James Truitt

James McConnell Truitt (June 17, 1921 – November 19, 1981) was an American journalist who worked for Life and Time magazines. He later became the vice president of Newsweek magazine.

He is known for being quoted by the National Enquirer in 1976 as alleging that Mary Pinchot Meyer, the ex-wife of Cord Meyer, had a two-year affair with John F. Kennedy.

Early life and career Born in Chicago, Illinois on June 17, 1921, and raised in Baltimore, Truitt was the son of Eleanor (née McConnell) and Dr. Ralph Purnell Truitt, a psychiatrist associated with the Mental hygiene movement, and an advocate for the rehabilitation of the criminally insane. Named after his uncle, James Robert McConnell, Truitt later majored in English at the University of Virginia, graduating summa cum laude in 1943. According to Truitt, their first rendezvous occurred after Meyer was chauffeured to the White House in a limousine driven by a Secret Service agent where she was met by Kennedy and taken to a bedroom. He stated that Meyer and Kennedy regularly met in that manner, sometimes two or three times each week, until his assassination. and he moved to Mexico, where he married Evelyn Patterson.

Truitt committed suicide on November 18, 1981, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He had been described by his first wife, Anne, as being "so ill".