Bombshell: The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe by Mike Rothmiller and Douglas Thompson

 

Bombshell: The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe by Mike Rothmiller, and Douglas Thompson is filled with documented events and previously hidden information involving key people in Marilyn Monroe's life. If all of this documentation in BOMBSHELL is true, it is appalling to realize the amount of political spying and interference in the lives of celebrities and key political figures. The CIA, the east and west coasts mafias, and LAPD of the 1950s and 60's all had ways of obtaining confidential information on celebrities and political hopefuls in order to blackmail them into compliance. 

I used to admire JFK and Bobby Kennedy until a few years ago when I started reading more historical books based on recent unclassified information. JFK used people and especially women. He was selfish and a sex addict. Robert (Bobby) Kennedy was ruthless and when you get to Peter Lawford's confession to Mike Rothmiller of Marilyn's last hours, he revealed how Bobby slapped and fought with Marilyn before giving her a 'sedative' in a glass of water which rendered her unconscious in the evening she died. Peter Lawford thought Marilyn was dead before they left her home and allowed two unidentified men into her home to find her diary and any written documentation of her conversations with JFK and Bobby.

Most of the book is filled with documenting the political events and conflicts of the era. Key players of the LAPD and the mafias are identified as tools used by the Kennedys to control current events and public perceptions. 

It seems there were two and sometimes three separate groups that installed listening devices into the private homes of celebrities and political figures. The number of celebrities who were caught up in blackmail by the mafia and had files on them by LAPD is astounding! 

On the Thursday or Friday before her death, Bobby and Peter Lawford had told Marilyn not to call the president or the white house again. She had become angry and threaten to call the press and expose her relationship with the Kennedys. They had broken promises to her, and she felt used. Marilyn made the mistake of revealing her plan and this caused Bobby to plan to shut her up for good. 

One of the most heinous things that is mentioned in this book and two other books I have read is about how Marilyn was set up for blackmail on the Saturday night before her death by Frank Sinatra, Peter and Pat Lawford, and Sam Giancana at the Lake Tahoe Cal Neva Lodge. According to this book, she was drugged to almost unconsciousness at their private party. Marilyn was used and sexually abused while she was not able to defend herself. Pictures were taken of her as several people at once debauched and raped her as she was asleep or heavily drugged. The next day Frank Sinatra told her to leave, and Marilyn was not able to remember what had happened the evening before. She writes of not remembering what had happened in her diary. The drug had left her with no memory of all the photographs that were taken to be later used to blackmail her into silence about her affairs with both Kennedy brothers.

If you are interested in many of the events that shaped the political era of this time, BOMBSHELL has many notations of files and interviews by Mike Rothmiller.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for the opportunity to read this book.