Judith Campbell Exner, Linked To President Kennedy, Dies

Judith Campbell Exner, a reputed mistress of John F. Kennedy who claimed to have ferried messages between the president and reputed Mafia boss Sam Giancana, died Friday of breast cancer. She was 65.

Ms. Exner, who lived in Newport Beach, Calif., died at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. She had suffered from cancer since 1978, according to her attorney, James Lesar of Washington, D.C.

Ms. Exner made waves in 1977 with her autobiography, "My Story," which included a description of her alleged affair with Kennedy.

In a 1996 issue of Vanity Fair, Ms. Exner said she ended a two-year affair because she hated being "the other woman," and also claimed that she aborted Kennedy's child 10 months before he was assassinated.

She also claimed that during Kennedy's presidency she was Giancana's lover and carried messages between the president and the Chicago mob boss, including details of a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Some have doubted that story, including Giancana's daughter, Antoinette, who has said her father had "utter contempt" for Kennedy and never mentioned any contact with the president during his time in the White House.

In 1975, Ms. Exner's name and accounts of her romantic involvements began leaking from Senate investigations of alleged CIA assassination attempts of foreign leaders. Her name came to light after it was alleged that Kennedy had tried to make use of Mafia figures in an effort to get rid of Castro.

Reports at the time alleged that the link between Giancana and the White House was a mystery woman who was at one time or another sexually involved with the president and Giancana.

Ms. Exner, who first denied acting as a go-between, claimed she did have affairs with both men, though not at the same time.

This claim was asserted in her book; it said she met and began her relationship with Kennedy in Las Vegas in February 1960, when the Democrat was still the junior senator from Massachusetts, and ended it in 1962 while he was president.

She said she met Giancana later, also in Las Vegas. She said she believed the notorious and highly publicized crime lord was a "Chicago businessman" when she began her affair and that she continued the affair after she learned otherwise. Giancana was killed in 1975.

Judith Eileen Katherine Immoor Campbell Exner was born in New York and grew up in Los Angeles. She was born the fourth of five children to a father who was an architect and real-estate investor. The family counted comedian Bob Hope and his wife among its neighbors and friends.

At the age of 18, Ms. Exner married William Campbell, a television actor, whom she divorced in 1958. Through her first marriage, she met numerous show business figures, including Sinatra.

It was Sinatra who invited her to a Las Vegas show in which he starred along with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. She met Kennedy there, according to Lesar, her lawyer. The relationship blossomed at meetings at New York hotels, Kennedy's Georgetown home, and at the White House.

She said in a Washington Post account that she lost some of her regard for Kennedy when he showed up at one of their meetings with another woman and suggested a "threesome." Although the relationship ended in late 1962, she said, they remained in telephone contact until shortly before the president's death.

When Ms. Exner was questioned by Senate investigators three months after Giancana was shot to death in his home, she told the investigators she feared for her life if her name or story leaked to the public.

After her story leaked, and such Kennedy loyalists as Evelyn Lincoln, Dave Powers and Kenneth O'Donnell publicly denied her story, she hit on a different strategy.

In 1977, her book hit the bookstores. Reviewing it for The Post, William Furlong said the book included "some of the most banal prose and dreadful dialogue in contemporary literature. What is surprising is a most improbable feat of portraiture: Jack Kennedy emerges as a bore."

It was reported that Frank Sinatra, commenting on the book, remarked that "Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent."

Then, in 1988, Ms. Exner changed her story. She told People magazine that her contacts with Giancana and another mob figure, Johnny Rosselli, were on behalf of President Kennedy. She later maintained that she had transported money and documents from Kennedy to Giancana and that it involved the "elimination" of Castro.

She also claimed that she had become pregnant by Kennedy, a pregnancy ended with an abortion arranged by Giancana.

In the mid-1970s, she married golf pro Daniel Exner. They separated in 1985. Survivors include a son; two brothers; and a sister.