Mary Pinchot Meyer *
Mistress and ex-CIA wife
They couldn't control him anymore. He was changing too fast. They had to take him out.
Jack wasn't sure who was giving orders.
Mary Meyer came from wealth and privilege as were many who traveled in that circle. She loved to paint. She was the sister-in-law of Ben Bradlee, publisher of the Washington Post and ex-wife of CIA spook Cord Meyer. With her connections she was aware of much of the goings-on it the nation's capitol. She felt at home in Washington as she enthusiastically embraced the leftward movement.
She also was one of President Kennedy's visitors at the White House when Jackie was away. While there, she would tell of their pot smoking, LSD trips and who knows whatever else she happened to have with her. She kept a diary that she told her close friends should be retrieved if anything should happen to her. As parts of her diary are revealed, they showed that their LSD trips were more than merely recreational. During his last year in office the results of Mary's influence and the mind expanding drug apparently had an effect on the President as he shifted more toward peace and away from the Cold War.
It is reported that after the Warren Commission report was released, she went to her ex-husband and possibly James Angleton and told them that if they didn't tell the truth about how and why John Kennedy was killed, she was going to blow the whistle on them and take the story to the public.
One day as she was jogging along one of the paths in Georgetown, her life was ended by a shot from what appeared to be a professional assassin. Ben Bradlee found out about the murder from a CIA phone call, even as the police were trying to identify the victim. He immediately went to studio to look for the diary and found James Angleton already there on the same quest.
The diary was eventually found and passed on to Angleton. He looked it over and returned it to the family who promptly burned it.
At the time of his demise, Leo Damore was writing a book detailing the Kennedy-Meyer affair.
by Peter Janney
The death of Mary Meyer left many Americans with questions. Who really killed her? Why did CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton rush to find and confiscate her diary? Had she discovered the plan to assassinate her lover, President Kennedy, with the trail of information ending at the steps of the CIA? Was it only coincidence that she was killed less than three weeks after the release of the Warren Commission Report?
Building and relying on years of interviews and painstaking research, author Peter Janney follows the key events and influences in Mary Pinchot Meyer’s life—her first meeting with Jack Kennedy; her support of her secret lover, President Kennedy, as he worked towards the pursuit of world peace and away from the Cold War; and her exploration of psychedelic drugs. Fifty years after the assassinations of President Kennedy and Mary Meyer, this book helps readers understand why both took place.
Author Peter Janney fought for two years to obtain documents from the National Personnel Records Center and the US Army to complete this third edition. It includes a final chapter about the mystery man who could be the missing piece to learn the truth behind Meyer’s murder.