In the winter of 1967, the official account of Kennedy's assassination began to unravel. A scattered group of Americans pointed out fundamental problems in the report prepared by the Warren Commission, which President Johnson himself selected. Many of the harshest criticisms of the government's work have come from a source that has surprised some: women, who outnumber men two to one within the community of critics.Politicians and journalists ignored these women, calling them "scavengers" and insinuating that they were eccentrics obsessed with murder mysteries or admirers of the late President Kennedy. But in Housewives of the Underworld, Caitlin Tiffany revives the story of Maggie Field, Shirley Martin, and Sylvia Meagher, whose collaboration and friendship reshaped their lives and our national memory.Field hosted screenings of Zapruder's film and raised money to pursue new leads. Martin traveled frequently to Dallas, enlisted the help of her children to assist in questioning witnesses, and angered J. Edgar Hoover with her "hostile" attitude toward the FBI.
And at the heart of the story is Sylvia Meagher - a born-and-raised New Yorker who loved ballet and the Mets, developed strong friendships and deep-rooted grudges, and devoted twenty-five years to her conviction that the full truth of the JFK assassination had not been told.Meticulously researched and engaging, **The Housewives of Secrets” takes readers back to the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, a period in which Americans' faith in their government was eroded, and introduces them to the so-called housewives who asked the first and most difficult questions about one of the most shocking events in American history.
