Later Accounts
In a 1988 interview with Kitty Kelley of People magazine, Exner told a very different story about Giancana and Kennedy. She said that she had lied to the Church Committee and in her memoir out of fear of Mafia retaliation. She said Kennedy had asked her to contact Giancana, and she helped set up a meeting between them during the 1960 presidential election. For about 18 months in 1960–1961, "Exner claimed she served as the president's link with the Mob. She crisscrossed the nation carrying envelopes between the president and Giancana, and arranged about 10 meetings between the two." She later claimed these messages concerned plans to assassinate the Cuban president Fidel Castro.
In 1997 Exner added more details and changed her story, in separate interviews with Liz Smith of Vanity Fair and Hersh, who was writing The Dark Side of Camelot (1997). She said Kennedy told her of his plans related to Cuba, and used her to carry money to Giancana, as well as to arrange numerous meetings between him, Giancana and Roselli. She also claimed to Smith to have terminated a pregnancy resulting from a last encounter in 1962 with Kennedy. She also said that she had carried payoffs from California defense contractors to the Kennedys, including Robert F. Kennedy. A witness of Hersh's who appeared to support Exner's story of carrying money to Giancana later dropped his story.
Both liberal and conservative critics have attacked these later accounts. They depend mostly on Exner and do not seem to be supported by what is known of Kennedy and his staff. Her earlier accounts of her affair with Kennedy were supported by FBI records, Secret Service and White House logs and staff documentation. For instance, the FBI had Campbell followed and recorded her calls from Giancana's home to Kennedy. (It was part of J. Edgar Hoover's pattern of compiling information on leading politicians which he could use, in addition to tracking Mafia activities.) Critics have questioned why Kennedy would use her in such a sensitive role. She has been described as an "unreliable witness", with a history of instability, depression and paranoia and, by then, she was suffering from cancer.
Read more about this topic: Judith Exner
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