Page 58 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

“ALL’S WELL WITH THE WORLD, men, so fear not, fear not,” reports the New York Journal-American .

For the past three weeks, Marilyn Monroe has been in a private room at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, recovering from the disastrous time she endured at the Payne Whitney.

“Marilyn’s face still has the ethereal rose-petal texture, the smile’s as delicately soft as ever, the figure—ah yes—the figure—and best of all they’ve untied the knots in her nerves. ”

Afterward, she accepts DiMaggio’s invitation to visit him in Florida. He’s attentive and kind, and in his off-hours from coaching the Yankees through spring training, they have quiet dinners and look for shells on the beach.

DiMaggio does everything he can to prevent Marilyn from slipping back into the dungeons of loneliness and misery, and she is grateful. But she just can’t help herself.

At the White House, Jack Kennedy has informed the switchboard that if a “Miss Green” calls, she is to be put straight through. Almost as soon as Marilyn leaves the hospital, she’s on the telephone whispering and giggling to “The Prez.”

Marilyn has never lost her anxiety about sounding unintelligent.

Though obviously smart—and well-read these days, despite her early lack of education—she prepares pertinent questions to ask Kennedy during their phone conversations: What went wrong during the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17?

Should the US have withheld air support? And why is Castro such a bad, bad man?

She jots down everything the president tells her in the little red book she uses as a memory aid. CIA counterintelligence knows all about what they call Marilyn’s Book of Secrets. Given the heightened threat of nuclear war, they deem it a matter of concern.

At FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, J.

Edgar Hoover sits at his desk, staring at Marilyn Monroe’s “105” file.

The designation indicates that its contents are political.

The file is further flagged “SM-C” for “Security Matter-Communist.” He sighs and pushes the pages across his desk.

How is he going to solve the Marilyn Monroe Problem?

After her recuperation in Florida, Marilyn decides she is strong and well enough to return to Hollywood and the California sunshine.

New York holds too many painful memories of padded cells and straitjackets, and besides, it is more Arthur Miller’s town. According to Dr. Greenson, her relationship with Miller is at the heart of all her problems.

“As a great intellect and playwright, he was too big a challenge for her” is Greenson’s opinion.

“In trying to win Miller’s respect, she had become obsessed with the ‘serious dramatic actress’ goal.

This was false, it wasn’t her.” He tells her that “she should continue her acting lessons, and gradually improve her skills, but the movies she should concentrate on now were those that came most naturally to her—comedies, musicals, ‘fun’ movies, nothing too serious.”

Greenson advises, “Above all, you have to be yourself.”

“Whoever that is,” Marilyn replies.