A Look Back: The Hour Delay Between Rockefeller’s Death and 911 Call

Here’s My “Ear” Witness Account of What Happened During that Hour!

 Reading Megan Marschak’s self-penned obit this weekend reminded me of the evening, January 26, 1979, when former NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller died of cardiac arrest. I was an “ear” witness to a phone conversation during that hour when the call from Marschak, 27, to her then psychiatrist disrupted what I had expected to be a romantic evening for me.

I went to dinner that evening with the prominent Washington DC psychiatrist (now deceased). After dinner, we went back to his Georgetown home as we had on other evenings. When his phone—a landline— rang, he apologized to me for the interruption as he answered the call. I watched his expression and demeanor change as he listened intently to the young woman—one of his patients—on the other end. I was privy to the conversation.

 Marschak, an aide to Rockefeller, was calling from Rockefeller’s townhouse in mid-town Manhattan. She was hysterical —not only had he suffered cardiac arrest—but she was at a loss as to how to cover up the details. After all, the former Vice President, four-term NY governor and multi-millionaire was highly visible and married to Happy at the time. She called her therapist in D.C. before her friend, TV personality Ponchitta Pierce, dialed 911 an hour later.  

 Marshack and Rockefeller along with two others, had been partying — a sexual tryst, Chinese food, French champagne, and recreational drugs— when Rockefeller, age 70, went into cardiac arrest.

Should she dress him before calling 911? Clean up the evidence? Hide the fact that one of the others was a prominent Black politician and civil rights activist? The inter-racial sexual tryst was the most scandalous part of the scenario considering the times. That was the concern of Marshack and her psychiatrist. How would that play publicly?

 A traumatized Marshack was unsure whose reputation to protect and how to do so. Her “shrink,” who was politically, and media savvy, both a medical doctor and attorney and formerly one of the Pentagon’s Whizz Kids as the Ivy educated, brilliant and politically savvy civilians under Robert McNamara were known, advised Marshack that evening on the phone as I listened. In addition to his impressive credentials, he was a wise keeper of secrets of some of Washington’s highest profile public figures of the day.

Marshack not only feared that her paramour had died but that their sexual antics be exposed—the racial issue was the biggest part of it in the 70’s. Political incorrectness always shows its face. It took an hour to figure out what to do and how to make it look “normal” in terms of the press considering that both Rockefeller and another present were headline grabbers.

The first time I met Marshack was in the 70’s in the Longworth House Office building. I was a reporter for Roll Call Newspaper at the time. She proudly showed me a package of Rockefeller’s favorite Oreo cookies that she had creatively and flirtatiously individually wrapped in tin foil to take to him in the hopes of seducing him at her job interview. I remember my amusement at how clever and adept she was in pursuing a man. She was determined, hence secured the interview and much more with the pol almost 50 years her senior.

The rest is a footnote to history kept under wraps until her death on Oct 2 at age 70 from kidney and liver failure.

Although I was known as a political gossip columnist at the time, and this would have been a front-page story, I chose not to write it nor to share it with anyone until now. I never considered betraying my trusted friend, Marshack’s psychiatrist, and I took into consideration disrupting the private lives of other prominent figures. I may have been a reporter covering bold name personalities, but I also was, and still am, a caring woman first. Since no foul play was involved, the public did not need to know all the details. Some would consider their personal activities immoral, but to me, it was their private time. No judgement. That was my philosophy. Just as I trust my sources, they must trust me. Nurturing those relationships was always my priority as a reporter.

I have often said gossip chronicles social and political history. So-called gossip often evolves into gospel. I was not looking to sensationalize what had become a normalized lifestyle for many in that world.

Marshack later moved to California avoiding the limelight and never revealing the details of that evening. It’s not unusual that circumstances surrounding the death of a well-known public figure remain under cover. That’s true in the world of politics as it is in entertainment.

In the 70’s before social media

extra-marital affairs were not as public as today and certainly not inter-racial sexual relationships or even friendships. The fact that a powerful man of color was a participant in the evening activities and left without notice during the hour prior to the ambulance arrival was clearly a sign of the time while her relationship with Gov. Rockefeller was an open secret.

 I didn’t write this story previously because unbeknownst to Marschak I was inadvertently present during her private conversation with her therapist. He took the call in my presence rather than in a different room. I didn’t want to betray his trust. Since he passed more than three decades ago, I’m writing this now as I remember it because it’s an important footnote to history from 45 years ago.