Florence Pritchett (1) was born in 1920. After leaving school she worked as a model for John Robert Powers and appeared in Life Magazine. In 1940 she met and married Richard Canning. Soon afterwards she became fashion editor of New York Journal American, a newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst. While working for the newspaper she met Dorothy Kilgallen (2). At the time Kilgallen had her own column, The Voice of Broadway. Kilgallen also worked as a crime reporter and occasional wrote political pieces for the newspaper.

In 1943 Florence divorced Canning. The following year, on the 5th February, she met John F. Kennedy (3). The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question.

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(1) John F. Kennedy and Florence Pritchett at the Stork Club in Feburary 1944.

In 1947 Florence married Earl E. T. Smith (4), a member of the New York Stock Exchange. The couple had three children. In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined.

According to John J. Johnson (5)

FBI files allege that during 1957-1958 Jack Kennedy made several trips to Havana, Cuba, to visit Flo Pritchett who was then married to millionaire American Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith and a strong supporter of Cuban dictator Batista. Other meetings took place in Miami and Palm Beach during Flo's visits to the States. Kennedy made more than a dozen trips to Cuba to see them and stayed at the Smith home. Seymour Hersh states that on one of these trips, the U.S. Embassy was told by Cuban police and military intelligence officials that Senator Kennedy was of concern to them "for security reasons." The Cubans reported that Kennedy was going to bed with the wife of the Italian ambassador and they would hate to have the young senator shot while on a visit to Havana. "You know those Italians," they said. An embassy official was assigned to tell Kennedy "to cut it out."

In The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh, claims that Commander Lionel Krisel, a American naval attaché in Havana, provided information that suggests that Kennedy was having an affair with the ambassador’s wife (6) . However, Hersh does not appear to be aware of the significance of this and does not follow the story up.

Florence Pritchett remained close to Dorothy Kilgallen and supplied her with important news stories. It was probably Pritchett who gave Kilgallen the story on the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Fidel Castro. In July, 1959, Kilgallen became the first journalist to break the story (7):

If our state department heads in Washington deny they're gravely worried over the explosive situation in Cuba and nearby Latin American countries, they're either giving out false information for reasons of their own or playing ostrich, which might prove to be a dangerous game. US intelligence is virtually nonexistent if the government isn't aware that Russia already has bases in Cuba, and Russian pilots in uniform are strutting openly in Havana... Fidel Castro is the target for so many assassins they're apt to fall over each other in their efforts to get him. The Mafia want to knock him off. So do the Batista sympathizers, of course, and then there are his own disillusioned rebels, just for starters. He has machine guns and other ammunition mounted on every key rooftop near his base of operations, but the smart money doubts if any amount of precaution can change his status as a clay pigeon.

This story was more likely to have come from Pritchett’s husband, than Kennedy. At this time Earl Smith was the American ambassador in Cuba. Later it was revealed that Smith was involved in these various plots against Castro. He wrote about his experiences in the book, The Fourth Floor (8). He also gave evidence to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (9) on the situation in Cuba. Smith, who had been a close friend of Cuba’s dictator, General Fulgencio Batista (10) . He claimed that the CIA had played an important role in the overthrow of Batista:


F. W. Sourwine: It was true that Batista's government was corrupt, wasn't it?

Earl E. Smith: It is true that Batista's government was corrupt. Batista was the power behind the Government in Cuba off and on for 25 years. The year 1957 was the best economic year that Cuba had ever had.

However, the Batista regime was disintegrating from within. It was becoming more corrupt, and as a result, was losing strength. The Castro forces themselves never won a military victory. The best military victory they ever won was through capturing Cuban guardhouses and military skirmishes, but they never actually won a military victory.

The Batista government was overthrown because of the corruption, disintegration from within, and because of the United States and the various agencies of the United States who directly and indirectly aided the overthrow of the Batista government and brought into power Fidel Castro.

F. W. Sourwine: What were those, agencies, Mr. Smith?

Earl E. Smith: The US Government agencies - may I say something off the record?

(Discussion off the record.)

F. W. Sourwine: Mr. Smith, the pending question before you read your statement was: What agencies of the US Government had a hand in bringing pressure to overthrow the Batista government, and how did they do it?

Earl E. Smith: Well, the agencies, certain influential people, influential sources in the State Department, lower down echelons in the CIA. I would say representatives of the majority of the US Government agencies which have anything to do with the Embassy.

Later Smith was cross-examined by James Eastland (11):

James Eastland: Let me ask you this question. As a matter of fact, isn't it your judgment that the State Department of the United States is primarily responsible for bringing Castro to power in Cuba?

Earl E. Smith: No, sir, I can't say that the State Department in itself is primarily responsible. The State Department played a large part in bringing Castro to power. The press, other Government agencies, Members of Congress are responsible...

James Eastland: You had been warning the State Department that Castro was a Marxist?

Earl E. Smith: Yes, sir.

James Eastland: And that Batista's government was a friendly government. That is what had been your advice as to the State Department?

Earl E. Smith: Let me answer that this way, which will make it very clear. When I went to Cuba, I left here with the definite feeling according to my briefings which I had received, that the U.S. Government was too close to the Batista regime, and that we were being accused of intervening in the affairs of Cuba by trying to perpetuate the Batista dictatorship.

After I had been in Cuba for approximately 2 months, and had made a study of Fidel Castro and the revolutionaries, it was perfectly obvious to me as it would be to any other reasonable man that Castro was not the answer; that if Castro came to power, it would not be in the best interests of Cuba or in the best interests of the United States....

In my own Embassy there were certain ones of influence who were pro-26th of July, pro-Castro, and anti-Batista.

James Eastland: Who were they?

Earl E. Smith: Do I have to answer that question, Senator?

James Eastland: Yes, I think you have to. We are not going into it unnecessarily.

Earl E. Smith: I don't want to harm anybody. That is the reason I asked.
I would say the Chief of the Political Section, John Topping, and the Chief of the CIA Section. It was revealed that the No. 2 CIA rnan in the embassy had given unwarranted and undue encouragement to the revolutionaries. This came out in the trials of naval officers after the Cienfuegos revolution of September I957.
Smith later became associated with right-wing political figures based in Florida. He was also a director of the United States Sugar Corporation.

Pritchett continued her affair with Kennedy after he became president. According to John J. Johnson (12) :

The Smiths also spent much time in Palm Beach, where their home conveniently adjoined the Kennedy house, and Kennedy saw considerably more of Florence. Several books have suggested that JFK wanted to send Earl Smith to Switzerland so he could have Flo to himself. This seems unlikely since Earl would undoubtedly have taken his wife with him. According to Earl, Kennedy wanted to appoint him ambassador to Switzerland, but Fidel Castro objected because the U.S. and Cuba no longer maintained diplomatic relations and Switzerland represented the U.S. in Cuba. Since Earl had been ambassador to Cuba under Eisenhower, Castro claimed his appointment to Switzerland represented a conflict of interest. So Earl's name was withdrawn, which was just as well because he didn't see eye-to-eye with JFK politically.

Lem Billings says, "Later there were stories of secret interludes between Jack and Flo, feverish encounters on the stretch of sand connecting their respective homes. Although I never personally witnessed any of these meetings, I don't for a second doubt that they occurred."

JFK would elude the Secret Service on occasion in order to have trysts with women. He did this in Palm Beach when he hopped a fence to swim with Flo Smith. The Secret Service agents couldn't find him and called in the FBI. They finally turned to Palm Beach Police Chief Homer Large, a trusted Kennedy family associate. The Police Chief knew exactly where to find Jack - next door in Earl E. T. Smith's swimming pool. Jack and Flo were alone, and as Homer put it, "They weren't doing the Australian crawl."

Pritchett introduced Dorothy Kilgallen to Kennedy. As Pritchett was now one of America’s most famous gossip columnists this was a dangerous thing to do. One day she was gossiping about Kennedy with her friend Allen Stokes. He asked her why she did not write about it in her column. She replied "I couldn't possibly". It would have been a great scoop. But she decided to protect him (13).

However, Kilgallen broke this rule when on the 3rd August, 1962, she became the first journalist to refer to Kennedy's relationship with Marilyn Monroe (14).

Marilyn Monroe's health must be improving. She's been attending select Hollywood parties and has become the talk of the town again. In California, they're circulating a photograph of her that certainly isn't as bare as he famous calendar, but is very interesting... And she's cooking in the sex-appeal department, too; she's proved vastly alluring to a handsome gentleman who is a bigger name than Joe DiMaggio in his heyday. So don't write off Marilyn as finished.

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(2) Yves Montand, Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Kilgallen

Kilgallen did not actually name him but some insiders assumed she was identifying Kennedy as the secret man in Monroe's life (later Kilgallen told friends she was actually referring to Robert Kennedy). Did someone ask her to publish this story? According to Sarah Churchwell (15) a close friend of Kennedy, George Smathers (16) was spreading stories about Kennedy and Monroe at this time. Smathers was the senator from Florida, where Earl Smith and Florence Pritchett were living at this time.

The following day, Monroe was found dead. Kilgallen must have realized that she had been set her up to smear the Kennedy brothers. Rumours soon began circulating that Robert Kennedy had arranged Monroe's death to protect his brother's reputation.

It is not known how Florence Pritchett reacted to the death of her long-time lover. What we do know is that Kilgallen took a keen interest in the case? Was she provided with information by Pritchett? Did her husband know who had conspired to kill Kennedy.

Kilgallen soon became convinced that Kennedy had not been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald (17). A week after the assassination Kilgallen wrote (18):

President Lyndon Johnson has been elevated so swiftly to his new high post that in one sense, he has been snatched up into an ivory tower.

As Chief Executive, he is no longer in a position to hear the voices of ordinary people talking candidly.

If he could walk invisible along the streets of the nation and listen to ordinary people talking he would realize that he must make sure that the mystery of Lee Harvey Oswald is solved and laid before the nation down to the smallest shred of evidence.

If Oswald was President Kennedy's assassin, he was the most important prisoner the police of this country had in custody in 100 years, and no blithe announcement in Dallas is going to satisfy the American public that the case is closed."

President Johnson has directed the FBI to look into every aspect of the case, but he must go a giant step further.

He must satisfy the public's uneasy mind about this peculiar assassination of the assassin or he will start his term in office by making a dire political mistake that could cost him the 1964 election.

The case is closed is it? Well I'd like to know how in a big smart town like Dallas, a man like Jack Ruby - operator of a striptease honky tonk -could stroll in and out of police headquarters as if it were a health club at a time when a small army of law enforcers was keeping a "tight security guard" on Oswald.

Security! What a word for it.

I wouldn't try to speak for the people of Dallas, but around here, the people I talk to really believe that a man has the right to be tried in court.

When that right is taken away from any man by the incredible combination of Jack Ruby and insufficient security, we feel chilled.

Justice is a big rug. When you pull it out from under one man, a lot of others fall too.

That is why so many people are saying there is "something queer" about the killing of Oswald, something strange about the way his case was handled, and a great deal missing in the official account of his crime.

The American people have just lost a beloved President.

It is a dark chapter in our history, but we have the right to read every word of it. It cannot be kept locked in a file in Dallas.

Kilgallen had a good contact within the Dallas Police Department. He gave her a copy of the original police log that chronicled the minute-by-minute activities of the department on the day of the assassination, as reflected in the radio communications. This enabled her to report that the first reaction of Chief Jesse Curry (19) to the shots in Dealey Plaza was: "Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there". Kilgallen pointed out that he lied when he told reporters the next day that he initially thought the shots were fired from the Texas Book Depository. (20)

Kilgallen also had a source within the Warren Commission. This person gave her an 102 page segment dealing with Jack Ruby (21) before it was published. She published details of this leak and so therefore ensuring that this section appeared in the final version of the report. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the leak and on 30th September, 1964, Kilgallen reported in the New York Journal American that the FBI "might have been more profitably employed in probing the facts of the case rather than how I got them".

In another of her stories, Kilgallen claimed that Marina Oswald knew a great deal about the assassination of Kennedy (22):

Those close to the scene realize that if the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald (now married to another chap) ever gave out the "whole story" of her life with President Kennedy's alleged assassin, it would split open the front pages of newspapers all over the world. Even if Marina explained why her late husband looked so different in an official police photo and the widely-printed full-length picture featured on the cover of Life magazine, it would cause a sensation. This story isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive - and there are a lot of them. This story (the Kennedy assassination) isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive - and there are a lot of them.

Kilgallen's reporting brought her into contact with Mark Lane who had himself received an amazing story from the journalist Thayer Waldo (23). He had discovered that Jack Ruby, J. D. Tippet (24) and Bernard Weismann (25) had a meeting at the Carousel Club eight days before the assassination. Waldo, who worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was too scared to publish the story. He had other information about the assassination. However, he believed that if he told Lane or Kilgallen he would be killed. Kilgallen's article on the Tippit, Ruby and Weissman meeting appeared on the front page of the Journal American. Later she was to reveal that the Warren Commission were also tipped off about this gathering. However, their informant added that there was a fourth man at the meeting, an important figure in the Texas oil industry.

Kilgallen published several articles about how important witnesses had been threatened by the Dallas Police or the FBI. On 25th September, 1964, Kilgallen published an interview with Acquilla Clemons, one of the witnesses to the shooting of J. D. Tippet. In the interview Clemons told Kilgallen that she saw two men running from the scene, neither of whom fitted Oswald's description. Clemons added: "I'm not supposed to be talking to anybody, might get killed on the way to work."

Kilgallen was keen to interview Jack Ruby. She went to see Ruby's lawyer Joe Tonahill and claimed she had a message for his client from a mutual friend. It was only after this message was delivered that Ruby agreed to be interviewed by Kilgallen. (26) Tonahill remembers that the mutual friend was from San Francisco and that he was involved in the music industry. Kennedy researcher, Greg Parker, has suggested that the man was Mike Shore, co-founder of Reprise Records. (27)

The interview with Ruby lasted eight minutes. No one else was there. Even the guards agreed to wait outside. Officially, Kilgallen never told anyone about what Ruby said to her during this interview. Nor did she publish any information she obtained from the interview. There is a reason for this. Kilgallen was in financial difficulties in 1964. This was partly due to some poor business decisions made by her husband, Richard Kollmar (28). The couple had also lost the lucrative contract for their radio show Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick.. Kilgallen also was facing an expensive libel case concerning an article she wrote about Elaine Shepard. Her financial situation was so bad she fully expected to lose her beloved house in New York City.

Kilgallen was a staff member of Journal American. Any article about the Jack Ruby interview in her newspaper would not have helped her serious financial situation. Therefore she decided to include what she knew about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Murder One. She fully expected that this book would earn her a fortune. This is why she refused to tell anyone, including Mark Lane, about what Ruby told her in the interview arranged by Tonahill. In October, 1965, told Lane that she had a new important informant in New Orleans.

Kilgallen began to tell friends that she was close to discovering who assassinated Kennedy. According to David Welsh of Ramparts Magazine Kilgallen "vowed she would 'crack this case.' (29) And another New York show biz friend said Dorothy told him in the last days of her life: "In five more days I'm going to bust this case wide open." Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter (30) and Jim Koethe (31), Kilgallen apparently handed a draft copy of her chapter on the assassination to her friend, Florence Pritchett.

On 8th November, 1965, Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes for the chapter she was writing on the case had disappeared.

Some of her friends believed Kilgallen had been murdered. Marc Sinclaire was Kilgallen's personal hairdresser. He often woke Kilgallen in the morning. Kilgallen was usually out to the early hours of the morning and like her husband always slept late. When he found her body he immediately concluded she had been murdered (32).

(1) Kilgallen was not sleeping in her normal bedroom. Instead she was in the master bedroom, a room she had not occupied for several years.

(2) Kilgallen was wearing false eyelashes. According to Sinclaire she always took her eyelashes off before she went to bed.

(3) She was found sitting up with the book, The Honey Badger, by Robert Ruark, on her lap. Sinclaire claims that she had finished reading the book several weeks earlier (she had discussed the book with Sinclaire at the time).

(4) Kilgallen had poor eyesight and could only read with the aid of glasses. Her glasses were not found in the bedroom where she died.

(5) Kilgallen was found wearing a bolero-type blouse over a nightgown. Sinclaire claimed that this was the kind of thing "she would never wear to go to bed".

Kilgallen was not the only one to die that week. Florence Pritchett died two days after Kilgallen. The copy of Kilgallen's chapter on the Kennedy assassination was never found. According to William Penn Jones (33):

At the Ruby trial in Dallas during March of 1964, Dorothy Kilgallen had a private interview during one of the noon recesses with Judge Joe B. Brown. This was immediately followed by a thirty minute private interview with Jack Ruby in Judge Brown’s chambers. Even Ruby’s bodyguards were kept outside the Judge’s chambers. Joe Tonahill and others thought the meeting room in the jail was “bugged,” but it is doubtful if the Judge’s own chambers would be bugged. Judges have the power of contempt of court for such irregularities.
This then, was the second person Ruby had talked to who could know for whom Ruby was acting; therefore Miss Kilgallen had to be silenced along with Tom Howard.

Shortly before her death, Miss Kilgallen told a friend in New York that she was going to New Orleans in 5 days and break the case wide open. Miss Kilgallen 52, died November 8, 1965, under questionable circumstances in her New York home. Eight days after her death, a ruling was made that she died of barbiturates and drink with no quantities of either ingredient being given.

Also strangely, Miss Kilgallen’s close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith’s autopsy read that the cause of death was unknown.

Many skeptical newsmen have asked: “If Miss Kilgallen knew anything, surely as a journalist wouldn’t she have left some notes?” This is a legitimate question.

Possibly Mrs. Smith was the trusted friend with the notes. No one will ever know now.

Mark Lane (34) also believed that Kilgallen had been murdered. He said that "I would bet you a thousand-to-one that the CIA surrounded her (Kilgallen) as soon as she started writing those stories." The only new person who became close to Kilgallen during the last few months was her new secret lover. In her book, Kilgallen, Lee Israel calls him the "Out-of-Towner" (35).

According to Israel she met him in Carrara in June, 1964, during a press junket for journalists working in the film industry. The trip was paid for by Twentieth Century-Fox who used it to publicize three of its films: The Sound of Music, The Agony and the Ecstasy and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Israel claims that the "Out-of-Towner" went up to Kilgallen and asked her if she was Clare Booth Luce (36). This is in itself an interesting introduction. Kilgallen and Luce did not look like each other. Luce and her husband (Henry Luce) however were to play an important role in the events surrounding the assassination. Luce owned Life Magazine and arranged to buy up the Zapruder Film. Clare Booth Luce had also funded covert operations against Fidel Castro (1961-63).

It has been suggested that Kilgallen suspected that "Out-of-Towner" was a CIA spy. She therefore told her friends this is what he said so that if anything happened to her, a future investigator would realize that he was a CIA agent with links to Clare Booth Luce.

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(3) Dorothy Kilgallen

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(4) Clare Booth Luce

Lee Israel has always refused to identify the "Out-of-Towner". In 1993 the investigative reporter, David B. Henschel, discovered that his real name was Ron Pataky (37). In 1965 he had been a journalist working for the Columbus Citizen-Journal. He admitted that he was the "Out-of-Towner" and that he worked on articles about the assassination of Kennedy with Kilgallen. Pataky also confessed to meeting Kilgallen several times in the Regency Hotel. However, he denied Lee Israel's claim that he was with her on the night of her death. (38)

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(5) Ron Pataky

There has been no investigation into the death of Florence Pritchett. Officially she died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Is it possible that she was murdered? Maybe it was because she had Kilgallen’s notes for her article on the Kennedy assassination. However, I think if she was murdered it might have been more about what she knew rather than what property she had in her possession. I believe that Florence Pritchett had been her main source of information on political issues connected to Kennedy. Not only because she was had been having an affair with Kennedy for nearly 20 years, but because she was the wife of Earl Smith, a leading figure in the anti-Castro community in Florida. Pritchett was ideally placed to know what had been going on during 1963. The greatest puzzle of all is why she was allowed to live as long as she did.

Notes

(1) Florence Pritchett http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsmithF.htm

(2) Dorothy Kilgallen http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkilgallen.htm

(3) Nigel Hamilton, JFK’s Reckless Youth (1992) page 641

(4) Earl Smith: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsmithET.htm

(5) John Johnson, email to author (28th July, 2004)

(6) Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (1998) page 156

(7) Dorothy Kilgallen, New York Journal American (15th July, 1959)

(8) Earl E. T. Smith, Fourth Floor (1962)

(9) Senate Committee on the Judiciary (27th August, 1960)

(10) Fulgencio Batista: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDbatista.htm

(11) James Eastland: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAeastland.htm

(12) John Johnson, email to author (28th July, 2004)

(13) Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) page 334

(14) Dorothy Kilgallen, New York Journal American (3rd August, 1962)

(15) Sarah Churchwell, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (2004) page 293

(16) George Smathers: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsmathers.htm

(17) Lee Harvey Oswald: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKoswald.htm

(18) Dorothy Kilgallen, New York Journal American (29th November, 1963)

(19) Jesse Curry: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcurryJ.htm

(20) Dorothy Kilgallen, New York Journal American (23rd August, 1963)

(21) Jack Ruby: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKruby.htm

(22) Dorothy Kilgallen, New York Journal American (29th November, 1963)

(23) Thayer Waldo: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwaldo.htm

(24) J. D. Tippet: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtippet.htm

(25) Bernard Weismann: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKweissmanB.htm

(26) Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) page 354-56

(27) Greg Parker: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1615

(28) Richard Kollmar: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkollmar.htm

(29) David Welsh, Ramparts Magazine (November, 1966)

(30) Bill Hunter: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhunterB.htm

(31) Jim Koethe: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkoethe.htm

(32) Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) page 404-05

(33) William Penn Jones, Volume II: Forgive My Grief (1967)

(34) Mark Lane: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKlaneM.htm

(35) Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) pages 357, 370-373, 382-392, 415-422

(36) Clare Booth Luce: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKluceC.htm

(37) David B. Henschel, http://www.netsys.com/ietf/1993/1296.html

(37) Ron Pataky: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKpataky.htm

A photograph of Earl Smith and John F. Kennedy photograph. Did Smith know that Kennedy had been having an affair with his wife since 1944? Jackie did and was close to a nervous breakdown in 1960 as a result of the affair.

Great work, John.

The Pritchett, Smith, Kilgallen, JFK web is tantalizing to say the least. The tentacles of this reach out to Marilyn Monroe as well as she was a friend of Dorothy Kilgallen and also a mistress of JFK. The potential of how far this extends is just mind boggling.

Just to help put faces to names, I have attached montages of Smith and Pritchett.

James

I am quite certain that I read that JFK had nominated Smith to be an ambassador (I think to Sweden or some similar place) but Smith's stands on Cuba had been so controversial that he ultimately asked that his nomination be withdrawn.
Smith served as mayor of the Town olf Palm Beach from 1971 to 1977. After Florence died, he remarried a lady named Lesley. She was elected Mayor of Palm Beach in 2000 and is still the mayor.
There is a E.T. Smith Memorial Park in Palm Beach.
When I can afford it, I'd like to buy Smith's book, The Fourth Floor. It refers to the second echelon of State Dept bureacracy with whom Smith often quarreled. (The top level of the State Dept was on the Fifth Floor.)

One addition: a minor correction to John's post. Smith's home (estate) in Palm Beach was next to the estate of Joseph P. Kennedy. JFK was not the owner of the property but he of course had free access to it.

I assume most forum members know that in his Oct 21, 1960 foreign policy debate with Nixon, JFK quoted Smith, who he pointed out was a Republican appointed ambassador top Cuba, who had complained about the Eisenhower Nixon administration's not paying sufficient attention to the Castro threat (JFK had met with Smith in Havana over the 1957 Christmas holiday)
.
Wonder what would have happened if Nixon had known about JFK's alleged affair with Florence that per your post was still going on in 1960?

Let's clear up some myths about Dorothy Kilgallen.

First, her cameo appearance in a "beach party movie" in 1964 had nothing to do with her digging into the Oswald mystery. The name "Mike Shore" is NOT in the credits of that film. The screenwriter, Louis "Deke" Heyward, told me he gave Kilgallen the part because several years earlier they had had a friendly telephone conversation about a skit he wrote for one of Ernie Kovacs' TV shows broadcast live from New York. The skit made fun of Dorothy and her husband Dick. Dorothy enjoyed it.

Next, Mr. Simkin has attributed statements to Kilgallen's hairdresser Marc Sinclaire without contacting him. If he got the statements from Lee Israel's book, then he is remiss. Look carefully and you'll see that Mr. Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Ms. Israel. Look online and you'll find Mr. Sinclaire's address listed in Tampa, Florida.

Mr. Sinclaire will tell you of the visit that his boss Dorothy made to New Orleans approximately three weeks before she died.

Does anyone here live near Tampa ? If not, how about the following other cities where Kilgallen sources live ?

Columbus, Ohio, longtime home of Ron Pataky "the Out of Towner" John Simkin was right when he said Pataky was a newspaper critic trying to become a songwriter. Johnny Mathis did indeed record the Pataky composition "While Stephanie Sleeps," but it never appeared on an album.

Madisonville, Kentucky ? Longtime home of Katherine Stone Stevens.

In 1965 Ms. Stevens sold dynamite to coal mines and quarries in Kentucky. She was in New York City the night Kilgallen died to appear as a What's My Line contestant. Kilgallen determined what her line was. After everyone left the studio, Ms. Stevens saw Kilgallen very absorbed in conversation with Pataky at the Regenc Hotel. They were NOT drunk. They were discussing "very serious business" in the words of Ms. Stevens.

Anyone near Scottsdale, Arizona ? That's home to ex - cop John Doyle since 1980. Prior to that he operated a tavern / restaurant called Doyle's Terrace near LaGrangeville, New York. Lee Israel devotes two pages to him in the "epilogue" of her book. Lee told me by telephone that Doyle probably was dishonest during their 1977 interview. Consider that he claimed Kilgallen "was not long for this world, the liver being the way it was." Consider that four months after Kilgallen died, Doyle retired from the NYPD without a pension and opened an expensive restaurant in an expensive suburb near Vassar College.

Anyone here near Boca Raton, Florida ? That's the longtime home of Alvin Malnik, the attorney who represented Meyer Lansky until the latter's death in 1983. Malnik also represents small - time comedians like George Hopkins, a Kilgallen friend whom she plugged in her Voice of Broadway on April 15, 1964. Hopkins and Kilgallen were both guests on the "Nightlife" television talk show hosted by Les Crane on July 23, 1965.

When George Hopkins asked his lawyer Malnik about Kilgallen's death, Malnik replied that anyone who tries too hard to investigate it will get killed. He said Lee Israel came that close to getting killed, but "they" let her go with the hope that only conspiracy nuts will embrace her book.

Comedian George Hopkins lives in the Kendall Lakes section of Miami. Anyone familiar with it ?

Anyone live near Beaumont, Texas ? Lamar University in said town has a videotape of the late attorney Joe Tonahill talking about his conversations with Dorothy Kilgallen. Tonahill was one of Jack Ruby's lawyers. Several photos exist of him with Melvin Belli. Kilgallen appears in one image as they ascend the staircase inside the Dallas courthouse. (It still exists.)

Where do regulars in this group live ? Can anyone travel to these places ?

David. Thank you for this very interesting post.

Let's clear up some myths about Dorothy Kilgallen. First, her cameo appearance in a "beach party movie" in 1964 had nothing to do with her digging into the Oswald mystery. The name "Mike Shore" is NOT in the credits of that film. The screenwriter, Louis "Deke" Heyward, told me he gave Kilgallen the part because several years earlier they had had a friendly telephone conversation about a skit he wrote for one of Ernie Kovacs' TV shows broadcast live from New York. The skit made fun of Dorothy and her husband Dick. Dorothy enjoyed it. (David Yarnell)

I did not include this information in the seminar. However, it is good you have cleared this point up. It was suggested that Mike Shore might have been the person who sent the message to Jack Ruby via Dorothy. Do you know if that is the case?

Next, Mr. Simkin has attributed statements to Kilgallen's hairdresser Marc Sinclaire without contacting him. If he got the statements from Lee Israel's book, then he is remiss. Look carefully and you'll see that Mr. Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Ms. Israel. Look online and you'll find Mr. Sinclaire's address listed in Tampa, Florida. (David Yarnell)

I did get this information from Lee Israel’s book. This was pointed out by the use of footnote 32: Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) page 404-05. This was one of the reasons that I have asked contributors to use footnotes.

You say that Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Israel. Is that relevant? Does it now deny he made that statement?

Mr. Sinclaire will tell you of the visit that his boss Dorothy made to New Orleans approximately three weeks before she died. (David Yarnell)

Lee Israel mentions in her book that Dorothy had found a key witness in New Orleans. Do you know who it was?

Columbus, Ohio, longtime home of Ron Pataky "the Out of Towner" John Simkin was right when he said Pataky was a newspaper critic trying to become a songwriter. Johnny Mathis did indeed record the Pataky composition "While Stephanie Sleeps," but it never appeared on an album. (David Yarnell)

Thank you for that information. Pataky does not say on his online CV the name of the song. I have emailed him about this but he has not replied. I have told him about my web page on him (it is ranked first with most search-engines). When this happens, the person is usually willing to talk about the contents of the page. Pataky has not done this. I therefore assume that my information on him is correct (I will update my page on the song title).

Madisonville, Kentucky ? Longtime home of Katherine Stone Stevens. In 1965 Ms. Stevens sold dynamite to coal mines and quarries in Kentucky. She was in New York City the night Kilgallen died to appear as a What's My Line contestant. Kilgallen determined what her line was. After everyone left the studio, Ms. Stevens saw Kilgallen very absorbed in conversation with Pataky at the Regenc Hotel. They were NOT drunk. They were discussing "very serious business" in the words of Ms. Stevens. (David Yarnell)

This seems like a very good witness. Have you interviewed her?

Anyone near Scottsdale, Arizona ? That's home to ex - cop John Doyle since 1980. Prior to that he operated a tavern / restaurant called Doyle's Terrace near LaGrangeville, New York. Lee Israel devotes two pages to him in the "epilogue" of her book. Lee told me by telephone that Doyle probably was dishonest during their 1977 interview. Consider that he claimed Kilgallen "was not long for this world, the liver being the way it was." Consider that four months after Kilgallen died, Doyle retired from the NYPD without a pension and opened an expensive restaurant in an expensive suburb near Vassar College. (David Yarnell)

Are you suggesting that John Doyle was involved in her death?

Anyone here near Boca Raton, Florida ? That's the longtime home of Alvin Malnik, the attorney who represented Meyer Lansky until the latter's death in 1983. Malnik also represents small - time comedians like George Hopkins, a Kilgallen friend whom she plugged in her Voice of Broadway on April 15, 1964. Hopkins and Kilgallen were both guests on the "Nightlife" television talk show hosted by Les Crane on July 23, 1965.

When George Hopkins asked his lawyer Malnik about Kilgallen's death, Malnik replied that anyone who tries too hard to investigate it will get killed. He said Lee Israel came that close to getting killed, but "they" let her go with the hope that only conspiracy nuts will embrace her book. (David Yarnell)

David B. Henschel suggests the reason that Israel did not name Pataky was her fear of being taken to court for libel. This always seemed to be a lame excuse. It seems that Israel was withholding information. I thought it was because she was under pressure from the CIA or FBI. Are you suggesting she did this because to do so would be to put her life at risk?

Are you working on a documentary on Dorothy Kilgallen? Is it now safe to research this case. One of my informants tells me that people like him are still being threatened and therefore are not willing to come forward. It is one of the reasons I am rarely convinced by the stories of those like Jim Files who have made public confessions.

I like in the UK so I am unable to visit these places. It is a good idea to discover if members could do this. (As long as it is safe).

Do you know what was in her article/chapter that went missing? Is it true it was destroyed by her husband? Or was it destroyed by her killers?

David. Thank you for this very interesting post. (John Simkin)

Let's clear up some myths about Dorothy Kilgallen. First, her cameo appearance in a "beach party movie" in 1964 had nothing to do with her digging into the Oswald mystery. The name "Mike Shore" is NOT in the credits of that film. The screenwriter, Louis "Deke" Heyward, told me he gave Kilgallen the part because several years earlier they had had a friendly telephone conversation about a skit he wrote for one of Ernie Kovacs' TV shows broadcast live from New York. The skit made fun of Dorothy and her husband Dick. Dorothy enjoyed it. (David Yarnell)

I did not include this information in the seminar. However, it is good you have cleared this point up. It was suggested that Mike Shore might have been the person who sent the message to Jack Ruby via Dorothy. Do you know if that is the case? (John Simkin)

Mike Shore wasn't the one. The person whose message Kilgallen relayed to Jack Ruby was a female opera singer based in San Francisco in 1963. Joe Tonahill says this in the videotaped interview that anyone in the vicinity of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas can watch. Tonahill says he never knew the woman's name. Most likely she's dead now. (David Yarnell)


Next, Mr. Simkin has attributed statements to Kilgallen's hairdresser Marc Sinclaire without contacting him. If he got the statements from Lee Israel's book, then he is remiss. Look carefully and you'll see that Mr. Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Ms. Israel. Look online and you'll find Mr. Sinclaire's address listed in Tampa, Florida. (David Yarnell)

I did get this information from Lee Israel’s book. This was pointed out by the use of footnote 32:  Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) page 404-05. This was one of the reasons that I have asked contributors to use footnotes.

You say that Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Israel. Is that relevant? Does it now deny he made that statement? (John Simkin)

Not only does he not deny it, but he has lots of other memories that people could learn if they just would look beyond Lee Israel's book. If you're confined to the U.K., then I understand. But this group covers the United States. (David Yarnell)

Mr. Sinclaire will tell you of the visit that his boss Dorothy made to New Orleans approximately three weeks before she died. (David Yarnell)

Lee Israel mentions in her book that Dorothy had found a key witness in New Orleans. Do you know who it was? (John Simkin)

No. We'll never know. Too many people have died. (David Yarnell)

Columbus, Ohio, longtime home of Ron Pataky "the Out of Towner" John Simkin was right when he said Pataky was a newspaper critic trying to become a songwriter. Johnny Mathis did indeed record the Pataky composition "While Stephanie Sleeps," but it never appeared on an album. (David Yarnell)

Thank you for that information. Pataky does not say on his online CV the name of the song. (John Simkin)


The reason he doesn't could be benign. Record company executives and producers who issued Johnny Mathis albums in 1964 evidently thought "While Stephanie Sleeps" was inferior. Pataky still has his reel to reel audiotape of Mathis singing it. Almost certainly Mathis himself has forgotten it. (David Yarnell)

I have emailed him about this but he has not replied. I have told him about my web page on him (it is ranked first with most search-engines). When this happens, the person is usually willing to talk about the contents of the page. Pataky has not done this. I therefore assume that my information on him is correct (I will update my page on the song title). (John Simkin)

Madisonville, Kentucky ? Longtime home of Katherine Stone Stevens. In 1965 Ms. Stevens sold dynamite to coal mines and quarries in Kentucky. She was in New York City the night Kilgallen died to appear as a What's My Line contestant. Kilgallen determined what her line was. After everyone left the studio, Ms. Stevens saw Kilgallen very absorbed in conversation with Pataky at the Regenc Hotel. They were NOT drunk. They were discussing "very serious business" in the words of Ms. Stevens. (David Yarnell)

This seems like a very good witness. Have you interviewed her? (John Simkin)

Yes. The videotape is in the Super VHS format. It lasts two hours. (David Yarnell)

Anyone near Scottsdale, Arizona ? That's home to ex - cop John Doyle since 1980. Prior to that he operated a tavern / restaurant called Doyle's Terrace near LaGrangeville, New York. Lee Israel devotes two pages to him in the "epilogue" of her book. Lee told me by telephone that Doyle probably was dishonest during their 1977 interview. Consider that he claimed Kilgallen "was not long for this world, the liver being the way it was." Consider that four months after Kilgallen died, Doyle retired from the NYPD without a pension and opened an expensive restaurant in an expensive suburb near Vassar College. (David Yarnell)

Are you suggesting that John Doyle was involved in her death? (John Simkin)

In a cover up, yes. I repeat. Anyone here live near Scottsdale, Arizona? (David Yarnell)

David: Have you interviewed Ron Pataky? If so, what do you make of him? David B. Henschel believes Pataky killed Dorothy. I have my doubts about this. I suspect he was just sent to find out what she knew about the case. In the same way that Dick Billings was sent to help Jim Garrison’s investigation.

Hello David!

Nice stuff! A lot of answers to unanswered questions. Why would Kilgallen be so dammed important and threatening I wonder?

Hey - any idea as to what her relationship may have been with Audie Murphy? He appeared on What's my line...anything else? Is it possible that she may have been in contact with him?

I'm in NJ, as to your other questions.

Lee

David, thanks for the Dorothy/diva info. Mike Shore was a guess based on the music connection.

Ruby certainly did know all types.

Kilgallen would have surely plugged this singer in her column... anyone with access to them and enough patience, may be able to pin down the name (if I am recalling correctly, this singer was supposedly friends with both Jack and Dorothy?).

How do you rate Tonahill's reliability, btw? I mean, he wasn't a carjacker, or a heroin addict... but he WAS a lawyer...

I also agree that Ron Pataky didn't murder Kilgallen by himself, and he didn't become acquainted with her the year before she died with murder on his mind. He ingratiated himself with her to further his own ambitions as a reporter and songwriter.

Ron told Morton Segal, the 20th Century Fox executive who shepherded the reporters on the Lufthansa plane at JFK airport bound for The Sound of Music, that his ambition was to become a hard news reporter in New York City. Ron told Dorothy, Jerry Vale, John Gary, Richie Havens and many others that he wanted to be a composer / songwriter.

Ron first met Dorothy on that 20th Century Fox junket two months BEFORE she published Jack Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission. Ron was probably just as surprised as thousands of other people when he learned of her scoop. He then decided to seduce her into revealing her source for it. She never did, but he made contacts through his ten - year - old education at the U.S. Army School of the Americas and told them he would try to identify all her sources on Oswald, Ruby, etc. Ron kept up the pillow talk with Dorothy for another year and a few months.

Dorothy's friend hairdresser Marc Sinclaire believes that on the night she died, she confronted Ron for the first time about him being a snitch of some kind. That provoked Ron's "backers" (Marlin Swing's word) into homicidal action. If she discovers Ron attended the U.S. Army School of the Americas, she can publish stuff about the U.S. government's harassment of critics of the Warren Report.

Want to get to know Ron Pataky better ? Then click on:

http://www.ronsplace.us/ron/home.nsf/GoHome/Homepage

He's especially proud of the "us" in the address instead of "com" or "net."

You'll see thousands of his poems. (Recall how Lee Israel asks him in the epilogue if he ever wrote a love poem for Dorothy and he denies it.)

Take special note of "Just Another Ho - Hum Day at the CIA" and one about Lizzie Borden.

You can find them. I can't post links to particular poems on Ron's page. I tried it once. No go. Spend 15 minutes on it. You already found that photograph of Ron with a beard dated 1982. That's on the page with his "Nebula" artwork that Sir Laurence Olivier and other famous people bought in 1981 - 1984. The photograph was actually taken by Ron's newspaper in 1979, when they started using it the year before they fired him for laziness.

Forget about Audie Murphy. I've seen his appearance on What's My Line. He and Dorothy don't say anything to each other indicating friendship. He had nothing to do with CIA surveillance of Warren Report critics. He was old news by 1964 in United States. His death in 1971 marked the first time he had been newsworthy in 15 years. If you Britons stayed close with him, then I hope you found him entertaining.

Message posted on a Anne Heche website:

We hear that Anne Heche has agreed to portray columnist Dorothy Kilgallen in a screen (maybe small screen) version of Lee Israel's marvelous book, "Kilgallen." Barry Levinson's production company, Spring Creek, has joined David Yarnell in the project. Author Israel describes Yarnell as "darling, brilliant and tasteful!" He produced CBS' "Deep in My Heart," which snared an Emmy for Anne Bancroft, and also that marvelous American Masters documentary on Billy Wilder. This should be some movie. Kilgallen was, in my opinion, along with Walter Winchell, probably the best of the bunch when it came to golden age columning; her private life was tumultuous, her death mysterious. There are those who insist that Dorothy "knew too much" about events surrounding the "suicide" of Marilyn Monroe and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Heche should be sensational in this role. Though she is prettier than the real Dorothy (cruelly dubbed "the chinless wonder" by Frank Sinatra), there is some vague resemblance in the cameo face and delicate complexion. And she's actress enough to convey whatever it is she needs to as one of the greatest and most controversial "gossip columnists" of the era. And considering Anne's sometimes contentious relationship with the press because of her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, there is an extra added frisson of excitement and interest to the idea of her playing an ink-stained wretch.

http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Club/2419/

I'm no longer working on the film. I still have videotaped interviews of people who encountered Kilgallen at the very end of her life.

As to Pritchett: I spent years on the Dorothy Kilgallen book, spoke with what I assumed were her closest friends, and never once did the name FP come up. They doubtless ran in the same circles and could have appeared together in the Stone Age when radio and TV featured bright New Yorky women giving their arch opinions on everything. That's the only connection I am aware of. And why would DK entrust her secrets - probably Cuba related - to the wife of the ambassador? I read somewhere that FP was in a coma before her death - just about the time that DK was digging up her hottest gems. I don't know what Penn thinks he knows. But absent his knowedge, dying on the same day and being related to Cuba do not make a cogent theory of common involvement.

I think there's a lot more to the story than that.

Dorothy covered Audie more than once in gossip type articles in the Washington post on Murphy back in 1954 - one called 'Audie goes a-patchin.' I don't know what occurred on the episode of What's My Line, but if Dorothy didn't figure out who he was - well, that's like 'Quiz Show.'

If there's anything to be said for the book published by Gary Weans, Audie Murphy came into possession of some very significant top secret documents, by way of John Tower, concerning the assassination, in 1964. See Chapter 44 of 'There's a fish in the courthouse.'

Murphy's involvement in trying to spring Jimmy Hoffa is also worth noting, in that friends said he was looking to tap into the Teamster's pension fund [to save his failing businesses] - in the same way Trafficante and others had.

Murphy died in a plane crash which could be deemed suspicious. Wean certainly thought so.

Murphy travelled frequently to Ventura County, was friends with Bill Decker, had some honorary title with the Ventura Police department, and frequented Oxnard - the location of the phone call warning of the impending assassination of JFK, 20 minutes beforehand.

Murphy was on Mae Brussel's 'Mysterious Deaths' list.

Bizarre factoid - Murphy gave the foreward to the film 'War is hell' - which was showing 11/22/63 at the Dallas Theatre, built by Howard Hughes, where Oswald sought to find his contact that fateful afternoon.

Murphy was 'in the music business.'

All that remains is one clue that Murphy may have turned over a mysterious package to Dorothy Kilgallen, and you'd have more than enough motive to exterminate her and anyone even vaguely connected to her.

I keep expecting to find an Audie Murphy / Howard Hughes connection, but haven't yet beyond the fact that Hughes stole Murphy's gal back in 1946.


Maybe Lee Israel knows something about an Audie Murphy / Dorothy Kilgallen connection?

I have recently become interested in exploring the links between the deaths of John Heinz, John Tower and the assassination of JFK. Here is an interesting passage from an article written by Victor Thorn, George Bush & John Kerry: Blood Brothers, World Independent News Group (2004).

http://69.28.73.17/thornarticles/bloodbrothers.html

According to researcher Rodney Stich in Defrauding America, when George Bush Sr. and CIA Director William Casey engineered the October Surprise to bribe Iranian officials into retaining U.S. hostages until after the 1980 elections, two of the passengers on Bush’s BAC 111 flight to Paris were Senator John Heinz, along with Senator John Tower from Texas.

Even more intriguing is the fact that John Heinz chaired a three-man presidential review board that probed the Iran-Contra affair and had in his possession all the damning documents from that sordid affair, while John Tower led the infamous Tower Commission that investigated a variety of different CIA criminal activities and dirty dealings. Coincidentally, both John Heinz and John Tower died in plane wrecks on successive days in 1991 – Tower in Georgia, and Heinz in Montgomery County, Pa. Once again I must ask: what are the odds of such an occurrence, especially when both men had close ties to George Bush Sr., who was a former CIA director in the mid-1970s? Did both of these men uncover information that they refused to keep silent about any longer?

Before you answer, consider that after Senator John Heinz died, his wife married Senator John Kerry, who was chairman of the 1988 Kerry Commission, described in the Senate Committee Report on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy as “focusing on allegations of illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contra war against Nicaragua” in relation to the CIA, Department of Justice, the U.S. State Department, and the office of the President and Vice President. The testimony that took place during these trials (both in open and closed door sessions) was quite possibly the most damning ever against our federal government, yet mysteriously, nearly all of it was suppressed and not widely reported in the mainstream media. Why? Senator Kerry as a Democrat, had every opportunity to blast a Republican administration out of the water, yet he inexplicably remained silent and the status quo prevailed. Could it be that someone tapped him on the shoulder and told him that if he played his cards right and kept these sordid matters hush-hush, he would be rewarded sometime in the future?

Before you answer, consider that after Senator John Heinz died, his wife married Senator John Kerry, who was chairman of the 1988 Kerry Commission, described in the Senate Committee Report on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy as “focusing on allegations of illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contra war against Nicaragua” in relation to the CIA, Department of Justice, the U.S. State Department, and the office of the President and Vice President. The testimony that took place during these trials (both in open and closed door sessions) was quite possibly the most damning ever against our federal government, yet mysteriously, nearly all of it was suppressed and not widely reported in the mainstream media. Why? Senator Kerry as a Democrat, had every opportunity to blast a Republican administration out of the water, yet he inexplicably remained silent and the status quo prevailed. Could it be that someone tapped him on the shoulder and told him that if he played his cards right and kept these sordid matters hush-hush, he would be rewarded sometime in the future?

[/quote]


While the scenario described above is certainly possible, one need not imagine so many angles on what could quite possibly be a square.

The reality is that no one who exposes America's dark secrets has a chance in hell of reaching higher office, and Kerry knew that. In Felix Rodriguez's book, he acknowledges that while Kerry put him through hell during the Kerry committee's investigation, he publicly apologized to him when no smoking gun was found connecting Rodriguez (and Bush) to the drug shipments.

In the 70's Senator Church and Congressman Pike tried to use their investigations into the intelligence community as stepping stones to higher office and both fell flat on their face, essentially committing public suicide. There is a faction in America that considers anyone above board a threat to National Security. There is also the sense in the American media that anyone who criticizes this country's institutions is "asking for it," whereby their personal lives are uncovered and they are discredited. It's how the game is played.

If Kerry had pushed his investigation on the media, there would have been a "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," long ago. In Clinton's memoirs, he describes a visit to him by someone representing George HW Bush warning him that if he ran in 92 his various affairs would be splayed all over the media. Political hardball, right? Well, what's creepy about this is that this man visited Clinton before he'd even decided to run. Clinton says he was leaning against it, in fact, but that this visit convinced him he needed to try and get this country out of the hands of such men.

It's great that Bush and Clinton have made nice now and are traveling the world together. Clinton knows where the money is. No one has turned being an ex-President into more of a gold mine than George HW Bush.

The point I was making is that Florence was the source of some of Dorothy’s stories on Cuba. I suspect that these came from her husband, Earl Smith, who at the time was US Ambassador to Cuba.

I suspect that Florence was also the source for some of Dorothy’s stories on JFK. After all Florence had been having an affair with JFK since 1944 (a time when both women were working on the New York Journal American).

I have a few questions for you. (1) Why did you refuse to identify "Out-of-Towner" in your book? (2) Was Ron Pataky the "Out-of-Towner"? (3) Did Dorothy suspect that Pataky was working for the CIA? I say that because of her reference to Clare Booth Luce. (4) Was Pataky involved in killing Dorothy?

There are several issues raised by the posting about Earl Smith III views of his mother.

(1) “Her only contribution to Kilgallen's newspaper (the Journal American) was a kitchen recipe in the Sunday edition.”

In fact, on 9th November, 1965, the New York Journal American reported: “Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, wife of the former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba and columnist of The Journal-American, died today in her apartment at 1120 5th Ave. She was 45.” In fact, Florence had been fashion editor of the newspaper during the Second World War.

(2) “Earl insists that Dorothy Kilgallen never entrusted the dying Florence Pritchett with any documents.”

As Earl was only 12 years old at the time it is difficult to know how he can be so sure about this.

(3) “Mr. Simkin has assumed that Pritchett was Kilgallen's source on column items about Fidel Castro and Cuba, but we'll never know that. Earl says it's possible Florence fed her things in 1959, but he has no way of knowing. Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.”

Earl admits that it was possible that Florence might have given information on Castro to Dorothy. He then adds “Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.” How can he be so unsure about 1959 but so positive about 1965.

(4) "Earl Smith II and his wife Florence did know the Kennedys, but all we know is that they socialized formally. The Smiths visited the White House, and both couples hobnobbed in Palm Beach."

Of course they were much more than friends. JFK met Florence in 1944. The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question."

According to several books, JFK had a sexual relationship with Florence for 19 years that was only brought to an end in 1963. See for example:

Ralph G. Martin, A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years (1993)

David C. Heymann, A Woman Named Jackie (1989)

Blair, Joan, and Blair, Clay Jr, The Search for J.F.K. (1977)

Nellie Bly, The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal and Secrets (1996)

Nigel, Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (1992)

Stephen Birmingham, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1969)

(5) “In your recent post you state correctly that Penn Jones originated the entire saga of "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" and her connection to the assassination. Older Dallas - area residents know that Penn made many errors in his 1960s Midlothian Mirror articles and that he suffered from Alzheimers during the last 15 years of his life.”

It is the first I have heard the news that Penn Jones was suffering from Alzheimers during the time he was writing about the JFK assassination. This sounds like a typical CIA disinformation campaign. I would be interested in how you know this.

It is indeed true that Penn Jones was the first person to link the deaths of Dorothy Killgallen. He wrote in Volume II: Forgive My Grief (1967:

“Shortly before her death, Miss Kilgallen told a friend in New York that she was going to New Orleans in 5 days and break the case wide open. Miss Kilgallen 52, died November 8, 1965, under questionable circumstances in her New York home. Eight days after her death, a ruling was made that she died of barbiturates and drink with no quantities of either ingredient being given.

Also strangely, Miss Kilgallen’s close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith’s autopsy read that the cause of death was unknown.

Many skeptical newsmen have asked: “If Miss Kilgallen knew anything, surely as a journalist wouldn’t she have left some notes?” This is a legitimate question. Possibly Mrs. Smith was the trusted friend with the notes. No one will ever know now.”

What is interesting about this is that Penn Jones did not appear to know who Mrs Earl Smith was. If he did, he did not write about it. I am sure he would have been fascinated to know that she was Florence Pritchett, the woman who had been having an affair with JFK for 19 years. Nor did he know that she was married to the ambassador of Cuba (1957-59) who had been involved in the plots to overthrow Fidel Castro.

As far as I am aware, the true identity of Dorothy Kilgallen’s friend "Mrs Earl Smith" was not discovered until an exchange of postings by James Richards, John Johnson and myself on the JFK Research Forum in July 2004.

Are you saying that Lee Israel’s "Out-of-Towner" is Ron Pataky? This is what David B. Henschel claimed in 1993. As far as I know Lee Israel has always refused to confirm that it was Pataky? She has always ignored my email questions about this. Nor has she been willing to answer this point on the forum. It has always puzzled me why Israel did not name “Out-of-Towner” in her book? It is not as if she accused him of murdering Dorothy Kilgallen.

Do you have your own evidence that "Out-of-Towner" is Ron Pataky? Or are you relying on the research carried out by Henschel?

John, you asked David a while ago if Mike Shore might have been the person who sent the message to Jack Ruby via Dorothy. David replied that he was not the one, one reliable source has conflicting views on this and suggest he was, i am going to look inot this further. If you want the link to my source, I will try and find it and get back to you. There is some great info here, keep up the good work John.

Robert Howard has posted this interesting passage from Thomas G Paterson's book, Contesting Castro - The United States & The Triumph of the Cuban Revolution (1994)

Like many other prominent Americans, the young Democratic U.S. Senators John F. Kennedy and George Smathers partied on the island. In December 1957, Kennedy and Smathers journeyed to Havana. They visited Ambassador Smith, a Kennedy friend from Palm Beach, and his wife and former model, Florence Pritchett Smith with whom the Massachusets politician had had a love affair some years before. The pleasure seeking senators apparently never discussed the rebellion, although Smather's, as he himself put it "had made a career of Cuban problems." Instead golf, sailing, nightclubs, and women occupied their time. Crime boss Meyer Lansky's widow claimed later that during that trip her husband helped locate women to satisfy Kennedy's now-famed sexual athleticism. "Kennedy wasn't a great casino man," remembered Smathers, "but the Tropicana night-club had a floor show you wouldn't believe."

Here's another weird connection. Karyn Kupcinet was in a film with Audie Murphy, The Wild and the Innocent, 1959. She appeared under the name Tammy Windsor.

Her father was a very classy guy with his own talk show and column in the Chicago Sun-Times: Irv Kupcinet. He was as great as Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell. When his daughter was murdered 6 days after President Kennedy, Walter Winchell went to Hollywood to find the killer. He didn't and the murder went unsolved. Irv was digging deep into the Chicago angle of the assassination. She might have been killed to shut him up. Such killers will not kill the person, but will kill someone the person loves.

Karyn Kupcinet was not murdered. Her father, Irv suffered a lot of pain at the hands of conspiracy theorists who made his daughter look like a slut who hobnobbed with criminals. She knew nothing about the assassination, and neither did her father. Irv is dead now, but Karyn's younger brother Jerry still suffers emotionally because of these false allegations. Very recently, somebody worked hard on Karyn's Wikipedia article to debunk the theory. Let's see if I can post a link to it successfully. If it doesn't work, then please visit Wikipedia yourself and find the piece on "karyn kupcinet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyn_Kupcinet

I am sorry I was unable to reply to this posting yesterday as I was working to tight deadlines. It is of course true that Florence Pritchett died of cancer. However, that does not mean she was not murdered.

Research by Dr. Bernice Eddy and Dr. Sarah Stewart at the National Cancer Institute in 1959 showed that it was possible to inject someone with cancer. They discovered this while carrying out research into the Salk polio vaccine that was being given to children all over the world. The vaccine’s manufacturers had grown their polio viruses on the kidney’s of monkeys. They speculated that when they removed the polio virus from the monkeys’ kidneys, they also removed an unknown number of other monkey viruses. If they were right, the world had been inoculating an entire generation of Americans with cancer-causing monkey viruses? This research was suppressed but the Salk vaccine was withdrawn and a second weaker vaccine developed by Albert Sabin was deployed instead. This new vaccine was used all over the world. I, like I suspect most members of this forum, received their injection while at school. In time, polio ceased to be a killer disease.

The research of Eddy and Stewart was backed up by that of Laurella McClelland working in Philadelphia. As McClelland was working for a vaccine manufacturer, this information was covered up at the time. However, on 26th July, 1961, the New York Times reported that two vaccine manufacturers were withdrawing their polio vaccines until they can eliminate a monkey virus. Seven months later another article in the New York Times suggested that there was a possibility of cancer in the polio vaccine. However, no one picked up on this information and the idea of children being vaccinated with cancer never entered the public consciousness.

Recent scientific develops have confirmed that Eddy and Stewart were right about their belief that there was a connection between the polio vaccine and the cancer epidemic. Scientists have discovered that the DNA of SV40 in monkeys is very similar to the DNA of cancer tumors in humans.

As early as 1961 the CIA knew that it was possible to kill someone with a rapid growing cancer virus. Florence Pritchett was not the only one to die this way. This is the way that they got rid of Jack Ruby in 1967.

Is it a coincidence that JFK's two long-term mistresses, Florence Pritchett (November, 1965) and Mary Pinchot Meyer (October 1964) both died within two years of JFK. If you add to this the fact that Dorothy Kilgallen, who was using Pritchett as a source for her investigation into the JFK assassination, also died in November, 1965, one cannot help to get suspicious about these "cancer" deaths.

Nobody knows that Kilgallen used Smith as a source on JFK.

I have edited some info about Karyn Kupcinet into wikipedia. Firstly, she was murdered. Her father and mother said so. I suspect the Chicago Mob. Secondly, the killer tried to make it look like a robbery, rape killing. Her house was plundered, but nothing was missing but her methamphetamine pills. In her birth canal was a "copious" amount of what may have been semen, but it was decomposed.

Lastly, someone in her circle may have killed her. In no uncertain terms, the Kupcinets believed she was murdered by her new downstairs neighbor, the late David Lange, brother of actress Hope Lange.

Another thing I want to address: Was her door locked or unlocked? I have always read it was unlocked. Now I read that her door was locked -- though this doesn't matter if the killer found it unlocked and committed the deed, then locked it going out. (It was that type of door.) But my understanding was that Mark Goddard turned the knob and the door popped open, making him go downstairs to his wife in the car and asking her to come up. David Lange told another woman living in the apartment complex (Monterey Apartments on N. Sweetzer, West Hollywood) that he was the killer and that actually, he went up to Karyn's apartment on Friday, after Thanksgiving and the door opened, but he didn't go in. However, he did just walk into the woman's apartment, to whom he was now speaking, without knocking or permission. Why wouldn't he go into Karyn's apartment? I have a whole theory about Lange, which I'll save for now.

I just want to get across that there were many inaccuracies on the Wikipedia Karyn Kupcinet matter. I have tried to correct some of them. Better to go to

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Karyn_Kupcinet

Kathy

John Kelin: I am very interested in the research carried out by Penn Jones. He seems to have come up with information that has not been duplicated in other books by JFK researchers. For example, this is what he wrote in the Midlothian Mirror on November 25, 1965:

I have a concern for the strange things happening in America in recent months. With the passing of the second anniversary of the murder of President Kennedy, we take not of some of the strange things which continue to plague those around the principals.

Miss Dorothy Kilgallen joins the growing list of persons who have died after a private interview with one of the two members of the Jack Ruby-George Senator team. We have printed the strange deaths of Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe after they had a private interview with George Senator and Ruby’s attorney, Tom Howard. Hunter and Koethe were murdered. Lawyer Tom Howard died under strange circumstances...

Now Miss Kilgallen dies under clouded circumstances. During the Ruby trial in Dallas, Judge Joe B. Brown granted Miss Kilgallen a privilege given no other newsman. She had thirty minutes alone in a room with Jack Ruby. Even the guards were outside the door. Miss Kilgallen told some of what went of during the interview in her columns. But was someone afraid she knew more? Is she another victim of possibly knowing the secret that still moves in the troubled mind of Jack Ruby?...

What is happening in our land? How many murders of persons connected in some way with the assassination principals can go unnoticed by our people? How many lies must we prove on The Warren Commission before a demand for reopening becomes a commanding one?

In his book, Volume II: Forgive My Grief (1967), Penn Jones added more to this story:

Shortly before her death, Miss Kilgallen told a friend in New York that she was going to New Orleans in 5 days and break the case wide open. Miss Kilgallen 52, died November 8, 1965, under questionable circumstances in her New York home. Eight days after her death, a ruling was made that she died of barbiturates and drink with no quantities of either ingredient being given.

Also strangely, Miss Kilgallen’s close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith’s autopsy read that the cause of death was unknown.

Many skeptical newsmen have asked: “If Miss Kilgallen knew anything, surely as a journalist wouldn’t she have left some notes?” This is a legitimate question. Possibly Mrs. Smith was the trusted friend with the notes. No one will ever know now.

I have discovered that Mrs. Earl E. T. Smith was Florence Smith who was a journalist who was generally known as Florence Pritchett. What is really amazing about this is that JFK was involved in an affair with Pritchett that lasted from 1944 up until his death in 1963.

In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed her husband, Earl Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years John F. Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined. Earl Smith held right-wing views and later accused the CIA of helping Fidel Castro to gain power in Cuba.

I believe it is highly possible that Kilgallen got secret information about JFK’s foreign policy via Florence Pritchett/Earl Smith. For example, she wrote about the Mafia/CIA plots on Castro in the New York Journal American as early as July 1959.

In your research on Penn Jones did you discover if he identified who Mrs Earl Smith was? Did you get the chance to read Jones’ unpublished papers during your research?