Did the Plotters View RFK's Murder of Marilyn Monroe as Justification for Killing JFK?

[James DiEugenio]

Rothmiller used Fred Otash?

Oh no, then that seals it.  Otash was about as bad and amoral as they come. He made Spindel look like a decent guy.

Wait until you see what I have on him in my upcoming article  "Joyce Carol Oates, Brad Pitt and the Road to Blonde."

 

 

[Pamela Brown]

15 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

According to this PBS article:

"Passionate," "intense," "tough," and above all, "ruthless." These were some of the words used to describe Robert Kennedy. 

Kennedy's tough-guy reputation emerged from a career of battles. He waged moral crusades against dangers including foreign enemies (communism, Fidel Castro, the U.S.S.R.); domestic adversaries (corrupt unions, the Mafia); specific people (Jimmy Hoffa, "Big Steel" bosses); and abstract concepts (racism, poverty). One of his biggest enemies, Lyndon Johnson, was technically on his side, a fellow Democrat.

Yeah, sure sounds like a guy willing to commit murder for selfish reasons.

 

That is the myth.  As I see it, the truth is that Bobby would stop at nothing to make sure the Kennedy family stayed in power in the White House.  Your call if you see that as 'selfish' or not...

[Michael Griffith]

Another noteworthy fact that Rothmiller reveals in Bombshell is that he saw an LAPD OCID file that stated that 10 bullets were recovered from the shooting of RFK, and he notes that this was two more bullets than Sirhan's gun could have fired. Rothmiller testified about the OCID file and the 10 bullets in 1992 at a grand jury hearing.

Some here may be interested to know that Rothmiller also testified on behalf of the ACLU in its lawsuit against OCID's illegal spying, and he testified to the LA Police Commission about corruption in the LAPD and about OCID's illegal surveillance practices. His testimony led to the commission's first efforts to reform the LAPD. Rothmiller's 1992 book LA Secret Police led to another investigation by the LA Police Commission and caused more efforts at cleaning up the LAPD.

Rothmiller says that Marilyn's journal and OCID files showed that on the night of her death, she phoned Mexican actor and one-time lover Jose Bolanos. Rothmiller's transcription from Marilyn's journal says that she called Bolanos and told him she was going to hold a press conference and expose her affairs with RFK and JFK, and that Bolanos urged her not to do this and warned her that it would be dangerous. Years later, Bolanos admitted that he spoke with Marilyn that evening and that she told him something that he said would "shock the whole world," but he declined to reveal what it was. Support for Rothmiller's account also comes from Marilyn's hairdresser, Sidney Guilaroff, who reported that on the night of Marilyn's death, he spoke with her on the phone and that she told him she knew a lot of dangerous secrets about the Kennedys. 

In Rothmiller's postscript in the book, he mentions that before he saw Marilyn's diary and the OCID files on Marilyn's death, he was an admirer of JFK and RFK, and that a portrait of JFK still hangs in his house:

          I had always admired the Kennedys and was saddened when they were murdered. My wife and I purchased a portrait of President Kennedy in the 1970s and it is still on display in our home. President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy did a great amount of good for the country. Yet, in this situation, I was a detective and had to follow the evidence. So, personally, it was a painful investigation, but it had to be done. I wished the facts proved otherwise, but they didn't, and it saddens me. (p. 328)

Finally, the disclosures of RFK and JFK's affairs with Marilyn, RFK's role in her death, and JFK's possible foreknowledge and possible actions as an accessory after the fact (mainly just staying quiet and taking no action against Bobby)--these disclosures do not mean we must wholly repudiate and condemn RFK and JFK. 

Yes, these disclosures are a serious black mark on RFK's and JFK's legacies, especially on Bobby's. If they couldn't persuade Marilyn not to go public about their sexual affairs, then they should have faced the consequences of their actions, even it meant having to resign in disgrace, instead of killing her. 

But it also fair to point out that Marilyn was being unreasonable and was putting JFK and RFK in an extraordinarily difficult situation. She should have readily understood why JFK and RFK had to break off relations with her. She should have known that Bobby would never leave his wife and marry her (Bobby never should have made such a promise in the first place). Since she was interested in politics and followed international affairs, she should have known that revealing the national security information that JFK had foolishly shared with her would cause an international uproar and would damage America's image in the world. And she certainly should have understood that women who chose to sleep with powerful prominent men were expected to keep those affairs private. 

In the final analysis, RFK and JFK's actions in relation to Marilyn Monroe, as immoral and inexcusable as they were, must be weighed against the many good things that JFK and Bobby did for tens of millions of people, and not just for people in America but for people in many other parts of the world. Their actions regarding Marilyn Monroe were no excuse for the plotters to execute them. The plotters not only executed JFK and Bobby but also murdered dozens of people who, in their view, "knew too much" and "posed too great of a risk."

[James DiEugenio]

Oh please Mike.

This is getting ridiculous.

There was no diary obtained by the LAPD.  That is utter crap. And if you buy what Rothmiller says was in it, then I can also sell you a bridge in Arizona. 

We now know that for sure.  It was found later in the Strasburg archive.  And it was really kind of a journal and it had next to nothing in it about JFK.  She had written down an answer to a journalist's question about what she felt about his policies.  And that was it. And that whole thing about a press conference is even worse.  Gary VItacco Robles interviewed the guy from her PR company and he said, nope.  Not one word about it.  This is what is called doing research for cross checking purposes.

You obviously know nothing about Sidney G.  Don McGovern spends a couple of pages on this guy.  And talk about changing your story. This guy did a 180 degree turn, and  that was in 1996!  34 years later.  

If you are not going to cross check any of the junk you post Mike and just take this hack writer at his word, you should not post at all.  That is just the contrary to what real JFK researchers do, they always try and cross check if the info is valid. That is what Don McGovern does.  And that is why he is credible and Rothmiller is not. Don has destroyed ever major tenet of his POS book.

Fred Otash, of all people.

I think Mike is being deliberately obtuse on this one since no one would buy his Vietnam baloney.

Edited September 26, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

On 9/25/2023 at 6:29 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Rothmiller used Fred Otash?

Oh no, then that seals it.  Otash was about as bad and amoral as they come. He made Spindel look like a decent guy.

Wait until you see what I have on him in my upcoming article  "Joyce Carol Oates, Brad Pitt and the Road to Blonde."

Now you're sounding like a WC apologist. Yes, of course Otash was bad and amoral. Many people who deal with or in the underworld and who agree to be informants are bad and amoral. Some of our most revealing accounts of CIA-Mafia cooperation and of CIA-Mafia involvement in JFK's death come from bad and amoral people. 

If Rothmiller's disclosures did not include information on JFK and RFK's serial adultery and on RFK's role in Marilyn Monroe's death, I suspect you would heartily welcome them, would acknowledge their importance, and would gladly recognize Rothmiller as one of the good guys. But, because Rothmiller's disclosures do include this information, you are determined to reject them and to discredit Rothmiller, and also to reject the Otash information in spite of the documentation that supports it. 

You would not be accusing Rothmiller of fabricating entries from Marilyn's diary if Rothmiller were not also revealing Bobby's role in Marilyn's death, nor would you so gullibly accept the Strasburg version of Marilyn's diary as "evidence" against Rothmiller's transcription of her diary.

And it bears repeating that, while you reject and attack Rothmiller, you continue to claim that the anti-Semitic crackpot Fletcher Prouty was a sterling, credible source. You even attack scholars with impeccable liberal credentials just because they have exposed Prouty's bogus claims, his nuttiness, and his anti-Semitic views. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Pamela Brown]

On 9/23/2023 at 10:54 AM, Adam Johnson said:

Jim,

I'm not saying the Carroll report doesn't exist...I'm asking for help to locate it online so i can read it!

I dont believe any MM diary exists. To many people close to her said she didnt have one.

I'm not saying i believe Rothmiller's description of what Peter Lawford told him happened. 

Who the hell is Scaduto?

If you dont have friends who will cover for you sometime, why have friends...I'm saying its 100% possible Bates and his Wife could have lied...did they lie? I dont know...but if an OCID tape ever turns up or a transcript of a Saturday conversation at fifth helena with RFK in it...they goddam 100% lied.  And you cannot be 100% certain they did not lie, just as i cannot be 100% certain they did, yet.

Now a 1980's ocid chief says they had a MM file, he also says many files from the 60's 70's were incinerated in the 80's by his hand... he also says some main/special files were saved and stored. 

Who wants to bet a $1 that the MM file comes under the ocid category of special?

Has anyone debunked the LAPD Officer who pulled over Peter Lawfords car that Saturday night who said he saw RFK in the vehicle around midnight.

Regards

A.J

It seems to me Jim will do just about anything to protect Bobby...

[Norman T. Field]

FWIW, MM's housekeeper swore RFK visited MM's home on the afternoon before MM died. 

[Michael Griffith]

5 minutes ago, Norman T. Field said:

FWIW, MM's housekeeper swore RFK visited MM's home on the afternoon before MM died. 

Yes. The evidence that RFK was at Marilyn's house that day is strong enough that even Anthony Summers acknowledges that he was there, even though he is an ardent supporter of the official finding of "probable suicide." 

Yet, we have people in this thread who insist that Bobby was not even in LA at the time.

 

[James DiEugenio]

1 hour ago, Norman T. Field said:

FWIW, MM's housekeeper swore RFK visited MM's home on the afternoon before MM died. 

Norman, this is all dependent on who she was talking to and when.

If we go by her first testimony, he was not there.  For example to Mike Wallace on Sixty Minutes.  As Don McGovern has noted, her testimony has become contaminated under the very conscious  influence of the Slatzer types.  But if we go by what is closest to the time period, its negative.

As per the Unheard Tapes, consider the way she was asked the question: "But, on the show, Summers did not ask Eunice if Robert Kennedy visited on August 4^th: the term the author used was “that day,” along with “that afternoon.” We know that Robert Kennedy visited Marilyn, accompanied by Pat and Peter Lawford, on the 27^th of June in 1962. Eunice Murray recounted the attorney general’s brief visit on that Wednesday for biographer Donald Spoto. The Lawfords arrived at Fifth Helena that afternoon to collect Marilyn, and Robert Kennedy was with them: Marilyn wanted them to see her new home. After a brief tour of Marilyn’s humble hacienda, the group proceeded to the Lawford’s beachside mansion for a dinner party. That June visit, residential tour and dinner party was the fourth and final meeting of Bobby and Marilyn."

And in fact, not only was he not there, he could not have been there.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, the title of this thread is about as slanted as the other Griffithian thread concerning Selverstone's book about Vietnam.  Recall what Mike did there, he added a modifier to the book title that does not exist.  He called it the definitive book on the subject.  Which is about the last thing I would call Selverstone's book.  There is no definitive book on Kennedy and Vietnam but if I had to pick one, it would be John Newmans' revised version of JFK and Vietnam.

Here, what Mike has done is something really kind of underhanded, quasi despicable really.  Why do I say that?

MM passed on in August of 1962.  Kennedy was killed in November of 1963.  But most serious researchers think the plotting for his assassination began earlier, like the summer of 1963.

There were no such questions in any literary form about MM's death until 1964!  This was when inveterate Kennedy hater and professional Red hunter Frank Capell issued his pamphlet on the subject. Which no one today takes seriously since it is so obviously a political hit piece on RFK. Secondly, if say Allen Dulles or Curtis LeMay, had wanted to know where RFK was that weekend, they would have consulted with Hoover and Hoover's report said that he was in GIlroy with the Bates family.  That report included time of arrival and departure.

So like with many things, what on earth  is Mike talking about?  The MM fables did not begin in earnest in any way until Mailer's book, several years later.  And then Mailer admitted on TV that he threw RFK in for one reason: he needed the money.

[Michael Griffith]

On 9/23/2023 at 3:25 AM, James DiEugenio said:

@Adam JohnsonIf you buy into those Rothmiller transcriptions about MM's diary, then you and I, and most others on this thread, have a big difference of what constitutes evidence and how to judge the credibility of an author.

How many different ways does one have to show that Rothmiller is full of it? You just ignore all that.  25 Nembutals and MM stayed alive for hours after? Did you skip how Don McGovern demolished the Rothmiller story about MM and JFK having dinner during the second night of the 1960 Democratic Convention, when in fact she was not even in California!

BTW here is a quote about that internal inquiry by OCID: "As with Capell, this lunacy was generally disregarded. But it also generated an internal investigation within the Los Angeles Police Department. Eventually, the department’s Organized Crime Investigation Division prepared a point-by-point refutation of Scaduto’s story, based on meticulous documentation and new interviews with Peter Lawford and Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi. In an uncharacteristic literary smirk, the report turned a line from Scaduto against him: “The evidence is as thin as Depression-food-line soup.”

Then you link to his older book.  This is not about that book.  

 As many prosecutors have said, they dream about a motion picture case e.g. RFK being in Gilroy.  Well, the testimony of ten people, a series of pictures, and an FBI report, that is the kind of evidence they dream of. Your attempt to cast aspersions on John Bates and his family is, I think, unwarranted and underhanded.

Oh yes, if somehow you cannot find either of the Carroll reports online, abracadabra, they do not exist.  Is that what you are trying to say? Even though authors have read them and quoted from them?

Please Adam. 

One, you obviously have not read Rothmiller and Thompson's book, or you'd know better than to make the claims you're making. McGovern, an emotionally attached super fan of Marilyn Monroe who can't even admit she was severely promiscuous or that she had affairs with Bobby and JFK, did not "demolish" Rothmiller. You must be kidding, but I know you're not. 

Two, whenever you question someone's ability "to judge the credibility of an author," readers need to be aware that you still claim that the anti-Semitic fraud Fletcher Prouty was not only a credible source but an outstanding and brilliant source. The guy was a crackpot who spent years palling around with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, speaking at their conferences and on their radio shows and praising the Holocaust-denying IHR journal and having a book published by the Holocaust-denying IHR press. He made numerous bogus claims and many downright nutty, bizarre claims. See my latest reply in the thread "Why L. Fletcher Prouty's Critics Are Wrong." 

[James DiEugenio]

Will you stop it Mike.  

I don't think you realize just how bad posts like the above make you look.

Don McGovern examined every major tenet of the Rothmiller book.  You did not do that.  You just accepted it en toto.  Even though it partly relies on the likes of Fred Otash.  OMG.  Even though its conclusion about MM's death is not just wild, its impossible.  MM did not have "affairs" with either JFK or RFK.  You can only adduce that if you rely on more jokester sources like the discredited David Heymann or Jeanne Carmen, both proven frauds.

And to show just how unreliable you are, you do not even seem to know that.  For example, David Cay Johnston and Donna Morel demonstrated how Heymann literally made up people and places that did not exist. How he kept obituaries around from the Kennedy entourage so he could put words in their mouths after they passed so they could not sue him. That is a fact that you are either unaware of, or it simply means nothing to you in your mad dash to trash the Kennedys.

https://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/05/c-david-heymanns-career-serial-fabulist-266876.html

https://www.kennedysandking.com/robert-f-kennedy-reviews/heymann-c-david-bobby-and-jackie-a-love-story

I won't even comment on Prouty, Jeff Carter is on fine footing there. This is just more of your frothing about like a wild geyser at Yosemite.

 Mike, if you have nothing to say or contribute, just don't say anything.  Because your net contribution to this forum is really quite negative. All over the fact that you cannot accept  that in 1991, John Newman and Oliver Stone and Fletcher Prouty were correct on JFK getting out of Vietnam.

Bizarre.

Edited September 27, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

On 9/21/2023 at 8:00 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Mailer's biography of Marylin Monroe:

Since Mailer did not have the time to thoroughly research the facts surrounding her death, his speculation led to the biography's controversy. The book's final chapter theorizes that Monroe was murdered by rogue agents of the FBI and CIA who resented her supposed affair with Robert F. Kennedy.^[76] Mailer later admitted that he embellished the book with speculations about Monroe's sex life and death that he did not himself believe to ensure its commercial success.^[77]

So Jim D. called it right. (At least in this case.)

For someone like Norman Mailer to make stuff up about MM's death "for a buck," that's a pretty good indication that other writers were doing the same. Nobody knew the truth about her death, so those who wrote about it were all speculating.

Rothmiller is no Norman Mailer. Mailer said many things that he knew, or should have known, were false, especially about the JFK case. He even claimed that Oswald spoke poor, broken Russian. When I asked Mailer to send me the reenactment photo that he claimed duplicated the variant shadows in the backyard rifle photos, he referred me to Larry Schiller. The photo that Schiller sent me did not even come close to duplicating those shadows. When I confronted Mailer with this fact, he ended the discussion. 

If you read Bombshell, you'll learn about the extensive research that Thompson did to corroborate Rothmiller's account. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Cory Santos]

Any expert on mm just needs to answer this question:   Did she have any relationships with Giancana?   If yes, what were they?   If the expert says no she did not have any then the expert is not an mm or Giancana expert.  So Jim, please tell me, this is an honest question, do you believe mm had relationships with him or not?

If yes what were they? 

[James DiEugenio]

Cory:

I am still waiting for you to reply to my question.

And any auther who relies on Otash is simply not credible.

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by James DiEugenio