ABC News canceled a documentary about the Kennedys’ “involvement in Marilyn Monroe’s death” to protect its reputation, a new book reveals.
After a “year-long” affair with John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby, 36-year-old Marilyn was found dead on August 5, 1962 in her Los Angeles home.
“Those who knew and loved her most blamed Jack and Bobby Kennedy,” writes author and DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan.
In his new book, ‘Don’t ask: The Kennedys and the women they destroyed’ — which is being serialized exclusively by the Mail — Callahan explosively reveals that, in 1985, ABC News had planned to air a television special about the brothers’ possible involvement in Marilyn’s death, but “hours before the broadcast, ABC pulled the plug.’
ABC News canceled a documentary about the Kennedys’ “involvement in Marilyn Monroe’s death” to protect its reputation, a new book reveals.
In her new book, ‘Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed,’ Maureen Callahan reveals that, in the 1980s, ABC News had planned to air a television special about JFK and Bobby (left and center) and their possible involvement in Marilyn’s death, but “hours before the broadcast aired, ABC pulled the plug.”
The man responsible for canceling the show, ABC News president Roone Arledge, “was an old friend of Ethel Kennedy (Bobby’s wife),” Callahan writes.
After meeting JFK for the first time at a Hollywood party in 1954 and then meeting Bobby through him, Marilyn fell in love with both men.
They both had overlapping affairs with her and, on the night she sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to JFK at Madison Square Garden in May 1962, Marilyn slept with Bobby backstage in her dressing room before the performance.
Later that night, the only known photograph of the three was taken. ‘Marilyn was among them, in profile, looking serious. “Bobby and Jack had walked away from the camera,” Callahan writes.
Marilyn died of a barbiturate overdose and her body was discovered in the early morning hours of August 5, 1962.
The day before, Bobby had visited Marilyn at her home in Los Angeles.
“Bobby and Jack discovered that the FBI and CIA had bugged Marilyn’s home and phone line without her knowledge… Bobby wouldn’t leave without the recordings,” Callahan writes.
‘Where the hell is he?’ Bobby asked. But Marilyn “had no idea” what she was talking about.
Bobby left empty-handed and his housekeeper found Marilyn’s body early the next morning. “She was face down on her bed, naked, with her phone still in her hand,” Callahan writes.
“Former FBI agent James Doyle later admitted that the Bureau had been ordered to delete certain telephone records (from Marilyn’s home),” it adds. ‘Recovered in the 1980s, Marilyn’s records showed that she had called Bobby’s workplace eight times between June 25 and 30… Reports suggest that she had miscarried on July 20 and that the baby could have been Bobby’s.
Marilyn’s second husband, Joe DiMaggio, banned the two Kennedy brothers from attending Marilyn’s funeral.
The only known photograph taken of Marilyn with Bobby, left, and JFK, on May 19, 1962.
“I always knew who killed her, but I didn’t want to start a revolution in this country,” DiMaggio said years later. “She told me that someone would kill her, but I stayed silent.
All the Kennedys were conquerors and always got their way. In a hundred years they will have their way.
ABC News’s cancellation of the planned documentary in 1985 sparked a huge public reaction.
At the time, ABC News president Roone Arledge defended his decision, saying the special was “gossip column stuff” and “doesn’t live up to its billing.”
The documentary has never aired.