A note from co-author Mark Allen
This is a book I felt obligated to write. My wife and I knew Judith Campbell Exner for the last eight years of her life. During that time I talked with her several times a month and got to know the people in her life pretty well. Virtually no one else had the type of access I had.
During this time, and even after her death, I conducted extensive research on the specifics of her incredible story. I wanted to be sure: was she telling me the truth? My efforts took me to the JFK and Ford presidential libraries, the Library of Congress, National Archives I and II, public libraries in Washington, DC., Chicago, and Los Angeles, and many other research facilities. I don’t know of anyone else who did (or would have done) the extensive research I undertook.
I had hoped to use all this work on a book project with Judith. But she wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of my writing it – she thought only a woman could truly understand what she had gone through. I didn’t disagree. I tried to find a woman author who had the time and would be a good fit for the project, but I was unsuccessful.
When Judith died in September 1999, I had thousands of pages of research and many notes of my conversations with her. I had spent hundreds - maybe thousands - of hours in my pursuit. And it had been the privilege of my wife and myself, shared by very few others, to be her friends and confidantes, while having the resources and opportunity to research her story in depth.
Given these advantages, I felt I had, for the sake of history, an obligation to share what I found out: Judith’s account of being President Kennedy’s lover and courier to the Mafia was true.
But to make readers fully understand that, all of the pieces of a complicated puzzle had to be retrieved and put together. Judith’s story had to be seen in the context of its particular time and unfolding events. The impressive corroboration for her account, including White House documents, her calendars and travel records, and inside knowledge of Kennedy and Giancana’s activities, had to be set forth for the public to see. That is why this book had to be written. It was my good fortune to meet author/screenwriter Tricia Aurand so we could make it happen. With this, we hope to finally set the record straight.
A note from co-author Tricia Aurand
By now, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that women’s voices have been doubted, ignored, and/or silenced for most of written history. Men in power – and especially that all-male parade of our now forty-five US presidents – depend on the public’s ignorance of what really goes on behind the scenes, both in their political and private lives. For many years, the press had a “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep the sexual activities of politicians out of the media. And if any women who were involved with our leaders did speak up, they knew they faced an uphill battle to be taken seriously about what they knew, much less actually believed.
But in the case of Judith Campbell Exner, she literally kept the receipts. As even one of her detractors, New York Times columnist William Safire admitted, “there is a core of checkable truth to [her] story.”[1] The evidence was there: Judith had her calendars, hotel bills, train and plane tickets, private phone numbers, and other memorabilia. Combined with all the other now-accessible government records, the paper trail not only proves beyond doubt that she was romantically involved with John F. Kennedy; it also demonstrates consistently that all the key players were exactly where she has always said they were.
Based on recent incendiary revelations about the bad behavior of our leaders, past and present, as well as a lifetime of my own experiences as a woman, I didn’t need this much evidence to believe Judith. When my co-author Mark called me up and said, “Judith Exner was telling the truth about connecting Kennedy to the Mob,” my first thought was, “Of course she was.” But the more I dug into the mountain of evidence Mark had assembled over thirty years of research, I became convinced that even the worst bad-faith reading of the facts would still reveal the truth: that Judith carried money and messages directly from JFK to Chicago kingpin Sam Giancana and to Hollywood mobster Johnny Rosselli. Of course she did. Of course he did. Of course they did. The simplest explanation is the correct one.
But, for those still skeptical of the source i.e. Judith Campbell Exner and her “credibility”: consider the fact that she would gladly have taken the entire story to her grave. She faithfully kept JFK’s involvement with the mafia a secret for more than a decade. When her name was leaked to the press in 1975, she still threw herself in front of the media firing squad to protect her dead lover’s reputation. Nobody thanked her for saving the Kennedys’ face; instead, she was viciously and relentlessly attacked in the press, mostly by overtly sexist journalists who painted her in flattened, scarlet-woman stereotypes. It was only later, when cancer had her up against the ropes, that she dared to tell whole story bit by bit. Her reward for coming forward was further doubt, scrutiny, and shame.
But no amount of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and yelling “la la la” can keep Judith’s account buried forever. I’m extremely honored that Mark asked me to help bring it to light. It’s finally time for history to reckon with Judith, what she knew, and the facts that support her story. May we be willing to open our eyes to all such accounts by the women who have always – willingly or not – kept the secrets of powerful men.
[1] “Frank & Jack & Sam & Judy,” New York Times, June 13, 1977