A Very Private Woman : The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer

Rating:
Summary: FEMALE FOREST GUMP, BUT WHY THE SUBTITLE?
Review: A beautiful woman is murdered on a Georgetown towpath beside a canal on a bright October day in 1964. How this woman died, where her personal papers disappeared to & how her killer fared makes for an astonishing mystery & Nina Burleigh has researched a biography of an unsung Golden Girl who lived a charmed life among CIA beginners in the decade of the Cold War, raised her golden children & then had a finger on the pulse of power. A well-wrought look into that time & those places! The honeymoon train trip to San Francisco is a telling adventure. A real life murder mystery in the age of conspiracies...

Rating:
Summary: FEMALE FOREST GUMP, BUT WHY THE SUBTITLE?
Review: A fascinating, detailed account of Mary Pinchot Meyer ... whose connections to other famous personalities made me exclaim about halfway through the book, "She's a female Forest Gump!" I agree with another reviewer who suggested one also read the footnotes ... I found myself doing that almost immediately, marking the first time I recall keeping two bookmarks in a book (one for the "regular" pages and one for the footnote section). My only disappointment is that author Nina Burleigh in her introduction says she "decided early on that (John F.) Kennedy warranted only a single chapter in Mary's life" so a single chapter on Kennedy was "sufficient." Why, then, is the subtitle of this book "The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer" and why is (easy to recognize) JFK pictured with Mary Meyer on the cover? The answer most likely relates to marketing ... the titillating subtitle no doubt helped to sell this book.

Rating:
Summary: Mary Meyer---it's fun and worthwhile to get to know her.
Review: Even if Mary Meyer had never crossed paths with JFK (and she certainly did in the most intimate of ways) there was enough about her upbringing and life that would have been ample material for an interesting book. What the author did with this book stimulated the imagination. This book is a rare glimpse at the nitty gritty substance of growing up as a member of the elite class of this country during the middle portion of this century. The people involved are brought out in detail enough to be believable and realistic. The reader vicariously experiences the uniqueness and excitement of Washington D.C. of the early 60's. From reading the book one comes away with intimate details about some of the main headline makers of that era. The research done to write this book looks to be quite extensive and complete. One reason why it might be a rare book that gives such a complete look into what life might have been like for someone growing up in the elite class of this country with connections into the political upper echilons. At least portions of the Wahington D.C. community of the early 1960's was far from the "Leave to Beaver" world most of the rest of America was thought to be living in. The author avoids thankfully suggesting that the Washington D.C. of the early 1960's with it's deception, intrigue, living on the edge kind of style was a good thing, but rather just lays it all it out in a stimulating way.

Rating:
Summary: Fails to Penetrate the Key Issue
Review: Mary Meyer's murder was one of the great post-JFK assassination mysteries. Nina Burleigh has entered a highly complex and frightening world to try to unravel the layers of lovers and spies. In doing so she has painted a picture of how the elite led bizarre lives from the 1920s to the 1960s. I found this book a great read about an intriguing, independent woman who cast her spell over friends in high places and haunted them long after her death.

Rating:
Summary: Brings Back the Era of the 60s
Review: Mary Pinchot Meyer's life and death occurred within the apex of American old money and power. That power, politically and ideologically was no where more penetrating than within the intelligence community. The'Company,' where her previously idealistic and later reactionary husband worked, has been implicated in nefarious, double dealings since that time and Cord Meyer was at the top of its chain. His was the brainstorm that invented student dissident groups, staffing it with agents and keeping tabs on my generation's protests. His best friend was the infamous James Jesus Angleton. Angleton took posession of Mary's diary hours after she died.

The first part of the book, the graced childhood, Brearley/Vassar educations and the social connections that the beautiful Mary enjoyed was for me the most interesting. This fascination remained steady through the early days of her marriage to Cord Meyer, their relationship to the World Federalists a group of high-minded world- government idealists, and the decline of their affections and left leaning beliefs.

Mary's relations with the Washington Elite were also revelatory. Especially little known facts of the iconic Ben Bradlee's tell all relations with the CIA. Women were marginalized and often depressed- Mary was psychoanalyzed by the famous Dr. Oller, a follower of Wilhelm Reich. These well-educated and often gifted women toyed with art Gurdjieffian mystecism and many divorced after numbing and endless affairs. Mary Meyer was not unique in her adulterous and monied travels; but her relation to Timothy Leary, (also a CIA confidant at times) and her status as JFK's rare female friend as well as occassional mistress casts a different perspective on the otherwise sex-addicted president.

There is no clear evidence that Mary Meyer was taken out by the CIA for knowing too much about Kennedy's death, but the author spends the latter third of the book sifting through the evidence. That section unearthed and mainly debunked any theories that previous writers have put forth. Indeed, that was where the pace of the otherwise compelling story slowed.

Whereas some reviewers found the tale too spare a study of this debutantte turned psychedelic artist; I found the book essential to coming to terms with the human personalities that directed our lives in the Cold War. American operatives hobnobbed with the mafia and ex-Cuban mercenaries as well as drank, played around not much differently from how they and their fathers had famously done at Harvard and Yale.
There are several portraits of Jackie and Jack that give some further insight into that complicated relationship but mainly this is a tale of men who were, as their wives, patricians all- despite a forced street guy bravado, men who believed strongly in first their entitlement to lead the world, second, to protect the nation from communism with whatever means possible and third, to use the constitution to defend their actions.
The Washington set was a social club that led the world- it was a collusion of media and government men and politicians.

Perhaps most telling, is the depiction of the nature of power, the manner by which it is bestowed and what occurs when so few checks and balances are secured to manage its shadow side.

Rating:
Summary: The Culture That Designed American History
Review: Mary Pinchot Meyer's life and death occurred within the apex of American old money and power. That power, politically and ideologically was no where more penetrating than within the intelligence community. The'Company,' where her previously idealistic and later reactionary husband worked, has been implicated in nefarious, double dealings since that time and Cord Meyer was at the top of its chain. His was the brainstorm that invented student dissident groups, staffing it with agents and keeping tabs on my generation's protests. His best friend was the infamous James Jesus Angleton. Angleton took posession of Mary's diary hours after she died.

The first part of the book, the graced childhood, Brearley/Vassar educations and the social connections that the beautiful Mary enjoyed was for me the most interesting. This fascination remained steady through the early days of her marriage to Cord Meyer, their relationship to the World Federalists a group of high-minded world- government idealists, and the decline of their affections and left leaning beliefs.

Mary's relations with the Washington Elite were also revelatory. Especially little known facts of the iconic Ben Bradlee's tell all relations with the CIA. Women were marginalized and often depressed- Mary was psychoanalyzed by the famous Dr. Oller, a follower of Wilhelm Reich. These well-educated and often gifted women toyed with art Gurdjieffian mystecism and many divorced after numbing and endless affairs. Mary Meyer was not unique in her adulterous and monied travels; but her relation to Timothy Leary, (also a CIA confidant at times) and her status as JFK's rare female friend as well as occassional mistress casts a different perspective on the otherwise sex-addicted president.

There is no clear evidence that Mary Meyer was taken out by the CIA for knowing too much about Kennedy's death, but the author spends the latter third of the book sifting through the evidence. That section unearthed and mainly debunked any theories that previous writers have put forth. Indeed, that was where the pace of the otherwise compelling story slowed.

Whereas some reviewers found the tale too spare a study of this debutantte turned psychedelic artist; I found the book essential to coming to terms with the human personalities that directed our lives in the Cold War. American operatives hobnobbed with the mafia and ex-Cuban mercenaries as well as drank, played around not much differently from how they and their fathers had famously done at Harvard and Yale.
There are several portraits of Jackie and Jack that give some further insight into that complicated relationship but mainly this is a tale of men who were, as their wives, patricians all- despite a forced street guy bravado, men who believed strongly in first their entitlement to lead the world, second, to protect the nation from communism with whatever means possible and third, to use the constitution to defend their actions.
The Washington set was a social club that led the world- it was a collusion of media and government men and politicians.

Perhaps most telling, is the depiction of the nature of power, the manner by which it is bestowed and what occurs when so few checks and balances are secured to manage its shadow side.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother
Review: Not a good attempt to provide cover for her favorite political desire but diverting attention to a well respected president.

Rating:
Summary: Brings Back the Era of the 60s
Review: What a great book to escape into. This is a quick read, and a must for anyone who is fascinated with both the Kennedy's and the early 60s. Sure makes you think about what it must have been like to know JFK and be part of his private circle. I definately recommend this book!