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

by Peter Janney

  While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both.76

  So stunned was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev by the magnificence of the Kennedy address, he called it “the greatest of any American President since Roosevelt.” Khrushchev immediately ordered that it be rebroadcast throughout every city in the Soviet Union, an unprecedented event. Three weeks later, on July 4, both Nikita Khrushchev and his colleague Leonid Brezhnev sent President Kennedy a telegram:

  DEAR MR. PRESIDENT, On the occasion of the national holiday of the United States of America—Independence Day—we send to you and the American people our warm congratulations and best wishes for peace and prosperity. In our times—the age of harnessing atomic energy and penetration into the depths of the universe—the preservation of peace has become in truth a vital necessity for all mankind. We are convinced that if the governments of our two countries, together with the governments of other states, displaying a realistic approach, firmly choose the road of elimination of points of international tension and of broadening commercial cooperation, then peoples everywhere will welcome this as a great contribution to the strengthening of universal peace.77

  In spite of Kennedy’s earlier pessimism for a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviets, in the wake of his American University address, “John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev began to act like competitors in peace. They were both turning,” wrote author James Douglass.78 Equally groundbreaking was the speed with which the treaty would be drafted and ratified. The moment had to be seized quickly. Kennedy had asked W. Averell Harriman to lead the American team, but it was the president himself who prepared them, making sure they understood the critical importance of what was about to occur. They were all sworn to confidentiality. Once Harriman arrived in Moscow on July 14, Kennedy would be in contact with him three and four times a day. “Spending hours in the cramped White House Situation Room, Kennedy personally edited the U.S. position, as if he were at the table himself,” said historian Richard Reeves. “The Soviets were astonished when they realized the American President had the power to make decisions on a matter like this without consulting any bureaucracy.”79 That was only because Kennedy had taken matters into his own hands. He well knew such a treaty would never occur had he worked through the national security channels of the CIA and the Pentagon. On July 25, just six weeks after the American University address, Averell Harriman put his initials on the Limited Test Ban Treaty in Moscow. It began with the following commitment: “Each of the Parties to this treaty undertakes to prohibit, to prevent, and not carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion … in the atmosphere, beyond its limits, including outer space, or under water, including territorial waters or high seas.”80

  The following evening, President Kennedy delivered yet another historic address, announcing on American television his delegation’s success in Moscow. “I speak to you tonight in a spirit of hope,” he began. “Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness. Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water…. But the achievement of this goal is not a victory for one side—it is a victory for mankind. A journey of a thousand miles,” the president concluded, “must begin with a single step.”81

  June 10, 1963, had also brought with it a small, private celebration. Just before 8:00 P.M., “at the next to last minute,” with Jackie away at Camp David, Jack decided to stop by Joe Alsop’s house in Georgetown. Opting to just “come for a drink,” the president would stay for more than an hour, as guests for the Alsop’s dinner party began to arrive.82 Mary Meyer was already there. If, as Joe Alsop described it, Jack was “in a gay mood” that early June evening, Mary herself must have been ablaze, and not just because flowers everywhere were coaxing her smile. Jack had now ventured where Cord could never have gone. Her mission had become illuminated into her mosaic—a subliminal “peace song” whose emerging, though still faint, melody had just premiered for all mankind earlier that day.

  During cocktails in the Alsop garden, Mary sat with Jack on one side and Ambassador William Attwood, her former prep school and college beau, on the other. Attwood would recall four years later that on that evening the three of them had turned to the enjoyable recollection of past events, “reminiscing about our school days,” with Mary as his date at Choate, and how Jack “happily recalled having cut in on her on the dance floor…. it was impossible to imagine that, inside of a year,” wrote Attwood, “both of them would be murdered, he in Dallas and she in Georgetown.”83

  However historic and unparalleled, Kennedy’s American University speech became not only a turning point away from Cold War mayhem toward peace, but a watershed moment for the newfound trajectory of his presidency. The very next day, June 11, the president delivered his groundbreaking civil rights address in response to his successful challenge of Alabama governor George Wallace, who had tried, and failed, to prevent two black students from registering at the University of Alabama. In this address, Kennedy revealed the same compassion, warmth, and sensitivity that had been on display a day earlier. He underscored and illuminated that there was a direct link between political equality and freedom and the attainment of world peace. Without the former, there could not be the latter. “This nation,” said the president, “was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” He continued: “The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the State in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about oneseventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.”84

  Kennedy called on “every American, regardless of where he lives, [to] stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents.” Regarding race relations, America was in “a moral crisis as a country and a people,” and he promised to deliver landmark legislation “giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments.” He would instruct the Justice Department “to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education.” Equality and civil rights, the president said, had to begin “in the homes of every American in every community across our country.” But just after midnight on the night of the president’s televised address, Medgar Evers, a prominent leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was shot and killed in his driveway in front of his family by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith.

  During the afternoon of June 12, Mary Meyer called Evelyn Lincoln, the president’s personal secretary, at the White House and was transferred to Jack. They talked for nearly twenty minutes.85 That night, Mary was escorted by her fellow artist Bill Walton to a small dinner party at the White House, hosted by the president and the First Lady. Two nights later, with Jackie at Camp David, Mary returned unescorted to the White House residence.

  On June 26, in the midst of Kennedy’s ten-day trip across Europe, more than a million and a half people in West Berlin’s Rudolph Wilde Platz, adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate, turned out to welcome the American president. It would be the largest crowd that Kennedy would ever address, and he would famously declare, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” (“I am a Berliner!”) Kennedy spoke directly to what the people of a divided Germany wanted to hear. He addressed “the right to be free … the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people.” Five months later, the city of Berlin would honor the slain Amer
ican president by renaming the square in which he had spoken “John F. Kennedy Platz.” He returned from Europe just after two o’clock the morning of July 3. That evening, Mary joined him in the White House residence.86 Seven months pregnant, Jackie had retreated to Hyannis Port for the summer with her two children.

  Sometime in late June, Mary had reportedly returned to Boston and met Timothy Leary at a downtown seafood restaurant. According to Leary’s account, she chided him in a playful manner for having attracted too much publicity in Mexico. “They’re not going to let CBS film you drugging people on a lovely Mexican beach,” she told him. “You could destroy capitalism and socialism in one month with that sort of thing.” Mary was unusually giddy and happy that day, Leary recalled. She talked as if her “program” in Washington had achieved some major goal, and Leary was keen to know more.87

  “Never mind all that,” Mary said, unwilling to disclose details. “While you’ve been goofing around, I’ve been working hard. My friends and I have been turning on some of the most important people in Washington.”88 Again, Mary wouldn’t reveal who these “important people” were; she was always tight-lipped and discreet. Given the timeline, however, it appeared to be another reference to the fact that she and Jack had recently shared a psychedelic experience together. In addition, there was an allusion to someone else, someone other than Jack, and part of the group of “important people,” which will be discussed shortly. Years later, during their 1990 interview, both Leo Damore and Timothy Leary reached a similar conclusion about the identity of this person.89

  August augured an ominous event that might have foreshadowed worse things to come. At the end of June, Washington Post owner-editor Philip Graham had finally broken off his affair with Robin Webb and returned to Chestnut Lodge sanitarium. By all accounts, he had been making solid progress when he left Chestnut Lodge on a weekend pass the morning of August 3 to visit Katharine at their Glen Welby estate in Warrenton, Virginia. Within hours, Phil Graham was dead, a small-bore shotgun wound to the head, an apparent suicide.

  There were conflicting accounts of Graham’s death, just as there had been about his alleged behavior in Phoenix. According to author David Halberstam, everyone he talked to said Phil had been “getting better; everyone thought he was getting better,” and that was why he had been permitted to leave on the weekend. Regarding the circumstances of his death, Halberstam said only that “Kay was in a different room of the house at the time.”90 In Deborah Davis’s 1979 account, Phil and Katharine “spent some time together, and then Katharine took a nap. Phil went downstairs and sat on the edge of the bathtub and shot himself in the head.”91 In Carol Felsenthal’s “thoroughly” vetted book, based on a number of interviews with people close to Katharine, she and Phil “had a happy morning together.” They played tennis and had lunch. In the early afternoon, Phil said he was going bird hunting. Their estate was well stocked with shotguns used for hunting. At about 1:00 P.M., “Kay went to her second-floor bedroom for a nap.” Phil apparently went downstairs to a first-floor bathroom, “sat on the side of the bathtub, propped a.28 gauge shotgun against his head, and pulled the trigger.”92

  According to Katharine Graham’s own 1998 account, the two had lunch on the back porch and then went upstairs together for a nap. There was no mention of Phil talking about going hunting. “After a short while,” wrote Katharine, “Phil got up, saying he wanted to lie down in a separate bedroom he sometimes used. Only a few minutes later, there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off indoors. I bolted out of the room and ran around in a frenzy looking for him. When I opened the door to a downstairs bathroom, I found him.”93

  Whatever inconsistencies in these accounts, the question arose: Had Phil once again shown his brilliance by having fooled the staff of Chestnut Lodge as to how much he was improving while he supposedly masterminded the plan of his own suicide? Yet suicide would nullify the revisions to his will that he had made throughout 1963, cutting out Katharine. Katharine, after Phil’s death, walked away with complete control of the Washington Post and everything else.

  In the three different editions of Deborah Davis’s Katharine the Great, the author never wavered from the view that Phil’s death was a suicide. But in 1992, after the third edition had been published, Davis gave an interview in which she made public the fact that she “got a call from a woman who claimed that she knew for a fact that it [Phil’s death] was murder.”94 To my knowledge, she never followed up on the call. But it coincided with another previously undisclosed piece of this puzzle.

  When Leo Damore talked with Dovey Roundtree in 1991 about Katharine Graham, Roundtree told him that a young black woman attorney by the name of Barbara L. Smith had been working in her office in 1963. Barbara was the granddaughter of William Wadsworth Smith, the caretaker of the Graham’s Glen Welby estate at the time of Phil’s death.95 Dovey and her young colleague Barbara had become quite close, she told Damore; when Barbara’s grandfather died, she asked Dovey to speak at his funeral.

  “I went with Barbara to her grandfather’s funeral, who was buried on a mountain side that Mrs. Graham gave to him when he was a younger person,” recounted Roundtree to Damore. Katharine Graham and one of her sons had attended William’s funeral, and Katharine had also spoken. “She stood in that pulpit, and talked about her love for this man. And the church was quiet [Dovey’s emphasis]. I mean quiet. Not from grief, but quiet.” Not one to confuse important details, Dovey Roundtree confided to Damore that, according to Barbara, Mrs. Graham had called on Barbara’s grandfather “to go upstairs and bring this man [Phil Graham] downstairs. She called to him and he went up and put him in … Barbara tells it … he took him in his arms and brought him down” after he had allegedly shot himself.96 Although there was never a shred of physical evidence that anyone other than Phil had pulled the trigger, questions lingered. Had he been—in some way—”encouraged” to do so? And if so, by whom and for what reason?

  “Anybody can commit a murder, but it takes an expert to commit a suicide,” said legendary CIA asset William (“Bill”) R. Corson, mentor to Roger Charles, an investigative journalist and a former Marine lieutenant colonel, both of whom will figure prominently in a future chapter.97 Corson was never “officially” employed by the CIA, but he often worked closely with Jim Angleton and Robert Crowley, both of whom were deeply ensconced in the Agency’s covert action directorate. The three were also the closest of friends.

  By the early 1960s, the Technical Services Staff (TSS) within the CIA, headed by the infamous Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, had a huge arsenal of drugs and other substances that could be clandestinely administered to unwitting victims to create such states as suicidal depression, brain tumors, cancer, or death from natural causes, leaving no trace of any foreign toxin in the body. Under congressional scrutiny in 1975, CIA director William Colby openly exhibited to Senator Frank Church and his committee a CIA-manufactured pistol equipped with undetectable poison darts that would, when silently fired “without perception” at its intended human target, induce a fatal heart attack, leaving no trace of any toxin. Colby’s sham exhibition was just the tip of the iceberg of the CIA arsenal.98

  Since the 1950s, highly classified CIA programs—with code names such as MKULTRA, Artichoke, Paperclip, MKNAOMI—often utilized psychiatric facilities, including nearby Chestnut Lodge and Sheppard Pratt. The Agency spent untold millions to find and develop drugs and other methods, both conventional and esoteric, to bring people under various states of control. It’s no secret the CIA was interested in all the ramifications of “mind control”—altering, or erasing, or even remaking a subject’s mind in whatever direction the Agency wanted. Mind “erasure” was of paramount importance for CIA personnel who were no longer mentally stable, and at risk of revealing classified information. Another long-standing CIA obsession was to create a “Manchurian candidate”—a project involving the use of hypnosis, drugs, deprivation, or other means as a way to turn an individual into a programmable assassin, even to take his o
wn life.

  If Phil Graham’s death was something other than a suicide, what had been the motive to get rid of him, and who would have benefited? While Phil’s overall prognosis and recovery seemed to have improved by the summer of 1963, his long-term stability remained uncertain. Did that mean there might be more embarrassing episodes of public disclosures about people in high places? Would he still, at some point, attempt to wrest control of the Post away from Katharine? And who would be in charge of the Post’s editorial disposition if Phil was no longer running the paper?

  Sometime after the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, Phil had reportedly had an “acute manic-depressive incident”—prior to his Phoenix, Arizona, outburst in January 1963—during which he had talked openly of “the CIA’s manipulation of journalists” and how they were being used to promote whatever slant the Agency wanted promoted. This finally disturbed him, he reportedly admitted to his friends in the CIA. Increasingly, Graham turned against newsmen and politicians whose code was one of “mutual trust” and silence in order to protect those whose reputations might be compromised by revealing association with the CIA.

  “He had begun to talk, after his second breakdown, about the CIA’s manipulation of journalists,” said author Deborah Davis. “He said it disturbed him. He said it to the CIA.” Word had started to go out that Phil could no longer be trusted. 99

  If Phil Graham made revisions to his will during the last two years of his life, none of them were upheld after his death. His widow immediately assumed the role of publisher of the Post. Katharine reverted to the policies Phil had set in place before his 1961 disenchantment. That included, according to journalist Michael Hasty, “the supporting of efforts of the intelligence community in advancing the foreign policies and economic agenda of the nation’s ruling elites.”100 FAIR news analyst Norman Solomon was even more blunt in 2001 when he wrote: “Her [Katharine Graham’s] newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department and Pentagon.”101 For years after Phil’s death, the Washington Post continued its tack of employing all kinds of well-known propaganda techniques, as Michael Hasty had pointed out: “… evasion, confusion, misdirection, targeted emphasis, disinformation, secrecy, omission of important facts, and selective leaks.” It was therefore no surprise that Katharine Graham, in a speech at the CIA’s Langley headquarters in 1988, said the following: “We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.”102