., November 7, 1990.
5. Leary, Flashbacks, p. 129.
6. Ibid., pp. 128–130.
7. Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer (New York: Bantam, 1998), p. 194. Burleigh’s interview with White House counsel Myer Feldman provides the most specific, thorough documentation of how closely President Kennedy relied on the counsel of Mary Meyer.
8. Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 255.
9. Leo Damore, interview by the author, Centerbrook, Conn., February 1992.
10. Smith, Grace and Power, p. 254.
11. Leary, Flashbacks, pp. 227–231.
12. Leary, interview.
13. Robert Greenfield, Timothy Leary: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, 2006), p. 245.
14. Ibid., pp. 423–427.
15. Carolyn Pfeiffer Bradshaw, interview by the author, March 20, 2009. Ms. Bradshaw confirmed that she and her late husband, Jon, were very close friends of Timothy and Barbara Leary and that they spent a great deal of time together.
16. Leary, interview. See also Timothy Leary, “The Murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer,” premier issue, Rebel: A Newsweekly with A Cause, no. 1 (January 1984): pp. 44–49. In addition, author Carol Felsenthal covers this topic thoroughly in her book Power, Privilege, and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1993.)
17. In Leo Damore’s possession were two letters/reports from investigator William Triplett. The first was dated “14 December 1983” and was eight single-spaced typewritten pages in length. It was addressed to “Timothy Leary P.O. Box 69886, Los Angeles, CA. 90069.” The second letter/report was dated “5 January 1984” and was six pages in length. Sometime in early 1991, Damore com
municated with Triplett, who responded to Damore in a letter dated March 7, 1991, in which he verified his previous work with Timothy Leary. Copies of all three letters are currently in my possession.
18. Robert Greenfield, interview by the author, January 23, 2009.
19. Ibid.
20. Leary, interview. Damore followed up with Leary in several telephone calls over the next two-plus years into March 1993, as his notes indicate, with regard to specific questions that arose from the initial interview in 1990.
21. Timothy Leary’s relationship with Cord Meyer was also documented by Leary biographer Robert Greenfield, who told me that Leary’s secretary in Berkeley verified this when he interviewed her. Greenfield, interview.
22. Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, interview by the author, March 16, 2009.
23. Leary, interview.
24. Ibid.
25. Peter Janney letter to Anne Chamberlin, January 27, 2009.
26. Anne Chamberlin letter to Peter Janney, February 5, 2009.
27. C. David Heymann, A Woman Named Jackie (New York: Carol Communications, 1989), p. 375. In a letter to Leo Damore dated July 3, 1990, Heymann wrote, “I also interviewed people like Mary’s sister, Tim Leary and others who knew her [Mary Meyer].”
28. I could locate no interview with Timothy Leary, Tony Bradlee, or James Angleton in any of the material that C. David Heymann had provided to the Special Collections and University Archives at SUNY–Stony Brook’s Memorial Library.
29. Heymann, Woman Named Jackie, p. 651. In his notes for Chapter 22, Heymann stated that he had interviewed “James Angleton,” but provided no citation as to the date or location of such interview. Recently, much of Heymann’s so-called research has met with increasing criticism, questioning its veracity. See, for instance, Lisa Pease’s review of Heymann’s book Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story (2009) at Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination, www.ctka.net/reviews/heymann.html.
30. Leary, interview.
31. Ibid.
32. Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, p. 341–38.
33. In a letter dated March 10, 1983, Jim Truitt’s second wife, Evelyn Patterson Truitt, told author Anthony Summers the following: “My husband’s files [James McConnell Truitt] were all stolen by an ex-CIA agent, Herbert Barrows. I called the F.B.I. but don’t know what happened to his 30 years of carefully kept records.”