User:SchroCat/littertray 5

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Background[edit]

John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe[edit]

Robert F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy talk during the president's early birthday party on May 19, 1962; Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. looks on.

John F. Kennedy, while the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963, was likely to have been romantically involved with the actress Marilyn Monroe.[1] Biographers differ in their opinions of the length or depth of any relationship,[2][3] while Monroe's biographer Donald Spoto observes that an affair between the two "has been assumed for so long that it has achieved as solid a place in public awareness as almost any other event in the man’s presidency".[4]

The journalist Lawrence J. Quirk described Kennedy and Monroe's association as an "on-again, off-again affair",[5] although the actor Peter Lawford, who was Kennedy's brother in law, described the speculation as "garbage".[3] Spoto describes how there are four known occasions when Kennedy and Monroe met between October 1961 and August 1962; on one of those occasions the couple were in a bedroom when Monroe phoned one of her friends. She later told a confident that she and Kennedy had only had sex on that one occasion.[4] The telephone logs of the White House show numerous calls from Monroe to Kennedy,[3] and, according to Kennedy's biographer Richard Reeves, she had previously told people both of the affair, and that she wanted to marry the president.[6] Spoto judges that, on balance:

if the phrase "love affair" describes a protracted intimacy sustained by some degree of frequency, then such a connection between these two is impossible to establish with any of the rudimentary tools of historicocritical studies. In the absence of such evidence, no serious biographer can identify Monroe and Kennedy as partners in a love affair.[4]

Seymour Hersh and The Dark Side of Camelot[edit]

Seymour Hersh in 2009

Seymour Hersh is an investigative journalist and political writer. He came to prominence in 1969 for his reporting on the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. In addition, as of 2024, Hersh has won the George Polk Award five times, the National Book Critics Circle Award, two National Magazine Awards, an Overseas Press Club award, and the National Press Foundation's Distinguished Contributions to Journalism award.[7]

In August 1993, Hersh and Little, Brown and Company signed a £1 million deal for the publication of a book on Kennedy's assassination.[8][a] Little Brown thought the book would be sell well, and by August 1996 had decided on a first print run of either 250,000 copies – an amount described by the journalist Frederick M. Winship as "unusually large" – or 350,000.[10][11]

Lawrence X. Cusack Jr. and Lawrence X. Cusack III[edit]

Lawrence X. Cusack Jr. was the founding partner of the law firm of Cusack & Stiles, which was based at 61 Broadway, Manhattan, New York.[12][13] During the 1970s Cusack Jr. was the president of the New York County Lawyers' Association.[14] He was the lawyer for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and in that role he acted as personal representative for Cardinal Francis Spellman and attended the United States Senate subcommittee on Education in 1963.[15][16] Cusack Jr. was also the personal counsel to Cardinal John O'Connor.[12] In the 1970s, a surrogate court judge appointed Cusack Jr. as a guardian of the estate of Gladys Pearl Baker, Monroe's mother. This is the only known connection he had to either Monroe or Kennedy.[13] Cusack Jr. died on October 28, 1985, aged 66.[12] Cardinal O'Connor officiated at his funeral.[13]

One of Cusack Jr.'s sons was his namesake, Lawrence X. Cusack III. Cusack attended Loyola High School and Columbia University before joining New York Law School in 1984. He also had formal training as an artist and draftsman.[17] After his father's death, Cusack & Stiles lent him $5,000 for his studies.[13] When he completed his course, he went to work at his father's firm, where he was employed either as a clerk or paralegal. His salary was $40,000,[18][19] and he had considerable debts.[20]

Many of the claims Cusack made about his past were subsequently proved to be untrue.[13] His marriage notice in The New York Times stated he graduated cum laude for a master's degree in architecture from Harvard University and that he was studying law at New York University;[21] neither were true. He never studied at Harvard, but had only audited one of the courses, and he had never attended New York University.[13][18] Cusack would also claim he had a career in Navy intelligence and that he was a United States Navy Reserve officer, even possessing – and wearing – a lieutenant commander's Navy uniform with medal ribbons. Cusack had never been either in the Navy or Naval Reserve.[18] On a permit for a firearms licence made in 1992 he listed previous service with the US Marines, US Navy, National Security Agency, and at the Naval Air Station Pensacola, none of which he had been in.[22]

Production and sale of the documents[edit]

Those implicated in criminal acts with the Kennedys in the forged papers
The papers stated that Kennedy paid Sam Giancana of the Chicago Outfit to fix the 1960 US presidential election for him.[23]
The papers stated that Kennedy bribed J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI, to keep quiet about JFK’s sexual activities.[23]

In the early 1990s Cusack met John Reznikoff, a dealer in historical memorabilia, in order to sell a small collection of stamps left by Cusack's father.[24][b] The two men became friends and, during the course of their conversation, Reznikoff told Cusack that documents relating to Kennedy were highly sought after and valuable. Soon after, Cusack claimed to have discovered 350 documents purportedly held by his father and written by Kennedy.[20][24][26] To give credence to his story, Cusack claimed that between 1959 and 1963 his father had counselled Kennedy on numerous sensitive and personal matters. The documents Cusack forged supposedly showed Kennedy and dealings with organized crime (through Sam Giancana of the Chicago Outfit), tax evasion, the bribery of J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the payment of hush money to Kennedy's lover, Monroe, and an early, secret first marriage. Cusack stole genuine deeds from archives of Cusack & Stiles concerning a transfer of land from the Kennedy family to the New York Archdiocese to given verisimilitude to the documents he forged.[24][23] Within the collection were six handwritten copies of the same document, all with the same date and all supposedly written by Kennedy; two other identical handwritten copies were also later found in the offices of Cusack & Stiles. Cusack later explained that he practiced copying Kennedy's writing, which he claimed was so he could properly read Kennedy's untidy script.[27]

Cusack showed the some of the documents to Reznikoff to compare with known samples of Kennedy's handwriting. The pair then showed the samples to Charles Hamilton, a handwriting expert; Hamilton saw half a dozen samples and stated that he thought these were in Kennedy's handwriting.[28] Cusack and Reznikoff put the sale of the documents in the hands of Tom Cloud, a precious metals dealer who also traded in memorabilia. Cloud was told that further verifications on the handwriting were being done by two document specialists, Robert White and Herman Darvick.[18][29] In November 1993 an agreement was made between Cusack, Reznikoff, and Cloud: Cloud would act as the seller for a commission of between ten and twenty percent; Reznikoff would receive about the same and the remainder would go to Cusack. Investors in the papers had to sign an agreement not to "release, publicize, or in any other way make public" the existence of the documents until May 31, 1998. The plan was to build interest after the 1998 launch and then stage a high-profile auction to enable to original investors to resell for a high profit. Between them, the investors paid between $6 and 7 million to be part of the syndicate.[18][30][c]

One of those to whom Reznikoff showed the documents was Hal Kass, a businessman and collector. The two discussed getting a writer to publish a book on the papers and initially considered contacting the novelist Tom Clancy. Kass suggested Seymour Hersh as a better choice and knew he was writing a book on the Kennedys at the time. Hersh was contacted in December 1994 and shown some of the papers; he was interested in the story straight away.[18][32][33] According to the journalists Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, this was the point Hersh decided to change the focus of the book away from the assassination and towards the information in the Kennedy documents.[34]

It took six months of negotiations for an agreement for Hersh to see all the papers, and on 3 July 1995 he signed an agreement that gave him access to all of Cusack's documents. Hersh had complete and sole access to the papers and paid no money.[22][35] Hersh undertook background checks on Cusack and established that he had never been in the intelligence services; he was not concerned that Cusack's claims were false – instead he was relieved that Cusack was not a spy. He later said "In my business, you don't really go around psychoanalyzing people who give you stuff. You grab it. I deal with all sorts of wackos."[36] With the new information from the Cusack documents, Hersh negotiated a further advance from Little, Brown of $250,000.[37][d]

Hersh decided that the best way to boost the story's standing was through television. Based on the documents and the agreement of former Secret Service members to appear on film, the television network NBC paid Cusack and the producer Mark Obenhaus $1 million for a one-hour documentary.[39][e]

Uncovering the forgeries[edit]

Non-free pics of the forged flaws

Kenneth Rendell, an expert in historical documents, considers that "the complete lack of change in the handwriting" shows the documents were forgeries.[29] Kennedy's handwriting was irregular and inconsistent, and Rendell identifies that in the forgeries:

Every page has the same inconsistencies, and that doesn't happen. For example, when Kennedy would finish off a final letter "t" he would sometimes make it big, sometimes small, and sometimes it ends with an outrageous flourish. But all the "t"s here had the same flourish, page after page.[29]

Arrest and court action[edit]

  • Weiser – 1999 Sept 17 – Judge to Add to Kennedy Forger's Sentence
  • Weiser – 1999 Sept 18 – Kennedy Papers' Forger Sentenced to 9 Years

Aftermath[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ $1 million in 1993 equates to approximately $2,109,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the United States Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.[9]
  2. ^ In addition to documents, Reznikoff also deals in coins, stamps and celebrity hair, including samples from Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, and Geronimo.[25]
  3. ^ $6 million in 1993 equates to approximately $12,655,000 and $7 million equates to approximately $14,764,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the United States Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.[31]
  4. ^ $250,000 in 1995 equates to approximately $500,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the United States Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.[38]
  5. ^ $1,000,000 in 1995 equates to approximately $2,109,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the United States Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.[40]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Churchwell 2004, pp. 291–292.
  2. ^ Churchwell 2004, p. 292.
  3. ^ a b c Dallek 2015, p. 581.
  4. ^ a b c Spoto 2001, p. 486.
  5. ^ Quirk 2004, p. 262.
  6. ^ Reeves 1993, p. 315.
  7. ^ Miraldi 2013, pp. xi, 258, 338, 362.
  8. ^ Thomas & Hosenball 1997, p. 36.
  9. ^ McCusker 1996a; McCusker 1996b; "Consumer Price Index, 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  10. ^ Winship 1996.
  11. ^ Miraldi 2013, p. 297.
  12. ^ a b c "Lawrence X. Cusack". The New York Times.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Schwartzman 1997, p. 13.
  14. ^ "Presbyterians on Church and State". Church & State.
  15. ^ Billington 1987, p. 105.
  16. ^ Samuels 1997, p. 73.
  17. ^ a b c d e f Grove 1997.
  18. ^ Hughes 1999, p. 15.
  19. ^ a b Samuels 1997, p. 64.
  20. ^ "Miss Rush Wed to L. X. Cusack". The New York Times.
  21. ^ a b Samuels 1997, p. 68.
  22. ^ a b c Weinberg 1997, p. 7.
  23. ^ a b c United States of America v. Lawrence X. Cusack, 229 F.3d 344.
  24. ^ Samuels 1997, p. 63.
  25. ^ Miraldi 2013, p. 292.
  26. ^ Samuels 1997, p. 65.
  27. ^ Samuels 1997, pp. 64–66.
  28. ^ a b c Samuels 1997, p. 66.
  29. ^ Samuels 1997, p. 67.
  30. ^ McCusker 1996a; McCusker 1996b; "Consumer Price Index, 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  31. ^ Cockburn 1997, p. 8.
  32. ^ Hersh 2018, p. 286.
  33. ^ Thomas & Hosenball 1997, pp. 36–37.
  34. ^ Miraldi 2013, p. 295.
  35. ^ Miraldi 2013, p. 294.
  36. ^ Thomas & Hosenball 1997, p. 39.
  37. ^ McCusker 1996a; McCusker 1996b; "Consumer Price Index, 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  38. ^ Miraldi 2013, pp. 295–296.
  39. ^ McCusker 1996a; McCusker 1996b; "Consumer Price Index, 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Sources[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Churchwell, Sarah (2004). The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. Granta Books. ISBN 978-0-312-42565-4.
  • Dallek, Robert (2015). An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917–1963. Newtown, Connecticut: American Political Biography Press. ISBN 978-0-9457-0743-1.
  • Hersh, Seymour M. (2018). Reporter: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-3072-6395-7.
  • Katsoulis, Melissa (2009). Literary Hoaxes: An Eye-opening History of Famous Frauds. New York: Skyhorse. ISBN 978-1-6023-9794-1.
  • Losure, Bob (1998). Five Seconds to Air: Broadcast Journalism Behind the Scenes. Franklin, Tennessee: Hillsboro Press. ISBN 978-1-5773-6107-7.
  • Miraldi, Robert (2013). Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist. Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books. ISBN 978-1-6123-4475-1.
  • Quirk, Lawrence J. (2004). The Kennedys in Hollywood. New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 978-0-8154-1296-0.
  • Reeves, Richard (1993). President Kennedy: Profile of Power. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-64879-4.
  • Spoto, Donald (2001). Marilyn Monroe: The Biography. New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 978-0-8154-1183-3.

Court report[edit]

  • United States of America v. Lawrence X. Cusack, 229 F.3d 344 (United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit October 13, 2000).

Inflation calculations[edit]

Journals[edit]

Magazines[edit]

News[edit]

Websites[edit]

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