In virtually all of the books written about Marilyn Monroe, especially those that espouse a murder orthodoxy and a related conspiracy to conceal and/or protect her murderer, usually Attorney General Robert Kennedy with the approval of President John Kennedy, the authors alleged many encounters involving Marilyn and her political paramours. Rotson followed along that well trodden path.

For example, Rotson asserted: Months after his marriage [to Patricia Kennedy], in July 1954, Peter Lawford connected the elder of his new brothers-in-law [John] with Marilyn Monroe at a party hosted by agent Charles Feldman. […] Marilyn was at the party with the husband of six months, Joe DiMaggio, but the baseball hero was a reluctant guest (Rotson 73). Rotson did not offer any verifiable source for the preceding assertion.

At that time, John Kennedy was a Massachusetts Senator; but the alleged mid-1954 encounter and purported introduction to Senator Kennedy was not mentioned by even one of Marilyn’s legitimate biographers. In addition, neither April VeVea nor Carl Rollyson, in their day-by-day accounting of Marilyn’s activities, reported the Feldman party, which included an introduction to Senator Kennedy, an event that most certainly would have been noticed; and I have not been able to locate any indications whatsoever that Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy was in Los Angeles in July of 1954 or that he attended a Charles Feldman hosted dinner party and received a formal introduction to Miss Marilyn Monroe, who, by mid-1954, was an inordinately famous movie star.

Marilyn’s new Fox contract awaited her signature. Joe DiMaggio used what influence he had with his wife, and advised her not to sign. According to Carl Rollyson, Charles Feldman invited Marilyn and Joe to his house, hoping Joe will convince Marilyn to sign the Fox contract (KE:1954).1The notation in Rollyson’s publication, Marilyn Monroe Day By Day, regarding Feldman’s invitation, can be found in the chapter dedicated to 1954, July 28, a Wednesday.Rollyson does not indicate that Marilyn and Joe accepted Feldman’s invitation; and considering that DiMaggio wanted Marilyn to abandon her career as a movie star for a career as his homemaker, it is more than highly unlikely that DiMaggio would have consented to become Feldman’s ally or even put himself in a position to receive such an entreaty. A traditionalist, Donald Spoto observed, he [DiMaggio] resented her income, fame and independence: Joe wanted his wife at home nicely subordinate (Spoto 281). A new and improved Fox contract certainly would have represented to DiMaggio exactly what he wanted to avoid, the creation of an even more powerful Marilyn Monroe.

Jean Howard, actress and model, was married to Charles Feldman at the time. In her semi-autobiography, Jean Howard’s Hollywood: A Photo Memoir, published in 1989, Jean recalled her initial encounter with Marilyn. Brought to the Feldman residence by Elia Kazan, Jean spotted Marilyn sitting by the swimming pool, alone, doing nothing. Before leaving for a lunch date, Jean approached Marilyn and offered the blonde something to drink. Marilyn refused politely in her normally soft voice. Jean did not see Marilyn again until 1953 at Fox studio during the filming of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Then, in either 1957 or 1958, the two women met again in Manhattan, and Jean asked Marilyn to pose for some photographs at the photographers East Seventy-Seventh Street studio. Of course, Marilyn accepted. In 1990, Jean Howard sat for a rare interview with Skip Lowe about her photo memoir and all the movie stars that passed through her life, virtually every movie star from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Jean recounted for Lowe the initial garden encounter with Marilyn and then she commented: I wish I had got to know her better. I think I could have been a good friend, could have helped her. She needed a friend. Evidently, Marilyn needed a female friend, which the then starlet did not have, at least according to Jean. Then, in 1991, Ben Brantley penned a lengthy article dedicated to Jean’s pictures. Brantley repeated Jean’s story about her encounter with Marilyn. Evidently, Jean also encountered John Kennedy during the Democrat Convention in 1960. And yet, Jean never mentioned a party attended by Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio and then Senator John Kennedy, during which the actress and the senator received formal introductions. While the preceding might not be 100% proof, it strongly suggests that the 1954 encounter as alleged by Rotson in Bombshell never actually occurred.

In Robert Slatzer’s 1974 publication, The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe, the fantasist asserted that a man, who identified himself as Jack Quinn, telephoned with information about some documents pertaining to Marilyn’s death. Quinn asserted that he worked at the Los Angeles Hall of Records, which housed a lengthy police report regarding their investigation into Marilyn’s death. This report contained Robert Kennedy’s sworn deposition,2According to the deposition according to Quinn/Slatzer, the attorney general was in Los Angeles that Saturday to award the Kennedy Cup at Angel’s Park for the first Tri-International Soccer Match among Canada, Mexico, and the United States (Slatzer 300). He was also in LA to confront Marilyn.provided to LAPD Capt Edward Davis. According to Quinn, Robert Kennedy admitted that he was having an affair with Marilyn and that he visited her regularly. According to Donald Wolfe, Michael Rothmiller read the lengthy police report which included the deposition (KE: Part I:10); but evidently, Rothmiller did not reveal much to the friendly Wolfe. According to authors Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin, Rothmiller reserved his revelations for authors Peter Brown and Patte Barham. According to Margolis and Buskin, Rothmiller told Brown and Barham that Bobby Kennedy “said he was involved with Monroe […] and also said he had met with her several times during the summer” (Margolis/Buskin KE:3). I have three different editions of the Brown and Barham publication, and Michael Rothmiller does not appear therein. His name does not appear in the book’s index, and he is not acknowledged by the authors as a contributor in any way. In Bombshell, Rotson mentions this deposition: In a statement held in the OCID files and read by Mike Rothmiller, Robert Kennedy confirmed the afternoon visit and acknowledged he had seen Marilyn several times that year (Rotson 23). The preceding is the sum total of the information about this deposition provided in Bombshell. I must ask: did Robert Kennedy fail to acknow­ledge the night visit?

The assertion that Robert Kennedy provided a sworn deposition raises more legal questions than I can address. For instance, had formal charges been filed against the attorney general, making a deposition necessary? Which legal authority subpoenaed the attorney general to provide the deposition? Were attorneys present along with a certified court stenographer during the deposing process? Why would Robert Kennedy simply volunteer to give his statement to a police captain. If he was deposed under subpoena, why would the attorney general do so without legal representation present? Finally, and more to the crux of this issue, for Robert Kennedy to provide such a deposition is more than illogical: why would he murder the most famous woman on Earth to silence her, to prevent her from revealing their affair and then immediately admit as much in a statement to police, whether voluntary or sworn? To do that would have been, well, foolish, not to even mention completely dimwitted. Also, if the OCID possessed tape recordings of what transpired that Saturday night, why would the police even need a deposition; and if the police orchestrated a cover-up to protect Robert Kennedy, why would law enforcement ask or force Robert Kennedy to provide a deposition when law enforcement never planned a pursuit with the intent of filing criminal charges? And if the LAPD/OCID wanted Robert Kennedy’s confession to use as tool of political blackmail, then the attorney general’s compliant submission thereto was even more dimwitted. Speaking only for me, of course, I doubt that Robert Kennedy was a dimwit; and regarding the entire deposition scenario, nonsensical is the word that comes to mind.

The 1960 Democrat Convention appears in Bombshell, the irresistible magnet that draws Marilyn to Los Angeles for a week of cavorting with then presidential candidate, Senator John Kennedy; and according to Rotson, wild horses weren’t going to keep her away. During one of the many breaks Marilyn purportedly took while filming The Misfits in Nevada, she joined John Kennedy during the first 72 hours of the convention (Rotson 90-91). As I recall, Judith Exner alleged that she also cavorted with Senator John Kennedy during the 1960 DNC; but then I digress, as I often do.

The myth that Marilyn attended the 1960 political convocation first appeared in Anthony Summers’ Goddess. Marilyn’s pathographer received confirmation of both the skinny dipping and John Kennedy’s presence from questionable and anonymous sources whose testimony was hearsay. Even though Summers mentioned Frank Hronek and Hronek’s unnamed partner, both plain clothes officers of the Bureau of Investigation of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, according to the author’s source notes, he interviewed Gary Wean, Jack Eggers, Hronek’s widow and son. The information they imparted to Summers amounted to what Frank Hronek, who had died in 1980, evidently reported to Summers’ four odd sources, meaning their testimony was gross hearsay. What follows is how Summers reported their testimony: The man shortly to be president departed soon afterward, according to a spokesman, because “the candidate needs some rest.” The rest, an informant told the DA’s officers later, was in the company of Marilyn Monroe (Summers 213: emphasis mine). Who was the spokesman; who was the informant; and which of the district attorney’s officers received the information from the informant? The individuals mentioned in Summers’ source notes did not receive credit for any of the quotations regarding the 1960 Democrat convention, not as actual witnesses to what transpired and not as actual witnesses to the presence of Marilyn Monroe.

Four years later, the alleged appearance by the blonde actress at the 1960 Democrat convention resurfaced in C. David Heymann’s 1989 Kennedy publication, A Woman Named Jackie; however, according to Heymann, he based his DNC scenario, not on secret tapes or files, but on information the writer received from Peter Lawford during several lengthy interviews with the British actor. Odd, though, Peter Lawford had died five years prior to the publication of Heymann’s First Lady novel. Still, everything reported by Rotson in Bombshell, regarding Marilyn’s attendance at the 1960 convention, had already appeared in Heymann’s dubious publication, and the information presented in each publication is so similar, one might logically and understandably conclude that Rotson relied extensively on and borrowed freely from the frequently criticized celebrity biographer.

In Murder Orthodoxies, I dedicated a complete sub-section to the dishonest literary practices of C. David Heymann. I noted the many accusations of fabrication, plagiarism and outright lying of which he had been accused during the years he wrote biographies for a living. Since writing Murder Orthodoxies, I have received a considerable amount of confirmation about Heymann’s deceitfulness from Donna Morel, who undoubtedly knows more about Heymann’s dishonesty and biographical fictions than any other person on planet Earth. Donna spent several weeks at Stony Brook University where Heymann’s papers are now housed; and what Donna learned from reviewing that collected material is this: C. David Heymann was not an honest fellow and never let actual facts, or the truth, encumber him or his frequently maligned books. Donna graciously provided me with a copy of what Heymann claimed memorialized his interviews with Peter Lawford. Heymann’s Lawford interview amounted to nothing more than six pages of handwritten notes. Usually an interview features questions asked by the interviewer with responses provided by the interviewee; but in this case, the questions are missing. Obviously edited with words and phrases scratched through and replaced with alternate words and phrases, leading a fellow to ask which word or phrase did Lawford actually speak? An important question that cannot be answered.

Once again, all the Inside Baseball details that I presented in Murder Orthodoxies about Heymann can be found by following this direct link: A Serial Fabulist. The important point here is Rotson’s contention that Marilyn actually attended the 1960 national convention during one of her numerous breaks while she filmed The Misfits; and it was on one of those that Marilyn found herself downtown Los Angeles under the watchful eye of the LAPD (Rotson 90).

The inveterate fabulist and biographical novelist, Clem Heymann, wrote the following in 1989: On the second night of the convention, Marilyn joined Kennedy for dinner at Puccini’s, a local restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra and a handful of silent partners. They were accompanied by Peter Lawford and Ken O’Donnell. Heymann then quoted Lawford as follows: Jack liked to pat and squeeze her [Marilyn]. He was touching her here and there under the table when this bemused expression suddenly crossed his face. Marilyn said later he had put his hand up her dress and discovered she wore no underwear (Heymann 235).

Rotson asserted that the Under-Marilyn’s-Skirt-Mining-Operation actually occurred during the late nineteen-fifties when then Senator John Kennedy, who frequently dined with Marilyn in restaurants, slipped his hand beneath her skirt, only to discover that she was not wearing any lady’s foundational garments. According to Rotson according to Marilyn, Senator Kennedy’s face went red when he realized I wasn’t wearing any panties (Rotson 84), that she was operating commando. Marilyn’s purported confession, left unsourced by Rotson by the way, seems slightly odd if John Kennedy slipped his hand beneath her skirt in restaurants, more than one restaurant, meaning multiple times: frankly Marilyn seldom wore panties. Certainly the senator would have been aware of that particular Marilyn peculiarity.3Keep in mind, in the late fifties, Marilyn and John Kennedy had yet to meet. President and actress would not formally meet until December the 5th in 1961 at a Manhattan dinner party hosted by Fifi Fell.

Regarding Marilyn’s appearance at the Democrat National Convention, according to Rotson, who had obviously read A Woman Named Jackie and lifted a considerable amount of information therefrom:

On the second evening, she [Marilyn] had dinner with him [John Kennedy] at Puccini’s in Beverly Hills, known in the day as “a lasagna joint” on South Beverly Drive and owned by Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford. The next morning, July 13, 1960, Marilyn and John Kennedy were together, wet from the shower, at breakfast at Peter Lawford’s house out on Palisades Beach Road. […] The night of JFK’s triumphant ‘The New Frontier’ acceptance speech, a huge party was organized by Peter Lawford out at his beach house […] and there were groups of party girls […] in attendance. The next President of the United States and the world’s most famous sex icon got lost in the crowd (Rotson 91-93).

The Democrat National Convention began in 1960 on Sunday, July the 10th with the Committee Dinner. The eventual nominee opened the convention with a speech. On Friday night, July the 15th, Presidential Candidate John Kennedy ended the DNC with his acceptance speech. Even though the OCID files did not contain a notation saying John Kennedy or Marilyn left 635 Palisades Beach Road that night (Rotson 93), the insinuation was that they did leave and they left together. But wait … au contraire! The facts are as follows.

During the first week in July, Arthur Miller joined Marilyn in New York City where, beginning on the 5th, she performed several screen tests for The Misfits. Then on July the 8th, according to Gary Vitacco-Robles, Marilyn invited James Haspiel and the Monroe Six, a group of devoted fans, to view those Misfit’s screen tests. According to April VeVea, on July the 11th, Monday, the second day of the DNC in Los Angeles, Arthur Miller informed the Music Corporation of America that Marilyn was ill. Obviously her illness prevented her from engaging in the preproduction activities planned for that day and the following day, July the 12th, in New York City. On July the 13th, Wednesday, the fourth day of the Los Angeles convention, Marilyn located Ralph Roberts playing poker in Maureen Stapleton’s Manhattan apartment. Roberts agreed to give Marilyn a massage, and upon entering the Miller’s apartment in Manhattan, Roberts found Marilyn watching the DNC on television as Arthur Miller slept in the couple’s adjoining bedroom (Vitacco-Robles v2:241).In his memoir, Mimosa, Marilyn’s close friend and masseur noted the following: Marilyn was alone in the living room when I arrived. Roberts then quoted Marilyn: Arthur is asleep. They’re showing the Democratic National Convention on television. Would it be alright if we have it on during the massage? The man who was virtually Marilyn’s brother then noted: as they watched the convention and it became apparent that John Kennedy would eventually win the nomination, Marilyn became more and more tense. “I worship Mr. Stevenson,” she said. “I know practically nothing of Mr. Kennedy” (Roberts 32). If Marilyn knew practically nothing about John Kennedy in mid-1960, she certainly was not engaged in an affair with him in at any time during the late fifties, say 1957 through 1959, years that she was married to Arthur Miller.4Marilyn and Arthur Miller married in June of 1956 but divorced in January of 1961. A judge in White Plains, New York, performed the Miller’s first mar­riage, a civil ceremony, which was followed by a reli­gious one. Marilyn tra­veled to Mexico to obtain her divorce from Miller on January the 20th, the day of John Ken­nedy’s inau­guration.

On July the 14th, Thursday, the conventions fifth day, Marilyn sent Ralph Greenson a telegram from Manhattan, accompanied by a bouquet of roses. The telegram noted that she would be in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, July the 17th. Marilyn would soon depart for the west coast.

The date on which Marilyn boarded an airplane in New York City and flew to Los Angeles varies with biographer; but regardless of the actual date she left NYC, she did not arrive in LA until the DNC was over. She departed from LA for Reno, Nevada, by airplane on July the 20th. The following day, July the 21st John Huston, the movie’s director, filmed the first scene of The Misfits, the opening scene with Roslyn in her apartment preparing to appear at her divorce hearing.

Clearly, Marilyn did not participate in the events and shenanigans as asserted by C. David Heymann or as asserted by Rotson in Bombshell. Marilyn was not in Los Angeles during the week of July the 10th; and she was not with John Kennedy during the DNC in 1960. She could not have attended the convention during one of her many alleged breaks from filming The Misfits. Filming Marilyn’s final completed movie actually began one week after the convention ended; and the star only took one break from filming, a two week hospital stay during which she was treated for exhaustion from lack of sleep, depression and abuse of prescription drugs, specifically sleeping capsules. By that time, the DNC was a distant memory.

Similar to the preceding, Rotson repeats the myth that President Kennedy and Marilyn hooked up following the May the 19th birthday gala and fund raiser in 1962; but Rotson also adds a few absurd assertions and absurd speculations. As usual, Rotson does not identify one source or include any evidence whatsoever, not even a testament, to substantiate any of the absurd assertions and speculations. Of course, Rotson repeats the assertion that Marilyn had to be stitched into her famous dress, a Maileresque factoid repeated each and every time a journalist or an author mentions the JFK Birthday Dress. What a preposterous assertion, of course; but all that matters is maintaining a factoidal illusion and thereby becoming a member of the herd.

Another factoid, which Rotson calls a consensus, despite the absence of released files regarding how the evening ended, is this: […] Marilyn left with President Kennedy and went to his suite at the Carlyle Hotel following the Krim’s after party (Rotson 121). What has become a factoid by consensus actually began with C. David Heymann and is, of course, false, an outright fabrication. Marilyn left the Krim’s after party with Isadore Miller, her former father-in-law and escort for the evening, a man she adored. In her rented limousine, Marilyn delivered Isadore to his front door steps in Brooklyn. She then traveled to her Manhattan apartment building where she met James Haspiel curbside; they engaged in a brief chat. She then went upstairs to her apartment where Ralph Roberts gave her a massage until she fell asleep. Marilyn did not go to the Carlyle Hotel or spend the night with President Kennedy; and anyone who so maintains is simply spreading a falsehood.

Even so, Rotson was not finished speculating and spreading falsehoods. During that night, Rotson declared, whatever Marilyn asked or even pleaded for, it was not enough. She’d lost this game of chance […]. During their hotel rendezvous, one that did not occur, President Kennedy informed Marilyn that their affair, which never transpired, was over; and Peter Lawford telephoned her from Hyannisport on May the 24th to inform her that she would never see and she could never try to contact the President again (Rotson 121). More information from the secret files, we must conclude: Rotson did not identify a source or provide any evidence to support the assertion that Lawford actually telephoned Marilyn that Thursday in May of 1962.

Even though the OCID files did not stipulate an exact date, according to Rotson, during November’s third week in 1961, President Kennedy attended a fundraising dinner in Los Angeles. He spent the night at the Lawfords’ beach house. Marilyn was there. Evidently, as honest as the day is long and the salt of the Earth private detective, Fred Otash, vulgarly alleged that he did hear a tape of Jack Kennedy fucking Monroe. Good old Freddie heard the grunting evidence of sexual activity but then offered the following polite and aristocratically genteel position: But I don’t want to get into the moans and groans of their relationship (Rotson 101). How nice.

President Kennedy’s Appointment Books, faithfully kept during his brief presidency, detail his daily appointments and activities. Beginning on Thursday, November the 16th, the president traveled to three cities, Seattle, Phoenix and then Bonham, Texas, where he attended a funeral, before he traveled to Los Angeles, where Air Force One landed at 4:23 PM on Saturday, November the 18th. After deplaning, the president traveled by motorcade to several events; and then at 10:50 PM, the president retired to his Beverly Hilton Hotel suite for the night.

On Sunday morning, November the 19th, at 10:00 AM, the president attended Mass at the Good Shepherd Church along with Reverend Monsignor Daniel F. Sullivan. At 10:55 AM, President Kennedy returned to the Beverly Hilton Hotel briefly. Between 11:30 AM and 11:49 AM, along with David Powers, the president motored to the residence of his sister and her actor husband and attended a luncheon until 3:08 PM. He returned to the hotel at 3:27 PM, where he remained until 10:42 PM. The appointment book does not stipulate how President Kennedy occupied himself until he traveled to the Los Angeles International Airport and departed on Air Force One at 11:05 PM. He arrived in Washington at 8:15 AM on Monday, November the 20th. He began the presidential day by holding an off-the-record meeting with Senator Thomas Dodd.

Evidently, then, based on the preceding detailed, official account, the dinner, or the evening meal, alleged by Rotson, was actually a luncheon which began at 12:00 noon and lasted slightly over three hours, a luncheon attended by the following important guests: Mr. and Mrs. Billy Wilder, Mr. and Mrs. Cluster, David Powers, Pierre Salinger, Roger Edens, Milton Ebbins, Gloria Cahn and Angie Dickinson, the lovely blonde actress who actually had an affair with the president. Marilyn Monroe was not a guest at the luncheon; and not only that, President Kennedy did not spend the night with the Lawfords. Therefore, Marilyn and John Kennedy did not spend the night together, either; so Fred Otash must have heard the moans and groans of some other couple heated by the impulse of passion; or, more than likely, Fred merely lied, for which he had what must be called a passionate predilection.

Repeating yet another completely false but often floated assertion pertaining to Eunice Murray, Rotson asserted: it emerged years later that she was a qualified psychiatric nurse (Rotson 109); but Philip Laclair, one of Eunice Murray’s sons-in-law, reported to Donald Spoto that Eunice had no formal training as a nurse (Spoto KE:19). In fact, Eunice’s formal education ended in 1918 when she was sixteen years old: Eunice never graduated from high school. Like Samir Muqaddin, who transformed Marilyn into an agent working for the FBI and the CIA, Rotson transforms Eunice Murray into an agent working for J. Edgar Hoover without offering one piece of evidence to support such a ridiculous transformation.

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, John Miner, was the chief of that office’s Medical Legal Section in 1962; and in that capacity, he observed and even assisted with Marilyn’s au­topsy. He also asserted that he actually interviewed Dr. Ralph Greenson several days after Marilyn’s funeral. It is worth noting that John Miner and Dr. Greenson were buddies; and there is reasonable doubt, justified doubt, regarding Miner’s alleged interview: perhaps Miner never actually interviewed his buddy.

According to Miner, Dr. Greenson played two tapes during the interview, tape recordings of Marilyn speaking, in a stream-of-consciousness soliloquy, about her life and offering her opinions on a variety of subjects, including her relationships with the middle Kennedy brothers. Before Dr. Greenson played those tapes, he obtained from Miner a vow of secrecy, a promise never to reveal the contents of the tapes; but years later, after various authors implicated Dr. Greenson in Marilyn’s death, a few even accused Dr. Greenson of murder­ing his most famous patient, John Miner asked the psychiatrist’s widow, Hilti, to release him from his promise. Miner wanted to defend his friend, and Hilti complied. Not long thereafter he claimed that he had made a contemporaneous transcription of those tapes. Many incorrect and inconsistent stories about those tapes, now erroneously known as the John Miner Tapes, appeared in the media; and those tapes make an appearance in Bombshell along with a customary misrepresentation.

According to Rotson, the subject of Marilyn’s double barreled affairs with the middle Kennedy brothers did come up in her psychiatric sessions with Dr. Greenson and the psychiatrist taped them, a completely incorrect and misleading statement. Marilyn Monroe is a soldier, she allegedly said to Dr. Greenson. Her commander in chief is the greatest and most powerful man in the world. The first duty of a soldier is to obey her commander and chief. Marilyn then proceeds to compare the president to a ship’s captain and Robert Kennedy to the captain’s XO. Bobby would do absolutely anything for his brother, she adds, and so would I (Rotson 112). The implication is apparent; but here’s the problem: Dr. Greenson did not record Marilyn speaking during a therapy session, something, according to his daughter, Joan, the psychiatrist never did because he had difficulty operating machines. Marilyn allegedly made the two tape recordings herself at home and gave them to Dr. Greenson. Then, during Miner’s alleged interview with the doctor, as Dr. Greenson played the tapes for Miner, the attorney took notes regarding the tapes’ contents, or so he alleged, from which he created a transcription later on the same day. The many inconsistent stories Miner told about those tapes and his purported transcription are interesting and often comical but not essential to this discussion. Still, if you want to read more about Miner’s tapes and his story, follow this direct link to Murder Orthodoxies, An Attorney and His Tapes.

During the 1982 threshold re-investigation into Marilyn’s death, Miner informed Ronald Car­roll, the former assistant district attorney who managed the re-investigation, that Dr. Greenson possessed tapes of Marilyn speaking that had probably been destroyed by then: Greenson had died in 1979. Bombshell does not explain how the authors obtained and listened to tape recordings of Marilyn Monroe that no longer existed; and it is more than probable that the tape recordings never existed, at least not outside the mind and fecund imagination of John Miner. Regarding the dubious John Miner Tapes, Bombshell contains not a single word; and Rotson labels their quotation of Marilyn as This recording of Greenson’s (Rotson 112). Most certainly what is presented as an actual Marilyn quotation most certainly is not; and Rotson’s presentation of the quotation is most certainly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. That quotation must have been lifted from John Miner’s dubious transcription, not from the actual tapes: they do not exist.

Marilyn and Robert Kennedy enjoyed regular liaisons, according to Rotson; and even though Marilyn resided inside a glittering mist, those frequent liaisons convinced the goddess that Bobby Kennedy was meant for her; and, according to Rotson, the 4th of July celebration at the Lawford’s beachside mansion in Santa Monica attended by Bobby Kennedy, continued into a weekend of love making with the attorney general and fanned, for her, that absurdity (Rotson 125-126).

July the 4th in 1962 was the 11th anniversary of Kathleen Kennedy’s birthday, Robert Kennedy’s eldest child. Kathleen’s father was not in Los Angeles cavorting with Marilyn, he was in Hyannisport celebrating Kathleen’s birthday and participating in the Kennedy clan’s annual 4th of July celebration, which included a parade through Hyannisport. Also, Robert Kennedy did not spend the weekend following the 4th touching Marilyn’s toes beneath Peter Lawford’s sheets.

A UPI story,5Donna Morel’s diligent and tireless research discovered the following newspaper articles; and Donna graciously provided them to me, along with many othersdated Jul 5, 1962, which ran in The Eugene Guard, Eugene, Oregon, noted: Robert Kennedy, Freeman Confer; WASHINGTON (UPI) Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy discussed developments in the Billie Sol Estes case Tuesday [July 3] with Agriculture Secretary Orville L. Freeman. Freeman came to Kennedy’s office in the Justice Department for the 30-minute conference. Kennedy later said the two men reviewed all aspects of the complicated case.

Another UPI story that ran in the Hackensack Record on July the 5th in 1962 read as follows: BOBBY KENNEDY RESTS, Hyannis Port, Mass., July 5 (UPI)—Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy spent the Fourth of July with his family at his summer home here. He will return to Washington Sunday.

Obviously, the attorney general was not in Los Angeles on either the 3rd, the 4th, or the 5th of July in 1962.

Finally, on Sunday, July the 8th in 1962, The New York Times ran the following Special, written by E. W. Kenworthy: HYANNIS PORT, Mass., July 7—Joseph P. Kennedy, father of President Kennedy, arrived here this morning by plane from New York, where he had undergone two months of therapy after a paralytic stroke. […] The President and Mrs. Kennedy and their two children, Caroline and John Jr., arrived here last evening for the week-end (sic). […] Also here this week-end (sic) are the Attorney General and his family, Edward Kennedy and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Smith. Mrs. Smith is the President’s sister. The President’s mother is not here. Obviously, and there can be no doubt about the location of Robert Kennedy, he did not spend the 4th of July weekend with Marilyn in Los Angeles. Fact.

I could continue along the lines of the preceding and identify even more spurious and specious assertions contained in Bombshell; but I would eventually begin to see myself as the reincarnation of hard Captain Bligh who superintends the cold-hearted lashing of a dead man; so I’ll end this commentary with some questions and a final observation.

According to Michael Rothmiller, who offered testimony to refresh Lawford’s memory during their interview in the park, Mrs. Murray was not present that Saturday night in August. Where was she? Where was Eunice Murray while Robert Kennedy and Marilyn screamed at each other, while the attorney general slapped Marilyn around and knocked her to the floor twice, after which Marilyn sat on her sofa in her living room weeping? Where was Eunice Murray? And if she was not there, as asserted by Michael Rothmiller, when did Eunice return to Marilyn’s hacienda to discover her body? If she returned slightly before midnight, she would have encountered Robert Kennedy and Peter Lawford escaping and two policeman entering to commence the cover-up. Rotson does not offer any evidence to support, or any explanation regarding, the strange absence of Eunice Murray that Saturday night. A fact even clearer than light, Eunice Murray was there.

How can the conspiracy to murder and then conceal the murder of Marilyn Monroe be both complex and also not complicated? Aren’t those conceptions mutually exclusive? But that is what Rotson asserts. The “why” of Greenson’s presence in the car [with Peter Lawford and Robert Kennedy as reported by BHPO Lynn Franklin] is something that has never been explained in the complex conspiracy (Rotson 32: emphasis mine). And then many pages later, Rotson proclaims: Marilyn Monroe’s death was not a complicated conspiracy (Rotson 218: emphasis mine). To me, anyway, the preceding is certainly nonsensical.

Similarly how could the conspiracy to conceal the murder of Marilyn Monroe involve only a handful of people? (Rotson 218). How many is a handful? Four? The number of fingers used to make a fist? What follows is a partial listing of the individuals that must have been involved: Robert Kennedy, President John Kennedy, Peter Lawford, Eunice Murray, Pat Newcomb, Dr. Ralph Greenson, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, Fred Otash and his employees, Chief of Police William Parker, Captain James Hamilton, the two policeman who entered Marilyn’s house as Robert Kennedy and Lawford were leaving, the fifty-five detectives at the OCID who apparently knew Marilyn had been murdered, Dr. Theodore Curphey, Robert Kennedy’s source for the saxitoxin in the CIA, John Bates, Sr., Nancy Bates and Roland Snyder. According to my arithmetic, that totals at least seventy-five persons. Does that number qualify as a handful?

Why did the OCID fail to bug Dr. Greenson’s house and tap the psychiatrist’s telephones? Bombshell does not concern itself with that obvious question or mention any conversations between Marilyn and her psychiatrist. Most certainly, all of those conversations would have been more than significant. If the OCID did not eavesdrop and spy on Dr. Greenson, why not? That seems slightly odd; and it could be argued, a major oversight by a police agency interested in all the dirt it could accumulate on Marilyn and her constituents. Also, several other Hollywood stars were Dr. Greenson’s patients, including Frank Sinatra. Did the OCID fail to tap and tape Sinatra’s many residences? Rotson accused Sinatra of ordering the death of a Deputy Sheriff whose wife had once been Sinatra’s lover without offering any supporting evidence, like the transcription of a telephone call. Did the OCID bug and tap the residences of Milton and Amy Greene and Milton’s photographic studio? Are there tape recordings somewhere of Marilyn’s conversations with Margaret Hohenberg, Dr. Marianne Kris, Pat Newcomb, Pat Lawford, Robert Slatzer and Jeanne Carmen? Since Eunice Murray did not live with Marilyn, did the OCID bug and tap the housekeeper’s residence? Why did Bombshell fail to mention the many conversations that must have transpired between Mrs. Murray and Marilyn? Not sensational enough? Did the two women only discuss recipes and home cleaning products? If Mrs. Murray was an FBI agent, wouldn’t her conversations with Marilyn have been significant? Are there tape recordings somewhere of conversations with the host of friends that Marilyn frequently telephoned at all hours of day and night? Did the OCID decide that her conversations with Joe DiMaggio were just too mundane to record? Did the OCID fail to bug Marilyn’s residences in Manhattan? Are there tape recordings somewhere of her conversations with Arthur Miller and Isadore Miller? Too mundane to be of any real interest? O well, I accept that such questions and many more like them will never be answered.

What did Robert Kennedy and Peter Lawford do during the time between their afternoon visit with Marilyn and the night visit when the attorney general poisoned his rejected lover, the world’s most famous actress? Certainly their activities would have been observed by the OCID. If not, why not?

Did William H. Sullivan, the assistant director of the federal bureau’s intelligence division, lie in his memoir? J. Edgar Hoover desperately tried to rake up a huge pile of mud and muck about Robert Kennedy’s sexual indiscretions, in fact, muck about anything that could be used against a man Hoover despised; but, according to Sullivan, Hoover never could; and according to Sullican’s memoir, all the stories pertaining to Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy were just that: stories. Sullivan wrote:

Although Hoover was desperately trying to catch Bobby Kennedy red-handed at anything, he never did. Kennedy was almost a Puritan. We used to watch him at parties, where he would order one glass of scotch and still be sipping from the same glass two hours later. The stories about Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were just stories. The original story was invented by a so-called journalist, a right-wing zealot who had a history of spinning wild yarns. It spread like wildfire, of course, and J. Edgar Hoover was right there, gleefully fanning the flames (Sullivan 56).

I can only conclude that Sullivan must have lied in his memoir. He took the real truth, the real facts about Marilyn and the attorney general directly into eternity because he, like every detective in the OCID, like every journalist in the Fourth Estate, had to protect Robert F. Kennedy.

I have not written much about Rothmiller’s putative interview in the park with Peter Lawford, during which the actor divested himself of his apparent assumed responsibility for Marilyn’s death, Lawford’s onerous guilt. That dramatic almost melodramatic scene is uniquely well written and awaits a director like Michael Curtiz or John Huston, a cinematographer like Arthur Edeson or Russell Metty, to include it in a stunning film noir heightened by deep shadows pierced by bars of bright light crossing characters in black silhouette with appropriately serious narration by Sam Spade and evocative emotive music composed by Max Steiner or Wolfgang Korngold. Once again, I must note, there is no actual evidence or proof to support that Michael Rothmiller ever interviewed Peter Lawford at any place at any time. None whatsoever.

I have not written anything about Rothmiller’s alleged restaurant interview with Fred Otash. There is nothing to be gained by wasting words on Fred Otash and what the villainous private detective may or may not have told Michael Rothmiller. Not a word spoken by Otash during the interview can even be corroborated, much less proven or disproven. In 1957, Mike Wallace interviewed Otash on August the 25th. During that interview, Otash admitted that he would do anything for money except commit murder or work for a Communist. Fred Otash was an exceptionally oily man; and Mike Wallace stated unequivocally that the private detective was the most amoral man he had ever interviewed.

Michael Rothmiller resigned his position in the Gangster Squad in 1983, amid some controversy, caused by an August 1982 attempt to assassinate him, his resultant health issues caused by his wounds, which generated his resultant difficulties with the LAPD. While the events that led to Rothmiller’s resignation create an interesting story, those events and that story are not especially germane to this commentary; however, the issues of who attempted to assassinate the OCID detective, and why, should be mentioned?

In his first publication, Rothmiller appeared to be certain that the assassination attempt was perpetrated by one of the many dangerous individuals and drug cartels with which he often associated south of the border as an undercover detective with the OCID. In Bombshell, Rothmiller suggests that the attempt to kill him possibly was the result of what he had learned from Lawford in 1982. If that was the case, the attempt to murder him was actually perpetrated by the OCID; but Rothmiller admits this: he did not write or file an official report or account of his interview with Lawford; he was not wired for sound so the OCID detective did not tape record his interview with the actor. That being the case, how could anyone at the OCID know about his interview with Lawford? And, too, the events of the night Robert Kennedy allegedly murdered Marilyn, the argument and the violence must have been captured on tape by the OCID’s recording equipment; therefore, the information Rothmiller obtained from Lawford must have already been known by many in the OCID, including Rothmiller.

I would be remiss if I did not broach the following issue. As a member of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division, what was Michael Rothmiller’s attitude about the illegal and criminal activities of his fellow detectives both individually and as a unit? How did he behave during the decade that he operated under that OCID’s protective umbrella? According to Rotson, none of the information contained in the secret files would have been intentionally shared with any person outside the OCID; and if any of the documents with sensitive material, normally of a political nature, found their way to the media or to anyone outside the unit or into a legal proceeding, a member of the OCID would disavow the document and claim it was a forgery. Even if the OCID representative had to testify under oath, the representative would simply commit perjury. As an OCID detective, Rotson wrote, Mike Rothmiller understood this hide-the-document ritual and periodically was required to engage in this practice (Rotson 13). The preceding certainly qualifies as a euphemistic manner of admitting deceit and dishonesty by a man who now wants to be believed on the basis of faith in his honesty and his word. Frankly, that is a leap of faith that I, speaking only for me, of course, cannot make.

Michael Rothmiller had ample opportunities to reveal to the world what he now maintains is the absolute truth about how Marilyn Monroe died. He asserts that he actually knew the truth as early as 1972, that Marilyn did not murder herself: she was murdered by someone else. His 1982 interview with Peter Lawford finally confirmed what he had already knew: The Attorney General of the United States murdered the Hollywood Icon of Beauty, Glamour and Feminine Sexuality. Rothmiller appeared on several documentaries involving Marilyn’s death; he even appeared on Robert Slatzer’s The Marilyn Files in 1992. Rothmiller also offered testimony to Donald Wolfe. He never revealed what he now maintains are the facts; he never told the complete truth, not in forty years, fifty-one years from 1972. Is Rothmiller once again withholding or even twisting information? Considering the history of his involvement in Marilyn’s case, speaking only for me, of course, that possibility I cannot dismiss.

According to Bombshell, Rothmiller never listened to the tapes [in the OCID files] but read some of the transcripts of the conversations and believes the recordings still exist. He was not alone when he read the transcripts and was not able to take notes (Rotson 16). If Rothmiller never listened to the tapes, how could he possibly know if the transcripts were authentic? Well, in fact, he could not know anything at all about the tapes; and his belief that they still exist somewhere is not evidence of the tapes actual existence: it is simply his stated belief. Since Bombshell did not include any copies of the alleged transcripts or any real evidence at all regarding the secret files, how can we, all things considered, accept his extraordinary claims. I for one cannot; and I do not believe that any person whose belief is proportional to any evidence presented, any person with a healthy skepticism―well, such a person would not believe Michael Rothmiller, either.

Michael Rothmiller and Douglas Thompson claim that they only want justice for Marilyn; and if you swallow that, then you will swallow anything. Rothmiller asserted and still asserts that he would get a conviction in any court in America if he presented his evidence. What’s stopping him?