Florence Pritchett

I read she had died when she was 45 from leukemia, but who was she?

Florence Pritchett was born in 1920. After leaving school she worked as a model for John Robert Powers and appeared in Life magazine. In 1940, she met and married Richard Canning. Shortly after she became fashion editor of The New York American Journal, a newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst.

In 1943, Florence divorced Canning. The following year, she met John F. Kennedy. The couple spent much time together. Betty Spalding said that, for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know." However, because Kennedy was Catholic, marriage was out of question.

In 1947, Florence married Earl Smith, a member of the NYSE. The couple had three children. In June 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Cuba. FBI files show that over the next two years John F. Kennedy is more than a dozen visits to Cuba to meet in Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently assistant.

According to one account: "JFK would elude the Secret Service, occasionally to have trysts with women. He was in Palm Beach when he jumped a fence to swim with Flo Smith. The Secret Service agents could not find him and called the FBI. They finally turned to Palm Beach Police Chief Homer Broad, a member of the Kennedy family trust. the police chief knew exactly where to find Jack - to side in the pool and Earl Smith. Jack and Flo were alone, and as Homer put it, "They were not the Australian crawl."

Earl and Smith remained ambassador to Cuba until January 20, 1959. Then he wrote about his experiences in his book, the fourth floor (1962). This included an account of the revolution of Fidel Castro in Cuba.

Florence continued to work as a journalist. She also became a TV personality and appeared on programs such as What's My Line? It was during this time, she struck up a friendship with the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.

In 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen was successful in obtaining a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends she had information that "break the case open fan." Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed her interview notes to Florence Smith. She told her friends she had obtained information that Ruby and JD Tippit had been friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

On November 8, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in her apartment in New York. She was fully dressed and sitting on his bed. Police said she died of a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of his interview with Jack Ruby and the article she wrote on the case had disappeared. Florence Smith, died two days later of a brain hemorrhage. His son, Earl Smith III, said she had been suffering from leukemia.

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