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The Kennedy Curse, Part 9
2 Plays3 seconds ago
Today, we are continue talking about Jack's philandering during his time in the White House. We talk about the deaths of both Marilyn Monroe and Mary Pinchot Meyers, and how those deaths are linked to the Kennedy curse.
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates, RFK Jr.: The Rise and Fall by Vincent Isabel
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Preview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. We are here this week with part two of the episode we started last week that we were very ambitious and thought we could make into one episode, but you know what?
00:00:15
Speaker
It's all right. means you get more content this week. And we will be back next week and we're going to start looking at some of the players around the assassination of JFK. So hopefully you will come back and join us then. Enjoy this week's episode.
Marilyn Monroe's Affairs and Hollywood Life
00:00:38
Speaker
Well, let's talk about the biggest affair, question mark, we still don't know 100% for sure, but we're goingnna we're going to roll with it, Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys. We're going to mostly right now talk about ah Jack and Marilyn. We're going to talk about Bobby a little bit, but when we do the Bobby episodes, I'll get into that a little bit more. um She was rumored to have affairs with both men.
00:01:02
Speaker
So as we get into this, remember, the Kennedy men had a familial commitment to objectifying women, fascination with fame in Hollywood. Jack's father, Joe Sr., had a long affair with actress, I almost said Gloria Allred, that's wrong, Gloria Swanson.
00:01:20
Speaker
And he loved people knowing about his affair with this glamorous starlet. Jack also loved Hollywood gossip, probably like we all do.
00:01:31
Speaker
And again, I feel like Peter Lawford, he was a good connection there. Yep. That connection as well, yeah. So actress Marilyn Monroe died at the age of 36 after A Tumultuous Life.
00:01:44
Speaker
She married Joe DiMaggio in January 1954. Okay. step Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm going to go back to DiMaggio, but I'm going to inject here into a tumultuous life.
00:01:56
Speaker
Okay. So, yeah yeah. I mean, I just want to look a little bit more into Marilyn Monroe and what her early life was back. I mean, I've seen it, but you know she had a childhood that was marked by instability. They were Poor. She spent time in foster care. Her mother struggled with mental issues and was in and out of institutions. This was a troubled young girl.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah. She married her neighbor, James Doherty, at the age of 16, just to avoid going back into foster care. And i was so I was learning about her. They kept using the description. They kept calling her a waif.
00:02:31
Speaker
And I always do, I mean, i I'm familiar with the word, but, and I always do think of it to me, like, you know, thin, fragile, undernourished. Almost like fairy-like, I think too. Like kind that like ethereal, like quirky girl type of thing. Yes, yes.
00:02:50
Speaker
But when I looked it up and I realized the definition, it it also like expands to like include like astray, abandoned, alone in the world. um And emotionally fragile. I think we knew that. To me, that just helped epitomize and explain Marilyn Monroe's like desperate need for attention, especially for men. um She never knew her father. um and and And I don't even know if like attention is the right word as much as like acceptance. And feeling cared for. Yeah, yeah.
Monroe and JFK: A Brief Affair
00:03:24
Speaker
So Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio in January 1954 and filed for divorce from him October 1954. And I think that was rumored or known to be a pretty tumultuous situation. Incredibly tumultuous. Yeah. Yeah. ah If not abusive.
00:03:42
Speaker
I think it was definitely abusive. um And he still kind of portrays himself after she died as like being a protector to her. um And I, yeah, I don't know. It's a weird dynamic.
00:03:57
Speaker
So actor Peter Lawford introduced Marilyn to Jack in 1954. Now let it be known there are rumors that maybe they did know each other. When they were younger, yeah just like before Jack was like well-known at all, um they may have run in – Yeah. You know, especially in California, nobody knew about Jack. Unsubstantially. And we will talk about these – Peter Lawford again, like i said, more. But Peter Lawford and Pat Kennedy had these like lavish Hollywood parties out in Hollywood And so Jack loved these parties because he liked to he liked being around the famous people.
00:04:38
Speaker
And they were like neighbors? Lived in the same area, right, as Marilyn? Yeah. I think the Malibu-ish area, maybe? I think so. I think so. I don't know.
00:04:50
Speaker
So Jack was very taken at first, but very quickly he grew tired of her and introduced her to his brother Bobby. Now, Marilyn always would see Bobby as the better version of Jack.
Monroe, Arthur Miller, and FBI Surveillance
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, actually her relationship with Jack was actually relatively fleeting as much as we hear about it and know about it. and You know, as we just talked about his relationship with Diana and Mimi that lasted years, really with Marilyn, it wasn't, it didn't go on for all that long. The actual affair. um with Bobby, it was like a more intense, intense,
00:05:26
Speaker
Like more um emotional, but timeless relationship. However, yeah it's less documented and actually less fully understood. Yes. Yeah.
00:05:37
Speaker
So she, Marilyn was always trying to be the woman that they wanted her to be. And both men were easily able to manipulate her. In 1955, Marilyn began undergoing psychoanalysis.
00:05:50
Speaker
When her divorce was finalized in October 1954, I think the year was, I think I put the year wrong. She began a serious relationship with playwright Arthur Miller.
00:06:02
Speaker
Arthur Miller had been investigated by the FBI for communism allegations. So this was the time of like the Red Scare, of the McCarthy hearings, and Everybody losing their ever-loving minds, accusing specifically public figures of being communists and spying on the country and all those exciting things. So Arthur Miller was la was put into that group of of celebrities. So Marilyn actually defied her studio and maintained her relationship with him. They were afraid she was going to get pulled into that all the things as well. i think he considered her kind of the love of her life.
00:06:38
Speaker
Maybe he maybe maybe maybe for shark at one point he considered her. All of them, but yeah. Yes. Marilyn
Monroe's Vulnerabilities and Pressures
00:06:45
Speaker
and Arthur got married on June 29, 1956.
00:06:50
Speaker
During their marriage, she suffered a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy. She desperately wanted to be a mother. Both losses were likely caused by endometriosis.
00:07:02
Speaker
which I have, not to brag, hey ah after the loss that she was hospitalized due to a barbiturate overdose.
00:07:13
Speaker
So I just wanted to look ah talk a little bit more about like the FBI files and the communism thing at this point. yeah um So as it turns out, you know, some since yeah in the meantime, and we've now had some some files, FBI files released on Marilyn. And what we found out is that the files on her started in 1955 when she was being monitored for her connections to communism.
00:07:40
Speaker
And it was mostly through like her personal associations and travels. The Bureau never found that she was a member of the communist party. um But obviously, you know, you have the connection yeah with Arthur Miller. And then when she is,
00:07:57
Speaker
becomes close to the president of the United States, um, and the attorney general, it's it's acknowledged. like Okay. This is a security risk. um This was at the height of the- I don't think we've mentioned that Jack's brother, Bobby, was the attorney general.
00:08:11
Speaker
Just making sure making it sure i that's in there too. all I talk about it a ton in those later episodes, but we should probably mention it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, we have her close to the president, Jack.
00:08:22
Speaker
And then, yeah we yeah, as you said, we haven't mentioned that Bobby was the attorney general as actually ah during the presidency. So she's Into some she's having some talks with some of these communists. I mean, she's definitely friendly with some people who are known in the communist circles.
00:08:38
Speaker
um And so, yeah, security risk. So and then this was the height of the Cold War. And the president was just like consumed with all with the threats, especially with the regime in Cuba.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, so this was, you know, like probably one of the most sensitive times in in history with ah with nuclear matters. And Marilyn was apparently at like having some sensitive conversations with the president. Think about Marilyn is one, I think she was more intelligent than people gave her credit for it. But she was also, yeah, she was very interested. She wanted to have she wanted to have educated conversations. Um, she wanted to have him with the president. And so she was trying to understand the things he was going through. Well, in doing that, right. You're talking about maybe some really sensitive topics. 100%. So there, like there was a report that detailed like a lunch conversation, um at, at the beach house with JFK. Yeah. And during that lunch, nuclear matters, nuclear testing was discussed. Yeah. Marilyn was very pleased as she asked the president a lot of socially significant questions concerning the morality of atomic testing. So yeah, she was trying to show her her knowledge. But that meeting was three months before the Cuban Missile
Monroe's Political Interests and Cold War Ties
00:09:54
Speaker
Crisis. um And discussing nuclear matters at that time during around ah around a horrendous international crisis, um if anything would have gotten out about that, it would have been enormously damaging to the Kennedys. yeah So there was multiple claims that, yeah, Monroe overheard president the president discussing nuclear testing, covert national security matters, even crashed spacecraft. And, you know, these were kind of all in conspiracy theories and sensational biographies. So must say that no credible historical evidence or declassified documents has ever officially supported these things.
00:10:39
Speaker
accusations And again, if we're talking about like whether we believe or not, I think it's somewhere in between. I mean, I dig him. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. Moving on.
00:10:50
Speaker
Well, Marilyn and Arthur would clash professionally. that He wrote something that she acted in and it got very contentious.
00:11:01
Speaker
And they would go on to divorce in January of 1961. Yeah.
00:11:06
Speaker
She actually filed for divorce, and that filing was on the day that Jack was inaugurated. Whether that was intentional or not, who knows? But Jack had basically ghosted her during the presidential campaign, but she still, like, held this flame and believed him when he said she would leave Jackie for her.
00:11:27
Speaker
she She believed that she would be the first lady during his second term. So around this time, she had started suffering from gallstones and kind of like Jack was on a lot of medications, but she she developed addictions to a number of the medications and it was getting worse as well.
00:11:45
Speaker
She would go on to have a surgery for her endometriosis and gallbladder problems. And also around this time, she went on to admit herself to a hospital for depression.
00:11:56
Speaker
This was a horrific hospitalization. She was first accidentally placed on a ward for people with really intense mental health struggles like psychosis. And she was locked in a padded cell for three days because to keep her safe, I believe, until they figured out where to put her. And I just can't – like, you're Marilyn Monroe and they put you in the wrong place.
00:12:17
Speaker
Like, ugh. Yeah.
The Kennedys' Distance and Monroe's 'Happy Birthday' Performance
00:12:18
Speaker
Joe DiMaggio intervened and he helped have her move. And it's with this that they developed kind of like they rekindled a relationship, but it was a friendship. I think she she accepted his help and made her feel safe again.
00:12:36
Speaker
After this, she went on to date Frank Sinatra for several months. Marilyn's psychiatrist was concerned that she was in over her head with these powerful men, including Sinatra.
00:12:47
Speaker
The psychiatrist was trying to get her to end things with all of these men, but she valued when she was with them. She felt important. She felt valued and cared for. i think this is a time when Marilyn, she had a very unique, ah very close relationship with her psychiatrist. Yeah.
00:13:06
Speaker
You know, that some have questioned the ethics of. Some have like like implied that it was cross the bounds between them romantically. but Well, even some of his family believed that they were having an affair. Yeah. It was a different type of relationship. She was also close to his family, though, additionally. Yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
Anyway, if you yeah the if you listen to the mar and Marilyn Monroe tapes on Netflix, they really get into that relationship. And and it is really interesting. interesting I don't know. Yeah. He did look out for her, but I don't know. i don't it It feels like it was in the same way that all of these men, quote, looked out for her, you know? So it's hard to – I don't know the intentions because he was crossing yeah professional boundaries no matter what they were. For Yeah.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah. So while Marilyn felt valued when she was with these men, she felt worthless when they would inevitably always go back to their wives. So there are actually only four absolutely 100% confirmed meetings between Jack and Marilyn.
00:14:11
Speaker
Most of the alleged interactions took place at Peter and Patricia Kennedy's Santa Monica Beach House. um And this is both of ah RFK and JFK. Most of the interactions with both brothers both of the brothers were at Peter Lawford and Pat Kennedy's home.
00:14:27
Speaker
First of the two meetings were at parties. We talked about these these lavish parties that they had. The third meeting was at their home again. And Marilyn and Jack shared a bedroom at this meeting.
00:14:42
Speaker
party gathering. i don't know if they were there on like a long weekend or something like that. I can't remember. And if there was a sexual encounter, this may have been the only one. And the fourth meeting was Jack's birthday gala at Madison Square Garden, where she famously sang happy birthday, Mr. President, in that very slinky, stunning, gold, sparkly dress.
00:15:08
Speaker
And it's said at this time that he was actually a little embarrassed. Yeah. By that display. And that Jackie refused to go altogether. Yep. She was unraveling and it was starting to show in her career. The Kennedys knew it as well and they started trying to really distance themselves.
00:15:27
Speaker
Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn's other close friends knew both Bobby and Jack were using her. yeah Actually, according to several biographies, Of course, Jackie was aware of the affair. And it was said that Marilyn has had even called Jackie directly. Yeah.
00:15:45
Speaker
There's been different reports on what this conversation was about, but it was definitely talking about, you know, her affair with with Jack.
00:15:56
Speaker
and And Jackie knew all about
Jackie Kennedy's Awareness of Affairs
00:15:59
Speaker
I should say all that. She knew about many of JFK's women. And although, you know, the affairs obviously upset her, but at some point, as we said, she was kind of willing to turn a blind eye as long as they didn't publicly embarrass her.
00:16:13
Speaker
But the relationship with with Monroe bothered her the most. It was a public embarrassment. yeah It was in the, people knew about it. It was public. And also because Marilyn was kind of a loose cannon who would who could go public at any time. know She was emotional emotionally fragile. and And this could cause a scandal that would obliterate her husband's reputations.
00:16:37
Speaker
destroy her marriage and like put her up for public ridicule. She also is said to have like really cared somewhat about Marilyn's like fragile state and what she would, what she might even do to herself and, you know, and told Jack, this is different. This is different from the others. So, but Marilyn like knew her career was fading and he really thought Kennedy was going to marry her. And actually it's written written.
00:17:03
Speaker
that ah Marilyn actually told a friend, can't you just see me as the first lady? Anderson even says Monroe actually called Jackie and told her of JFK's promise to marry her. And Jackie was unfazed by this saying, it is reported, Marilyn, you'll marry Jack. That's great.
00:17:26
Speaker
And you'll move into the White House and you'll assume the responsibilities of the first lady and I'll move out and you'll have all the problems. yeah Well, she would drink and take pills any time Bobby returned to Ethel.
00:17:39
Speaker
And Jack would even fly in to see her just to kind of keep her in his grasp, kind of like he was doing with Mimi giving gifts. As I said, on May 19th, 1962, Marilyn famously sang Happy Birthday, Mr. President on stage at Madison Square Garden.
00:17:56
Speaker
And with this, the world knew about their affair. Jack was really impulsive and careless with Marilyn Jackie gave him an ultimatum about her, saying she would leave him if he didn't end things.
00:18:08
Speaker
He agreed and kind of pushed her back to Bobby. And Bobby kind of, i don't even want to say took the bait because that sounds weird. I just can't think of another way to say it. But he was, of the two men, he was, he had a bigger heart. He was more kind.
00:18:23
Speaker
So he kind of like almost took responsibility for her. in a certain way. Different Kennedy wives and sisters would try to tell Marilyn to forget about the entire family.
00:18:34
Speaker
She would tell Peter Lawford that she had been used up and discarded by Jack and Bobby. so she's really spiraling and the Kennedys aren't making it any better. The day before Marilyn died, Bobby was in California visiting family.
00:18:49
Speaker
He went to Marilyn's home kind of like in a rage, and he accused her of using a wiretap to record their conversations. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she was unaware that the FBI and CIA had bugged her phone.
00:19:04
Speaker
And had for a while, I believe. Yeah. Peter Lawford was summoned by one of the parties to try to calm the argument. Bobby was, like, furiously yelling and negotiating to, like, don't release these tapes. And she's going, I don't know what you're talking about.
00:19:22
Speaker
Someone or something was pushed into a wall or onto the floor, and the men both quickly left. At 7.30 p.m., Marilyn called Peter, who was having a party at his house.
00:19:34
Speaker
She gave her regards and said goodbye to him. She had also recently told a friend that she had gotten harassing phone calls telling her to leave Bobby alone.
Monroe's Last Days and Suspicious Death
00:19:44
Speaker
And that there are rumors around now that also that she had had an abortion and the baby was Bobby's.
00:19:51
Speaker
We will talk so much more about this part in the Bobby Kennedy episodes, but Bobby had a pretty intense vendetta against Jimmy Hoffa. Bobby, during his time as attorney general, really went after the mafia,
00:20:05
Speaker
And lot of people didn't like him. Fred O'Tash, a former LAPD officer and a private investigator, was hired to investigate Jack, Bobby, and Peter Lawford by Hoffa.
00:20:19
Speaker
He bugged Peter and Marilyn's homes. ah Much of that evidence has been destroyed, of course. He alleges that he still has audio recordings of the night she died.
00:20:30
Speaker
I don't know if I believe that, but they weren't wrong. She was being bugged. And I think she was being bugged by all three FBI, CIA and from the mafia. And from somebody who's already emotionally unstable, can you imagine imagine the paranoia she must have been feeling at this time? Just how crazy you feel.
00:20:50
Speaker
On August 1962, Marilyn's housekeeper Eunice Murray woke up at 3 a.m. and was worried that something was wrong. Marilyn's bedroom light was on, but the door was locked, and she didn't respond to Eunice's knocking. Eunice called Marilyn's psychiatrist, who broke into Marilyn's bedroom through a window, and he found her dead in her bed covered by a sheet with her hand clutching at the telephone receiver.
00:21:18
Speaker
Marilyn's personal doctor, Hyman Engelberg, was called and he arrived and pronounced her dead at 3.50 a.m. The LAPD wasn't notified until 4.25 a.m. She likely died between 8.30 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. on August 4th.
00:21:36
Speaker
Toxicology reports showed that the cause of death was acute barbiturate poisoning. She had 8 milligrams of chloral hydrate and 4.5 milligrams of nembutol in her blood and 13 milligrams of pentobarbital in her liver.
00:21:56
Speaker
Empty medicine bottles were by her bed. And at first, accidental overdose was ruled out because it it didn't appear that she had any, like, lethal levels of the drugs in her system.
00:22:07
Speaker
but But she was combining several different drugs. Was alcohol involved? I'm not sure that that would be fully fair to rule out.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah. yeah They did find, though, that there was no residue of capsules in her system, nor were there injection marks on her body. The pathologist did say that her lower intestines were bruised.
00:22:34
Speaker
This is little graphic, but I'm going say it. There's a theory that the drugs were forcibly administered via suppository or enema in an effort to hide evidence.
00:22:46
Speaker
I don't think they found any um sexual assault, sexual violence evidence on her body. That was really It? L.A. County Coroner's Office teamed up with the L.A. Suicide Prevention Team.
00:23:00
Speaker
They spoke to Marilyn's doctors about her mental health struggles struggles and addiction. This, and there being really no evidence of foul play, led the deputy coroner to classify her death as a probable suicide.
00:23:14
Speaker
The FBI was dispatched to her home in the hours after her death.
Conspiracy Theories and Kennedy Ties to Monroe's Death
00:23:18
Speaker
And I think this is where all the conspiracy stuff happens. Because it's said at this point that they... They cleaned up the house. They got rid of evidence. They. Yep.
00:23:26
Speaker
Anything that connected her to the Kennedys was script. Yeah. Phone records were eliminated, audio recordings, and her diary disappeared, and this is all within 12 hours of her death.
00:23:40
Speaker
Now, everyone close to Marilyn, including Jack and Bobby's brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, blamed Jack and Bobby for her death. Now, when you say that, are they blaming them directly for her death or indirectly, you think? Indirectly.
00:23:56
Speaker
the The emotional damage that they put on her. I mean, some might be saying yeah yeah directly, but my interpretation is indirectly.
00:24:07
Speaker
Joe DiMaggio actually banned Peter Lawford, Jack, and Bobby from attending Marilyn's funeral. Which probably was a blessing in disguise for them. Gave them an out. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah. In the nineteen eighty s ABC developed a miniseries about the Kennedy's relationship with Marilyn and her death, and the special was pulled and never aired.
00:24:31
Speaker
In 1989, her death investigation was reopened, but her cause of death ultimately remained the same. And in September 1996, actress Drew Barrymore appeared on the cover of Jack's son, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s magazine, George, dressed as Marilyn. The caption on the cover was, Happy Birthday, Mr. President.
00:24:54
Speaker
The Kennedys always knew how to use a controversy. Many people have come forward saying that they are the love child of Marilyn and Jack. So they're even like even the massive cover up over just rumors like that could have gotten out and damaged the Kennedys.
00:25:11
Speaker
True or not, like these love love child abortions, all the things, if if even if they're not remotely true, that was enough of a fear that the Kennedy fixers were.
00:25:23
Speaker
We're like, we're just keeping it all quiet. Fair enough. Yeah. Nothing's getting out. So what do you think? I don't know. um I think and it's just like, I don't think the intestines thing is weird to me, but she also had a lot of addiction stuff and, and those substances do a number on your body in weird ways that might be deciphered differently. Now I think she likely it was either a suicide or an accidental overdose.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. with you on that. Yeah. Not sure which of the two. No, I'm not either. And I do think it was a night, an emotional, I think there was a lot of emotional things happening that night that we may not fully know all about. Yes, absolutely. That spurred whatever this spiral that she took and ended up, it her trying to work through it with the with the drugs. Yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
Whichever way. Right. Right. and And then add just the the layer of like the most powerful people in the country are all swirling around. Right.
00:26:26
Speaker
Right. Well, let's talk about we're going to talk about one last affair. And this turns into a true crime story. We're going to talk about Mary Pinchot Meyer.
00:26:39
Speaker
Mary was a painter from Washington, D.C. Jack and Mary had met in high school. World War II sent Jack overseas and married to Vassar.
Mary Pinchot Meyer: Background and CIA Connections
00:26:49
Speaker
She graduated from Vassar and became a journalist. And she was a member of the American Labor Party, which I think is akin to close to a socialist thing, perhaps an actual socialist organization. I can't remember if it was just like hovering around it.
00:27:07
Speaker
She married Cord Meyer in 1945.
00:27:12
Speaker
Both were vocal pacifists and believers in one-world government. In 1951, Cord was recruited for the CIA. And at the time, the CIA was still doing like off-the-book stuff and being led by Alan Dulles, who is a really terrible guy linked with the dropping of the atomic bomb. And he was just kind of a, he's a bad guy.
00:27:36
Speaker
And for whom Dulles Airport is named in Washington, D.C. Yeah. Yeah. I think of a more powerful Steve Bannon. Yeah. That seems about right. Cord took the shot because World War II vets were very much drawn to public service after the war. But the dropping of the nuclear bomb was like a psychic break for a lot of them. For them, there was a world before the bomb and after the bomb.
00:28:00
Speaker
And there was a constant fear of Russia getting a hold of the bomb and the U.S. needing to stop them. In 1953, Joseph McCarthy publicly accused Cord of being a communist, and the FBI looked started looking into Mary's past.
00:28:14
Speaker
Just to put a stop to it, in 1954, Cord just began looking for a new job. He was like, we're just done with this. Also in 1954, Jack and Jackie purchased the home next to Cord and Mary's, and the couples became fast friends cord was very competitive with jack and they like the couples like got together with this clique of other couples and this group of women were friends in georgetown whose husbands had been damaged by the war in some way but they also got rich at the same time so they're like it's this weird group that they're like husbands aren't doing great but we got a lot of money now so let's be friends
00:28:54
Speaker
So Jackie would actually seat Mary next to Jack at parties to keep him entertained because they shared a pretty deep intellectual connection. On December 18th, 1956, Mary and Cord's son Michael was hit by a car and died when he was only nine years old.
00:29:10
Speaker
Just a little over two years later, Mary filed for divorce. I don't remember where they were living at the time. They had moved away for a little bit. But after the divorce, Mary and her two children moved back to Georgetown where she started painting again.
00:29:23
Speaker
And she just wanted to have some fun. Like she she married young. She's divorced now. She's kind of wanted to like find herself and and be kind of carefree and yeah, just live a good life.
00:29:36
Speaker
James Angleton, a high ranking CIA official, had wiretapped Mary's phone at this time. He visited her frequently, even taking her sons out for fishing trips. He like got ingratiated into the family when he was ah likely investigating her. okay She kept a really detailed diary about all this.
00:29:56
Speaker
So that's all happening. But also at the same time, she became romantically linked to Jack in October 1961 when she visited him at the White House. Okay.
Meyer's Influence on JFK and Mysterious Murder
00:30:07
Speaker
She had some influence on him regarding, quote, views on nuclear disarmament and...
00:30:13
Speaker
rapprochement with Cuba. Today, some believe that Jack was truly in love with Mary. In October 1963, Jack wrote a letter to Mary asking to meet him for a tryst.
00:30:26
Speaker
The letter remained unsent, but it was written on White House stationery, and it was sold at auction 2016 for just under a year after Jack's death, on October Mary was out for a walk.
00:30:44
Speaker
Mechanic Henry Wiggins heard a woman yell, quote, someone help me, someone help me, and then two gunshots. He saw a black man standing over a white woman's body.
00:30:55
Speaker
It was Mary. Her body had two bullet wounds, one in the left temple and one in her back. ah The wounds appeared to be at close range. and a forensic expert thought that the killer was trained in firearms.
00:31:10
Speaker
40 minutes later, a police detective saw a man named Ray Crump walking away from the murder scene, and he matched Wiggins' description. Just 10 days after this, the Warren Report was released. The Warren Report is a detailed document about JFK's assassination and like what the government actually thought happened. Again, we will get into it deeply.
00:31:36
Speaker
Crump was indicted without an evidentiary hearing. No gun was ever found, and Crump was never linked to the type of gun used in the murder, and there was really no forensic evidence linking him to the scene.
00:31:47
Speaker
Mary's brother-in-law, Ben Bradley, got a call from a CIA official before Mary's body had been identified, saying that he had heard a news report about the murder of a woman on the same path Mary liked to walk on.
00:32:01
Speaker
Ben would later find her purse at home, so she had no identification on her when she died. But the description given on the radio sounded like Mary, which is why Ben got the phone call. Mary's neighbor and close friend brought Ben to the morgue, where he had to identify Mary's body.
00:32:16
Speaker
Kordmeyer would later claim that this series of events happened much faster and identified Mary on that phone call to Ben Bradley, like didn't say somebody who looks like your sister-in-law has been found, but said your sister-in-law Mary has been found.
00:32:32
Speaker
He did take back this statement in 1982, saying he didn't believe any conspiracies around her death. The trial for Crump started in 1965, and this was at the early stages of the heightened racial tension in the country due to the civil rights movement.
00:32:48
Speaker
Crump's attorney struggled finding any information about Mary's life that could be used to defend Crump. Also, um also Crump was physically, like, in stature much smaller than Wiggins had described when he first saw And and Interestingly, the jury was made up of mostly black people.
00:33:07
Speaker
Crump was acquitted on July 29th, 1965, and on paper, the murder is still unsolved. Ben Bradley claimed that when Crump was acquitted, the D.C. police immediately brought Crump to the border of D.C. and Virginia and told him not to not to return.
00:33:23
Speaker
Mary kept a detailed diary of her affair with Jack. That CIA agent James Engleton found the diary and burned it before the trial. No one involved in the case knew that she had ever been involved with Jack.
00:33:35
Speaker
In 1983, former Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary published his autobiography called Flashbacks. He alleged that Mary came to Harvard to learn how to give LSD sessions.
00:33:50
Speaker
Not like have one herself, but to be like the person who like walks people through their sessions on LSD. This is very really random. I know, I know.
00:34:01
Speaker
She wanted to hold LSD sessions with powerful Washington men to enlighten them about peace. She said she was a group of women who wanted to do this. She was very openly critical of the CIA, and to the point that it's alleged that her husband, or her ex-husband, but at the time her husband was tasked with getting her under control.
00:34:21
Speaker
Think Martha Mitchell. who is ah Martha Mitchell is like the spouse of somebody in the Nixon Watergate scandal that for a She was very gregarious. She would speak to media outlets about like the presidency.
00:34:38
Speaker
And then she when she found out about Watergate, she had information. She got basically locked in a hotel room for a week and wasn't allowed to leave. And it was her husband who was like, if she leaves, she's going to the psych ward. So like a powerful man tasked with like reigning in their their excitable wife.
00:34:57
Speaker
Heard that story before. yeah So she became Mary became afraid that like one of the women who were talking about this LSD plan had snitched, and now she and the Harvard professor Leary were in danger.
00:35:12
Speaker
so most believe this is untrue, but there is evidence that she met Leary, and those visits coincided with her meetings with Jack. So I talk all about this. If we want to get conspiracy-y, we will talk a lot about MKUltra,
00:35:29
Speaker
in some of the episodes about both Jack's assassination and Bobby's assassination. And MKUltra was like, proven happened. The CIA was experimenting with drugging people to make them like do their bidding or to see like how they would do if being interrogated, if they were on LSD. Okay.
00:35:51
Speaker
And so there a lot of conspiracies are that Jack's assassin and Bobby's assassin were part of MKUltra. Now you've piqued my conspiracy interest and I'm going have to start looking into this more. I know.
00:36:04
Speaker
i know. I knew you'd like this. Truly, if if like we want to be real, like clear, I think probably the man who was acquitted probably killed her and it has nothing to do with the Kennedys. It has nothing to do with just a random murder.
00:36:22
Speaker
But just some interesting extra things that I thought you'd enjoy. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to me. Yes. Yes. I know what I will be – I know what I'll be reading about tonight.
Conclusion and Future Topics
00:36:32
Speaker
there's little you're There's a lot about MKUltra that will. But we will get into it much, much more when we talk about Lee Harvey Oswald and sir han Sirhan Sirhan. Okay.
00:36:44
Speaker
Is that it for today? That's it for today. You know, we took a little twist at the end, getting a little weird. Yeah, that was a long one. We had a lot to talk about. Yeah. Okay, so what are we talking about next time? So next time we're going to talk about some of the big political things that happened during Jack's presidency. We're going to talk missile crisis. We're going to talk Bay of Pigs. We're going to talk Cold War. um And how some of the fallout from all of those things made a lot of people angry.
00:37:13
Speaker
Okay. So, yeah. Sounds good. a lot of stuff. My throat hurts. yeah I guess having me back and having conversations definitely makes our ah conversations longer. so Yes. Yes. Well, I'm so happy you're back. Thank you. This was fun. Yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
Very much so. Well, guys, we will see you next week. Thanks for joining us, and we'll talk more JFK next time. Goodbye. aye
00:37:50
Speaker
you