President Lyndon Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, the FOIA, into law on July the 4th in 1966. What Johnson signed was actually an amendment to Section 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. The FOIA has been modified frequently over the passing years, occasionally narrowed, occasionally expanded, always on executive order issued by subsequent presidents. Johnson’s amendment intended to give the American people unfettered access to information contained in the documents and records held by their government; however, some historians, journalists and writers claim the law has not given them unfettered access to anything except stonewalling by various federal agencies, particularly Hoover’s Federal Bureau and the inscrutable Central Intelligence Agency.

The year the FBI and CIA actually began to declassify their surveillance reports and memoranda regarding Marilyn Monroe is unknown to me. It is also unknown to me when the first FOIA forms requesting the release of a Marilyn surveillance report appeared in the halls of the central bureaucracy; but as the files became declassified, historians, novelists, conspiracists and potential biographers, journalists and a curious citizenry wanted to read the information thereon. What secrets about Marilyn’s life might be gleaned from those cryptic and mysterious government files? What details about her death might be discovered? Certainly, a few of the curious simply hoped to discover some new tantalizing and lurid detail that could be fitted into a new conspiracy theory or a new novel biographical novel. Would the world finally learn the facts about the persons involved in Marilyn’s death? Would confirmation be forthcoming, confirmation of what most of the world already believed, that the second most discussed, the second most analyzed death of the 20th century was a premeditated murder, both perpetrated and obscured by the nation’s two most powerful men, both of whom were subsequently murdered? What the curious hoped to discover or confirm notwithstanding, what did, and what do, the files and documents declassified and released by the FBI and the CIA actually reveal about Marilyn Monroe’s life and her unsettling untimely death?

Heavily redacted and censored, some of the released documents have been rendered unintelligible by their redaction and some of the copies are so poor they are virtually illegible. Often it is difficult to discern the original date of composition: they are literally covered with dated and initialed stamps of classification and declassification, not to mention a scrawl of undated initials apparently inscribed by federal bureau employees, agents and bureaucrats who read the reports and memoranda as the years passed. Frankly, the memoranda and reports are replete with humorous errors and are, by and large, gossipy and often approach the boring; but the FBI’s interest in Marilyn’s political life began in 1955, generally coincident with the romantic relationship she began with the playwright Arthur Miller, a known leftist and communist sympathizer, according to J. Edgar.

Marilyn was a true disciple of Konstantin Stanislavski, the Russian thespian who co-founded the Moscow Art Theater and developed an acting grammar which eventually became known as his system, later adapted by Lee Strasberg into his method. During the summer 1955, Marilyn traveled to Belmont, Illinois, where she presided over an art museum’s opening, delivered a speech about Abraham Lincoln, her favorite president, and judged a best beard contest that featured some hairy residents of Belmont. While there, she was approached by the President of the National Arts Foundation, Carlton Smith, who asked if she might consider leading a trip to Moscow for an acting colloquy and a cultural exchange between the competing nations and political ideologies. Marilyn accepted immediately and began the process of obtaining a visa through the Russian Embassy.

On October the 11th, she attended a performance at Carnegie Hall by the Russian pianist, Emil Gilels. After being introduced to Marilyn, he extended an invitation for her to visit Russia, stating that the Russian people would love to see her: after all, to the Russian people, America was Coca Cola, Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn indicated that she intended to visit Russia, soon. It has been reported that Hoover ordered Marilyn’s movements closely monitored; he wanted immediate notification if she attempted to travel to Moscow. Marilyn had an affinity for the Russian culture due to her devotion to her Russian acting teacher, Michael Chekhov, and Konstantin Stanislavski. Marilyn’s association with Natasha Lytess and Joe Schenck, both Russian immigrants and both of whom told her interesting and exciting stories about Russia, engendered a desire in her to travel there.

The classified memoranda and letters which passed between J. Edgar Hoover and Dennis A. Flinn, Director, Office of Security, Department of State, copies of which were also routed to the Assistant Attorney General, William F. Tompkins, indicated that the FBI, the state department and other officials in the central bureaucracy were particularly troubled by Marilyn’s request for a visa application from the Russian Embassy. Those documents were the first to deal with what the fifty’s bureaucrats considered to be Marilyn’s questionable and anti-American activities; but those documents certainly would not be the last.

By 1956, apparently an overly paranoid Hoover was convinced that Marilyn intended to defect to the dark side, since she was, by then, under the influence of both Arthur Miller and Lee Strasberg, both confirmed leftists; and for a time, Hoover even fretted over Milton and Amy Greene, concerned that they, too, were communists. Hoover, of course, was particularly interested in Arthur Miller and his allegedly sinister Communist shenanigans. Miller’s plays espoused leftist and Communist ideals and he associated with known Communist groups and other Communist sympathizers, like Elia Kazan.

The playwright had already captured the attention of Hoover and the FBI prior to his introduction to Marilyn by Kazan in 1951. Both men were being monitored by Hoover, even before Marilyn began her relationships with them; and when Marilyn married Arthur during the summer of 1956, the FBI’s interest in her increased dramatically. An Office Memorandum, United States Government, dated the 13th of February in 1956, written by A.H. Belmont, whom I identified in the previous section, to L.V. Boardman, referenced a Walter Winchell broadcast which had aired the day before. Winchell declared: Broadway! And the fact that America’s best known blonde moving picture star is now the darling of the left-wing intelligentsia, several of whom are listed as red fronters, I do not think she realizes it. The FBI memorandum then commented:

This possibly refers to Marilyn Monroe. A recent news article covering the divorce action between Arthur Asher Miller, prominent author, and his wife, reflected it was rumored Marilyn Monroe was linked romantically with Miller. On interview by newsmen both of them admitted friendship but denied any romantic ties. Miller is the author of “Death of a Salesman” [large redaction]. We have not conducted an security investigation concerning Marilyn Monroe.

A perceptive fellow could only conclude that, not long thereafter, the FBI conducted their Marilyn Monroe security investigation.

There are several files and reports dedicated to Arthur Miller’s divorce from Mary Slattery, his romantic involvement with Marilyn and his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. One report even confirmed that Miller had established the necessary six-weeks residence for divorce at the Pyramid Lake Guest Ranch near Reno. I, for one, was surprised to learn that the Federal Bureau was interested in such mundane details about the lives of American citizens. Another report noted that The Daily Worker, an East Coast Communist daily newspaper, published an article on July the 10th in 1956 memorializing that Arthur Miller and actress Marilyn Monroe would fly to England on Friday (July 13, 1956) on a honeymoon and business trip. Another report from 1956 indicated that

the New York Daily News received an anonymous telephone call from an unidentified male during which he stated that Arthur Miller had been and still was a member of the CP and was their cultural front man […] and according to the anonymous caller, Marilyn Monroe had drifted into the Communist orbit and money from Marilyn Monroe Productions was finding its way into the CP. This source stated that Marilyn Monroe Productions was filled with Communists.

An office memorandum dated October the 11th in 1956 announced: Subject Miller is the new husband of Marilyn Monroe, a full five months after Marilyn and Miller were married. The FBI agents who wrote those reports marked them as either secret, confidential or classified even though the information thereon was common knowledge and appeared in virtually every newspaper across the county,1On July the 1st in 1956, at 10:30 PMET, Judge Seymour Rabinowitz appeared on the popular television program, What’s My Line. Judge Rabinowitz had married Marilyn and Arthur Miller on June the 29th in White Plains, New York. On the day of the program, Marilyn and Arthur were married a second time in a Jewish ceremony. Obviously their marriage was not a secret.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwF026C0i6g>perhaps even the globe, with the possible exception being that Marilyn’s production company was filled to the brim with nefarious Communists funneling money to the Communist Party. Marilyn Monroe Productions was by and large a two person organization consisting of Marilyn and Milton Greene. Marilyn was the major stock holder and president while Milton Greene was the minority stock holder and vice-president. The production company did not earn any money upon its inception and never earned what might be called a fortune or enough money to funnel funds to the Communist Party.

Fast forward six short years to a time in 1962 when Marilyn was no longer married to Arthur Miller; but even so, the FBI still followed her activities closely, as attested by the FBI’s interest in Marilyn’s trip to Mexico that year. On the 12th of February, Eunice Murray, Marilyn’s housekeeper, traveled to Mexico City. Her task was to reconnoiter for appropriate shops in which Marilyn could buy authentic Mexican items, furniture, art work and knick knacks, for her recently purchased hacienda in Brentwood. Mrs. Murray also visited her brother-in-law, Churchill Murray, while waiting for Marilyn to arrive.

Meanwhile, on the 17th, Marilyn arrived in Miami, Florida, where she was greeted by Pat Newcomb and her new hairdresser, George Masters. For the next three days, Marilyn visited and entertained her former father-in-law, Isadore Miller, after which she and her companions flew to Mexico City. The reported date of her arrival ranged from the 19th, according to the FBI, to the 20th, according to Gary Vitacco-Robles, to the 21st, according to Donald Spoto. Regardless of her arrival date, while Marilyn visited Mexico, she socialized and shopped, attended parties and luncheons, met diplomats and peón, gave two press conferences, posed for the media and photographers. She also visited an orphanage, to which she made a $10K donation; and she considered adopting a Mexican boy. Many, but not all, of the persons she met while vacationing in Mexico were members of an American Communist Group situated in Mexico City, headed by Frederick Vanderbilt Field and his wife, Nieves. The Fields and their associates were known Communists and obviously dangerous enemies of America. Suffice it to say, Marilyn’s association with known Communists caused the FBI a considerable amount of heartburn and they jumped on her visit south of the border like geese jump on a swarm of June Bugs.

The FBI memorandum, dated the 6th of March in 1962, which memorialized Marilyn’s sinister trip south of the border to purchase Mexican furniture, is four pages of bunkum, not to mention that it is also replete with factual errors, a common problem with many of the FBI’s surveillance reports and memoranda regarding Marilyn.

Before providing a transcription of the file, what follows are copies of the actual files declassified and released by the FBI.