The Last Honest Man by James Risen

Author:James Risen [Risen, James and Risen, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2023-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Judith Campbell Exner, former girlfriend of both Sam Giancana and President John F. Kennedy.

During the interview, it quickly became clear that in the early 1960s, Judith Campbell had been a beautiful young woman with intoxicating connections in both Hollywood and Washington, but had never played any role as an intermediary between John Kennedy and Sam Giancana.

“At any point during your friendship with Mr. Giancana and Mr. Rosselli, did either Mr. Giancana or Mr. Rosselli ever ask you to communicate messages to the President or anyone else in government?” asked Curt Smothers.

“No.”

“Did they ever ask you to make contact or arrange any meetings or discussions between themselves and anyone in government?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear Mr. Rosselli or Mr. Giancana speak about, either to you or [did you overhear] them speak about, any connection with… the CIA?”

“No.”

“It is also your testimony that you did not talk to the President on behalf of Mr. Giancana or Mr. Rosselli?”

“No, I did not.”

Near the end of the interview, Fritz Schwarz told the other staffers that he and Smothers, his Republican counterpart, had agreed with Campbell and her lawyer that the actual “subject matter of the conversations between this witness and President Kennedy is irrelevant to the matter under investigation by the committee.” In other words, Schwarz and Smothers had agreed to bar any questions about her sexual relationship with Kennedy.

Despite Campbell’s denials that she was a Kennedy-Giancana go-between, the committee called Johnny Rosselli back for another interview to question him about her—specifically, whether Campbell had played any role in the CIA-Mafia alliance.

Two days after Judith Campbell was interviewed, Postal and Bushong questioned Rosselli in a suite at the Watergate Hotel. This time, Rosselli was angry that the staffers were trying to drag Judith Campbell into the investigation.

When Postal and Bushong asked him about dates and times that he may have seen Judith Campbell, Rosselli complained that “I’m not going to start guessing at times about a young lady that does not even belong in this whole conversation, or who did what to whom, or where. It is a little disgusting to me, because I do not really like to talk about these things, women… You are talking about the White House and Judith Campbell and all this. This is none of my affair.”

Postal and Bushong pressed. “Did there come a time when you became aware that Judith Campbell had made the acquaintance of John Kennedy?”

“I will not answer that question.”

They kept asking, and finally Rosselli said, “Among the jet set in Hollywood and the United States, yes, it was common knowledge that she was friendly with the president.”

They asked whether he had ever used Judith Campbell as an intermediary with Giancana: “Did you ever give Judy a message for Sam?”

“I would not give my mother a message to give to Sam,” Rosselli replied.

During a break in the questioning, Bushong noticed that Rosselli was wearing an expensive watch, and told him he thought it was the most beautiful watch he had ever seen.

“Lucky gave me that,” Rosselli replied.

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