A Very Private Woman
The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer
Introduction
Anyone wanting to write about a member of the silent generation of
women that mothered the baby boom and married the cold warriors
confronts a peculiar obstacle: Many of these women believe their
lives were utterly unremarkable. The cold war wives review years
spent raising children and keeping house, arranging dinner parties
for dignitaries, making art, or getting jobs. They find their
personal histories bland compared to their husbands', men with war
wounds on their bodies and secrets of state in their brains, men
whose turf ranged from Havana to Moscow and Paris to Bucharest, and
whose work altered world history.
When the woman in question had an affair with a married president of
the United States and then died violently, the obstacle of humility
is compounded by embarrassment and sorrow. Mary Pinchot Meyer's
sister and closest friend say they burned her diary, and a CIA
official destroyed her other papers, obliterating her voice from
history. Her closest surviving friends made an informal pact not to
discuss her. Many people who will talk are persuaded-for reasons
that have more to do with Mary's access to powerful men and with ... read full excerpt from: A Very Private Woman ebook
