I’m sorry. I just can’t help myself.
On January 26, 1979 Nelson Rockefeller, former Vice President of the United States, Governor of New York, Assistant Secretary of State, one of
the richest men in America, patron
of the arts, philanthropist, and Baptist
collapsed with a massive heart attack at the age of 70.
Unfortunately for him, he
collapsed on 27 year old Megan Marshak,
an aide to the political powerhouse. He
was naked. So was she. She struggled to get the large, heavy man off
her. In doing so she may have pushed him
off her bed and onto the floor. Anyway,
that’s where he was found by a responding ambulance crew.
In the town house at 13 West 54th Street where
Rockefeller theoretically kept a secondary office, but was really Marshak’s
residence, the young woman went into a panic.
The affair between the two had been a very well kept secret. Rockefeller was very publicly married to his
second wife, the former Margaretta
“Happy” Murphy, herself a one time aide when Rockefeller was governor. Not knowing what else to do, Marshak phoned
her close friend news
reporter Ponchitta Pierce.
When Pierce arrived, she found Rockefeller unconscious but still breathing. The two finally decided to call an ambulance
after determining that they could not get the man dressed. The ambulance arrived after a delay of around
an hour. Rockefeller died in the vehicle
on the way to the hospital. Opinion
remains divided on whether, given the state of medicine at the time, he could
have been saved if he received immediate attention.
His family scrambled into a protective mode. The first press announcements said that
Rockefeller was found collapsed at his desk at his main office in Rockefeller Center by a security
guard. That tale unraveled quickly. The family acknowledged that he was with
Marshak, but claimed they were working together in the second office. The press pretty quickly surmised that this
was a ruse and began hinting, as broadly as possible in those more discrete
days, that there might have been hanky-panky going on.
The widow Happy hastily arranged for her husband’s remains to be
cremated. But an official autopsy
confirmed that Rockefeller died after a heart attack during or shortly after
coitus.
The family and close friends gathered for a funeral on January 29 and the
ashes were interred at the private Rockefeller family cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. On February 2 a public memorial was held at
the famous Riverside Church attended
by more than 2,200 people including President
Jimmy Carter, former President Gerald
R. Ford, more than 100 current or former members of Congress, as well as official representatives from more than 70
nations. Among those in attendance was Senator Barry Goldwater, whose
insurgent campaign against Rockefeller and the hated Eastern Liberal Republican Establishment in 1964 denied Rocky his
second shot at the Republican Party nomination
for President—the one that was probably doomed by his hasty divorce from his
first wife and equally hasty marriage to Happy, who had just dumped her own
long-time spouse.
Conservatives could hardly contain their glee at Rockefeller demise
and the embarrassing circumstances. They
considered it the death knell of liberal Republicanism. And it pretty much was. It took a while, but the species Rockefeller
represented is now as extinct as the dodo. Even today a Google search of Rockefeller’s death will turn up dozens of right wing web sites still gloating and
many consigning their old foe to eternal damnation. These folks never give up a grudge.
As for the hapless young Megan
Marshak, she held up for weeks in the town house, never leaving, answering the
phone, or granting any interviews. When
Rockefeller’s will was read, Marshak was left the deed to the now infamous
townhouse.
Then she essentially
vanished. Only two know photographs,
both taken before the death, are known to exist. Despite enormous press interest she was able
to disappear. In 1992 it was reported
that she was living in New York and working quietly as a TV news writer and
producer. In 2008 that pillar of
journalism Parade Magazine reported that she had married and was living
quietly in southern California.
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ReplyDeleteWell , Nelson Rockefeller's widow died in May of 2015 and that should make the whole sordid story all old news . 2019 is Stormy's turn not Megan's .
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