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A fortnight after Monroe’s death, two men visited Globe’s offices. ‘They said they were collecting material for the presidential library,’ said the former executive. ‘They asked to see everything we had on Monroe. I had a stock girl look after them, and then – afterward – we found that everything was gone, even the negatives.’

The staff at Globe remember only one thing about the men who took the photographs. They introduced themselves as FBI agents and had badges to prove it.

Months after Monroe’s death, even though the case was purely a police matter, agents were still interviewing potential informants on the subject. Edgar’s old journalistic mouthpiece Walter Winchell would later write an article virtually accusing Robert Kennedy of the star’s murder. In 1964, with help from the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a right-wing activist called Frank Capell published a booklet linking Robert Kennedy to the events surrounding Monroe’s death. Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the founders of the Motion Picture Alliance was Edgar’s old friend Lela Rogers who – according to her daughter Ginger – was still in contact with the Director. Later, in the sixties, ranting on about the Kennedys during his California vacations, Edgar would rarely fail to bring up Monroe’s name. Years later, at home in Washington, he would respond to a question about the case from a young neighbor, Anthony Calomaris. ‘He said she was murdered,’ Calomaris recalled, ‘that it wasn’t a suicide, that the Kennedys were involved.’

In the fall of 1962, the chill between Edgar and Robert Kennedy had become a freeze. ‘It became a total rift,’ said former FBI Assistant Director Courtney Evans. ‘The phone contact between them ended. The special phone just sat on the desk unused.’

The President, for his part, would see Edgar only twice more in the year that remained to him. The brothers were staying as far away from Edgar as possible, biding their time. For at last, on the horizon, they could see a chance to get rid of him.

28

‘Mr Hoover’s capitulation to his personal pique was irresponsible and clearly contrary to the personal interests of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, constitutional government and the nation.’

Nicholas Katzenbach, former Attorney General, 1976

Instead of sunning himself in Miami Beach, his usual retreat over the holiday, Edgar spent New Year’s 1963 by himself, holed up in a New York hotel, recovering from prostate surgery. He was lonely and feeling his age, and suddenly his age mattered.

In two years’ time he would be seventy, the mandatory retirement age for federal officials. Only an Executive Order, signed by the President, could prolong his reign at the FBI. And in two years’ time, it seemed likely, John Kennedy would be secure in his second term. Unless something unexpected happened, Edgar’s insurance policies were about to run out.

In February, Edgar gave a charade of an interview. ‘My relations with Robert Kennedy,’ he said solemnly, ‘have always been pleasant and cordial, as well as my meetings with the President.’ Was there any truth to rumors that he might retire? ‘No truth whatever,’ said Edgar. ‘I expect to be here a long time … The President has power to extend my term of office.’

President Kennedy intended to do no such thing. The brothers had had enough, and the retirement-at-seventy rule promised to be a way to dump their persecutor without being seen to be firing him. It was now a question of hanging on, of fending Edgar off until after the 1964 election. Then, with Edgar’s seventieth birthday just weeks away, he would be replaced.

The dismissal was to come gift-wrapped. ‘Robert Kennedy told me,’ said Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, ‘they intended to give Hoover a glorious ceremony.’ ‘I remember speculating how they were going to go about it,’ said Courtney Evans, Edgar’s liaison with the Kennedys. ‘Perhaps they could make him Ambassador to Switzerland – the country his