How RFK was seduced by Marilyn Monroe - and hated Jimmy Hoffa

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New book reveals how Marilyn Monroe and Bobby Kennedy 'carried on' for months before her death and Ethel was furious
But RFK was equally obsessed with his hatred for Jimmy Hoffa
As Attorney General during his brother's presidency, RFK created a 'Get Hoffa' squad at the Department of Justice
A union associate recalled Hoffa fuming about assault charges Hoffa was facing: 'That son of a bitch Bobby Kennedy - he has to go!'
Hoffa asked where to procure plastic explosives, 'as powerful and able to explode without leaving without a trace'.
Three years after Bobby was assassinated, Hoffa was pardoned by President Nixon but disappeared off the face of the earth four years later.

Published: 15:23 EST, 13 July 2015 | Updated: 06:48 EST, 14 July 2015

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Robert Kennedy has two main obsessions in his life - one his sexual addiction to Marilyn Monroe and the other his visceral hatred for teamster Jimmy Hoffa, according to the author of a new book about the tragic Kennedy scion.

Hollywood's reigning movie sex goddess, Marilyn Monroe, stepped up to the microphone in front of an audience of 15,000 people at New York's Madison Square Garden on the night of May 19, 1962.

She gently removed her white ermine fur coat to reveal a sheer, flesh-colored, shimmering rhinestone covered dress tugging at her naked curvaceous body underneath. The audience gasped as she seductively sang Happy Birthday to Jack Kennedy, ten days before his forty-fifth birthday.

Marilyn had been telling friends in LA that she was sleeping with the 35th President and 'I think I made his back feel better'.

As famous as that birthday song became, what went on at the private after-party - at which Robert's wife Ethel was present - was even more titillating.

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All the right moves: Pollster Lou Harris revealed that Marilyn Monroe went after Bobby Kennedy at an after-party following her Happy Birthday Mr. President performance. 'Oh, she and Bobby just carried on. She literally pinned him against he wall, and she had him trapped.'

No love lost: As Attorney General during his brother's presidency, RFK created a 'Get Hoffa' squad at the Department of Justice. He had a vendetta against the very powerful president of the biggest, toughest, largest labor union in the country who was in bed with organized crime

According to pollster, Lou Harris, 'The one that she went after, after that was Bobby. Oh, she and Bobby just carried on.

'She literally pinned him against he wall, and she had him trapped… Ethel got so disgusted. When she got him home, she said, "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

'Marilyn didn't care. She was very brazen, a brazen girl…She really went after him. And when Marilyn went after you, it was a sight to see.'

Madison Square Garden wasn't their first meeting. writes author James Neff in Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy Versus Jimmy Hoffa published by Little, Brown and Company.

They had hooked up in February 1962 at a dinner in honor of Bobby at the Santa Monica beachfront home of actor Peter Lawford and his wife Pat Kennedy, Bobby's sister.

Marilyn had too much to drink that night so Bobby and his press aide, Ed Guthman, offered to drive her home. She was so inebriated, they had to help her inside.

Seeing her again on the night of JFK's early birthday fete rekindled their passion.

Bobby had three more months to experience the electric sexual chemistry he had with Monroe after the famous birthday song for his older brother.

She would be found mysteriously dead in her Brentwood, California home on August 5, 1962 at age 36 – so now Hoffa was the sole bullseye target of Kennedy.

In the same way as Marilyn passionately pursued RFK, he had gone after Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, who was using organized crime to infiltrate and corrupt labor unions.

Marilyn Monroe attends President Kennedy's birthday party

Enabler: Madison Square Garden wasn't the first meeting between Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy. They had hooked up three months earlier in February 1962 at a dinner in honor of Bobby at the Santa Monica beachfront home of actor Peter Lawford and his wife Pat Kennedy.

As chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee in 1956, Kennedy had mounted a massive groundbreaking investigation to expose their dirty alliance.

And as Attorney General during his brother's presidency, he created a 'Get Hoffa' squad at the Department of Justice.

He had a vendetta against the very powerful president of the biggest, toughest, largest labor union in the country who was in bed with organized crime.

Pierre Salinger, journalist and press secretary to JFK, called it a 'blood feud'.

Before he became the chief counsel for the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Bobby was obsessed with the underworld in New York City but 'his efforts were strictly unofficial and took place on weekend nights as he zoomed around town with detectives in unmarked squad cars', Neff writes.

Bobby knew nothing about Jimmy Hoffa, little about labor unions and even less about organized crime but its sinister practices fascinated him and he 'was determined to learn what he could about the secret society'.

John F. Kennedy challenges Jimmy Hoffa at 1957 meeting

A union associate recalled Hoffa fuming about assault charges the teamster was facing: 'That son of a bitch Bobby Kennedy - he has to go!'

When Bobby announced to the family that he wanted to investigate criminal infiltration of labor unions, his father Joe 'was really mad' and a bitter fight ensued, Jean Kennedy recalled, 'the worst ever'.

On Fridays after working for the Subcommittee in Washington, he flew to New York and went on crime busting raids with federal agents and city narcotics detectives across the five boroughs, 'kicking in doors, rousting dealers, and developing snitches'.

The New York police were 'tough Irish cops battling bad guys and possessing qualities that RFK admired and that fit his own self-image'.

According to pollster, Lou Harris, 'The one that she [Marilyn] went after after that was Bobby'

Starting in the 1930s, crime bosses controlled the subcontractors of the City's massive garment industry that supported 300,000 jobs at the time. They had perfected the shakedown of garment manufacturers who had to use the mob's truck owners and operators and pay them huge fines 'if they didn't want acid thrown on their merchandise or thuggish picketers blocking their storefronts'.

'It was classic mob strong-arming – violent, effective, and increasingly public'.

Riding with cops in the night New York City, Bobby was learning about the treacherous business.

When working for the Subcommittee on Investigations and looking into fraud in the procurement of military uniforms, he learned about Hoffa and the Teamster officials brutal business tactics. It was his first exposure to organized crime and the criminal infiltration of labor unions.

Bobby's career plan was to become a navy pilot, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Joe Jr.

He was physically the runt of the family and eight years younger than Jack 'whose wit, social graces, and academic accomplishments were far beyond his,' writes the author.

He had a complicated relationship with his father, Joseph P. Kennedy whose passion was focused on his older brothers, Joe Jr. and Jack.

Kenneth O'Donnell, a friend of Bobby's from Harvard, 'felt that Joe Kennedy brutalized his third son.

'His father was a very autocratic, strict, controlling fellow – not a nice guy'.

O'Donnell worked in JFK's Boston office and often asked Bobby why he didn't tell off his father.

'Bobby would get this horrified look and say, 'Have you met my father? You tell him off. I like it the way it is. He doesn't pay attention to me, and I like it that way'.'

Bobby had survivor's guilt and believed Hoffa, the mob, Castro or Cuban exiles had been responsible for Jack's death, author James Neff writes in Vendetta

When Bobby failed the aptitude test for pilot training halfway through officer candidate school in May 1945, it appeared he wouldn't be serving in World War II.

Joe Sr. had connections though and Bobby enlisted as a seaman on the 2200-ton destroyer named after his brother, Joe Jr., whose plane went down in a dangerous secret bombing mission flying out of Britain in 1944.

When the destroyer, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was docked in Charlestown in April 1946, Bobby arranged for a leave but didn't return as required, going AWOL.

He was required to appear before what was a misdemeanor court, fined, hit with a ten-day restriction aboard the ship and then honorably discharged.

'It appears he never told anyone about his misconduct' – and kept it a secret.

When Bobby announced to the family that he wanted to investigate criminal infiltration of labor unions, Joe 'was really mad' and a bitter fight ensued, Jean Kennedy recalled, 'the worst ever'.

'The old man saw this as dangerous, not the sort of thing, or the sort of people to mess around with,' Jack's friend LeMoyne 'Lem' Billings witnessed.

This time Bobby refused to bend to his father's wishes.

Bobby eventually went after Hoffa as his interrogator in the Senate committee hearings, wanting to expose the man he described as the most dangerous man in America.

Hoffa was a master manipulator and negotiator who easily humiliated Bobby who did not have courtroom experience.

Hoffa tangled Bobby up with questions of his own in the courtroom. He'd wink at RFK to destabilize him and get him to lose his train of thought.

In the three times they tangled over the years in the Senate committee hearings, Kennedy was bested by Hoffa.

'They really, really hated each other', the author told Robert Siegel during a National Public Radio interview.

Harris says Ethel was so disgusted with Monroe's flagrant flirtation with her husband at a party she told him 'That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen'

'The clash was ruthless, and it is unprecedented as far as I can determine'.

'Hoffa embarrassed Kennedy. He went out of his way to do so….and would use whatever tool he could get. And humiliating, take the starch out of somebody, belittling them – that was right up his alley'.

As Attorney General, RFK continued his vendetta against Hoffa.

'He truly believed that Hoffa was very much an evil force for the economy and for the country. Others thought that his concerns were overblown, but these two men were oil and water'.

At the Department of Justice, Bobby's Get Hoffa Squad had twenty prosecutors working on trying to prosecute and convict Jimmy Hoffa, running grand juries across the country.

While Attorney General, Bobby uncovered the fact that the FBI had nothing in their files about organized crime. He proceeded to drag Hoover kicking and screaming into his fight against organized crime.

FBI chief J Edgar Hoover's public image was that he was working tirelessly to keep the country safe during the red menace. Bobby knew that the Director of the FBI was in fact spending his days at the racetrack and betting on the ponies.

In September of 1962, one of Hoffa's union associates in Louisiana, Edward Partin was incarcerated on kidnapping charges.

He had also been charged with thirteen counts of embezzlement and thirteen counts of falsifying union records by the Justice Department.

He couldn't make bail on the kidnapping and offered to inform on Hoffa in exchange for immunity from federal charges --- but only if he could be snuck out of prison.

When meeting with Hoffa at Teamsters headquarters later, the informant recalled Hoffa fuming about assault charges Hoffa was facing. 'That son of a bitch Bobby Kennedy -- he has to go!'

Hoffa asked Partin if he knew where to procure plastic explosives, 'as powerful and able to explode without leaving without a trace'.

Partin replied no.

'Then Hoffa pointed to a long-range rifle in his office and said he knew where he could get a silencer for it'.

When Jack Kennedy was shot in Dallas in November 1963, Bobby feared that his ruthless pursuit of men like Hoffa brought violence to the Kennedy family.

'I thought they'd get one of us…I thought it would be me.'

Bobby had dedicated himself to Jack's success and Hoffa's demise. Hoffa was sentenced to eight years in prison for jury tampering in March 1964.

The mission which had helped defined his adult life was over.

Bobby wanted to pursue something else but was disabled by grief and despair.

He was inconsolable and started smoking Jack's brand of small dark cigars and wearing his brother's old bomber jackets.

At a touch football game at Hickory Hill, he was filled with ferocity and didn't care if he injured anyone or himself.

'Bobby was absolutely ruthless,' stated Pierre Salinger. 'He attacked the man with the ball like a tiger, slamming, bruising, crushing, and so did everyone else.

'One guy broke a leg and you couldn't count the bloodied noses and contusions….Everybody was trying to get the hate and the anger out of their systems'.

Returning with Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana after voting on the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Senator Teddy Kennedy's plane crashed killing the pilot and the aide. Teddy miraculously survived with crushed vertebrae, two broken ribs, a collapsed lung and massive internal hemorrhaging. It was a week before they knew if he was going to live or be paralyzed.

That close call with death for his younger brother answered one question for RFK. 'The Kennedys intend to stay in public life,' he announced.

He told a reporter that if he was ever elected president, he would never pardon Hoffa or send him to a softer prison.

Bobby was murdered in June 1968. Hoffa was pardoned by President Nixon in 1971 but disappeared off the face of the earth four years later.

Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy versus Jimmy Hoffa by James Neff and publishes by Little, Brown & Company is availabe on Amazon