A very private woman
Subtitle: the life and unsolved murder of presidential mistress Mary Meyer
By: Nina Burleigh.
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 356
Subjects: Meyer, Mary, 1920-1964 -- Death and burial.; Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963 -- Relations with women.; Mistresses -- United States -- Biography.; Presidents -- United States -- Mistresses.; Murder -- Investigation -- Washington (D.C.) -- Case studies.
Description: "Her husband was a top CIA official. Her lover was the president of the United States. And three decades after her death, her murder is unsolved. Journalist Nina Burleigh explores the continuing fascination of Mary Pinchot Meyer in the first book to look at this beautiful, intelligent, reckless woman and the circumstances of her mysterious death." "Mary Pinchot Meyer was found shot to death on a wooded Georgetown towpath less than a year after President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Because she was a former CIA wife, Mary's murder fueled intense speculation. What few knew at the time was that Mary, a frequent visitor to the White House, had also been JFK's lover." "In a time when women like Mary were expected to glitter as wives and hostesses, she wanted more. She had an ecstatic, disastrous affair, sought out Timothy Leary to try LSD, and began to paint experimentally. Her marriage in ruins, she became the president's lover and trusted companion, the woman JFK chose to be with on the night after Marilyn Monroe's body was discovered. And when Mary herself died the following year, the search for her diary was carried out by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and by CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton." "Did Mary Meyer die because of her nearness to power? Or was the right man - an alleged would-be mugger - arrested after all, only to be acquitted?"--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [309]-342) and index.