Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (14 page)

2:00 PM

Joe DiMaggio, Jr. telephones for Marilyn; Joe Jr. is the son of Marilyn’s former husband, baseball hero, Joe DiMaggio, and she remains close with both of them. The call is “Collect, for Marilyn” and is operator-assisted. Joe Jr. states that Mrs. Murray (Eunice) answered the phone and told the operator that Miss Monroe was not in to take the call.
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Shortly after 2:00 PM

Mrs. Murray’s car is delivered. It had been in the shop for repairs, and a man from the repair shop had dropped her off at Marilyn’s earlier today. She then drives to the market to stock up on some supplies that are needed for the house.
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(Here, it should be noted that one of Marilyn’s chief biographers, Donald Spoto, injects that Dr. Greenson, Marilyn’s psychiatrist, arrives at her house shortly after 1:00 pm. Spoto is the only biogra pher who makes this assertion and it seems highly unlikely-to-impos sible. The purpose appears to be the “cleansing effect” pertaining to the presence of Robert Kennedy at Marilyn’s home. Spoto states that Robert Kennedy was never there and changing this point in the timeline facilitates it. However, Robert Kennedy quite definitely was there, as we shall soon see.)

Approximately 3:00 PM

Elizabeth Pollard, Marilyn’s neighbor across the street in the cul-de-sac, later reports that while she and her friends are playing cards as they often do on Saturday afternoons, they clearly see Robert Kennedy get out of a parked car. She vividly recalls one of her guests remarking excitedly “Oh look, there’s Robert Kennedy!” and that they all watched as he and two other men then walked up the drive to Marilyn’s home.
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(We examined this account and it is highly credible. Some authors have tried “pushing” it to later in the evening, putting it closer to the time of death, but Pollard’s original statement was that it actually occurred at about 3:00 PM—that would also coincide with the timing of Ward Wood’s testimony and with other credible sightings of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles that day.)

(Caretaker Norman Jeffries tells a different story many years later, however, being Eunice’s son-in-law and on very bad terms with her in later years, he clearly has an axe to grind and his account has been determined not credible.)

Approximately 3:00 PM

Years later (not at the time of questioning), housekeeper Eunice Murray admits (on more than one occasion) that Robert Kennedy was indeed at Marilyn’s home that afternoon. She says it was a surprise visit, that he wasn’t expected, which was evidenced by the fact that Marilyn wasn’t “ready” for him; she hadn’t had her hair, makeup, and nails done, and wasn’t dressed up as she normally would be. The autopsy photos confirm that her dark roots were showing, and she hadn’t shaved her legs or done her nails, so there was no way she was expecting a visit from Robert. The exact words of Eunice regarding his presence that day and its ramifications, are: “Oh sure, yes—I was in the living room when he arrived. She was not dressed. It became so sticky that the protectors of Robert Kennedy had to step in.”
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4:30 PM

After Robert Kennedy’s visit, Eunice finds Marilyn very upset and she calls Dr. Greenson, Marilyn’s psychiatrist, who is basically on-call to handle her “issues.”
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4:30 PM

Joe DiMaggio Jr. again calls collect for Marilyn and the operator is again told that Miss Monroe is unavailable to take the call.
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“Late afternoon”

Marilyn telephones her good friend Sidney Guilaroff, the world-renowned hairdresser. She is in tears and tells Sidney that “Robert Kennedy was here, threatening me and yelling at me.” He asks her why he was there, and Marilyn answers because “I’m having an affair with him.” She told Sidney that he then left with Peter Lawford. Sidney consoles her a bit, and she is less depressed, but the visit quite obviously upset her.
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“Late afternoon”

Ward Wood, next-door neighbor of Peter Lawford’s Santa Monica beach home (which the Kennedys are known to frequent), later tells police that Robert Kennedy arrives at Lawford’s late in the day, and that he clearly remembers seeing him as he steps out of a Mercedes. He makes the identification with informed certainty.
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5:00-5:10 PM

Peter Lawford states that at this time he phones Marilyn and invites her to a dinner party he is having this evening at his home in Santa Monica. Marilyn answers that she’s not sure, but she’ll think about it. Lawford tells Marilyn he hopes to see her there.
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5:00- 5:10 PM

While Marilyn is on the phone with Law- ford, on the other line, Marilyn gets a call from Isadore Miller (father of playwright and Marilyn’s former husband, Arthur Miller. Marilyn has remained close to Isadore. He was even her escort to the JFK birthday gala at Madison Square Garden earlier in the year). Eunice tells Isadore Miller that Marilyn is busy, and she’ll have to call him back. Marilyn does not return Miller’s phone call.
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Note: Marilyn’s home has two separate phone lines (two different phone numbers) and her closer friends are aware of both. Both of the phones are kept in the guest room. The home has two guest bedrooms. The one that Pat Newcomb slept in last night (and that Eunice Murray is in tonight) is at the end of the hall, which is up from Marilyn’s bedroom. The other guest room, the one where the telephones are kept, is near the first, and the two guest rooms are connected via a joint bathroom.

5:15 PM

Dr. Greenson arrives and confers with Marilyn in her bedroom. He spends a long time in her room, only exiting occasionally, coming out into the hallway and appearing deep in thought, then returning to her room.
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He later states to a close colleague who had also once treated Marilyn that she was distraught at the time that he arrived, but had clearly settled down during their long session and was okay by the time that he left. However, Greenson later tells the “Suicide Prevention Team” that Marilyn was “depressed and drugged,” “furious” and “in a rage” this afternoon due to her having been involved sexually with “important men in government” and that she was “feeling rejected by some of the people she had been close to.”
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6:00 PM

Dr. Greenson is nearing the end of a therapy session in Marilyn’s home and telephones Marilyn’s personal physician, Hyman Engleberg, asking him to come over and give Marilyn an injection of a sedative so that she can get some rest. They are in the process of “weaning” Marilyn off her reliance upon the sedative Nembutal, so there are apparently none in the house. Marilyn only had a prescription for twenty-five Nembutal, and she can’t find them, apparently accusing Pat of flushing them down the toilet. Dr. Engleberg had only given Marilyn this prescription to stave off any withdrawal symptoms because he knew that he was going to be unavailable in the short term to give her any injections. In any case, since she was disturbed by the visit from Robert Kennedy, Greenson thinks she needs something to calm her. However, Engleberg declines because he has his own dramas to deal with (his wife was in the process of leaving him).
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6:30 PM

Ralph Roberts, Marilyn’s friend and masseur, telephones. Roberts is on his way to the grocery store to pick up some things that he and Marilyn need for a barbecue they have scheduled the following day. Dr. Greenson answers the phone, telling Roberts that Marilyn isn’t there and then hanging up on him (Roberts recalls the event specifically and remembers wondering why Dr. Greenson would be at Marilyn’s house at all if Marilyn wasn’t there).
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6:30 PM

Pat Newcomb, Marilyn’s press agent, who had spent the night at Marilyn’s house, now leaves Marilyn’s home. There is an undercurrent of suspicion between Marilyn and Pat—even though she is supposed to be looking out for Marilyn as her publicist, Marilyn accuses her of being a watchdog for the Kennedys and reporting everything back to them (which was true). Earlier in the day, Marilyn had ordered Pat out of the house, but Pat had stayed there anyway. Dr. Greenson eventually comes out of their closed-door session in Marilyn’s bedroom after calming her down, and he pointedly addresses Pat with a rejoinder to the effect of: “Are you leaving now, Pat?” (This is apparently letting Pat know that Marilyn has confided in him that she had ordered Pat out of her house, and that Pat didn’t leave). Pat then apparently leaves the house in a huff without saying a word to anyone (according to the housekeeper, she is quite indignant in her exit).
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Dr. Greenson is still at Marilyn’s home when Pat Newcomb leaves, along with Marilyn and housekeeper Eunice Murray. Newcomb later states: “When I last saw her, nothing about her mood or manner had changed ... she even said I’d see her tomorrow.”
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6:45- 7:00 PM

After spending almost two hours at the house, most of it alone with Marilyn, Dr. Greenson then leaves. Before going, he tells Eunice that Marilyn is much calmer now, but to keep an eye on her, suggesting she spend the night there (which she did not ordinarily do on Saturday nights). Eunice agrees to do precisely that. Dr. Greenson later characterizes Marilyn’s mood that day by saying that she was a bit depressed, but that he had “seen her many, many times in much worse condition.” Eunice later confirms that there was no serious concern about Marilyn at this particular point. Dr. Greenson tells Marilyn to give him a call in the morning, but also adds that he will be available again in a few hours and that she can call him later at home should she need him.
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7:15 PM

The son of Marilyn’s former husband Joe DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio Jr., again telephones Marilyn and the two converse amiably for quite some time (his father, the baseball hero, had become very disturbed at the fact that medical types, whom he considered detrimental, had attached themselves to Marilyn. He reportedly quit his job with a military supplier a few days earlier on August 1, planning to ask Marilyn to remarry him, a rumor that had been spreading nationally after the two had again become close). Joe, Jr. tells Marilyn the “big news”—that he has broken off his engagement to be married—and Marilyn is thrilled to hear it because she had been against it all along. DiMaggio, Jr. later states that, during their phone call, Marilyn sounded fine.
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Housekeeper Eunice Murray also states that Marilyn was in very good spirits both during and after the call, her bubbly laughter ringing through the whole house, which Eunice greeted with relief after the day’s earlier events. Eunice describes her right now as: “Happy and in good spirits; gay, alert. Anything but depressed.”
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