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by Mrs. Meyer.” Contrary to what he would document in his 1995 memoir, Bradlee told the court that he had, in fact, entered Mary’s studio that night with no difficulty, presumably alone, never indicating whether anyone else was with him. 18
    At no time was Hantman aware that Mary Meyer had kept a diary, or that she had been romantically involved with President Kennedy. Ben Bradlee was well aware of both, but he wasn’t about to reveal anything further. More than twenty-five years later, in 1991, Hantman would remark to author Leo Damore that had he known these two facts, “it could have changed everything,” because he was “totally unaware of who Mary Meyer was or what her connections were.” 19
    Appearing to tread lightly, Dovey Roundtree began her first cross-examination. “Mr. Bradlee, I have just one question,” she said.
     
   Bradlee:  
  Yes, ma’am.  
   Roundtree:  
  Do you have any personal, independent knowledge regarding the causes of the death of your sister-in-law? Do you know how she met her death? Do you know who caused it?  
   Bradlee:  
  Well, I saw a bullet hole in her head.  
   Roundtree:  
  Do you know who caused this to be?  
   Bradlee:  
  No, I don’t.  
   Roundtree:  
  You have no other information regarding the occurrences leading up to her death?  
   Bradlee:  
  No, I do not.  
   Roundtree:  
  Thank you, sir.    20
    Unaware of its far-reaching implications, Roundtree had asked the most important question surrounding the death of Mary Pinchot Meyer: “Do you have any personal, independent knowledge regarding the causes of the death of your sister-in-law?”
    Ben Bradlee had withheld the fact that a group of Mary Meyer’s intimates, including Bradlee himself, had immediately conspired to commandeer Mary Meyer’s diary, letters, and personal papers—and given the entire collection to CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. In addition, he omitted the single most important event surrounding the murder of his sister-in-law: the telephone call from his CIA friend “just after lunch”—about four hours before her identity to police had been established. The same caller, the reader will recall, had also informed Cord Meyer in New York of Mary’s demise later that afternoon—again, before her identity was known to authorities. 21
    D uring the first morning of the trial, Deputy Coroner Linwood L. Rayford testified that he had pronounced the then-unknown victim dead at the murder scene at approximately 2:05 P.M . The victim had been shot twice, he said in his testimony: “… the first [shot] was located an inch and half anterior to the left ear…. The second [shot] was located over the right shoulder blade about six inches from the midline.” Rayford went on to delineate the path of each bullet. The first shot to the head, just anterior to the left ear and surrounded by a dark halo, traversed the skull across the floor of the brain, angling slightly from the back to the front. “In other words, going foreword from left to right, [it] struck the right side of the skull, fractured it and ricocheted back where the slug was found in the right side of the brain,” he explained.
    The second bullet wound, also surrounded by a dark halo, had been fired over the victim’s right shoulder blade, traversing it and the chest cavity, perforating the right lung and severing the aorta. Hantman questioned the significance of the “two darkened halos” that surrounded each gunshot wound. “It is suggestive of powder burns,” Rayford responded. “This means that the gun was fired from rather close proximity.” 22
    Rayford went on to explain that the victim had “superficial lacerations to the forehead, abrasions to the forehead, to the left knee and the left ankle.” Hantman wanted the jury to know that there had been a violent struggle before and after the first shot had been fired, that Mary Meyer had