All the attention Sinatra showered on Monroe instilled confidence in her. She made more effort to take care of herself, losing weight off her hips and derriere, bathing more often and grooming and restoring her dry bleached tresses to their original youthful-looking luster. Frank helped her forget her personal problems. As much as she tried to dismiss Miller and the rage she held from her memory, at times she still missed him.
During the hot summer month of July in Los Angeles, Marilyn ran a high fever and chills. After examination, she was diagnosed as having gallstones, sometimes caused by anemia or diabetes. Monroe had to have her gallbladder removed, and she checked into Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for surgery. Marilyn initially resisted the operation, fearing that the resulting scar across her waistline would forever mar her body. But the doctors refused other means of treatment since her health was in immediate danger. Her physician suggested the gallstones might have been disturbing her health for months or even years. Knowing that all her fevers in the past were real and not just a product of her imagination, as the studio bosses and directors insisted, gave her some consolation.
Sufficiently recovered from the surgery by August, Marilyn accompanied Sinatra with Dean Martin and his wife, Jeanne, on a private cruise. Sinatra quickly grew frustrated with Marilyn’s disorganized planning for the trip. Without her usual staff, she couldn’t get going in the mornings. Monroe wasn’t finding the enjoyment in Sinatra that she had anticipated. She hadn’t brought along her trusty sleeping pills, and without them she found herself unable to sleep. By early morning she was walking the deck asking if anyone happened to have any. Barbiturates were popular at the time, and doctors prescribed them loosely, ignorant of their addictive qualities.
Whether Sinatra continued seeing the actress to goad the President into competing further for her or simply for raw sexual pleasure or the high-profile publicity of being involved with the famous sex symbol is open to speculation. It is known that the gossip-starved Kennedy was intrigued by Sinatra’s every escapade. As JFK’s interest grew, Sinatra invited Marilyn to a public affair in Hollywood in January 1961, so everyone would know they were intimate.
Marilyn called Lena in New York to bring out an emerald sequined gown especially designed to fit her newly sensational curves. Still hoping she might solidify her relationship with Frank, she worked diligently to look more gorgeous than she ever imagined she could. Appreciating her best physical form, Sinatra encouraged Marilyn in her quest to look great enough to be his “girl.”
Efficient Pat Newcomb arranged the transportation. The chauffeur waited for the dress, and for Lena, who would stay in the luxurious Beverly Hills Hotel instead of at Marilyn’s Doheny apartment, in order to give the lovers their privacy. After trying on the dress, Marilyn was literally glowing, sure that Frank would love it. She had starved herself the entire day to “be thin for Frank.” Whitey Snyder was on call and George Masters was set to do the actress’s hair. But Masters was in a salon at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills and by four thirty still hadn’t arrived. Anxious, Whitey finally called the salon at six and insisted on speaking to George to remind him of his commitment. Masters rushed directly to the apartment while Marilyn drank champagne and tried to relax for the auspicious occasion at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The arrogant Masters enjoyed keeping “his actresses” waiting and waiting.
The couple looked sensational, despite Sinatra’s paunch and balding head. Wearing the dazzling diamond-and-emerald earrings Sinatra had given to her, she instantly lit up. Sure that the singer was about to propose to her, Marilyn left with Frank in their limo, followed by Lena in another car. Monroe was easily the belle of the ball. Although Sinatra failed to propose on that memorable evening, the couple continued seeing each other regularly. Monroe’s daily routine was similar to the one in New York, sleeping late, Sinatra records, champagne, psychiatrist visits, and fantasizing about a future with one man.
Temporarily content with her life with Sinatra and her obvious desirability, Marilyn stopped taking her sleeping pills for a short time. But within a few weeks she returned to New York depressed that she had not found a new film project and that Sinatra had not proposed. She was devastated when she soon learned of his relationship with Juliet Prowse, the South African dancer.
Sinatra was very occupied with a trip to Washington, D.C., in April 1961, to meet with the President in the Oval Office for a personal thank-you for all he had done for the Kennedys and the Democratic Party. Sinatra’s lavish inauguration party had raised well over one million dollars for the party and featured the remarkable talents of Ethel Merman, Nat “King” Cole, Jimmy Durante, George Jessel, Gene Kelly, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Joey Bishop, and Milton Berle. The “Million-Dollar Gala” had been among the most spectacular in the nation’s history. Kennedy owed it to Sinatra’s two months of tireless planning of each and every minute detail. Sinatra hired Hollywood couturier Don Loper to tailor a flashy tailcoat and an Inverness cape for himself. He started believing he was royalty.
At long last Sinatra, as a VIP White House guest, was hosted by the President with a tour of the family quarters and the grand receiving rooms. While drinking Bloody Marys on the Truman balcony, the singer was flabbergasted when the President presented an autographed glamour photo of himself with the inscription: “For Frank—with warm regards and best wishes from his friend, John F. Kennedy.” He told presidential aide Dave Powers that that was the moment all his hard work had paid off.
The next day, Frank, Peter Lawford, Teddy Kennedy, Porfirio Rubirosa, and his wife Odile boarded the Kennedy plane Caroline for Hyannis. Champagne glass in hand, Sinatra stepped off the plane with a couple of cases of expensive wine, champagne, and Italian bread for Joseph Kennedy The next day, while the group was sailing on the Honey Fritz, the singer entertained his host with amusing stories about Hollywood and the pope. Through emissary Lawford, the casual play with the Kennedy inner circle gave Frank a chance to plead Sam Giancana’s case. Later the trip would be criticized by the press. One administration press secretary, Pierre Salinger, deployed his best smoke screen by explaining that Sinatra was visiting solely to confer with Joe about an album to be used as a souvenir of the inauguration.
Immersed in affairs of state, Kennedy continued to depend on his father’s advice and dictums regarding public policy, supplied during weekend visits. Acting more as an adversary and encouraged by their father, Bobby was forever investigating John’s personal habits, his whereabouts, his physical treatments (including Dr. Feelgood’s), and especially the President’s continued relationship with Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. There is much evidence that the two brothers often operated secretly without each other’s full knowledge.
Their competition included not only books but films. Envious over JFK’s Pulitzer Prize, Bobby wrote The Enemy Within, a book that detailed his investigation of Jimmy Hoffa, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and its infamous pension fund, the “biggest slush fund in history.” In the volume Kennedy called the Teamsters Union the most powerful institution in the country—and described its operation as a “conspiracy of evil.”
Hoffa was indeed responsible for an aggregate torrent of alleged crimes, including setting up phony Teamster locals, murder, bombing raids, bribery, and a host of other illegal activities, and Bobby was especially mindful that Hoffa had more power than he had. Hoffa claimed that in their initial encounter, Robert Kennedy had barged into his office interrupting a meeting and demanding to review his organization’s files. The union boss promptly threw Bobby and his companions—Pierre Salinger and McClellan Committee chief accountant Carmine Bellino—out of his office. They returned with a subpoena the following day, but after Hoffa’s attorney, George Fitzgerald, carefully reviewed the document, the three were again escorted out of the office. Attorney Fitzgerald met with the judge, who agreed that the subpoena had been written too loosely, commenting that the “greenhorn” needed to specify exactly what he was looking for and that each paper to be reviewed had to
be individually signed. Bobby refused and the judge refused the order. The prideful young lawyer ultimately reconsidered and signed each and every document. Kennedy and Hoffa would lock horns many times to come, the next during a break when Hoffa was appearing as a witness at the McClellan Committee hearings.
Demanding to speak to Hoffa off the record, Bobby grabbed Jimmy’s arm at a nearby restaurant. Tough little Hoffa grabbed back, jerking Kennedy by his lapels and warning, “Let me tell you something, buster, I’m only gonna tell you this one time, if you ever put your mitts on me again, I’m gonna break you in half.” Hoffa then bounced Bobby off the wall, concluding their encounter with, “Now get the hell away from me.” Later Bobby was publicly reprimanded by his superior, “Mr. Kennedy, I’d suggest that in the future you leave the witnesses alone outside the chambers.” Earlier Robert Kennedy had challenged Hoffa to an arm-wrestling contest in his office and been defeated. Upstaged both legally and physically by the union boss, a humiliated Bobby felt the same way his father and older brothers made him feel, intimidated and overpowered, with little recourse for retaliation.
Still trying to match his Presidential older brother, from as early as March 1962 Bobby would attempt to use his association with Marilyn to gain the inside track for Jerry Wald to produce and Budd Schulberg (of On the Waterfront fame) to write the screenplay for a film of The Enemy Within. Again, Bobby was overcome by tremendous opposition. First, Schulberg had been labeled a communist sympathizer by his own Writers Guild. Later, an anonymous letter arrived in Wald’s office, a bombshell that termed the president a “sex pervert” and claimed the family was part of the “Mafia” and involved with illegal drugs, booze, and rackets of every sort. Without Hoffa’s expressed approval, Wald could not conceivably involve himself in such controversy and he eventually withdrew from the project, which was quickly damned throughout the industry. In all likelihood, his “friend” Jimmy Hoffa had caught wind of the proposal and successfully sabotaged it.
Warner Brothers’ P.T. 109, starring Cliff Robertson and depicting the purported heroism of Jack Kennedy in World War II, was already in production. (Gossipmongers had it that Joe, Jr., even flew his fateful mission to compete with his brother Jack’s recently publicized heroism.) Now Robert’s chance of winning the one-upmanship game he always seemed to lose against his brother was resumed. But Warner studio executives were barraged by more letters and sex photos of the promiscuous Kennedy family, and by late 1961 even P.T. 109 was in jeopardy The Los Angeles Police Department, the CIA, and the FBI were made aware of the exposure. Of the two dozen photos, none has been made public. Those suspected of ordering the clandestine sex photos were many: Hoffa, Giancana, the CIA, the FBI, and even Jackie, perhaps tracking her husband’s cheating by retaining private eyes. Some photos were released to the press showing Jack and Marilyn making love. None of the photos had a time or location. One identified shot was taken in a swimming pool of a naked President and Marilyn exposing her erect nipples. Another had them in bed in the White House basement, which was reserved for presidential “top secret” undercover agents and supposedly guarded by trusted Secret Service men. The location of at least three photos can be identified as Marilyn’s Brentwood home. One wide-angle black-and-white photo depicts the profile of Miss Monroe kneeling at the foot of the bed and JFK sitting on the edge with his visibly erect penis in her mouth. Another photo taken in what appears to be a hotel room shows a clear view of Marilyn’s right side with the naked President on top of her. As reckless as Jack’s behavior was, even with the law-enforcement agencies on notice, he continued “screwing” Marilyn, Judith Campbell, and as many other women as possible. Despite his ongoing bedroom heroics, his movie heroics proceeded as planned. In fact, Warner Brothers took the position that the photos might enhance the film’s box office by increasing publicity for it. A former Secret Service agent for President Kennedy confirms that JFK “slept” with Marilyn Monroe, and other women, in his White House bedroom while Jackie was out of town.
In November, John Kennedy was staying in Los Angeles with brother-in-law Peter Lawford entertaining Marilyn Monroe and still competing with Sinatra. While she was getting ready in her apartment to meet the President, Whitey Snyder was applying her makeup and suggested he drive her in his Volkswagen bug since Rudy was late. Dressed in evening wear, full-length mink, and coiffed and perfumed, the actress hitched a ride with her makeup artist. As the two drove up to Lawford’s beach house on Pacific Coast Highway, they found it surrounded by Secret Service men. The vision of Marilyn Monroe in mink arriving in a tiny VW was a shock to the men who were anticipating a grand “movie star” entrance. The consensus indicated by their stares and drooling was that the superstar looked as ravishing as imagined in their dreams. A nonchalant Marilyn waved to them, “Hi, guys,” making their evening, as inside the beach house the President and his brother-in-law waited to entertain her.
The President would soon return to the Oval Office to promote his program, the New Frontier, attempting to head off any bad publicity about his gut-wrenching decisions that directly threatened national and global security. Still reeling from the Bay of Pigs military and political disaster, his administration still didn’t know what had really happened. Disappointed with CIA performance in the operation, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., wanted to appoint Bobby Kennedy as CIA chief. Instead, the Cuba Study Group set up to investigate the fiasco interviewed the major participants, designating CIA chief Bissell as the fall guy for not keeping a secret. Whether to make another assault on the Castro regime remained on the agenda, and both sides were positioned for a long fight. Kennedy was also in trouble over Laos and its communist-sponsored civil war against democracy. Humiliated by his failure at the Bay of Pigs, the President was courting more disaster in opting for a low-key antiguerrilla campaign directed specifically at the Pathet Lao insurgents. He decided to send more military advisers, thereby increasing United States involvement in Vietnam. Early in his State of the Union Address, the President had requested additional funding for twelve thousand Marines and a civil defense budget three times that of Eisenhower’s.
Kennedy was to meet with Khrushchev in June in Vienna after a protocol visit with French leader Charles de Gaulle in Paris. Fortunately for Kennedy, Jackie paved the way for an enthusiastic welcome. French by descent and looking smashing and aristocratic, the first lady (she loathed that title) won the hearts of the French and their leader. Privately de Gaulle informed Kennedy that France would not participate in any military action in Laos and sternly warned the President: “For you, intervention in [Southeast Asia] will be an entanglement without end.... I predict that you will, step by step, become sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire, despite the loss and expenditures you may squander.”
After the stunning triumph in Paris, Vienna was quite different. After eleven hours of grueling talks through all meals and a walk through the forest with interpreters, Kennedy made the mistake of speaking philosophically about war and the hot regions of the world, clearly outside his expertise.
Unimpressed by the leader, Khrushchev saw Kennedy as an indecisive young man “who could be pushed around.” As the issue of the partition of Berlin surfaced, the talks further deteriorated. Kennedy warned Khrushchev he was prepared to defend Berlin, with the Soviet premier poised to sign a treaty with East Berlin, leaving the Western powers to deal with the “new government.” Then the meeting degenerated as Khrushchev banged his fist on the table and threatened to launch missiles.
The President was clearly intimidated by the leader, but he resolved not to give in to him. Kennedy sent over a meager force in a vain attempt to stop construction of the Berlin Wall, but Khrushchev managed to have his wall anyway, and Kennedy looked to the world like the inexperienced political upstart he really was.
Upstaged again, JFK and his brother resolved to once again work vigorously against Castro. Their father had bluntly made his wishes known to his floundering sons: “Get Castro.” The mission that was mobilized into Ope
ration Mongoose became top priority in every branch of the United States government.
After a series of political humiliations and military defeats, the President overcompensated for his lacks in the one area where he could still be a champion: the bedroom. In reality Marilyn Monroe, Judith Campbell, and the rest of his harem were probably enamored more by his power than by his lovemaking; he was known for “quickies” in the sack. Jackie Kennedy resigned herself to tolerating the affairs but retaliated with unlimited shopping sprees. Early on she had decided to make every attempt to upstage his “girlfriends” by looking better than any of them, even though her sex appeal lagged far behind theirs. The political wife was an asset to the President, but he despised being with her and couldn’t wait until she was “out of the house.” Most of his regular lovers knew of the absence of love between the couple. Marilyn would later say, “I just can’t imagine how he could be married to that statue.” Most weekends, Jackie was out of town, horseback riding, and JFK was seldom alone.
The marriage of convenience was a perfect setup for the nonstop playboy—being married made for an easy exit from any entanglement. The “But, I’m married” routine always worked, with everyone but Marilyn. Peter Lawford became very close to Marilyn at the time, later reflecting on her relationship with JFK: “They were good together. They both had charisma and they both had a sense of humor. He enjoyed engaging in playful banter with [Marilyn], patting and squeezing her almost like a little sister.”
The secure relationship Marilyn had been craving for so long was nowhere in sight. Neither the playfulness nor the President’s quickies were nearly enough to satisfy Marilyn. The desire for Joe DiMaggio’s touch would usually ignite soon after the excitement of being with the President wore off.
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