There, in her diary, she had reached an understanding. It was her own mosaic of people, events and circumstances that informed her understanding—not only the evil that had taken place in Dallas, but of the villainous darkness that was now enveloping all of America. She had furiously confronted her ex-husband, Cord Meyer, possibly Jim Angleton as well, with what she had discovered, not fully realizing the extent of their own diabolical ruthlessness.

The Warren Report [issued three weeks earlier] was ultimately nothing more than a house of cards; once ignited with the right matchstick, it would be engulfed in flames. If Mary courageously went public with who she was, and what she knew, making clear her [role as confidant] in the final year's of Jack's life, people with influence would take notice; the fire of suspicion around Dallas would erupt into a conflagration.

She had to be eliminated.

It was in 1964, just before 12:30pm on a crisp, sunny mid-October day in Washington, D.C., that a beautiful, affluent middle-aged white woman was murdered on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath during her accustomed walk after a morning of painting at her nearby Georgetown art studio. For more than five hours, her identity remained unknown to the police—but not, I would discover many years later, to an elite high-level group of operatives within the CIA. She was eventually identified at the D.C. morgue shortly after 6:00pm. Mary Pinchot Meyer had been put to death.

Tormented since Jack's death, Mary had refused to accept the lies being peddled to the public. At times despondent, she finally decided she would take matters into her own hands. Throughout the past year, she had made it her business to learn what had really taken place in Dallas that late-November day.

Like most Americans, Mary grieved over the violent death of her president; for her, however, his departure had been uniquely personal. She and Jack had not only been lovers, but had also grown into the deepest of allies—kindred spirits in the pursuit of peace for the world. It hadn't been Mary's first attempt at such a feat...