Among the thousand or more books about Marilyn Monroe, there are certain strands – from coffee-table monographs to cultural criticism. One theme is so persistent, however, that it has become a sub-genre in its own right. Armed with dubious confessions and conspiracy theories, their authors argue that Marilyn’s untimely death was the result of foul play in high places, and these allegations have been ruminated by some readers, as well as journalists and documentarians. But a handful of writers have directly challenged these assumptions. In 2005, David Marshall collected the findings of hardcore fans from
The DD Group: An Online Investigation Into the Death of Marilyn Monroe. Ánd more recently, Monroe's biographer Gary Vitacco-Robles, and forensic pathologist Dr Cyril Wecht. First-time author Donald McGovern follows in their footsteps with
Murder Orthodoxies: A Non-Conspiracist’s View of Marilyn Monroe’s Death (2019), a rigorous excavation of the myths and legends, meticulously structured and packed with intricate detail over 566 pages. During the final months of her life, Marilyn was embroiled in a bitter legal battle with her studio; she was having daily sessions with Dr Greenson, and relying on sleeping pills from her physician, Dr. Hyman Engelberg. Monroe may have met John and Robert Kennedy on just four occasions; their daily itineraries are in the public domain, and her routine is also well-documented. Only one sexual encounter with the president can be reasonably ascertained. Her own sporadic journal entries throughout her life (collected in the 2010 book
Fragments) contain no references to either Kennedy. McGovern looks finally to her autopsy report, compiled by renowned pathologist Dr. Thomas Noguchi, for the true cause of her death. As a long-time drug user, Marilyn had a high tolerance which enabled her to ingest multiple pills in succession. Conspiracists have pointed to a cover-up, but as Noguchi pointed out, the toxicologist’s analysis of her liver and blood samples made further tests unnecessary. With dry wit and exhaustive scrutiny, McGovern exposes the insupportable and absurd aspects of what has nonetheless become an urban myth. McGovern’s book will not, of course, be the last word on the subject; but it offers a timely redress to decades of shallow sensationalism. And in an era when ‘fake news’ is poisoning the fabric of public life, McGovern’s systematic unravelling of the calculated distortions that have so clouded Marilyn Monroe’s legacy provides us with a very modern cautionary tale.
Source: www.immortalmarilyn.com
At this point, the distortions of Marilyn Monroe's story and its connection with the Kennedys have become a grotesque black comedy. David Heymann and Donald Wolfe are probably two of the worst. But there is a whole bullpen full of them and they have created this cottage industry that the MSM just buys into. It's amazing that they still try to say RFK was in Brentwood the day Marilyn died. Because back in 2011, Susan Bernard, Bruno Bernard’s daughter, published
Marilyn: Intimate Exposures which featured her father’s photographic work with the blonde actress. In that book there is a two page spread of pictures of the Kennedy family at John Bates's ranch in Gilroy on that day. There are about 11 pictures of RFK from morning to dinner time going horseback riding, swimming at the pool, and playing touch football. John Bates' son sent the photos to her on a DVD. And he pointed himself out in the pictures. That is what is called forensic evidence. Yet according to Heymann, Wolfe etc, while Bobby was playing football in Gilroy, he was also in Brentwood? The pictures at the Gilroy Ranch of RFK. When I saw those photos, it was like getting slapped in the face. These have clearly been suppressed in order for the MSM to prolong a piece of cultural dementia. McGovern's research in his book
Murder Orthodoxies: A Non-Conspiracist’s View of Marilyn Monroe’s Death is amazing. Two general takeaways: The MSM have been successful in making us think the worst of JFK, RFK and Marilyn Monroe. Second, this Monroe case, which is not a conspiracy, gets media time, while the JFK and RFK cases, which were conspiracies, get less and less time. It's sad the business opportunists in the Monroe field have borrowed from the JFK case, and inserted pieces of heisted data to aggrandize their own enterprise. Pretty disgusting if you ask me. The McGovern book is a real breath of sanity and fresh air in a field that has been dominated by con artists and clowns for too long. Monroe's performance in New York took place in May of 1962 at the Madison Square Garden. It was a fundraiser convention for the Democratic Party. Fifteen thousand people were in attendance. Monroe was one of about 14 stars who performed. When she left the stage, Monroe was escorted by her former father in law, then she went to the Arthur Krim's after party and after she met some fans back at her hotel. And that was it.
In addition to the Madison Square Garden birthday fuss, it was also said that Marilyn had a roll in the hay with JFK in LA during the 1960 convention. Little problem there. Marilyn was not in LA at that time. She was filming a picture on the east coast. What McGovern did is he compared the calendars of JFK and RFK, and then contrasted that with two day by day books that were recently published about Monroe. When comparing it with an established record, anecdotal evidence has to be exceptional in quality and should have corroboration in a tangible way, or it should be discarded. The problem with the witnesses that these so-called writers use is they are a collection that would be laughed out of any legal proceeding. They would never make it to trial since they would be blown up at the deposition stage. Most of them would make Howard Brennan look OK. Peter Lawford was of sound mind when he said about Marilyn's phone call, 'I should have gone over to her place since she was not sounding good'. That means alone since as I prove, RFK was not in Brentwood, he was in Gilroy. It turns out that Marilyn did have a sort of diary, a planner agenda in loose leaf paper. It was recovered in one of her storage boxes after a dispute was resolved over her estate. It was nothing like Slatzer or Heyman said it was. The bulk of her estate was given over to the Strasberg family, since Lee Strasberg had been Monroe's acting coach. Those notebooks were compiled in a book called
Fragments in 2010. There is no mention of Giancana, Roselli, Hoover, or Tony Accardo. Frank Sinatra is not in there and neither is Fidel Castro. Nothing is written about any romance with the Kennedy brothers either. (McGovern, pp. 264-271). But to show the reader just how off the cliff our culture is on this matter, Grandison’s book
Memoirs of a Deputy Coroner was published in 2012. Two years after
Fragments. We have now entered the world of high camp. What McGovern does to the guy who really started all this rubbish, the late Robert Slatzer, should be taught in journalism classes. He actually found an archive of primary materials that exposes Slatzer completely as a fraud. And the worst part of it is that the book publishing company was a part of the fraud. McGovern exposes the Giancana book as a farce in every major tenet. From what I read that was a book editor's scheme, the Giancana's first draft was not spicy enough. So they jazzed it up with all this phony stuff about Judith Exner, Joe Kennedy's bootlegging--absolute bunk-, and how the mob helprf win Chicago, when in fact the actual mob controlled districts had a low level turnout.
The Mob in Hollywood (2012) by John William Tuohy presented Marilyn as a drug addled starlet helped by the Mafia. As McGovern explains, (p. 397) this is not the case at all. The way this gets screwy is through the William Morris-Bioff affair which is greatly misrepresented by the fiction writers. But it was really Johnny Hyde of William Morris Agency who got Marilyn Monroe into
The Asphalt Jungle and
All About Eve. Those were two highly acclaimed films. Off of those he got her a long term contract with Fox studios. Marilyn Monroe's publicist, Rupert Allan, whom I found to be an honest and sophisticated man (Rupert was also Princess Grace's publicist), told me he thought Marilyn died of an accidental overdose because she was taking pills adding to the mix small bottles of Champagne she routinely had around her bedroom. As per Eunice Murray, this gaggle of Monroe conspiracists ignores what Murray originally said and they got her to change her story. The pictures of RFK do not lie. The newspaper report does not lie. The reports by the FBI before Marilyn was reported dead do not lie. And eleven people who had no interest in politics would not lie. Marilyn did not have any connection to Roselli or Giancana. Her career was never mob influenced. Marilyn did not sign her first film contract until late August of 1946 with Fox. She was represented by Harry Lipton of the NCAC agency. Johnny Hyde of William Morris bought her contract from Lipton. And then she was signed by Columbia. Johnny Hyde paid for Monroe to have made a rhinoplasty, and also arranged a bit part in the Marx Brothers film
Love Happy (1950).
In Gary VItacco Robles' volume 2 bio,
Icon, considered by many the best Monroe biography out there, or at least one of the top three, he has her attending with Joe DiMaggio, at the invitation of Dean Martin. Marilyn wanted to go as a way of thanking Martin for supporting her during the studio crisis on
Something's Got to Give. Martin also wanted her to remarry DiMaggio. But further, Martin and Monroe were also discussing a future film project they might work on. There was no Red Diary of Secrets, and there was no press conference scheduled for Monday the 6th. These are myths piled onto a small hillock of them designed to create a paradigm, instead they have created toxic sludge. But then what about assistant DA John Miner and his “tapes”? Miner's story was heavily promoted by the LA Times. In 1962, Miner was part of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s medical-legal division. He observed Monroe’s autopsy and allegedly interviewed Dr. Greenson, who had made two streams of consciousness type tapes in the weeks before her death. Greenson made Miner promise never to reveal their contents. Miner so complied and the lawyer said he made extensive notes on them (McGovern, pp. 458-59). There were two things that were odd about his story. First, in the summer of 1962, Greenson was talking to Monroe every day, sometimes twice a day. So why would she need to make stream of consciousness tapes for him? In 2005, Miner released the notes to the LA Times. They treated it as a major feature story—posing no serious questions to the attorney. And the point here is that Miner told three stories about when he composed these notes. Here is the second problem inherent with Greenson: if the doctor made Miner promise not to reveal their contents, why would he let him take contemporaneous notes? That would indicate Miner intended to make them public, which would be a violation of doctor/patient privilege. So Miner switched to, well, he did not make them in Greenson’s presence, but later; he made them many years after. But then, how could one recall them that closely? (McGovern, p. 461).
It turned out—as it almost always does—there was a cash motive behind Miner’s late arrival on the Monroe scene. In 1995, Miner had attempted to sell his notes to Vanity Fair. But in that version, he had only a few pages on a legal pad, which implies he made no contemporaneous notes and it is unlikely that he did them the same day (Lois Banner,
Marilyn, p. 419; McGovern, pp. 463-64). Even at that, Miner tried to incite a bidding war by saying he had been offered six figures by a competitor. This was obviously not true. But it’s even worse than that. Miner had fallen on hard times. He had been terminated from the DA’s office, had his license suspended—for more than one reason—and declared bankruptcy (McGovern, p. 465; Banner, p. 419). This is why he needed payment for the notes. Further, although he told others he had interviewed Greenson, he likely had not (Banner, p. 419). After further discussion, and further revelations about her history of sexual anecdotes and obsession with enemas, Lois Banner concluded Miner had created the notes himself. Are we to believe that the LA Times did not know any of this in 2005? Miner was also involved in the inquiry—rather the cover up—of the Robert Kennedy assassination. As anyone who reads Lisa Pease’s book on that case,
A Lie Too Big to Fail (2018), the alleged assassin of Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, could not have killed the senator. Further, Sirhan showed signs of being hypno-programmed that night. The man who all but admitted to hypnotizing Sirhan was William Joseph Bryan. It turned out that when Bryan died, the attorney for his estate turned out to be none other than John Miner. The night of Bryan’s death, Miner sealed Bryan’s home (Pease, pp. 67-69, 446). One of the most telling parts of
Murder Orthodoxies is when McGovern uses the calendars of President Kennedy and Attorney General Kennedy and matches them with the two Monroe day-by-day books previously mentioned (pp. 176-86). Monroe met Robert Kennedy four times, each time was in public with other people around. President Kennedy met with Monroe on three occasions. At one of those occasions, in March of 1962 at Bing Crosby’s desert estate, there is plausible evidence they had some kind of dalliance. And that is it. Biographers Randy Taraborrelli and Gary Vitacco-Robles agree with this record.
McGovern addresses the questions that people like Margolis and Wolfe have posed about the autopsy. It was not uncommon to have ingested the pills Monroe did and not have them show up as residue in the stomach. Simply because Monroe’s stomach was empty and the organ keeps on working until the subject has passed on (McGovern, p. 483). Also, the manufacturer of Nembutal used a color dye that did not bleed from the gelatin capsules once swallowed, which explains why no dyes were found in her stomach (ibid, p. 482). Not only did Wecht agree with Thomas Noguchi’s autopsy, so did Dr. Boyd Stevens for the DA’s office review of the case in 1982. McGovern also proves through the barbiturate levels in Monroe’s liver and blood that she was not injected or given a “hot shot”. Today, Monroe’s doctors would have been placed on trial for their irresponsible overprescribing of pills and also for the dangerous combination the prescriptions created: Nembutal, Chloral Hydrate, Librium, Phenergan, and Triavil. The two drugs that killed her are the first two. Donald McGovern has written a quite commendable book. One that swims against some sick cultural tides. As he shows, no one was “protecting the Kennedys.” Those who used that rubric were engaging in the most outrageous practices of evidence manipulation and character assassination; not just of the Kennedys, but of Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was not a Mafia moll, nor was she a high level intelligence agent. McGovern has shown these to be part of a ludicrous and unfounded sideshow. There is a standard in writing nonfiction: sensational charges necessitate sensational evidence. That rule was completely discarded in this field a long time ago, specifically by money-grubbing Norman Mailer. This opened the door to the likes of Slatzer, Grandison, Heyman, Margolis, Wolfe, Smathers... supporting and aggrandizing each other. Don McGovern’s book applies the torch to their circus tent.
Source: kennedysandking.com
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