One of the major leaps toward national fascination where this subject is concerned happened in the 1970s with a lavish Marilyn Monroe biography by Norman Mailer that actually involved the Kennedys in her death and, for the first time, linked Marilyn with Bobby. Of course, rumors about whether or not Marilyn had been murdered didn’t begin in the 1970s. Michael Selsman put it this way: “The rumor that Marilyn had been murdered happened immediately after she died. Within five minutes of her body being found. The first thought was, ‘Is there a movie in this?’ That’s this town [Hollywood].” When this writer spoke to Mailer, though, he indicated that he wasn’t proud of his murder theory. “Not my best work,” he said of his book, “and not my best research. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have allowed its publication.” He’d also said that he “needed the money” and that this was why he allowed to be published details about Marilyn and the Kennedys that were not verified, and that have gone on to be considered fact. That’s difficult to believe of a gifted Pulitzer Prize winner, yet apparently true. After Mailer’s book was published another came forth from syndicated gossip columnist Earl Wilson, which was the first to formally reveal that Marilyn and JFK had been in a sexual relationship. That work opened the floodgates, and since that time there have been many, many books whose premise has been different variations on the Kennedy theme. Truly, stories involving Marilyn and the Kennedys have been circulating for many decades.
Also being written about for just about as long as Marilyn has been dead are the many different tapes that supposedly exist implicating people in her death. If one is to believe all that has been published in the last few decades—and entire books have been published based on these supposed recordings—poor Marilyn was being bugged by everyone from the Teamsters, the FBI, the CIA, Howard Hughes, the Kennedys, and the Mafia to her own movie studio, 20th Century-Fox. The woman must have had so many different wires and recording devices in her homes, it’s a wonder she was able to get a decent radio or TV signal. Even her answering service was supposedly tapped. She wasn’t the only one, of course. Peter and Pat Lawford, the Kennedys, Frank, Sammy, Dean… all of them were supposedly also the subject of wiretapping that resulted in audio documentation of a plethora of shocking secrets. There’s even supposed to be a tape recording of Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy having a violent argument just hours before her death over a diary in which she supposedly kept all of the secrets of state revealed to her by the Kennedy brothers. “I want that diary, Marilyn. And now, damn it!” Yet, in almost fifty years, not one single tape has ever seen the light of day.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how many people claim to have heard these tapes—and there are dozens—until the rest of us have the opportunity to do so, they simply don’t matter. “You could hear the voices of Marilyn and JFK,” Peter Lawford supposedly said of one of the tapes, “in addition to Marilyn and RFK. In both cases you could make out the muted sounds of bedsprings and the cries of ecstasy. Marilyn, after all, was a master of her craft.” Ignoring the fact that Lawford would never have made such comments—not to mention that the notion of a ménage à trois between Marilyn and the Kennedy brothers is preposterous—it’s at long last time to accept the truth: These tapes do not exist.
THE FBI’S FILES ON MARILYN
In October 2006, under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI released a number of new files on Marilyn Monroe, referenced in the text of this book. One is truly extraordinary and has to do with Marilyn Monroe and Bobby Kennedy. This three-page document—called simply “Robert F. Kennedy” and referenced in this book’s chapter “Were Marilyn and Bobby ‘The New Item’?”—has never before been mentioned, despite hundreds of articles, books, and documentaries about Marilyn Monroe’s death. It was written by an unnamed “former special agent” supposedly working for the then governor of California, Democrat Pat Brown, and forwarded to Washington by Curtis Lynum, then head of the San Francisco FBI. Though this paperwork is like all of the FBI’s documentation of Marilyn and the Kennedys in that it can’t be substantiated—and this one even states that the source of the information is unknown and the information can’t be verified—it was circulated to the FBI’s most senior officers, including Director J. Edgar Hoover’s right-hand man, Clyde Tolson. Despite its specious nature, it’s interesting just by virtue of the fact that this report—classified for decades—was written and filed back on October 19, 1964, years before people started gossiping that the Kennedys may have had something to do with Marilyn’s death.
As earlier stated, this file announces that Marilyn and Bobby were having a “romance and sex affair” and that Bobby promised to divorce Ethel and marry Marilyn. However, according to the report, she soon figured out that he was lying. At this same time, according to the report, “Marilyn also had an intermittent lesbian affair with [name deleted] while Robert Kennedy was carrying on his sex affair with Marilyn Monroe,” and also “on a few occasions John F. Kennedy came out and had sex parties with [name deleted] actress.” Moreover, “During the period of time that Robert Kennedy was having his sex affair with Marilyn Monroe, on one occasion a sex party was conducted at which several other persons were present. Tape recording was secretly made and is in the possession of a Los Angeles private detective agency. The detective wants $3000 for a certified copy of the recording, in which all the voices are identifiable.”
The details in the paperwork continue by stating that Marilyn began to call RFK “person-to-person” to complain to him about her problems with Fox and the ill-fated movie Something’s Got to Give. Bobby “told her not to worry about the contract—he would take care of everything.” Later, they had “unpleasant words” and she became upset and “threatened to make public their affair.” The report continues, “On the day that Marilyn died, Robert Kennedy was in town and checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel. By coincidence, this is across the street from the house in which a number of years earlier his father, Joseph Kennedy, had lived for a time, common-law, with Gloria Swanson.”
Moreover, the document maintains that Peter Lawford made “special arrangements” with Marilyn’s psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson—who, it says, was treating her to “get her off of barbiturates”—to give her sixty tablets of Seconal on her last visit to him, “unusual in quantity especially since she saw him frequently.” (Note: The truth is that the day before her death she was given Nembutal, not Seconal, and twenty-four of them, not sixty, and by Dr. Engelberg, not Dr. Greenson.) It says that “Peter Lawford knew from Marilyn’s friends that she often made suicide attempts and that she was induced to fake a suicide attempt in order to arouse sympathy.”
The report states that Marilyn’s publicist, Pat Newcomb, and her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, conspired with Peter Lawford and Dr. Greenson “in a plan to induce suicide.” (In return for her assistance, Newcomb was “put on the federal payroll.”) The report suggests that the principals deliberately gave Marilyn the means to fake another suicide attempt by making sure—via Eunice Murray—that the pills were on her nightstand before she went to bed. It’s not clear why they believed she would want to try to kill herself that night, but the implication is that they were going to do or say something that would drive her to want to at least act as if she were going to kill herself, and then “[she] expected to have her stomach pumped out and get sympathy for her suicide attempt.” But this time, she was allowed to die rather than be saved just in time, as had often happened in the past. After the deed was done, RFK telephoned Peter Lawford “to find out if Marilyn was dead yet.” It goes on to state that Joe DiMaggio knew exactly what was going on but was powerless to stop it; he “is reported to have stated that when Robert Kennedy gets out of office, he intends to kill him.”
Bits and pieces and different variations of the above scenario have appeared in a number of books and magazine articles over the years having to do with Marilyn’s death, but none of it is verifiable. Still, it’s very interesting that what was once just gossiped about by secondhand sources and then reported by
a slew of biographers turns out to actually be material found in the FBI files. It does give all of those who believe that RFK was involved in the death of Marilyn Monroe a little more certainty in their beliefs.
So, what does all of this mean? Unfortunately, not much. There are a couple of possible scenarios as to why the report exists in the FBI files. It’s well known that J. Edgar Hoover strongly resented Bobby Kennedy and perhaps intended to use the report to discredit him at some point along the way, maybe before the 1968 election. One wonders, though, what might have happened if the document had been leaked in 1968. It might have done some damage just by virtue of the fact that it’s an FBI document. But how seriously anyone would have taken it given its gossipy nature—and the fact that it’s not sourced at all—is questionable. What’s laughable is that the report refers to all of the principal players by their first names; the document reads as if it were written by a Hollywood gossip columnist.
In truth, if in 1965 the FBI truly believed that Robert Kennedy, Peter Lawford, Eunice Murray, and Pat Newcomb conspired in the death of Marilyn Monroe, wouldn’t they all have been charged? Obviously, that never happened. Was it because the FBI didn’t believe its own files?
Also very interesting is that this latest Marilyn Monroe release from the FBI refers to a “sex tape” supposedly featuring Marilyn Monroe. The memo is titled “interstate transportation of obscene matter.” It says, “[Deleted]… at his office ran a French-type movie which depicted Marilyn Monroe, deceased actress, in unnatural acts with an unknown male. [Deleted] informed them he had obtained this film prior to the time Monroe achieved stardom and that subsequently Joe DiMaggio attempted to purchase this film for $25,000. This information should not be discussed outside the bureau.”
In April 2007, someone—not named by any news reports—supposedly purchased this fifteen-minute tape (which allegedly shows Marilyn having oral sex with an unidentified male) for $1.5 million. The anonymous purchaser is quoted by the person who says he brokered the deal—someone named Keya Morgan who was apparently making a documentary about Marilyn—as saying he would not release the tape, and that he only bought it to keep it out of circulation because he is trying to protect Monroe’s legacy. Likely, though, it won’t be shown because it does not exist. The timing is just too convenient. It’s likely that someone came up with the idea of saying that the video described in the latest FBI document actually exists and, not only that, was just purchased? What was the intent of doing such a thing? Who knows? In truth, though, not one shred of evidence has been brought forth to prove that the sale was even made—no seller has been named, no buyer identified, no receipt either. Yet the story received national attention, demonstrating if nothing else that the public’s hunger for interesting stories about Marilyn Monroe has never waned. However, like all of the other audio- and videotapes of Marilyn Monroe supposedly having intimate encounters with the Kennedys or others, if this one ever actually surfaces it’ll be a first.
THE JOHN MINER TRANSCRIPTS
John Miner, now about ninety years old, is the former deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County and the founder and head of the medical-legal section of that office. He claims to have heard hours of secret tapes of psychiatric sessions between Marilyn and Dr. Ralph Greenson, and while doing so took copious, “nearly verbatim” notes—many, many pages—reconstructing word for word every statement she made during the sessions. Entire books have been based on these notes, which include in-depth and very personal comments from Marilyn about her affairs with both Kennedys, her sex life, her career aspirations, and so on. This writer spent six hours with Miner and reviewed all of his handwritten notes.
“You are the only person who will ever know the most private, the most secret thoughts of Marilyn Monroe,” she told Greenson, according to Miner’s transcript. “I have absolute confidence and trust you will never reveal to a living soul what I say to you.” Would Marilyn really speak like that? Would she really find it necessary to make such statements to a doctor she had been seeing almost every day?
Miner says, “I kept my promise to Dr. Greenson to respect the confidentiality of his interview with me and the contents of Miss Monroe’s tapes, I kept that promise in spite of incredible pressures from reporters, authors, and official investigators to relate this information. It is only after [authors] Donald Spoto, Marvin Bergman, and others accused Dr. Greenson of being responsible in some way for causing Marilyn Monroe’s death that I approached Dr. Greenson’s widow to ask for a release from my promise to her husband. She wishes to do whatever is possible to clear his name and granted my request.”
Miner’s explanation that he reconstructed his copious notes from memory is troubling. It takes a leap of faith to believe his verbatim recollection of so many quotes. Here, he provides a synopsis of what he says he heard on these tapes:
“She explains that she has recorded her free associating (saying whatever comes into her mind; a necessary technique used in psychoanalytic therapy) at home because she could not do it in office sessions. She hoped this would assist in her treatment. And she believes that she has discovered a means of overcoming the resistance which patients have in being unable to comply with the psychiatrist’s request to free associate because the mind becomes a blank.
“She tells how she plans to become the highest paid actress in Hollywood so that she can finance everything that she wants to do.
“She says that she aspires to do Shakespeare and that she will pay Lee [Strasberg] to coach her in Shakespeare as his only student for one year.
“Laurence Olivier, she says, had agreed to polish her Shakespearean training after Strasberg finished, and she would pay him whatever he asked.
“She says she would pay Dr. Greenson to be his only patient while she was undergoing the instruction in Shakespeare.
“She says that when she is ready she would produce and act in all of the Shakespeare plays that she would put in film under the rubric Marilyn Monroe Shakespeare Festival.
“For those many writers who maintain that she was going to blow the whistle on JFK about their sexual relationship, she shoots down such speculation when she expresses utmost admiration for the President and explicitly says she would never embarrass him.
“Her remarks disprove those who claim that she killed herself because Robert Kennedy broke off their relationship because it was she who broke it off.
“She strongly asserted that she wanted to rid herself of Eunice Murray, her housekeeper, and requested Dr. Greenson’s assistance in so doing.
“She says that she never had an orgasm before becoming Dr. Green-son’s patient but that he had cured her of that infirmity for which was she was forever grateful.”
John Miner maintains that Marilyn was murdered with a lethal enema of Nembutal, which he believes was administered by housekeeper Eunice Murray—who, oddly, was doing the laundry when the police arrived in the middle of the night. It’s been maintained by many people that Eunice Murray customarily gave Marilyn Monroe enemas. (Why? Isn’t this something a woman would want to do for herself? Is a housekeeper really necessary for this kind of duty?)
The bigger question, perhaps, is: Why would Marilyn Monroe have had to explain the background and history of each person mentioned in her long narrative, editorializing as if she and Dr. Greenson had never met? She had been seeing him almost every day.
It would seem that John Miner, a very nice, congenial man, would have no reason to lie. It therefore comes down to a simple matter of choice as to whether or not a reporter feels he can rely on his notes. In fact, no one has ever heard these tapes, other than John Miner—not even Ralph Greenson’s wife or children. John Miner believes that Greenson, who died in 1979, destroyed all of the tapes. In other words, there is one and only one source for all of this information… and, believe him or not, that’s John Miner.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE AUTHOR’S SUPPORT TEAM
During the course of years of production on a book such as The Secret Li
fe of Marilyn Monroe, many people become invested in the project, from researchers and investigators to copy editors and fact checkers to designers, publicists, and, yes, even attorneys. My colleagues at Grand Central Publishing have always made it possible for me to utilize all of the resources available to me—no matter how complex the working situation or how many people necessary to complete the task at hand. In fact, an author could not ask for a better and more nurturing environment than the one I have been so fortunate to have at Grand Central for the last ten years of my career. In short, it’s been terrific. As with all of my books, this one is a collaborative effort. None of it would be possible, though, without my publisher at Grand Central, Jamie Raab. As a publisher—and an editor—she is without peer. I want to thank her for her patience and trust in me as she shepherded this project along for the last couple of years. She had to make more than a few concessions for me along the way with this work, and she always did so happily. What more can an author ask for? Thanks also to Jamie’s wonderful assistants, Sharon Krassney and Sara Weiss. I would also like to thank Frances Jalet-Miller for her conscientious work on this book and for helping me to shape its story. I really appreciate her help so much and look forward to working with her again. Interior production of this book was handled by Tom Whatley; the amazing jacket was designed by Flamur Tonuzi, with print coordination handled by Antoinette Marotta. I thank them all, and thanks also to Anne Twomey. Special thanks also to Bob Castillo for his work in managing editorial, to my able copy editor, Roland Ottewell, and proofreaders Richard Willett and Lisa Nicholas.
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe Page 52