Killing Kennedy (11 page)

When Kennedy goes more than a few days without extramarital sex, he becomes a different man—so much so that the Secret Service breathes a sigh of relief whenever Jackie takes the kids away for the weekend. “When she was there, it was no fun,” a longtime agent would later admit. “He just had headaches. You’d really see him droop because he wasn’t getting laid. He was like a rooster getting hit with a water hose.”

Sex is John Kennedy’s Achilles’ heel. Why in the world does he do this to Jackie? And what is he doing to the nation in the process?

*   *   *

Just a few short weeks after being named attorney general, Bobby Kennedy received a special file from J. Edgar Hoover, the pug-nosed and Machiavellian head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the file was evidence about the president’s extramarital affairs. It turns out that while the newspapers were looking the other way, the FBI had been tracking JFK’s liaisons since the late 1940s, because he was seeing a woman thought to be a spy for Nazi Germany. The file is Hoover’s idea of job security. He wants everybody to know the FBI will never be diminished—and that there’s nothing illicit going on in America that he doesn’t know about. For reasons of national security, not even the president of the United States is above the scrutiny of the FBI.

In early 1962, as President Kennedy’s visit to Palm Springs is being planned, a Justice Department investigation into organized crime reveals that singer Frank Sinatra is deeply involved with the Mafia. This is trouble for the Kennedys—Americans know that Sinatra not only supports the president but is also a close personal friend. And if that isn’t enough to compromise the attorney general and the president of the United States, their sister Patricia’s husband, movie actor Peter Lawford, is a member of Sinatra’s famous Rat Pack.

Making the matter more delicate is a brand-new file from Hoover delivered to Bobby just a few weeks before the Palm Springs trip. This one indicates that the president of the United States is having sex with a consort of Sam Giancana, not only one of the most notorious mobsters in the country, but also at the top of the list of Mafia kingpins whom Bobby Kennedy is trying to bring down. The woman’s name is Judith Campbell, and Hoover is describing her as a major security risk. Unbeknownst to Patricia Kennedy Lawford, her husband owes that affiliation to her family heritage. Sinatra has long wanted to be closer to the throne of power. Once he realized that the Kennedys were on the verge of becoming the most powerful family in America, he allowed Lawford into his inner circle. In addition, it was Patricia Kennedy Lawford who bankrolled the script for
Oceans 11
, assuming her husband would costar with Sinatra. But Dean Martin was given the role instead. Sinatra treats Peter Lawford like a hanger-on, suspecting that Patricia Kennedy Lawford, like most people outside the Hollywood bubble, will do almost anything to bask in the reflected glow of movie stars’ fame.

And Sinatra is correct. Despite numerous snubs, the Lawfords remain keen to be part of the Rat Pack “vibe.”

Thus, the woman who extended Sinatra’s invitation for JFK to stay in his Palm Springs home on his visit to the city is none other than Patricia Kennedy Lawford.

After reading Hoover’s Sinatra file, Bobby Kennedy tells the president to stay somewhere else in Palm Springs. Bobby doesn’t care that this slight might sever a long-standing political relationship with Sinatra, who not only campaigned extensively on behalf of Kennedy in 1960, but also worked overtime to coordinate the inaugural gala.

The truth is that Bobby has no choice. Sinatra has had repeated contact with ten of the biggest names in organized crime. The FBI reports detail not only the times and dates when the singer is phoning Mafia heads from home, but also reveal that the mobsters are dialing his private number. “The nature of Sinatra’s work may, on occasion, bring him into contact with underworld figures,” reads the report. “But this does not account for his friendship and/or financial involvement with people such as Joe and Rocco Fischetti, cousins of Al Capone, Paul Emilio D’Amato, John Formosa and Sam Giancana—all of whom are on the list of racketeers.”

The FBI has been keeping files on Sinatra since the late 1940s, chronicling his associations with other famous gangsters such as Lucky Luciano and Mickey Cohen. As early as February 1947 there were reports that he had vacationed in Havana with Luciano and his bodyguards, and that the trio were seen together at “the race track, the gambling casino, and at private parties.” What made these sightings so extraordinary was that Luciano had recently been paroled from prison and deported to Sicily. Such a high-profile appearance in Havana was his way of thumbing his nose at U.S. law enforcement.

President Kennedy was once close friends with Frank Sinatra, shown here in California.
(AFP/Getty Images)

The list of alleged associations goes on and on. Bobby’s true surprise about Sinatra, however, is not that the singer is connected with the Mafia. Rather, it’s that the FBI has evidence linking the Kennedy White House with organized crime through the singer. In fact, Hoover has years of files documenting the close relationship between Sinatra, the Kennedys, and high-profile members of the Mafia such as Giancana—who wears a sapphire pinkie ring given to him by none other than Frank Sinatra. The most damning bits of the report state that Giancana frequently visits Sinatra’s Palm Springs estate. Agents also found a number of calls from Giancana’s good friend Judith Campbell to Evelyn Lincoln, the president’s secretary, suggesting a clear link between the Kennedy White House and organized crime.

Frank Sinatra and John Kennedy have shared many laughs, many drinks, and, as the FBI suggests, a woman or two. In a separate investigation in February 1960, the FBI observed JFK at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas with the Rat Pack and noted that “show girls from all over town were running in and out of the Senator’s suite.” Sinatra and the Rat Pack sang the national anthem to open the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Sinatra has visited the Kennedys’ family estate at Hyannis Port and once startled guests by performing an impromptu concert at the living room piano. Sinatra even reworded his 1959 hit song “High Hopes” to make it an anthem for the Kennedy campaign.

There are also rumors that the Kennedys used the Mafia to help influence voters during the 1960 election.

The file is just a warning: Hoover is letting Bobby know that the connection between the Kennedys and organized crime is on the verge of becoming widespread public knowledge. And only Hoover can stop that.

Despite their significant history, JFK listens to Bobby and cuts Sinatra off in an instant. They’re done. The singer has become a snare that could potentially entangle Kennedy and bring him down—and no friendship is worth the presidency.
Ruthless
might be a word commonly associated with Bobby, but now and again the president can be just as cold-blooded.

*   *   *

Bobby phones Peter Lawford to break the news that the president will not be staying with Sinatra. Lawford owes his career to Sinatra. He fears the man and is reluctant to make the call to Sinatra canceling the presidential weekend.

So JFK himself gets on the phone to Lawford. “As President, I just can’t stay at Sinatra’s and sleep in the same bed that Sam Giancana or some other hood slept in,” he tells his brother-in-law. Kennedy then demands two favors. The first is to find him someplace else to rendezvous with Monroe during his weekend in Palm Springs. The second is to buck up and break the news to Frank.

Peter Lawford has no choice but to make the calls. Chris Dumphy, a Florida Republican, connects Lawford with Bing Crosby, solving Lawford’s first problem. The president’s womanizing is an open secret. Crosby, who is out of town, suspects what might go on at his house, but he doesn’t care. He’s worked in Hollywood long enough to know that infidelity is as common as sunrise.

Delivering the news to Sinatra is not so simple.

The forty-six-year-old singer has been anticipating this visit for months. He has purchased extra land next to his property and built cottages for the Secret Service. He has installed special state-of-the-art phone lines. A gold plaque has been hung in the bedroom the president will use, forever commemorating the night when “John F. Kennedy Slept Here.” Pictures of JFK are hung all over the main house. A flagpole is erected so that the presidential standard can fly over the compound. And most important, Sinatra has built a special new cement landing pad for the president’s helicopter. Sinatra is giddy about the visit. So giddy, in fact, that it doesn’t even bother him that the president will be rendezvous-ing with Sinatra’s former girlfriend, Marilyn Monroe.

The truth is, the Kennedys are somewhat embarrassed that Sinatra believes his home will become the western White House. It’s not that the Kennedy clan doesn’t like Sinatra—although Jackie can’t stand him—but they prefer to keep the flamboyant singer at arm’s length.

Finally, Lawford breaks the news by phone. Sinatra listens, but only for as long as it takes to realize that he is being cast out of the president’s circle of friends. The singer slams down the receiver and hurls the phone to the floor. “Do you want to know where he’s staying?” Sinatra screams to his valet. “Bing Crosby’s house. That’s where. And he’s a Republican!”

Sinatra will never forget this slight. He calls Bobby Kennedy every name in the book, then phones Lawford back and cuts him off from
his
inner circle. He races around his house and tears Kennedy photos from the walls, then finds a sledgehammer and storms outside to single-handedly destroy the concrete helipad.

*   *   *

John Kennedy stands just outside a back door watching the crowd drifting in and out of Bing Crosby’s home. Secret Service agents hover at the edges of the lawn and in the shadows of the palm trees and shrubbery ringing the grounds. Marilyn Monroe is already by the president’s side. There is an intimacy in their movements that leaves no doubt they will be sleeping together tonight.

Monroe has been drinking. A lot. Or so it appears.

The thirty-five-year-old movie star is not a stupid woman, although she often plays that role both on- and offscreen. “I thought you were dumb,” her character in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
is told. “I can be smart when it’s important,” she replies, “but most men don’t like it.”

It is a line that Norma Jean Baker herself suggested. After spending much of her youth in foster homes, she began modeling in her teens and landed a movie contract in 1946, changing her name to Marilyn Monroe. Born a brunette, she dyed her hair and began cultivating the “dumb blonde” persona that became her calling card. Her career path led her to a number of high-profile performances in movies such as
How to Marry a Millionaire
,
The Seven Year Itch
, and
Some Like It Hot
. She has been married and divorced three times, and has developed a reputation for abusing alcohol and prescription drugs. Substance abuse is slowly destroying her career. But she is still voluptuous, vivacious, and clever enough in her lucid moments that her true intelligence reveals itself.

Kennedy first met Monroe at a dinner party in the 1950s. Their relationship ramped up on July 15, 1960, the night he accepted the Democratic nomination for president. The two flirted that night, much to the dismay of Kennedy’s staff, who were immediately concerned the pair would be caught having an affair during the campaign. Patricia Kennedy Lawford went so far as to pull Marilyn aside and warn her not to have sex with her brother.

But that was almost two years ago—and ironically, it was Patricia who invited Marilyn and JFK to a dinner party at her New York home in late February 1962. Marilyn marched in late, as was her custom. She’d been drinking sherry. Her dress was a small beads-and-sequins affair. “It was the tightest goddam dress I ever saw on a woman,” the legendary show business manager Milt Ebbins would later remember of Monroe’s pre-party preparations—specifically of pulling the dress on over Monroe’s head: “We couldn’t get it past her hips. Of course, typical of Marilyn, she wasn’t wearing any underwear either. So there I was, on my knees in front of her … pulling down this dress with all my might, trying to get it [down] past her big ass.”

Ebbins was eventually successful with the dress, and JFK immediately gravitated to Monroe’s side as she sashayed into the party. A photographer attempted to take their picture, but the president quickly turned his back so they wouldn’t be photographed together. For good measure, the Secret Service demanded the film.

Before the night was over, JFK had casually invited Marilyn to meet him in Palm Springs on March 24. To close the deal, he confided that “Jackie won’t be there.”

*   *   *

Now Marilyn Monroe wears a loose robe as the party swirls at the Crosby estate. She is “calm and relaxed,” in the opinion of one partygoer.

The president is entranced by her wit and intellect and would be thrilled to add such a famous sex symbol to his list of conquests. He also finds her nurturing. After Kennedy complains of his chronic back pain, Monroe phones her friend Ralph Roberts, an actor and masseur knowledgeable about back issues. When she puts Kennedy on the phone, Roberts doesn’t know it’s the president he’s talking to, but he can’t help but think that the man on the other end sounds just like John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Roberts offers a quick diagnosis and hangs up after a few minutes, thinking to himself that Marilyn is once again up to no good.