Alleged Ex-JFK Mistress Dies
Judith Campbell Exner, who claimed she was the mistress of President John F. Kennedy and that she delivered messages from him to Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, has died of breast cancer. She was 65.
A spokesman for City of Hope Cancer Center in the Los Angeles suburb of Duarte said Saturday that Exner died there just before midnight local time Friday after a long battle with metastatic breast cancer.
In her autobiography, My Story, Exner detailed what she said was a nearly two-year affair with the president.
After divorcing her husband, actor William Campbell, Exner in the late 1950s dated Frank Sinatra, who she said introduced her to Kennedy after a Las Vegas concert and later to Giancana.
Exner claimed that among the messages she carried to Giancana from President Kennedy were details of a plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
In a 1998 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Exner said she made 10 or 12 courier trips from Kennedy to Giancana and set up a couple of meetings. She said it did not occur to her to ask questions -- "JFK was the leader of the Free World. Castro was the archvillain of the Western Hemisphere, and Sam, so JFK told her, was 'working for us.'"
She said that early in 1963 she became pregnant by Kennedy and he asked that Giancana arrange an abortion. She said that Giancana offered to marry her and that touched by his proposal, she "was intimate" with him for "the only time."
Exner told the Times she felt guilty that Kennedy was married and deceived to learn later of his other lovers.
"Her death I think closes a chapter on President John Kennedy's life and activities," former CBS News Correspondent Robert Pierpoint told CBS Radio News. Pierpoint covered the White House in the Kennedy Administration.
"I feel a little sad about her," Pierpoint added. "I think that she was used by a number of men including President Kennedy. It's been a sad story for a beautiful woman."
In 1975, 12 years after Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Exner testified to a Senate committee about having an affair with Kennedy and later with Giancana.