Sex, Murder and Videotape: The untold story of Alfred Bloomingdale, his mistress Vicki Morgan, and the sex tapes that almost cost Reagan re-election
Bridget Arsenault

Alfred Bloomingdale was a man at the heart of America’s institutions, who would go on to advise President Reagan as a top official on intelligence and international relations. He wasn’t part of the establishment. He was the establishment. In the early hours of July 7^th, 1983, wearing only a yellow T-shirt and blue bikini-style panties, Alfred’s longtime mistress, Vicki Morgan, was found dead, bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat.

Vicki Morgan possessed a remarkable beauty. As her star rose, she took dozens of rich and famous lovers—movie moguls, a Moroccan King, a Saudi Princess—as well as three husbands. But she always went back to Bloomingdale. Vicki was murdered a year after she brought a $5 million palimony suit against him. The legal battle was so sensational that a senior White House aide met with Vicki’s lawyer to suggest some compassion for Bloomingdale's wife, Betsy. “She took a lot of secrets to the grave with her,” Vicki’s lawyer once remarked. And Vicki swore in a deposition that Bloomingdale often shared "secret and delicate" details of White House meetings with her. 

Vicki was right about one thing. Some secrets are delicate. They are also dangerous, especially for those who know too much. So how did a high school dropout found dead in her Studio City condominium come to hold secrets that would be bigger than Watergate?