MARILYN MONROE said to have secretly made tape recordings for her psychiatrist in the days before she died at the age of 36 in 1962.

According to excerpts, Monroe started off the recording -- a kind of self-analysis through free association -- by thanking her doctor for helping her regain "control of myself, control of my life."

"You are the only person who will ever know the most private, the most secret thoughts of Marilyn Monroe," she says.

She also credits him for helping her unlock the secret to orgasm after years of unsatisfying sex, and goes on to dwell on the shape of her own body, her two famous former husbands, and her feelings toward such fellow stars as Clark Gable and Frank Sinatra, whom she called "a wonderful friend."

At one point, she describes standing naked in front of full-length mirrors to examine her own body -- "My breasts are beginning to sag. ... My waist isn't bad. My ass is what it should be, the best there is. ... OK, Marilyn, you have it all there."

Of her sexual liaison with Joan Crawford, Monroe said, "Next time I saw Crawford, she said she wanted another round. I told her straight-out I didn't much enjoy doing it with a woman. After I turned her down, she became spiteful."

Although Monroe has long been rumored to have had an affair with President John F. Kennedy, the tapes bear no evidence of that, the Times said. They do strongly suggest she and the president's brother, Robert, were involved romantically.

"There is no room in my life for him," she says. "I guess I don't have the courage to face up to it and hurt him. I want someone else to tell him it's over. I tried to get the president to do it, but I couldn't reach him."

Discussing her failed marriage to DiMaggio, Monroe said, "We didn't end our love for each other." She said the baseball great needed a "traditional" wife but there was "no way I could stop being Marilyn Monroe and become someone else."

By contrast, Monroe's marriage to Arthur Miller was "my mistake, not his," she said. "He couldn't give me the attention, warmth and affection I need. It's not in his nature. ... As bed partners, we were so-so."
Monroe biographers suggested the doctor might be considered a suspect in her death.