Captain Hamilton was indeed biased; he was mentioned often in Bobby Kennedy’s book, The Enemy Within, as a friend. Just a year after Marilyn Monroe’s death, Hamilton retired, becoming chief of security for the National Football League, a post to which he came highly recommended by Bobby Kennedy.
The Reddin Security Agency, presided over by Tom Reddin, once Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, remembers Hamilton as being “Parker’s man.” While kept in the dark about the Monroe investigation, Reddin learned from his own sources there was a Kennedy connection and that the brothers had had sexual relationships with Marilyn. Parker’s successor, Tom Reddin, said, “Hamilton was extremely secretive, he only talked to two people, God and Chief Parker. ”
Brown, head of homicide, was not at all convinced that Marilyn had committed suicide, or that her demise was accidental. He spent hundreds of off-duty hours investigating the death. Off the record, he advised Assistant Treasury Department Chief Virgil Crabtree that a private White House phone number had been found in Marilyn’s bedclothes. Occasionally Brown obtained carbon copies of intelligence reports never intended for his eyes. Bobby Kennedy’s name was mentioned frequently. Thad Brown went to his grave still suggesting that Marilyn Monroe had been murdered.
Feared by presidents, senators, and congressmen, J. Edgar Hoover, FBI chief, in 1962 was the most powerful man in Washington.
Just miles away, at the FBI headquarters, Marilyn was also profiled in a locked cabinet marked TOP SECRET. Inside were voluminous records about her life and death. Frequent requests to obtain the records under the Freedom of Information Act were fruitless. Most of the pages obtained were heavily censored, but the Kennedy names could be observed, the connections obliterated in black ink.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was established in 1907. At its beginnings the bureau had few responsibilities. In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was named director of the FBI, to serve at the President’s will. He remained in office until his death in 1972, a decade after the demise of Marilyn Monroe. The shrewd bureau chief grossly misused his office to be assured total control and to guarantee himself a lifetime position.
When Hoover was placed in this high position, the government wanted to eliminate corruption of the bureau and get the FBI out of politics. Hoover had other plans. He began to accumulate files, wiretap and bugging transcriptions, and compromising candid photos. His targets included public figures, nearly every aspiring politician, office holder, and official in Washington, D.C. His investigations were unauthorized by anyone but himself. The subjects were not necessarily suspected of any wrongdoing, and the so-called investigations were not even in the jurisdiction of the FBI. Among the accumulated dossiers were reports of adultery, homosexuality, and other embarrassments. Hoover also maintained a clandestine “Political Sex Deviate Index.” The FBI chief would go down in history as a notorious blackmailer. Protected by his badge of authority, Hoover became untouchable.
Files for Hoover’s eyes only were kept in Helen Gandy’s office, adjacent to his. She was his most trusted employee, had worked for him briefly as a clerk in 1918, then as his secretary. Since 1939 she had held the title of executive assistant. Like her boss, she never married—nor were she and Hoover romantically linked.
The locked files were numbered. Indexed by three-by-five cards, the white ones marked PF, for personal files, the others on pink cards listed as OC, official and confidential. A number of the notably sensitive folders were deceptively labeled. The Richard Nixon file was not under his name, it was indexed OBSCENE MATTERS. Immediately after Hoover’s death the PF and OC files were allegedly destroyed.
Hoover began his file on JFK upon his discharge from the navy. When Hoover learned of Joseph Kennedy’s political ambitions for his son, FBI surveillance teams were assigned to spy on the young Kennedy.
John and Robert Kennedy were desperate to replace J. Edgar Hoover. They had a favor to repay; besides they disliked the FBI director. Bobby Kennedy had made a promise to Chief William H. Parker, of the Los Angeles Police Department. If Parker cooperated in the cover-up of the Kennedy connection in Marilyn’s death, the directorship of the FBI could be his.
Hoover was summoned to a meeting at the White House with the Kennedys. The director had spies in the administration of every president he served—he was well prepared. Before leaving the fifth floor of the Justice Department building, the command post of the entire FBI, he had made a photocopy of the secret Kennedy file.
The Kennedys suggested Hoover should retire. He was not asked to resign, that might anger him. Hoover dropped a thick file on the President’s desk, demanding that he and his brother read it immediately. The file contained a stack of photos, which included clandestine film of Marilyn Monroe with each of the Kennedys. Needless to say, the subject of resignation was dropped!
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency operate independently, frequently not sharing information, and frequently at odds. The CIA, established in 1947, has seldom been free of controversy. The agency’s covert operations included subsidizing political leaders in other countries and secretly recruiting influential people, at times even underworld leaders.
A massive cover-up still exists regarding the involvement of the Kennedys and the Mafia in Marilyn Monroe’s death. Huge classified files concerning the Monroe death are said to still exist. Efforts to obtain the documents under the Freedom of Information Act have proved fruitless; none have been released. The CIA will not declassify the records, citing the federal statute of “national security.”
On the night of the murder, Eunice Murray had been asked by Greenson to spend the night with Marilyn. She left the house to retrieve her clothes and toiletries. The eavesdroppers knew of her departure and dispatched Marilyn’s killers at once. On Mrs. Murray’s return, she found a comatose Marilyn and immediately phoned Greenson. But her ever-changing chronicle of the “last hours” added to the mystery. She first reported the “discovery” at around midnight, saying she had been startled by “the light on in her room.” Marilyn was accustomed to being up at wee hours of the morning. The housekeeper told Sergeant Jack Clemmons she had summoned Marilyn’s doctors. She insisted Drs. Engelberg and Greenson had been there since 12:30 A.M. Marilyn’s physician and psychiatrist corroborated Murray.
Greenson, Engelberg, and Murray were no strangers to each other. Soon after Monroe’s death, Dr. Engelberg moved his office from Wilshire Boulevard to the same building in Beverly Hills where Dr. Greenson practiced.
Clemmons never questioned Mrs. Murray about the light being on in Marilyn’s room. But it would have been impossible for Murray to see light coming from a crack under the door, as during the remodeling of her west side home Marilyn had new thick shag carpeting installed in her bedroom and houseguests and friends confirmed it was difficult to close the door; the bottom still needed to be shaved at least a quarter of an inch.
During the years after Monroe’s death, the housekeeper’s story changed. In 1975 Eunice Murray wrote her memoirs, Marilyn: The Last Months. Her explanation was altered again in the book: “I was alarmed by a telephone cord that was under Marilyn’s door.”
Two impossible scenarios were created by Murray as the reason she was alarmed and checked on Marilyn. Marilyn had two telephones, both with long extension cords. The pink phone was unlisted, the number given to intimates who needed to reach her, including the studios and the press, and it was connected to an answering service. The number for Marilyn’s hot line, the white phone, was given to only a privileged few, including the Kennedy brothers. The housekeeper never identified which phone cord was under the door the night her suspicions were aroused.
A decade later, Mrs. Murray made her first plausible statement on a BBC documentary, “The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe.” The syndicated telecast aired throughout the world. Marilyn’s former housekeeper admitted on camera that Bobby Kennedy was in the actress’s home on August 4, 1962, opening up the possibility that accounts of the death were f
raudulent. Up to then, she had consistently denied that the attorney general ever visited Monroe. Also in 1975, Mrs. Murray went before the cameras of ABC Television making the same assertion.
In August 1985, ABC flew its interviewer Sylvia Chase and producer Stanhope Gould to Hollywood. Upon arrival Gould began the arduous process of arranging for interviews for the proposed three-segment expose on the murder of Marilyn. “We want to put all witnesses of the events on camera,” he insisted. Although he was warned by some professional consultants that the show would never get on the air, he insisted, “I have approval all the way up. Arledge himself gave us the go ahead. We have no restrictions. ” The man in charge was Roone Arledge, President of ABC news and sports, also a personal friend of Ethel Kennedy.
Producer Gould was warned by technical adviser and coauthor of this book, Milo Speriglio, that some of the witnesses would talk about Marilyn’s affairs with both the Kennedy brothers, but still Arledge insisted there would be no problem.
ABC spared no expense for this major story. Chase and Gould were given executive suites at a luxury hotel. Using their most experienced film crews, they traveled throughout southern California piecing together the story of stories.
Among the important eyewitnesses was Eunice Murray. She was by then a widow living with her daughter, and her sole income came from Social Security benefits. When the ABC news team arrived for the interview Mrs. Murray was not as cooperative as they had hoped. What she had to say, something she kept secret for twenty-three years, had value. She did not ask for any money. 20/20 was not a daily newscast, but it fell under the regulations of a news program. In an effort to show “good will and appreciation” without paying cash compensation to Mrs. Murray, one of the crew was sent to the local market and returned with bags of groceries. Mrs. Murray then agreed to answer questions.
Sylvia Chase had faced tough interview assignments before and came prepared. However, when the ABC-TV veteran questioned Marilyn’s former housekeeper about Bobby Kennedy, Mrs. Murray confessed. “Bobby was with Marilyn the day she died.” Chase had not expected this revelation, which would dramatically alter the facts as previously reported.
Source after source gave testimony, confirming this statement. How could the District Attorney’s Office be considered responsible if they didn’t respond to a major charge in the facts of a case and further investigate. Eunice Murray had lied initially, and a responsible investigation should have alarmed the district attorney that facts had been altered; key evidence was unraveling in the details of Monroe’s death. Perjury is not only punishable by law but the perjurer is usually discredited.
Chief Daryl Gates of the LAPD was asked to release what he called the “police report of Marilyn’s death.” In September 1985, just days before the scheduled airing of 20/20’s report, Gates held a news conference. He said he would charge the media $12.50 per copy for the “report.” It was not the “lost” official police report he had claimed; instead the documents were findings of records gathered by the late Thad Brown, chief of detectives. Many of the documents and all of the photographs from Brown’s personal files were not included. The media were disappointed.
TV Guide announced the 20/20 air date, and news reporters mentioned the TV special. The program would have topped the ratings chart that night. But without mentioning cancellation of the half-hour segment, it was preempted by a special report on the 1985 Mexican earthquake. The tremor was not earthshaking any longer, it was already considered old news, reported over and over by the networks. This gave ABC time to determine what, if anything, would be reported about Marilyn’s death.
In New York, ABC-TV editors began to cut the story; the original edited twenty-eight minutes would be chopped to twelve if Arledge approved. He watched the film’s original seven hours of raw footage. “Cut it more,” he ordered. The final cut left six minutes of air time, just one short segment. There was never a question of its being approved by the network’s legal department.
Once again ABC announced that the Marilyn Monroe segment would air. From New York, two hours before the scheduled broadcast of the then very condensed version, Stanhope Gould called. “The bastards killed the story,” the furious producer reported. “They told all of us not to talk to the press—ABC put us on a paid three-week vacation.” Had Roone Arledge succumbed to pressures from LAPD, the D.A.’s office or the Kennedys?
The network’s cover-up would not be forgotten. People magazine quickly printed a major expose. All key members of the staff had watched the raw footage and all three of the edited versions. People quoted a 20/20 anchorman saying it was the best report done on television since Watergate. The most outspoken reporter was Geraldo Rivera. He went on record saying, “If a politician pulled such a power play [cover-up] ABC News would have been all over the story.”
A local free paper, the Los Angeles Weekly, with a large circulation in the southern California area, ran a brief column in its November 1, 1985, edition, entitled “Incensed Censor,” about ABC TV’s censorship of the Monroe story. The paper stated, “An absolutely reliable ABC source told the Weekly Arledge called in Rivera immediately after the People magazine article came out to tell him his career with ABC was over.” Years later, Geraldo confirmed to Speriglio that he was terminated by ABC.
But this Los Angeles Weekly edition was to also have an in-depth story, listed as a major feature: “The Marilyn Monroe File—Still Missing After All These Years.” The byline credit was given to Jordon E. Cohn, and the story was to appear on page 28. When the paper appeared on the stands the article was missing, and only paid advertisements appeared on page 28. No explanation was given to the readers.
28
The Cover-up Continues
Twenty years after the death of Marilyn Monroe, with more evidence uncovered, another grand jury investigation was prompted. Grand juries operate behind closed doors and wield extraordinary powers to subpoena and indict. A grand jury consists of a panel of eighteen lay persons selected by a pool of judges with the objective to carry out justice. A district attorney is overseer of the grand jury and obviously must be impartial and not part of any cover-up. Unfortunately this requirement had stymied every effort to form a grand jury indictment.
The district attorney’s 1982 report discredits key witnesses such as the acting Los Angeles Police Department watch commander and deputy coroner’s aide who called Marilyn’s death a murder. The report did admit the police department seized Marilyn’s phone records, something denied by the authorities for two decades. Admission was made of calls to the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., headquarters for Bobby Kennedy.
The then district attorney, John Van de Kamp, stated: “We received a tape recording of an informant, associate of wiretapper Bernard Spindel—it was in reference to a secret Hoffa room bug in Marilyn’s house the night she died. The District Attorney was provided with the tape and transcript by Nick Harris detectives. The informant said an unidentified voice on the tape asked, “What do we do with the body now?”
At the same time the names of a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney and other persons were given to the district attorney by Speriglio, whose informant stated these persons had copies of the entire Monroe bugging tapes. The district attorney made no effort to obtain this evidence.
Van de Kamp, a staunch Democrat and Kennedy admirer and a man who still belived in the “Camelot myth,” concluded: “We examined documents and witnessed statements without any preconceptions, bias or prejudice.” The district attorney added, “However, as the various allegations were subjected to detailed examination and as the scenario of Marilyn Monroe’s death was fitted into place, we were drawn to the conclusion that the homicide hypothesis must be viewed with extreme skepticism. ”
News of the “official” public investigative report was not making front pages anymore. On Friday, December 29, 1982, just four days after Christmas and three days prior to New Year’s Eve, the district attorney made his findings known. The time was purposely selected
to avoid major press notice during the holiday period.
It was difficult to cover up the massive information assembled during the probe, even after discrediting some witnesses and evidence. From a quick reading of the district attorney’s two-page press cover, as the media did, it appeared the second paragraph summed it up: “Based upon the evidence available to us, it appears her death could have been suicide or come as a result of an accidental drug overdose.” Reporters around the globe hastened to release the “findings” while preparing for the holiday.
Examining in more detail the twenty-nine-page report which followed, something not reported by most of the press, one saw a disclaimer that reveals what actually was discovered during the limited probe: “We conclude that there are insufficient facts to warrant opening a criminal investigation into the death of Marilyn Monroe, although factual discrepancies exist and unanswered questions surfaced in our probe.”
In 1982, John Van De Kamp explained to the press, “The District Attorney’s review has been undertaken since there had been no District Attorney investigation or full-scale case review in 1962.”
Frank Hronek, a special criminal investigator in the District Attorney’s Office in 1962, conducted an extensive probe into the death of Marilyn Monroe. He reported to his superiors that she had affiliations with organized-crime members, among them Giancana and Roselli, that the Mafia was probably involved in her death. with some CIA intervention, and that the Los Angeles Police Department was part of a cover-up. What he wrote in detail was never revealed. “We have no record or file of any investigation conducted by Hronek,” the District Attorney’s Office countered. While not making it official, D.A. investigator Hronek told relatives he suspected Marilyn had been murdered by organized-crime figures.
While Marilyn’s autopsy was in process, coroner’s aide Lionel Grandison had sent a staff member to Marilyn’s house to search for her address book. A red book was brought back, and Grandison looked through it to find a next-of-kin’s phone number. However, the volume turned out not to be a phonebook but a diary which, twenty years later, would receive worldwide public notice. Grandison placed it in a property locker-safe, which also contained a crumpled note. The paper was discovered by a police officer, but its contents were never made known. Grandison swears the diary and note were stolen after the autopsy from the locker to which Dr. Curphy and other officials had access. “Other property, some jewelry and items of clothing were also stolen,” Grandison claimed. The latter may have been taken as mementos.
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