The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [395]
Bobby’s host and others at the ranch that weekend assert fervently that Bobby never left the isolated premises. Beyond that, his whereabouts were so carefully chronicled by the FBI that not even he could have gotten in and out of Los Angeles without being seen.
Bobby, like his brothers, may well have had his own sexual encounters outside of marriage, and it is possible that Marilyn Monroe was one of those. Bobby had met her several times at parties given by his sister and brother-in-law, Pat and Peter Lawford, in Santa Monica. On one of these occasions, Ed Guthman recalled, the attorney general commandeered his press secretary to accompany him while he shepherded a drunken Marilyn home. On another occasion, Bobby may have unsuccessfully attempted to make a pass at the movie star. “I’m dancing with Marilyn,” Joe Naar, Peter Lawford’s friend, recalled, “and Bobby wants to dance with her, and makes some lewd remark, and she turns to me and makes a sign as if she’s throwing up. He kept hitting on her all the time.”
Bobby appeared obsessed with Monroe. “Eunice kidded Bobby one night at dinner,” Charley Bartlett recalled. “She got up and said something about Marilyn Monroe. And Bobby got red in the face and said, ‘If you ever say that again, I’ll hit you.’ “
Monroe had been on the cusp of middle age, nearing the end of her career as Hollywood’s reigning sex symbol. It was not the time to add to her reputation as a petulantly difficult, irresponsible actress, but the Kennedys nonetheless pushed her to leave the set of Something’s Got to Give to fly to New York to sing “Happy Birthday” to the president on May 19, 1962, at a gigantic celebration at Madison Square Garden. “The man in charge of the studio rejected that,” recalled Milton Gould, a Twentieth Century-Fox movie executive. “He had a confrontation with Robert Kennedy, and he told him we couldn’t do it. Mr. Kennedy was then steered to me because at that moment I was in charge of reorganizing the company. And he asked me if I would do it. I said no. He got very disturbed and very abusive. She left the next day for New York anyway. She was suspended, the picture was discontinued.”
The Kennedys had their splendidly sensuous moment as Monroe turned singing “Happy Birthday” to the president into an erotic moment whose subtext was lost on no one. As much as that flattered the president, Monroe had become a problem to the Kennedys. She had always been a woman of wild mood swings and immense insecurities. She had had a tryst with the president, and she may have had one with Bobby as well. More likely, though, Bobby was once again cleaning up after his brother, trying to assuage this deranged, tragic woman who in a few slurred, drunken words could expose a sexual scandal that would be devastating to the Kennedy presidency. She spent much time at the Lawfords’ Santa Monica home, often drunk or dazed on sedatives or barbiturates.
Monroe telephoned Bobby at his Washington office in those weeks as well, the calls generally lasting only a short time. On the evening of her death Peter Lawford sensed that something was wrong. He called his manager, Milt Ebbins, and told him that they should go over to the actress’s house. “If there’s anything wrong there at all, you’re the last guy that should be there,” Ebbins recalled telling his client. “You’re the president’s brother-in-law.” When it came to choosing between the possible death of his friend and the Kennedy image, Lawford decided that he had best stay home, a decision that haunted him the rest of his days.
Joe DiMaggio came forward to manage his ex-wife’s funeral. It was a measure of what he thought of the Kennedys and their pernicious influence on Monroe that none of them was invited to attend. Bobby flew on to Seattle to join Ethel and their four eldest children.