Collateral Damage: Mark Shaw's Pubic Atrocity

[James DiEugenio]

Don McGovern's takedown of this very poor book is completely justified.  As is the title.

Shaw actually wrote a letter to the DA of Los Angeles, Gascon.  They guy whose new policy helped make Sirhan eligible for parole.

He told him his book helped present evidence to reopen the MM case.  As the reader will see, that is the last thing Collateral Damage does, unless one buys this blowhard Gianni Russo, who Don takes apart piece by piece. Pay special attention to Part 2 and what Shaw does with photos to try and insinuate that RFK was somehow in Brentwood on the day MM passed. Don exposes that one also. John Newman self publishes but rubbish like this gets Simon and Schuster?

https://www.kennedysandking.com/reviews/collateral-damage-mark-shaw-s-public-atrocity

[David Andrews]

I would discount any report about celebrities retailed by Truman Capote.  His gossip was frequently lies.  See Gerald Clarke, Capote (1988), in which Capote's claims about the sex lives of celebrities and writers are exposed.

[James DiEugenio]

Mark, thanks.  But Don eviscerated Gianni Russo to the point no one will ever buy into him again Including saying that Giancana took a pciture of him with MM.  Don found the person, through Donna Morel, who did take the picture.  Not only was it not Giancana, Russo is not in it. 

This person, plus RFK's itinerary, shows that he was not in Tahoe for MM's alleged Weekend from Hell, which was not such a thing.

He showed that Shaw, in an effort o incriminate RFK, placed the wrong car in the wrong place on the day she died.

That Shaw then tried to say Mr. Bates was a criminal lawyer for the Mob for the racket committee, when he was a civil lawyer who never appeared before the legislature.

That Shaw composed a drawing that did not really represent MM's home, in order to add mystery and make Eunice Murray a witness to something sinister.

Shaw then tried to say that MM had the drugs that killed her injected into her by something called a bulb syringe, when Don proved they had to be ingested.

I could go on, but IMO, even with your comment on Capote, Don's essay is a superb piece of work which exposes a pernicious mythology cum industry which goes on to this day.

 

[David Andrews]

13 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I could go on, but IMO, even with your comment on Capote, Don's essay is a superb piece of work which exposes a pernicious mythology cum industry which goes on to this day.

 

I made no bones: It's a great article from beginning to end.  Congrats to all.  Guy's a keeper.

I'm on record here calling Russo a strunz' when his book first came out.  At some minor risk to my life, if he has a press agent.

Edited August 30, 2021 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

LOL, nice one Dave. Strunz', don't know what it means unless its the old Italian word for Strunzel.

 

Al Rossi said to me after he read it,  "If I was Mark Shaw and I read that I would not show my face for about three months."

[Joe Bauer]

Not sure about Shaw either way.

I wish others had taken the Dorothy Kilgallen story and given us something else to contemplate.

I have always felt Kilgallen's suspicious murder story was much more important and more deserving than the relatively little research and writings about it.

I always felt her incredibly achieving life, decades of hobnobbing in the highest circles of New York City society and her JFK investigation and obvious murder by nefarious forces because of it was one of the most missed major film opportunities ever.

Her story from childhood thru adulthood and her death was simply fascinating imo.

And regards Marilyn Monroe ... her intimate closeness to highest ranking members of the Mafia and JFK and possibly RFK at the same time was her death lock.

We all know she had a lifetime of serious mental and emotional breakdown and pill popping crisis history.

In the end her trauma from her childhood and her sexual using as an adult caught up with her.

She would never have had anything close to a mentally healthy existence once she lost her looks and had to live life on real terms as something less than an adored and desired sex goddess. 

I could totally believe her telling any one of her highest positioned "users" that she might publish a tell all to get back at them for what she perceived as incredible using of her sexually. In so doing she truly could have ruined many highest placed individual's reputations.

A murder death in her case is totally believable to me for those reasons alone.

And why did Joe DiMaggio hate Sinatra so deeply both before and after MM's death and the rest of his life? DiMaggio knew everything about Sinatra and the mob regards the biggest lost love of his life...Marilyn Monroe. They did things to Marilyn that enraged DiMaggio.

It wasn't JFK and RFK that DiMaggio hated like that.

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

Joe:

Concerning Mark Shaw and Dorothy Kilgallen, if you read my review of Shaw's first book about her, which is appended at the end of Don McGovern's excellent discussion of Shaw's new piece of crud book, a lot of Shaw's material for that first book came from a previously published article in Midwest Review, plus the research notes of Lee Israel.

Here is the (quite good) Midwest Review article:

 https://www.midtod.com/dorothy.html

There is something very weird about her death, but it was not Mark Shaw who did the original work on it. For instance, it  was Israel who found out about Ron Pataky.

Concerning MM, there is no evidence of her closeness to the Mafia, or RFK. And there is no evidence of her doing a tell all on the Kennedy brothers.  And if you read Don's current article, which apparently you have not, she was not murdered.  The pills were ingested, not injected. And what Shaw does to try and get RFK into Brentwood was exposed by Don as nothing but photographic trickery. I say that because it is difficult to imagine that a lawyer/author could be that stupid.

There were many people who were not invited to her last rites proceeding, as Joe D only invited 26.

A lot of cheap hucksters have created a lot of smoke and mirrors out of a lot of nothing in order to create what, in reality, is a wild and lurid fantasy which libels MM, RFK and JFK. MM was not a Mob moll and she was not some kind of intel asset, or being tossed around by, of all people, RFK-- who Hoover could not find anything on, even though he had agents following him around. 

In  fact, MM and Joe D were contemplating being remarried at the time of her death.  What is incredible to me is that some people in the JFK critical community have actually taken this rubbish seriously e.g. Paul Hoch.

If you have not read my review of McGovern's fine, breakthrough book, you really should, here it is: 

 https://www.kennedysandking.com/reviews/the-marilyn-monroe-kennedys-hoax-part-1-the-mythology-is-launched?fbclid=IwAR3dOe2zRmZW_9GV1EZniYsdEW0PeZupObr54btnMoi8DFrYEejCUuUuSfg

Edited September 1, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[David Andrews]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

LOL, nice one Dave. Strunz', don't know what it means unless its the old Italian word for Strunzel.

"Paulie sold out the old man, that strunz'. I don't want to see him again. Make that first thing on your list, understand?"

―Sonny Corleone to Peter Clemenza

 

(From stronzo, Italian for «turd»),

Edited August 31, 2021 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

Ok, it is what I thought.

I agree that Gianni Russo is just that.

Utterly incredible that Shaw, a lawyer took him at face value.  The second time I read Don's article, I was actually cracking up through his discussion of him.  He is the funniest guy on the scene since the late David Heymann.  Heymann's BS had me rocking in my chair.

BTW, what does this say about the publishing business?  Simon and Schuster published Shaw's book.

[Jon Pickering]

Don McGovern's review was exhilarating - and, thank you to James DiEugenio for having it on the excellent Kennedys & King site.

[James DiEugenio]

Welcome Don and I agree. 

Don's review is just a breath of fresh air over Shaw's junkpile.

 

[Joe Bauer]

I just read the review.

I'd like to address some aspects of it in the next day or two, for what it's worth coming from someone as poorly informed as me.

For now however, this one brief thought and question:

Did Joe DiMaggio harbor a great resentment even hatred toward Sinatra after MM's death and even before ... or not?

If he did, why? 

Wasn't Sinatra one of the persons DiMaggio banned from her funeral?

That's a loud and deeply personal blunt statement.

Obviously this resentment centered around something to do with Sinatra's interactions with MM.

If Monroe wasn't intimately involved with Sinatra ( who was life time involved with highest rung Mafiosi ) at some point and/or in any way whatsoever, in what other way could Joe DiMaggio have felt resentment toward Sinatra ( and maybe others close to Sinatra ) relative to his perception that Sinatra may have done something to hurt the love of DiMaggio's life?

Why did DiMaggio ban Sinatra from MM's funeral? The answer to that question would inspire some very important questions and very possibly reveal some important information regards the true relationship MM had with Sinatra or others close to Sinatra and in what way she might have been taken advantage of or even abused by them?

And wasn't Peter Lawford kind of known as a pimp at times? Hooking powerful people up with beautiful women for more than just conversation and eye candy accompaniment? I think it's likely Monroe saw Lawford in this way as she got older, and might avoid his invitations to parties for this reason?

Edited September 2, 2021 by Joe Bauer

[David Andrews]

What do we make of the longstanding rumor that Monroe was taken out of her home by ambulance during the night, then returned before morning for Greenson to discover after his break-in?  I don't know where it originates, but it predates the Shaw book by decades.

[James DiEugenio]

Its bogus all the way.

 

Don McGovern will be on BOR next week to discuss  his review, Shaw and the MM case.

[James DiEugenio]

Joe:

I asked the expert on this, Don McGovern. This is what he said about the funeral rites.

DiMaggio and Berniece Miracle, MM’s sister, controlled the funeral. None of Marilyn’s Hollywood friends or associates received an invitation because Joe insisted on their exclusion. Joe blamed them and Hollywood for Marilyn’s death; and by that time, Joe and Frank were no longer friends. Remember, Joe was devastated by Marilyn’s death; and he was extremely angry that what he wanted most had been taken from him.