COPA at Dealey Plaza

The Event That Never Happened

DEALEY PLAZA MEMORIAL SERVICE - Sunday, 11/22/98 THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY.  Edited and transcribed by William Kelly

"Build the news upon the rock of truth and righteousness. Conduct it always upon the lines of fairness and integrity. Acknowledge the right of the people to get from the newspaper both sides of every important question." - George Bannerman Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning News.

    CNN news reported that for the first time in 35 years there was to be no memorial service at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1998, the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

     CBS News with Dan Rather reported that the Final Report of the JFK Assassinations Records Review Board "did find enough evidence to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only gunman," while the Final Report never concluded any such thing.

    Then the Associated Press (AP) reported from Dallas on November 22 that, "JFK assassination hype fades" and that "other than the usual handful of curious people milling about Dealey Plaza, the day was expected to be uneventful..."

    Bob Porter of the Fourth Floor Museum told a reporter that nothing was scheduled to happen at Dealey Plaza that day, even though, if he looked out his office window, he could see hundreds if not over a thousand people gathering around the Grassy Knoll for a memorial service in honor of the slain president.  

    Well, what actually occurred was that from noon until 1pm, the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) took a break from their fifth annual conference at Union Station, two blocks away, to hold a memorial service that was attended by a sea of people who filled the both sides of the street of the entire plaza. Participants in the JFK LANCER conference, also held in Dallas that weekend, also attended, as well as ordinary tourists, interested citizens and passersby.

    COPA is an organization composed of three independent groups - the Assassination Records and Research Center (ARRC) of Washington D.C., the Committee for an Open Archives (COA) and the Citizens for the Truth about the John F. Kennedy Assassination (CTKA). They are professional associations interested in developing the truth about the assassination that lobbied extensively for the passage of the JFK Assassination Records Review Act and have met with Cuban officials in the Bahamas to obtain information about the assassination from Cuban sources.

    In an address before COPA the previous day, the chairman of the Assassinations Records Review Board, John Tunheim reiterated the Final Report's first paragraph that it "will not offer conclusions about what the assassination records released did or did not prove," and that significant documents were missing and some were even destroyed by federal agencies after the board began its business of identifying and releasing records to the public.

    Others who spoke at the COPA conference included Philadelphia attorney Vincent Salandria, history professor John Newman, former FBI agent William Turner and others who have been instrumental in reviewing the recently released documents and attempting to make sense of what the government wants to maintain a mystery.

    At noon on Sunday, November 22, 1998, COPA board member, and Washington D.C. attorney Dan Alcorn began the memorial service at Dealey Plaza.

 Dan Alcorn : The federal board - The JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) discovered that many of the records have been destroyed, and we do not have a complete record. Yet we have a much more of a documentary record than we have had ever before.

    There's a memorial down on the street that has a quotation from the bible: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

    That quote is also inscribed on the wall of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in McLean, Virginia, so there is a commonality of thought there. Many of us are here today because we have never believed that the government has told us the truth about the assassination, and we believe that unless we know the truth, we are not free.

    Unless we know the truth about these events we are not a free people and we have not been a free people as long as we have been lied to about the events that occurred here. The spirit of our commemorative event is to take those words to heart, and until we know the truth and the full truth of what occurred in the street before us today on a day very much like today, a clear, sunny day in the fall of 1963.

    On behalf of our organization I will make a challenge to you. Everyone here must be here because you care very deeply about the meaning of this event and what it means to our history as a nation. I will make the challenge to you to join us in our efforts in seeking the full truth about the assassination of President Kennedy. And not just the truth as pieced together by citizens who put in the time and effort to this, but to actually cause the government to tell the truth about this event, and for the government to come forward and give us a full and truthful accounting of what happened here in 1963. Otherwise, we in fact are not the free people we want to be, have been and we should be as a nation.

    You know, it is a crime for a citizen of this country to tell a lie to a federal investigator, but it is not a crime for your government to lie to you. And we feel this is an unfair relationship. If it's a crime for us to lie to our government, it should be a crime for us t o lie as well.

    It is in that spirit of investigation and of honest inquiry that our organization has worked closely with the Assassinations Records Review Board to get materials out. They ran into an obstructive wall of secrecy at the federal agencies. They told us that they ran into a Cold War system of secrecy that refused to relent on the documents and information as it related to this event. And this was thirty-five years after the event occurred, and after a federal board was set up by the Congress to try to get information released about what happened here.

    So we call on you to join us in our efforts. We think that great nations and civilizations cannot survive the kinds of doubt and turmoil that have been raised by the events that happened here. If you study the history of great civilizations you will find that when they lost their way in terms of truth, self-governing, democratic and republican institutions began their decline and was one of the reasons for their ultimate collapse. We do not want the decline and decay of our public and political system. We want to be a part of a healthy revival of those institutions.

    We have experienced a decline in the public's trust in government since November, 1963, a blimp in the charts that notes the significance of these events. Today a majority of people don't even bother to vote. The largest turnout of voters in American history was in 1960. The decline in public confidence in the government began with the ambush at Dealey Plaza and has continually declined since then. These trends are very troubling.

    So we ask you to join us and support the effort we have started to try to pursue the truth of these events, to try to pursue credibility, honesty and openness on behalf of our governmental institutions. And by that effort to try to turn our nation in a healthy direction, to build stronger democratic institutions, to build a stronger faith between the pubic and its government. We feel that is essential, and we call on you as free citizens of this nation to join us in that effort.

    I'm going to introduce to you a series of speakers who have been very involved in this issue and can give you the benefit of their experience as well. The first is Mark Lane, one of the earliest researchers in this case who did tremendous ground-breaking work, recorded much of his work for posterity and has written extensively about this case.

Mark Lane: I remember coming here thirty-five years ago and there were no crowds on the grassy knoll. But now, after all of these years, although they have a museum over there on the 6th Floor, which is a museum dedicated to a place where nothing happened. They don't have a plaque over here, on the grassy knoll, and they should.

    Thirty-five years ago today the Dallas Morning News published a full page ad with the sarcastic heading: "Welcome To Dallas Mr. President," and then went on to practically call him a communist and a traitor. That was then.

    Today's Dallas Morning News has an editorial: "Kennedy's Legacy - The Time Is Ripe For Idealism," with no references to him being a communist or a traitor. Now he's a great man. They'll tell us everything about John Kennedy, everything, except who killed him. Because look at the rest of the Dallas Morning News, thirty-five years later, when every survey in America shows that 75 to 95% of the people are convinced that there was a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy, here we go in the guise of a book review in today's Dallas Morning News: Oswald Alone Killed Kennedy, Oswald Alone Killed Tippit, One Man Two Murders, they're sticking with the same story. I have but one word for the Dallas Morning News:

    Shame. Shame on you, you are disgracing the city of Dallas, and it is not fair to do that.

    I'll tell you where there should be plaques in this city. There were a number of brave, courageous residents of this city, longtime residents of Texas, who had the courage to speak the truth to power in the face of intimidation and threats. Right over there was Jean Hill, and she's still there thirty-five years later, one of the first to tell the truth that shots came from behind that wooden fence. And they attacked her and ridiculed her. There should be a plaque over there commemorating her right on the spot where she is standing...

    The Grassy Knoll should be called "Lee Bowers Memorial Park," the railroad bridge should be the Holland-Dode-Symmons Underpass - that's the monuments that should be named after the people of this state, people who had the courage to come forward with the truth, while the Dallas Morning News lied thirty-five years ago and continues to lie thirty-five years later.

    This is the place where our leader was murdered. This is hollowed grown, and the people of this country know it. It is suppose to be the largest tourist attraction in Dallas. There's people here all the time, at the grassy knoll, nobody looks for the truth from the 6th floor of the Book Depository building, because the people of America know the truth, even though the Dallas Morning News is unwilling to share the information with us.

    That day in Dallas, in this city, at this location, when the government of the United States executed its own president, when that happened, we as a nation, lost our code of honor, lost our sense of honor. And it can only be restored when the government of the United States - and it will not do it without us insisting, and marching and fighting and voting, and putting this matter on the agenda,...but when that day comes that the government of the United States tells us the truth and all the factual details about the assassination, including their role in the murder. When that day comes, honor will be restored to this nation. Thank you.

Dan Alcorn: Our next speaker is a member of the Board of Directors of COPA, a medical doctor 

from San Francisco who has researched this issue and has written about it in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Columbia Journalism Review, Dr. Gary Agular.

Dr. Gary Agular: It's hard to follow such a powerful speaker as Mark Lane and I certainly can't hope to match his eloquence, wit or command of this case, but what I can share with you is evidence...that autopsy photos are missing. This is something that you will not read in the Dallas Morning News, Time or Newsweek, but is something that is very clearly established, the ARRB releases are very clear on the point, the autopsy pathologists have described autopsy photographs that are missing. One of them defiantly stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which was supposed to tell us the truth about the assassination...which not only did not report that, it wasn't released until the ARRB came along.

    There is enormous evidence in the forensic, in the medical area alone that indicates there was more assassins, but what is most shameful of all is the government's willingness, even in subsequent investigations, to lie about that evidence. Thank God there was an Assassinations Records Review Board, thank God they did the work they did, because now we no longer have to rely on government appointed authorities to tell us that we can trust the government's original conclusions, because we know we can't.

    We know they've destroyed evidence, not only in the medical-autopsy area, not only among photographs, we know that witnesses have been intimated, and it is a shame that you won't read about that. No credible journalist will touch the story. It is a story not unlike the story of the CIA and crack cocaine, which led to the downfall of Gary Webb, before two volumes of the CIA Inspector's Report that confirmed much more than what Gary Webb even alleged about the CIA's complicity in the cocaine importation. But you won't read about that in the Dallas Morning News. You barely get a small column about it in the New York Times after they devote many, many column inches defamed journalists who talk about the subject.

    I think it is important that those of you who are here today continue to insist that your government is accountable to you and does not conduct its operations in secrecy, that it does not deny you the evidence that is collected in its investigations and that it be as accountable to us as it insists we be accountable to it.

    I hope you will continue to work with us to force the government to be responsible and admit the full truth about the assassination of President Kennedy.

Dan Alcorn: Our next speaker is a member of the Board of Directors of COPA, a professor at Dartmouth, and the author of a number of books about the assassination, Dr. Phillip Melanson.

Dr. Phillip Melanson: Thank you. As we commemorate the 35th anniversary of this terrible political tragedy that so negatively affected our lives, our policies, our political system and our faith in our own government, we should remind ourselves that the tragedy of the President's assassination is compounded by a separate but related tragedy - the failure of our law enforcement institutions, the failure of our political institutions and the failure of the media to affectively discover the truth of who killed President Kennedy and why. And until that happens, and it is never too late to find the truth if the citizens demand it, and until that happens the original tragedy will be compounded like a bad political debt into the next millennium, and the faith in our political system will continue to erode.

    I think also the failure to come to grips with who killed President Kennedy and why is related to the other assassinations in the 1960s, and that's why Martin Luther King's is begging the Justice Department to look for justice in that case, and we hear from Siran's lawyer in the case of Robert Kennedy.

    If we had come to terms with what happened here at Dealey Plaza, discovered the truth and admitted it, the whole history of the 1960s would be different.

    If the vast majority of the public believes this case is an unsolved conspiracy, who are the minority in officialdom to deny us the truth and to cling to the lone-assassin theory like it was an absolute religion in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Thank you.

Dan Alcorn: Our next speaker is an acclaimed author and professor of history at the University of Maryland. His books include JFK and Vietnam and Oswald and the CIA, Dr. John Newman.

Dr. John Newman: I would like to say a few words about the media, and a couple of new developments for all of you gathered here. When I come here at this time of the year, I remember another place, a place connected to this place, and without the events that happened here, the other place would not exist, and that's the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C., which is like no other war memorial in the world. I've been to other war memorials in Russia, China and Germany, and people frequent those memorials, they eat lunch there and talk and its a nice place to be. I don't how many of you have been to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C., but nobody hangs out It's a very, very somber place because there's still something going on there, something deep, something that's still in our psyche, and our culture and it connects directly to Dealey Plaza. And I think most people know that.

    I'm not going to give a speech on the Vietnam War, but I think it is clear now that John F. Kennedy was on his way to pulling us out of Vietnam when he died, and the events that happened here catapulted us to that devastating debacle called the Vietnam War.

    I'd like to echo what Mark Lane said about the media. I just heard that CNN this morning said that for the first time in all these years there were no events planned for Dealey Plaza on this day. So you are not here, this gathering does not exist. Furthermore, the evening before last, none other than Dan Rather, the major icon of the network television, made the announcement that the Review Board had conducted this very large investigation and looked at all these millions of pages of documents and had discovered that the lone-nut hypothesis was true, which was attributed to Judge Tunheim. Judge Tunheim was here in Dallas and refutes this story, and all of you who have followed this story know that the Review Board has taken no such position.

    But it never ceases to amaze me how the media can twist and turn and obfuscate and block this mass movement to find the truth. Let me close by giving you a few examples of the information that is flowing out of these new files, and I think these are appropriate because of what happened here at Dealey Plaza. I am thinking particularly of a tape recorded conversation between President Johnson and Senator Russell, one of the Warren Commissioners. At great length they were able to save the situation and preserve the lone-nut hypothesis with that wonderful, sine qua non - CE399, the magic bullet that broke seven bones and came out pristine on a stretcher.

    The newly released tape is very interesting because Sen. Russell calls the President to explain to him what this single-bullet theory is, and at the end of it he says distinctly, "I don't believe a word of it." And President Johnson said, "I don't either."

   And I think that is appropriate thing to share with you the types of things that are coming out of the files. Then there is the     galley proofs of the Warren Report where our esteemed President Ford moved the bullet hole up, and these are the types of things that are in the newly released documents, but the mainstream media is not there to put them on page one.

    Occasionally they get noted, but it’s like ships passing in the night. I am heartened to see by the turnout here today, that with respect to the American people, this is not passing in the night and I hope as we stand here today and think about the events that happened here, we pass the torch to a younger generation, which we are doing, our movement and our desire for the truth in this case carries on. Thank you very much.

Dan Alcorn: We are approaching the time in our program which is a memorial to the events that happened here thirty-five years ago, so for that purpose I'd like to introduce to you the executive secretary of COPA, a man who has devoted himself for a number of years to working on the projects we have as an organization, but has also done his own independent research on the assassination. I think that those who have had the experience of working with John Judge know of his serious and sincere commitment to investigating the issues that are at stake here and to his contribution that he has made to the the history of the investigation of the assassination. He has really been the heart and soul of the work we have done through COPA. He has put in a tremendous volunteer effort and sacrificed and suffered a great deal for the efforts he has made, which have gone largely uncompensated. So let me introduce to you the executive secretary of COPA, John Judge.

John Judge: It is interesting to see such a large crowd. For the better part of the last 25 years, I have come out here every year, usually with only five or six people, often in worse weather than this, with researcher and newspaper editor Penn Jones, who some of you know as having done work on the death of the witnesses, who passed on this year.

    From the inception of the national security and military-intelligence state in the late 1940s, the history of this country has been a commodity that has been owned by that state. The people who don't own their own history are a conquered people.

    Much of the effort I put in has to do with the idea of taking our own history back, of owning it ourselves; since much is still locked up in government vaults and hidden from us and we are really the only ones who can restore it. 35 years ago, in my view, there was a coup d'etat here in Dealey Plaza, and the government has not recovered in any significant way, towards democracy, since that day. Kennedy began to represent for many people, hope and change and a response from the top level of government to the popular 

movements at the time for civil rights, for arms limitations, for an end to the Cold War, and Kennedy was responding to popular movements in a way that presidents after him rarely have. So what was assassinated here that day was not just a particular man or a particular president, but a sense of hope by the American people. And I think that the government has let us know over the years, fairly consistently, that they did kill the president, and they killed him from a very high level, and that if they can kill the president and get away with it that they can kill anyone of us that they would like to and that we should sit down and shut up and get out of the way.

    But I'm hoping that there is enough decency left in people in America, and I see evidence of that all the time, that we can understand that there are more of us, and that we can think, and we can take back our own democracy, if we want it.

    It is now 12:30, and 35 years ago President Kennedy was assassinated here, so lets have a moment of silence.

[Two minutes of silence]

Thank you.

    Peter Dale Scott, a researcher who could not be with us here today, sent an e-mail in which he said a few interesting things. He said that we've come into a new era in that one of the major tasks ahead of us right now is to focus on getting the government documents that are still locked up on the Martin Luther King assassination. The other thing he noted was a government statute that makes it illegal for a citizen of this country to lie to the government, and he suggested that a similar statute be passed that would make it illegal for the government to lie to its people.

    I hope you will take this topic seriously and continue to act to get the full release of the files and to get the truth, and you are welcome to join us at COPA in fulfilling the remainder of our agenda and what is to be done in the future. You are welcome to join us and take your democracy back.

Dan Alcorn: We have a few other speakers here, including former FBI agent William Turner, whose books have been translated into Russian, German, Japanese, French and Spanish. He is currently working on a new book entitled: "Rearview Mirror - Looking back at the FBI, CIA and Other Tails.

William Turner: Thank you Dan. It's been exactly 35 years ago and two days that I came here on assignment for a national magazine to do an article on the breakdown in security that resulted in the assassination being successful. I was assigned to it because of my background as a former FBI agent. I can tell you that when I arrived the mood was really somber, the floodlights were on, reporters from all over the world were converging, people had left floral wreaths along the curbstone where the shooting took place, and it was very erry. The headquarters of the Dallas Police Department was a feeding frenzy of reporters trying to find out what happened. I was on a very tight deadline, I could only contend with the security breakdown issue at the time, which was that Oswald had worked as an informant for the FBI and that was the reason they had not furnished his name to the Secret Service prior to the presidential visit.

    One thing I remember was talking to a Dallas patrolman named Malcolm Eugene Barnett who had been posted in front of the School Book Depository for crowd control at the time of the assassination. He told me that a women came running from the grassy knoll who told him that shots were fired from here. That being the case, I became very critical of the Warren Commission and when it's report came out I read it and realized it was pretty much a fairy tale. I am proud to say that I was associated with District Attorney Jim Garrison in New Orleans who tried to reopen the investigation into the assassination. Jim was a great American and was on the trail of the assassins, as his book says, when he was destroyed by the media at the Clay Shaw trial. The Garrison investigation paved the way for what we know today, and I believe that we know to a good degree of journalistic certitude what happened.

    First the motives were piling up, John Kennedy had supposedly with held air cover for the Bay of Pigs, motive number one. John Kennedy had failed to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962, motive number two. John Kennedy had promised to withdraw from Vietnam, motive number three. Motive number four is that John Kennedy, at the time he was assassinated, was on a second track, which was to secretly carry on negotiations with Cuba to bring about a detente. These motives piled up to the point where it became necessary to assassinate him. And I think it is very obvious with the compilation of information that we have today that the whole mechanism of it came out of the allegiance between the CIA and the rabid Cuban exiles and the Mafia, who already had an assassination apparatus set up to kill Castro. They switched targets and hit Kennedy.

And I hope you will join us, in recognizing the significance of the events that happened here, and try to do something about it. Thank you.

Hal Verb: The saying on the wall at the CIA: "Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free," is wrong. When you know the truth, the truth makes you MAD!"

Citizens Guide to a Real Coalition

A Citizen’s Guide To Politics In America – How the System Works & How to Work the System, by Barry R. Rubin (M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York/London; 1997-2000) p.57:  

                             “Beyond Legislation: Implementing the Law”

“For every page of federal laws there are dozens of pages of regulations and administrative interpretations of the law. For every legislator (every member of Congress or state legislature) there are thousands of bureaucrats busily writing regulations and implementing the laws those legislators pass. These bureaucrats toil in the executive or administrative branch of government and are in many ways the source of the greatest power in any government. It is no surprise, therefore, that issue advocates devote considerable attention to influencing and persuading them. But what do bureaucrats do? They, and the agencies and departments and offices for which they work, interpret, enforce, and administer the law.”

            “The thousand daily decisions bureaucrats make administering laws can cause issue advocates more consternation – and require more time and attention – than the legislative process. Hard-fought legislative success can turn to pyrrhic victories in the hands of an unfriendly or unresponsive bureaucracy. Indeed, issue advocates who win legislative battles barely have time to pop the champagne corks before they must turn their attention to how the law, for which they fought so hard, will be implemented. Or those who thought they had tamed the legislative process may learn that the executive branch has implemented policy changes that accomplish the goals they sought to avoid. As one commentator observed: ‘Nothing in law ever seems finally settled because there is always one more step in the process where both winners and losers may try to negotiate different terms.’”

       “Administrative discretion may be broad, but it is far from absolute. First, administrative action is limited to the authority afforded the agency by the legislative branch. By contrast, Congress is limited in its lawmaking activities only by the Constitution.”

            “Second, agencies afford the public opportunities to make their views known to, and considered by, the agency. Congressional committees may choose to hold public hearings on legislation, but they need not do so, and they are free to ignore all the witnesses and all the evidence presented to them.”

            “Third, agency action, as we saw in the last section, can be reviewed by the courts to ensure the actions comply with all applicable laws and procedures. When Congress passes a law, it can be challenged in court only on the grounds that it violates the Constitution.”

            “The main vehicle to control agency discretion at the federal level is the Administrative Procedures Act. The law requires agencies to make most decisions in the open and to afford the public meaningful opportunities to comment on proposed agency actions. It also allows those who disagree with the agency decisions to ask courts to invalidate them if they are not in accordance with applicable law and procedure or if they are not solidly grounded on the facts and the law.”

            “These limitations on administrative discretion reflect the fact that agencies can exercise their discretionary powers by issuing rules or regulations. These ‘minilaws’ codify administrative interpretations and establish clear guidelines for bureaucrats and the public.”

            “….The broad policy discretion afforded bureaucrats provides issue advocates good reasons to attempt to influence how laws are enforced and administered. And the processes of administrative decision making – the requirement that, for the most part, it be open to the public and subject to judicial review – provide advocates important tools to accomplish that goal….”

            “…The courts are most often the last resort of those who seek to influence public policy. Litigation is costly and time-consuming, appeals can drag on for years, and tangible results are often hard to achieve. Yet, the federal and state courts provide critical outlets – safety valves – for issue advocates who are unable to get a full and fair hearing before the administrative or legislative branch of government.”

            “The doors of the courthouse are open to all. Legislatures are accountable only to the electorate and only at the ballot box. Bureaucracies can be slow and unresponsive. But advocates who seek redress in the courts are guaranteed a hearing by an impartial arbiter who will decide a case on its merits.”

         “…Would public support for sending American troops pass what Senator John Glenn termed the ‘Dover test’? Dover Air Force Base in Delaware would be the point of return for the bodies of American troops who died on foreign soil. Would American’s, who initially supported sending troops, maintain their support after American soldiers died? How reliable were polls that showed people supporting these actions? No American politician wanted to rely on poorly formed public opinion that did not recognize and accept that Americans might die in Somalia or Haiti. The quality and reliability of the public’s opinion mattered.”

                                                     “Finding Words that Work.”

“Words and symbols can shape public attitudes about issues. The right ones can position an issue so that it favorably resonates with prevailing public concerns and attracts a broad and deep base of diverse supporters.”

            “A coalition is an alliance, usually limited in time and purpose, between organizations with different agendas, working together for a common policy advocacy goal. The term coalition encompasses a great diversity of alliances formed to advance a shared public policy goal. Coalitions can be formal or informal, permanent or temporary.”

“Coalitions can unite diverse civil rights or environmental groups as they formulate and advance complex, long-term agendas. Or they can provide a mechanism to coordinate short-term activities, such as opposing a Supreme Court nomination…or supporting the balanced budge amendments to the Constitution…”

“Networks often precede coalitions, just as individuals or organizations sharing information and common concerns may gradually coalesce into an association or organization – an interest group – designed to influence policy.”

“A coalition is an alliance between organizations, each of which brings its own agenda and decision-making processes to the coalition table. Since coalition members are organizations, not individuals, they do not have the same freedom of movement that individuals have. Interest groups that join coalitions must be sure that the coalition shares the fundamental goals of the organization and its members.”

“…Coalitions are at the mercy of their members and can achieve only what the members permit them to achieve. Their only resources-people and money – are those that members provide.”

“Large, permanent coalitions, such as trade associations, have permanent staff, office space, and resources, all dedicated to achieving the coalition’s goals. Member organizations pay substantial dues to support the coalition and its infrastructure.”

“But most coalitions are ad hoc, voluntary assemblages of organizations, with little power to compel the member organizations to commit time and resources to the coalition or to fulfill their coalition commitments. They are usually staffed by ‘volunteers’ from the member organizations, some of whom may even be detailed to work exclusively on coalition projects.”

“The all coalitions are composed of different organizations with different agendas working together, there are numerous ways to organize and manage coalitions. The best coalitions are flexible enough to adapt to their members’ needs and the common goal that has brought them together…”

             “Coalitions begin with organizations whose issue agendas largely overlap. The initial recruitment process locates those whose agendas, while different, still show substantial areas of agreement. Finally, coalitions attempt to recruit organizations whose agendas rarely overlap with those of core coalition members. In some cases, core coalition members may even try to persuade other organizations to stretch their issue agendas to include the coalition’s issue.”

“Why would coalitions recruit so widely for allies, even going so far as to include organizations with whom they have never worked on any issue? Just imagine the reaction of a legislator who opens his office door only to find lobbyists on both sides of the abortion issue working together on another issue. ‘Unlikely alliances’ make decision makers and the public sit up and take notice: If people who disagree on so many things agree on this issue, then maybe there’s some merit in their position.”

Judith Campbell Exner and JFK

50 years later, JFK girlfriend Judith Campbell Exner deserves an image makeover

November 21, 2013

By Patt Morrison

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/21/news/la-ol-jfks-lover-50-years-on-20131121

Judith Exner, youngest daughter of a Los Angeles architect, had her name…

The three gunshots fired in Dallas 50 years ago meant a presidential legacy unfulfilled — and a personal life unresolved.

The sorry mess of sexual exploits that President John F. Kennedy left behind took years to emerge. The supporting cast was vast, and I knew one of them, a woman who was, next to Marilyn Monroe, the most famous one, though not by her choice.

Judith Campbell Exner was the first of JFK’s lovers to be publicly identified, and so she was pilloried by a public furious at learning that at least one wing of Camelot had more in common with the Playboy Club.

When I met her, in the late 1990s, she was living in virtual seclusion in Orange County, a permanently wounded soul, first by JFK, then by a congressional committee that had promised her anonymity and then had thrown her under the bus — and ever after by a public that didn’t much want to hear what she had to say on her own behalf, and let her know it.

“People who loved Jack,” she told me, “felt if they could degrade me, then he was just a bad boy. On the other side [his critics] felt they could destroy Jack by destroying me, by making me as bad as possible.”

She loved JFK unwisely and too well; he clearly was far more important to her than she to him, although their relationship went on for several years. And had she known then about all those other women, she told me, she would have walked out.

She was the well-off daughter of a prosperous architect. She grew up in Pacific Palisades, a Roman Catholic who married at age 18 and was divorced several years after from her philandering husband. She felt guilt-wracked for that, and then for sleeping with the president who was the star of the nightly news.

Her actor-husband had moved the couple into Hollywood circles with the likes of Frank Sinatra; it was Sinatra who introduced Judith to a Massachusetts senator who was running for president, and a man she knew as businessman Sam Flood — in fact, mobster Sam Giancana.

Here’s much more of what she told me about what she was and wasn’t — myth-busting that “mob moll” stuff, and explaining her thoughts about tawdry matters like the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair.

I liked her, but more than that, I felt sorry for her, fearful, ill, locked in the past. I thought she had been treated scandalously by men who purported to love her and by men who made and wrote history.

After the shock of the JFK assassination, she isolated herself from almost everyone but people she knew from her old life. She was afraid she would be killed too. She had been told the FBI was keeping tabs on her. And the day after Marilyn Monroe died, she said, her apartment had been burgled, the phone records taken but the jewels left behind.

She is a fragile vehicle for a national reassessment of political private lives, but she is that nonetheless. JFK’s sexual escapades were known in his circles and to some in the media, who kept quiet.

It was a hypocritical time, an age of double standards, the decorous, duplicitous 1960s. Later true accounts like those by Kennedy’s lovers, and fictional versions of the period like “Mad Men,” show the era for what it was: Men who got “the babes” earned the atta-boy admiration from other men; women who were the “babes” were, by definition, sluts, the topics of sniggering gossip.

Exner’s reputation deserves to be made over with contemporary understandings, not the frat-boy innuendo of the 1960s. In the 1970s, the personal started to become political. Treating women like Kleenex was no longer the mark and privilege of an important man, and what might have been just good ol’ boys’ good times 50 years ago now has public and political consequences, from Anthony Weiner to Mark Sanford to Bob Filner. Today she would hear not just insults and threats; she would find legions of women siding with her and supporting her.

Judith Exner Is Dead at 65; Claimed Affair With Kennedy

By ERIC PACE
Published: September 27, 1999

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/27/us/judith-exner-is-dead-at-65-claimed-affair-with-kennedy.html

Judith Campbell Exner, who asserted in a 1988 interview in People magazine that she had been having an affair with John F. Kennedy when he was elected President, died late Friday at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles.

She was 65 and lived in Orange County.

The cause was breast cancer, The Associated Press reported.

Over the years, Mrs. Exner gave varying accounts of her supposed relationship with Kennedy. But as Jeff Greenfield wrote in a review of Mrs. Exner's autobiography, ''My Story'' (1977), in The New York Times Book Review, she ''sought no publicity, at least until after a Senate committee investigating C.I.A.-Mafia connections summoned her to testify and press reports revealed her supposed connections to Kennedy'' and to Sam Giancana, a Chicago organized-crime figure.

Former aides maintained that Kennedy had not had an affair with Mrs. Exner, who was then Judith Campbell. Dave Powers, a Kennedy aide who Mrs. Exner said had assisted in setting up her encounters with the President, said in 1991, ''The only Campbell I know is chunky vegetable soup.''

In the 1988 interview, Mrs. Exner also said Kennedy had her arrange more than 10 meetings with Giancana, whom she said was also her lover. She said the meetings concerned, among other things, Kennedy's need for Giancana's help in the Democratic Presidential primary in West Virginia.

But Giancana's daughter, Antoinette, said that Giancana disliked Kennedy and that he never mentioned any contact with Kennedy while he was President.

Mrs. Exner also said that while Kennedy was in the White House she shuttled messages -- on topics including a plan to kill President Fidel Castro of Cuba -- between him and Giancana.

Kitty Kelley, who interviewed her for People, said Mrs. Exner received about $50,000 for the interview.

In Vanity Fair in 1996, Mrs. Exner said she had ended the affair, which she said had lasted two years, because she did not like being dubbed ''the other woman.''

She also said she had an abortion after becoming pregnant with Kennedy's baby, almost a year before Kennedy was assassinated.

A native New Yorker, Mrs. Exner was born Judith Immoor and was reared in California. Her marriage to an actor, William Campbell, which ended in divorce after six years, helped her make contacts within the entertainment industry.

After her divorce, she dated Frank Sinatra, and through him she met Kennedy in 1960 in Las Vegas, Nev., said her lawyer, James Lesar of Washington.

She married a professional golfer, Dan Exner, in the mid-1970's and moved to Orange County. They reportedly divorced several years ago.

Mrs. Exner is survived by a son, David Bohrer; two brothers, Allen and Fred Immoor; and a sister, Joan Collingwood.

Photo: Judith Campbell Exner (Associated Press, 1977)

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/27/us/judith-exner-is-dead-at-65-claimed-affair-with-kennedy.html

http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/2009/01/mob-moll-judith-campbell-exner-jfk-and.html

The Exner Files: Judith Campbell Exner, JFK and the Mob

A beautiful woman is introduced to a handsome, charismatic Senator running for President by an Academy Award winning movie star. They fall into an affair. Meanwhile, the beautiful woman is also introduced to the head of the Chicago mob by the same man. The beautiful woman carries messages and arranges meetings between the now President of the United States and the Chicago mobster. Sounds like the plot of a thriller, or a conspiracy theorists wet dream doesn’t it? However in this case, it happens to be true. Allegedly.

This much can be proved.

Fact #1: Judith Campbell as she was known then was introduced to John F. Kennedy in Las Vegas by Frank Sinatra.

Fact #2: Several months later, Judith was introduced to ‘Sam Flood’ in Miami by Frank Sinatra. Later on she learned that he was actually Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago mob.

Fact #3: Judith and JFK carried on an affair for almost three years, meeting in hotel rooms, the Georgetown house he shared with Jackie, and even the White House (in her autobiography, Judith gives the phone numbers of both Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s secretary as well as the phone number of the Georgetown house.

Fact #4: While she was seeing JFK, Judith was also seeing Sam Giancana, platonically she claims until the relationship with JFK was over.

Fact #5: J. Edgar Hoover had lunch with JFK in March of 1962, where he allegedly handed him the FBI report detailing Judith’s relationship with Giancana.

The whole story came to light in 1975 during the Senate Select Committee to study Governmental Operations to Respect to Intelligence Activities (aka the Church Committee) in its report on CIA assassination attempts. The report stated that a ‘close friend’ of JFK had also been a friend of mobsters Sam Giancana as well as Johnny Roselli, an associate of Giancana. It was the first time that JFK’s rampant infidelities had been revealed to the public. When Exner’s name was finally revealed, she gave a press conference claiming that while she had had a personal relationship with JFK, she denied that she had any knowledge of mob activities.

How did an ordinary woman find herself involved not only with the leader of the free world but also one of the most notorious gangsters in mob history? Nothing in Judith Campbell’s background seemed to suggest that she had a penchant for taking a walk on the wild side. She was born Judith Immoor on January 11, 1934 on the East Coast but she grew up in tony Pacific Palisades in California. Her father was an architect, and her family was well off if not quite wealthy. When Judith was 14, her mother was in a serious car accident, which traumatized Judith so much that she dropped out of high school and was privately tutored.

At the age of 16, Judith met William Campbell, a minor contract player through her sister Jackie who had started a movie career under the name of Susan Morrow. They married when Judith turned 18 in 1952, but the marriage was over by 1958. Judith claimed in her autobiography that Campbell cheated on her repeatedly, which he denies. Whatever the case, Judith was footloose and fancy free and indulging in the single life that she felt that she had been denied by marrying so young. With an inheritance from her grandmother and her alimony, Judith was free to spend her days getting ready for her nights out on the town.

In 1959 she began a brief romance with Frank Sinatra that ended when he tried to get her to participate in a threesome. Still, she accepted his invitation to come to Las Vegas to see him at the Sands hotel, where he was filming Oceans 11 and performing at night with the Rat Pack consisting of Dean Martin, Sammy Davis jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford, brother-in-law of JFK (he was married to JFK’s sister Patricia). It was there that she met JFK in February of 1960. Judith claimed not to know who he was or that he was running for President of the United States. Apparently spending three hours a day getting ready didn’t leave much time for reading newspapers of newsmagazines. Although there were other people at the table, Judith wrote that JFK spent all his time focused on her. “It was as if every nerve and muscle in his whole body was poised at attention. As I was to learn, Jack Kennedy was the world’s greatest listener.”

Soon they were trysting whenever JFK had a spare moment. In the meantime, Frank Sinatra introduced Judith to Giancana while she was attending his show in Miami. Soon when she wasn’t traipsing across the country to see JFK, she was spending time with Giancana in Chicago. Despite the fact that he was a mafia kingpin and was blatantly racist, Judith liked the way that Giancana treated her, and the fact that he didn’t press her into a sexual relationship. Judith and JFK’s relationship petered out sometime in June of 1962. Judith claimed that after awhile, the relationship no longer felt right. She felt that JFK had become too demanding, wanting her to fly to be with him at a moment’s notice, and that she was expected to service him during sex.

After her relationship with JFK was over, Judith and Giancana drifted into a sexual relationship that ended when she turned down his marriage proposal. By 1963, the relationship was over. Still the FBI continued to hound her because of her associations with Giancana and Johnny Roselli. Judith began dating Eddie Fisher and a pitcher for the Angels. She suffered health problems from the injections she had received from Dr. Max Jacobson, also known as ‘Dr. Feelgood.’ Jacobson was notorious in the 60’s for giving celebrities shots filled with not just vitamins but also amphetamines. In 1965, Judith gave birth prematurely to a son who she later gave up for adoption. She never revealed the name of the father.

In her autobiography, Exner also managed to include photographic evidence of plane tickets, tickets to JFK’s inauguration and other pieces of evidence to bolster her claim that she and JFK had an affair. However, in 1988, she changed her tune and in an article in People magazine written by Kitty Kelley, Exner claimed for the first time that she was ferrying information and money back and forth between Kennedy and Giancana.

In fact she claimed that the only reason that she spent time with Giancana at all was because JFK had asked her to. Later she claimed that Robert F. Kennedy knew that she was carrying money and information back and forth between JFK and Giancana.

Exner claimed that she lied to the Church Committee and in her autobiography because she was afraid for her life. Both Giancana and Johnny Roselli had been killed, their murderers never found. Now that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and it was terminal, Exner felt she needed to come clean. She repeated her story in a 1997 article written by Liz Smith for Vanity Fair, and also to Seymour Hersh for his book The Dark Side of Camelot. She also claimed that she had become pregnant by JFK and had an abortion in early 1963.

But was she telling the truth or just trying to embellish her story for money? After her story was revealed, Judith was called everything from a party girl, to a call girl in various biographies of JFK. What better way to bolster her reputation than to claim that her real reason for hanging out with mobsters was because she was a go-between for the President of the United States? Sounds much better than just being a woman who fell for inappropriate men, who liked to walk a little bit on the wild side doesn’t it? Her story also dovetailed neatly with the conspiracy theorists who believe that the mob was involved with JFK’s death. The revelations that the CIA had hired Roselli and Giancana to help assassinate Castro also lent credence to her story.

The plot to Assassinate Castro
In the 1960's, the CIA contacted Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana and Salvatore Trafficante to help them assassinate Castro. Why the Mafia? Well Castro's rise to power had destroyed the Mafia's hold on the Casino's which they had controlled during the previous regime. They had lost millions of dollars when the Casino's were confiscated when Castro took over. Also, most of them still had contacts with disgruntled anti-Castro associates who would be happy to help them with the job. The CIA offered Giancana and Roselli a $100,000 to do the job, which they refused, happy to do it for free. Unfortunately, the Three Stooges could have done a better job. Despite the resources of both the Mafia and the CIA, they were never able to get the job done, despite repeated attempts. Everything was tried from poisoning his food to his cigars. In the meantime, Giancana used the services of the CIA, to have comedian Dan Rowan's dressing room and hotel bugged in Las Vegas to see if Rowan was having an affair with his girlfriend, singer Phyllis McGuire. The man sent to the job ended up arrested which almost blew the whole operation sky high. The revelations of the CIA plot to kill Castro was revealed in the 'Family Jewel' papers that were released. Roselli had actually tried to use the information to keep from being deported but the CIA didn't care. The attempts continued while Johnson was President. The question still remains whether JFK or RFK knew of the plot.

However there are also a few holes. Why would JFK personally meet with mobsters when he must have known that they were being bugged and spied on by the FBI? He had minions to do stuff like that, to keep his hands clean. His brother, the attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy, was publicly waging a war against the mob. And why would JFK trust a woman he hardly knew, a woman that he was sleeping with, to not only ferry money and important documents, but to also accept payoffs for him from defense contractors in California?(another Exner embellishment). Exner claimed that JFK didn’t trust the CIA, and that he felt that no one would suspect a woman.

The one potential witness, a man named Martin Underwood, who initially claimed that he had followed Exner on the train to Chicago in April of 1960 to make sure that she delivered the money to Giancana, recanted his statement. Seymour Hersh in The Dark Side of Camelot even claimed that JFK was blackmailed into giving a defense contract for a new plane. They threatened to expose his relationship with Exner. Critics of her story claim that Exner is an unreliable witness, that she had a history of depression, she’d been addicted to alcohol and amphetamines, and she’d been hounded and harassed by the FBI. Instead she invented a role for herself out of John le Carré thriller.

Judith Campbell Exner died at the age of 65 on September 24, 1999, still insisting that she played a bigger role in history. She has her detractors and her defenders on either side. Historians will probably never know the truth unless some new evidence pops up that bolsters her claims. However, she will be remembered as one of the first people to pop the bubble that was the Camelot myth about JFK.

Power and Beauty– starring Natasha Henstridge as Judith Campbell Exner, Kevin
Anderson as JFK, Peter Friedman as Sam Giancana. 2002, Produced by
Showtime. Three years after her death, Showtime produced a movie based on
Exner’s story. Despite the salacious material, the movie was incredibly
dull. The biggest problem is that Exner’s role in the story is basically
passive. Occasionally she stands up for herself, when Giancana pays her
bill for her in Miami soon after they meet, and Judith insists on paying him
back. Henstridge isn’t a good enough actress to make the viewer either
sympathize or care about Exner and the voice-over narration is distracting.

Sources include:

My story: Judith Campbell Exner and Ovid Demetrias

The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh.
Mafia Moll: The Judith Campbell Exner Story by Sam Sloan

You might also like:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/women/4.html

The Myth of Mob Gallantry

BY Mark Gribben

The Myth of Mob Gallantry

BY Mark Gribben

Judith Exner: From the Outfit to the Oval Office

Gossip columnist Liz Smith once called Judith Campbell Exner "one of the most maligned people in American history."

In an interview with CNN's Larry King, Smith recalled the woman who would finally put the Camelot myth of President John F. Kennedy to rest, describing Exner as "a deluded 25-year-old girl who was in love with the president of the United States."

"But no dummy, Judith?" King asked.

"No," Liz replied. "I mean, terribly, terribly misunderstood, maligned, misbelieved because, you know, she did lie a lot, Larry, because she was fearful for her life. And I think what people don't remember about Judith Exner was she didn't talk or blab or anything until they made her, a congressional committee made her talk."

Judith Campbell Exner

Long before the Clinton sex scandal, it wasn't just the fact that Exner had had an affair with one of America's most beloved presidents that prompted a congressional committee to issue her a subpoena and get her to break her silence. It was the fact that Exner had served as go-between for Kennedy and one of the Underworld's most feared leaders, the head of the Chicago Outfit: Sam "Momo" Giancana. What's more, while Exner was carrying on her affair with Kennedy in the Oval Office, she was still romantically involved with Momo.

Frank Sinatra

Exner's story begins in 1960, when Frank Sinatra, whom she had met through her ex-husband's Hollywood connections, invited her to Las Vegas, where he was filming the original Ocean's 11. While she was there, the Elizabeth Taylor look-alike, known then as Judith Campbell, met an up-and-coming United States senator from Massachusetts, who had just announced he was seeking the Democratic nomination for president. The Exner-Kennedy relationship started right there in Las Vegas, and Judith told interviewers that because she was in such constant contact with Kennedy, she didn't know he was married for several weeks.

Sam Giancana

It was Frank Sinatra who brought in the final side of this bizarre love triangle, by introducing Judith to Sam Giancana, who she knew as "Sam Flood." Exner said that she was not dating Kennedy and Giancana at the same time, but that she maintained a platonic friendship with Momo while Kennedy was seeking the presidential nomination. She also said she didn't know of Giancana's mob ties when she was introduced to him, but in hindsight, Kennedy obviously did.

"[We] were talking about the campaign, of course, and toward the end of the dinner, Jack asked me, could I set up a meeting with Sam for him," Exner told CNN's Larry King in 1992. "And I said, yes, if you want to, but why, or should I ask why? And he said, I think he can help me with the campaign."

President John F. Kenned

The evening where Kennedy asked Judith to set up the meeting with "Sam Flood" she said he gave her a satchel filled with cash that she was to give to Momo. Years later, she learned that the money was taken to West Virginia, where Giancana's operatives used it to help Kennedy win a come-from-behind victory in the primary against Hubert Humphrey. From 1960 to 1963, while Judith carried on her relationship with Kennedy, she often acted as a go-between for Kennedy and Giancana, and revealed that she delivered top secret intelligence on Fidel Castro that Giancana used to set up a botched assassination attempt.

J. Edgar Hoover

Exner's affair with Kennedy ended in 1962 shortly after FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover brought a top secret agency memo about her to a lunch with the president. As New York Times columnist William Safire wrote shortly after Exner's death from cancer in 1999, "That must have been some lunch."

Judith had unwittingly given Hoover the ammunition he needed to blackmail the president, wrote Scripps-Howard News Service journalist Dan Thomasson.

"When they were apart, she often called the president from Giancana's Chicago home, completely unaware that the FBI was tapping that telephone," he wrote in a memorial to Exner.

"J. Edgar Hoover, who had little regard for President Kennedy or his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, lost no time in warning the Kennedys that he was aware of the affair. The implication was obvious and Hoover got pretty much what he wanted after that, including authorization to eavesdrop on Martin Luther King, Jr.,whom he claimed had communist connections."

As the affair between Exner and Kennedy soured, she briefly had a physical relationship with Momo, but that ended when he proposed marriage and she turned him down.

In 1974, she was summoned before the Church Committee, a Senate investigation of assassinations and under oath, testified about her relationship with Jack Kennedy. She did not, however, tell them everything she knew, which would damage her credibility somewhat. Having moved in the circles of the top echelons of government and organized crime, Judith believed she had a good reason for keeping secrets.

"She said (it was) because everybody around her had been murdered- Giancana, his lieutenant Johnny Rosselli, Marilyn Monroe, both the Kennedy brothers. Judith claimed to the end she feared for her life," Smith wrote.

Judith Campbell Exner would likely have been relegated to the sealed files of the nation's classified archives, had not Thomasson, his partner Dan Wyngaard and later Safire, looked deeper into a brief footnote in the 1974 Church Committee Report that summarized the Kennedy-Mafia relationship and made several references to an unnamed "friend of the president" who acted as courier for information. While the Church Committee had promised Judith anonymity, someone leaked her identity to the Scripps Howard team who spent months trying to get her to go on the record with her story.

Fearing for her life from mafia hitmen if she talked, Exner was at first reluctant, but when it was clear that the Church Committee could no longer keep her name out of the papers, she talked. While she was not a target of the mob, the publicity destroyed her life.

"A myth-loving public, steeped in the idea of Camelot, reviled her. The press piled on. As a result, Exner was labeled a "Mafia mistress," and found herself hounded by the FBI and others," wrote Liz Smith in Exner's obituary.

Even after the affair had been independently confirmed, Kennedy defenders continued to belittle Judith Exener. In her New York Times obituary, the paper's headline read "Judith Exner Is Dead at 65; Claimed Affair With Kennedy" and included this comment from the Kennedy camp:

"Former aides maintained that Kennedy had not had an affair with Mrs. Exner, who was then Judith Campbell. Dave Powers, a Kennedy aide who Mrs. Exner said had assisted in setting up her encounters with the President, said in 1991, "The only Campbell I know is chunky vegetable soup."

Three days later the Times issued the following correction:

Judith Campbell Exner

"The article reported that aides of President Kennedy's, including Dave Powers, denied the affair. But it should also have reflected what is now the view of a number of respected historians and authors that the affair did in fact take place. The evidence cited by various authorities in recent years has included White House phone logs and memos from J. Edgar Hoover."

Judith Exner said she had been destroyed by her experience as the messenger between the parallel powers of government and organized crime; even in the end, when the evidence and media culture made it acceptable to reveal the personal failings of a president, she continued to pay a high price for loving two powerful men.

Judith Exner: From the Outfit to the Oval Office

Gossip columnist Liz Smith once called Judith Campbell Exner "one of the most maligned people in American history."

In an interview with CNN's Larry King, Smith recalled the woman who would finally put the Camelot myth of President John F. Kennedy to rest, describing Exner as "a deluded 25-year-old girl who was in love with the president of the United States."

"But no dummy, Judith?" King asked.

"No," Liz replied. "I mean, terribly, terribly misunderstood, maligned, misbelieved because, you know, she did lie a lot, Larry, because she was fearful for her life. And I think what people don't remember about Judith Exner was she didn't talk or blab or anything until they made her, a congressional committee made her talk."

Judith Campbell Exner

Long before the Clinton sex scandal, it wasn't just the fact that Exner had had an affair with one of America's most beloved presidents that prompted a congressional committee to issue her a subpoena and get her to break her silence. It was the fact that Exner had served as go-between for Kennedy and one of the Underworld's most feared leaders, the head of the Chicago Outfit: Sam "Momo" Giancana. What's more, while Exner was carrying on her affair with Kennedy in the Oval Office, she was still romantically involved with Momo.

Frank Sinatra

Exner's story begins in 1960, when Frank Sinatra, whom she had met through her ex-husband's Hollywood connections, invited her to Las Vegas, where he was filming the original Ocean's 11. While she was there, the Elizabeth Taylor look-alike, known then as Judith Campbell, met an up-and-coming United States senator from Massachusetts, who had just announced he was seeking the Democratic nomination for president. The Exner-Kennedy relationship started right there in Las Vegas, and Judith told interviewers that because she was in such constant contact with Kennedy, she didn't know he was married for several weeks.

Sam Giancana

It was Frank Sinatra who brought in the final side of this bizarre love triangle, by introducing Judith to Sam Giancana, who she knew as "Sam Flood." Exner said that she was not dating Kennedy and Giancana at the same time, but that she maintained a platonic friendship with Momo while Kennedy was seeking the presidential nomination. She also said she didn't know of Giancana's mob ties when she was introduced to him, but in hindsight, Kennedy obviously did.

"[We] were talking about the campaign, of course, and toward the end of the dinner, Jack asked me, could I set up a meeting with Sam for him," Exner told CNN's Larry King in 1992. "And I said, yes, if you want to, but why, or should I ask why? And he said, I think he can help me with the campaign."

President John F. Kennedy

The evening where Kennedy asked Judith to set up the meeting with "Sam Flood" she said he gave her a satchel filled with cash that she was to give to Momo. Years later, she learned that the money was taken to West Virginia, where Giancana's operatives used it to help Kennedy win a come-from-behind victory in the primary against Hubert Humphrey. From 1960 to 1963, while Judith carried on her relationship with Kennedy, she often acted as a go-between for Kennedy and Giancana, and revealed that she delivered top secret intelligence on Fidel Castro that Giancana used to set up a botched assassination attempt.

J. Edgar Hoover

Exner's affair with Kennedy ended in 1962 shortly after FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover brought a top secret agency memo about her to a lunch with the president. As New York Times columnist William Safire wrote shortly after Exner's death from cancer in 1999, "That must have been some lunch."

Judith had unwittingly given Hoover the ammunition he needed to blackmail the president, wrote Scripps-Howard News Service journalist Dan Thomasson.

"When they were apart, she often called the president from Giancana's Chicago home, completely unaware that the FBI was tapping that telephone," he wrote in a memorial to Exner.

"J. Edgar Hoover, who had little regard for President Kennedy or his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, lost no time in warning the Kennedys that he was aware of the affair. The implication was obvious and Hoover got pretty much what he wanted after that, including authorization to eavesdrop on Martin Luther King, Jr.,whom he claimed had communist connections."

As the affair between Exner and Kennedy soured, she briefly had a physical relationship with Momo, but that ended when he proposed marriage and she turned him down.

In 1974, she was summoned before the Church Committee, a Senate investigation of assassinations and under oath, testified about her relationship with Jack Kennedy. She did not, however, tell them everything she knew, which would damage her credibility somewhat. Having moved in the circles of the top echelons of government and organized crime, Judith believed she had a good reason for keeping secrets.

"She said (it was) because everybody around her had been murdered- Giancana, his lieutenant Johnny Rosselli, Marilyn Monroe, both the Kennedy brothers. Judith claimed to the end she feared for her life," Smith wrote.

Judith Campbell Exner would likely have been relegated to the sealed files of the nation's classified archives, had not Thomasson, his partner Dan Wyngaard and later Safire, looked deeper into a brief footnote in the 1974 Church Committee Report that summarized the Kennedy-Mafia relationship and made several references to an unnamed "friend of the president" who acted as courier for information. While the Church Committee had promised Judith anonymity, someone leaked her identity to the Scripps Howard team who spent months trying to get her to go on the record with her story.

Fearing for her life from mafia hitmen if she talked, Exner was at first reluctant, but when it was clear that the Church Committee could no longer keep her name out of the papers, she talked. While she was not a target of the mob, the publicity destroyed her life.

"A myth-loving public, steeped in the idea of Camelot, reviled her. The press piled on. As a result, Exner was labeled a "Mafia mistress," and found herself hounded by the FBI and others," wrote Liz Smith in Exner's obituary.

Even after the affair had been independently confirmed, Kennedy defenders continued to belittle Judith Exener. In her New York Times obituary, the paper's headline read "Judith Exner Is Dead at 65; Claimed Affair With Kennedy" and included this comment from the Kennedy camp:

"Former aides maintained that Kennedy had not had an affair with Mrs. Exner, who was then Judith Campbell. Dave Powers, a Kennedy aide who Mrs. Exner said had assisted in setting up her encounters with the President, said in 1991, "The only Campbell I know is chunky vegetable soup."

Three days later the Times issued the following correction: 

"The article reported that aides of President Kennedy's, including Dave Powers, denied the affair. But it should also have reflected what is now the view of a number of respected historians and authors that the affair did in fact take place. The evidence cited by various authorities in recent years has included White House phone logs and memos from J. Edgar Hoover."

Judith Exner said she had been destroyed by her experience as the messenger between the parallel powers of government and organized crime; even in the end, when the evidence and media culture made it acceptable to reveal the personal failings of a president, she continued to pay a high price for loving two powerful men.