Lem Billings
Encyclopedia
Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 – May 28, 1981) was a prep school roommate and then lifelong close friend of President John F. Kennedy
. Billings took leave from his business career to work on Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. He had his own room in the White House and declined Kennedy's offers of official positions.
, on April 15, 1916, the third child of Frederic Tremaine Billings (1873-1933) and Romaine LeMoyne (1882-1970). His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy
. His mother was a Mayflower descendant and had ancestors who were prominent abolitionists linked to the underground railroad and negro education. The Billings family was Episcopalian and Republican.
Billings, a 16-year-old third-year student, and Kennedy, a 15-year old second-year student, met at Choate
, an elite preparatory school, in the fall of 1933. Billings as a teenager was 6' 2", weighed 175 pounds, and was the strongest member of the Choate crew team. They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their school. From Billings' first visit with the Kennedy family for Christmas in Palm Beach
in 1933, he joined them for holidays, participated in family events, and was treated like a member of the family. The Depression
had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. They spent a semester together at Princeton University
until Kennedy withdrew for medical reasons. While attending college, they frequently spent weekends together in New York City.
Billings and Kennedy took a summer trip through Europe in the summer of 1937. Between Munich and Nuremberg, they bought a dachshund
they named Offie, after State Department official Carmel Offie
who helped host them in Paris, but had to give him up because of Kennedy's allergies.
In 1939, Billings graduated from Princeton where he majored in art and architecture and wrote his senior thesis on Tintoretto
.
In 1941, Billings failed medical tests required by the military. In 1942, supported by a recommendation from Joseph Kennedy, Sr.
, his friend's father, who called him "my second son," he won admission to the American Ambulance Field Service, where his poor eyesight was not a disqualification. He saw action in North Africa in 1942-43. In 1944 he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific until being discharged in 1946.
After working on Kennedy's successful campaign for Congress in 1946, Billings toured 7 Latin American countries with Robert F. Kennedy
.
From 1946 to 1948, Billings attended Harvard Business School
and earned an MBA. He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. As Vice President at the Emerson Drug Company in Baltimore, he was responsible for inventing the 1950s fad drink Fizzies
by adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. In 1958, he moved to the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell as an advertising executive.
On September 12, 1953, Billings was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
. In 1956 he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean.
In 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. He managed the campaign in the Third Congressional District in the Wisconsin primary and then served as general troubleshooter and coordinator of television in the West Virginia primary.
or director of a new agency to promote tourism, the U.S. Travel Service. He later said: "I realized that I did not want to work for the president–because I felt it would change our relationship." One historian speculates that Billings preferred to avoid a security check. In September 1961, he accepted an appointment to the board of trustees of the planned National Cultural Center, which later became the Kennedy Center. The next year, Kennedy named him to a board to plan America's participation in the New York World's Fair of 1964-5
. He represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963.
Billings visited the White House for most weekends during the Kennedy Administration. When a butler commented on the fact that Billings was leaving his belongings in one of the third-floor guest rooms, the First Lady replied: "He's been my house guest since I was married." Sometimes he stayed for longer periods. When the First Lady was away, Billings organized White House dinner parties for the President and old friends, and when the President traveled he kept the First Lady company. One presidential aide later said that "some people saw him so much they thought he was the Secret Service." Billings never had a White House pass and said: "Jack and Jackie were so nice about this that I didn't even have to tell them whether I was coming or going." Historian Sally Bedell Smith compared him to Zelig
, the character in Woody Allen's film who is always present in the back row at major events. He sat with the President's family at the Kennedy inauguration and walked not far behind his widow at the Kennedy funeral. When the Kennedys arranged small gatherings at the White House, they avoided pairing people they knew did not like one another, like Billings and a few other friends.
The press frequently reported on his presence at Kennedy family events, such as the arrival of the Kennedy children in Washington in February 1961. He accompanied the President to church, launched a kite for the President's daughter Caroline, and delivered pet hamsters to the Kennedy children. He joined the President's entourage for his tours of Europe in both 1961 and 1963. In 1962 he escorted two of the President's sisters, Eunice Shriver
and Jean Smith
, around Europe for more than 2 weeks. When the Kennedys spent the weekend at Glen Ora, their Virginia
estate, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to join them more often than the President did. She needed Billings to keep the President company while she went horseback riding.
Billings' role as "first friend" was assessed by many observers at the time and since. Ted Sorensen
called him "an admirer–almost a fawning admirer–of his friend." Arthur Schlesinger thought Billings "used to glare at me when we occasionally encountered each other in the company of JFK, and for a time I took this rather personally. Soon I discovered that he glared with equal suspicion at anyone whose friendship with JFK postdated his own." Another said: "Members of the president's staff thought of him as a 'handy old piece of furniture.'"
Most recognized that Billings and Kennedy had been friends from youth and did not question their relationship or Billings presence. Ben Bradlee, a Kennedy friend who worked at Newsweek during the Kennedy Administration, and no friend of Billings, said "they were childhood friends and stayed loyal to each other forever." Billings, he said, "had a natural jealousy. He didn't want to share his friendship with Jack." Gore Vidal
, who was banned from the White House after a run-in with Billings, offered various opinions at different times. He described Billings as Kennedy's "Choate roommate and lifelong slave" and "the principal fag at court." He also thought Billings played an important role as an aide to Kennedy, who was often ill or in pain. "He needed Lem Billings to get around–better than a trained nurse" that would have made his political career impossible. He thought Mrs. Kennedy thought Billings "was kind of a nothing....but Jack needed him and she was practical."
Many testify to Billings wit and ability to help the President relax. He once described the Kennedy family's lack of business awareness: "Listening to the Kennedy brothers talk about business was like hearing nuns talk about sex." Billings also served the President as an artistic adviser, selecting scrimshaw for display in the Oval Office and, on one European tour, quickly assembling a selection of artworks to be presented as gifts.
Billings spent less time with the President in the fall of 1963. One of their friends thought "that Jackie was trying to close Lem out." Billings spent the last weekend of October 1963 with the couple, the last time he saw them together. Billings saw the President for the last time when they dined at the White House with Greta Garbo
on November 13, 1963.
In 1965, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede
.
He escorted Mrs. Stephen Smith, sister of the late President, to a gala ballet performance in 1966 and Mrs. Robert Kennedy to the 1971 opening of the Kennedy Center,
After the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, Billings became depressed and started to drink. He maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children through the rest of his life. The elder Kennedys at some point discouraged the younger Kennedys – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Kennedy
, and Christopher Lawford
– from keeping company with Billings, feeling that he drank and used recreational drugs too much. In reality, the Kennedy children were already using recreational drugs. After Robert Kennedy's death in 1968, Billings became almost a surrogate father to Bobby Jr.
Billings served for many years along with Sargent Shriver
as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts, working from an office in the Pan Am Building.
Mrs. Kennedy included Billings as a guest at a party marking the birthdays of her children Caroline (21st) and John (18th) in 1978.
In 1987, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin
described how Billings structured her interviews with him. She had to submit questions in advance. Billings then prepared responses and read them aloud to her.
On May 28, 1981, a day before the 64th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's birth, Billings died in his sleep in his Manhattan apartment following a heart attack. He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dying wish was for the young Kennedy men to carry his coffin to its final resting place. When they arrived at the cemetery, it was already in place to be lowered. The young Kennedys took the coffin and carried it around the grave site before returning it to the burial plot.
Kennedy knew Billings had rightly been accused of homosexual behavior by a fellow Choate student during their years there. In 1942, Billings met an old Choate acquaintance and wrote favorably of him to Kennedy. Kennedy responded with a rebuke that he should not be praising someone who once called him a "fairy" and harped on the subject "for two solid hours" while arguing whether Billings had ever performed fellatio. Kennedy said the fact that the fellatio charge was true did not excuse the accuser's behavior or permit Billings positive assessment of him now.
One instance of Billings engaging in homosexual sex in the mid 1940s has been documented. Friends from the 1970s confirmed that he was homosexual, but not open to discussing it.
In 2006, looking back to the Kennedy Administration, Ben Bradlee said: "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay....It impressed me that Jack had gay friends." At the same time, he admitted that no one ever expressed the idea aloud during Kennedy's White House years. Red Fay, a friend of the President from his World War II service, said of Billings: "I didn't see anything overtly gay about him; I think he was neutral." One historian wrote that after the 1963 assassination Billings was "Probably the saddest of the Kennedy 'widows.'" Though newspapers often mentioned Billings attendance at major social events, they identified him either as the escort of a member of the Kennedy family or included him in a list of Kennedy friends. Otherwise he attended without a female partner.
Charles Bartlett
, a journalist who introduced Kennedy to Jaqueline Bouvier
and friend of both Billings and Kennedy, described their relationship: "Lem was a stable presence for Jack. Lem's raison d'être was Jack Kennedy. I don't think it's true that he did not have views of his own, as some have said. He had a very independent mind. He had interests of his own that Jack didn't necessarily share. He certainly didn't have the same interest in politics and women that Jack had." Though Gore Vidal thought Billings was "absolutely nobody," he also believed "it was a good idea that Jack had somebody he could trust like that around him." He believed Billings loved Kennedy.
"Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said. "Because of him, I was never lonely. He may have been the reason I never got married."
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Billings took leave from his business career to work on Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. He had his own room in the White House and declined Kennedy's offers of official positions.
Early years
Billings was born in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, on April 15, 1916, the third child of Frederic Tremaine Billings (1873-1933) and Romaine LeMoyne (1882-1970). His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy
United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...
. His mother was a Mayflower descendant and had ancestors who were prominent abolitionists linked to the underground railroad and negro education. The Billings family was Episcopalian and Republican.
Billings, a 16-year-old third-year student, and Kennedy, a 15-year old second-year student, met at Choate
Choate Rosemary Hall
Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut...
, an elite preparatory school, in the fall of 1933. Billings as a teenager was 6' 2", weighed 175 pounds, and was the strongest member of the Choate crew team. They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their school. From Billings' first visit with the Kennedy family for Christmas in Palm Beach
Palm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...
in 1933, he joined them for holidays, participated in family events, and was treated like a member of the family. The Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. They spent a semester together at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
until Kennedy withdrew for medical reasons. While attending college, they frequently spent weekends together in New York City.
Billings and Kennedy took a summer trip through Europe in the summer of 1937. Between Munich and Nuremberg, they bought a dachshund
Dachshund
The dachshund is a short-legged, long-bodied dog breed belonging to the hound family. The standard size dachshund was bred to scent, chase, and flush out badgers and other burrow-dwelling animals, while the miniature dachshund was developed to hunt smaller prey such as rabbits...
they named Offie, after State Department official Carmel Offie
Carmel Offie
Carmel Offie worked for the U.S. State Department from the mid 1930s until he joined the Central Intelligence Agency CIA in 1947...
who helped host them in Paris, but had to give him up because of Kennedy's allergies.
In 1939, Billings graduated from Princeton where he majored in art and architecture and wrote his senior thesis on Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
.
In 1941, Billings failed medical tests required by the military. In 1942, supported by a recommendation from Joseph Kennedy, Sr.
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Sr. was a prominent American businessman, investor, and government official....
, his friend's father, who called him "my second son," he won admission to the American Ambulance Field Service, where his poor eyesight was not a disqualification. He saw action in North Africa in 1942-43. In 1944 he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific until being discharged in 1946.
After working on Kennedy's successful campaign for Congress in 1946, Billings toured 7 Latin American countries with Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
.
From 1946 to 1948, Billings attended Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
and earned an MBA. He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. As Vice President at the Emerson Drug Company in Baltimore, he was responsible for inventing the 1950s fad drink Fizzies
Fizzies
-Origin:Lem Billings, a friend of President John F. Kennedy, invented the idea for Emerson Drug Company, manufacturer of Bromo-Seltzer, by adding a fruit flavor that children liked. Once perfected, Emerson named the creation Fizzies. The tablet was dropped into a glass of water, then fizzed and...
by adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. In 1958, he moved to the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell as an advertising executive.
On September 12, 1953, Billings was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...
. In 1956 he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean.
In 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. He managed the campaign in the Third Congressional District in the Wisconsin primary and then served as general troubleshooter and coordinator of television in the West Virginia primary.
Kennedy administration
In 1961, Billings declined Kennedy's offer to appoint him the first head of the Peace CorpsPeace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
or director of a new agency to promote tourism, the U.S. Travel Service. He later said: "I realized that I did not want to work for the president–because I felt it would change our relationship." One historian speculates that Billings preferred to avoid a security check. In September 1961, he accepted an appointment to the board of trustees of the planned National Cultural Center, which later became the Kennedy Center. The next year, Kennedy named him to a board to plan America's participation in the New York World's Fair of 1964-5
1964 New York World's Fair
The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
. He represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963.
Billings visited the White House for most weekends during the Kennedy Administration. When a butler commented on the fact that Billings was leaving his belongings in one of the third-floor guest rooms, the First Lady replied: "He's been my house guest since I was married." Sometimes he stayed for longer periods. When the First Lady was away, Billings organized White House dinner parties for the President and old friends, and when the President traveled he kept the First Lady company. One presidential aide later said that "some people saw him so much they thought he was the Secret Service." Billings never had a White House pass and said: "Jack and Jackie were so nice about this that I didn't even have to tell them whether I was coming or going." Historian Sally Bedell Smith compared him to Zelig
Zelig
Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Zelig, a curiously nondescript enigma who is discovered for his remarkable ability to transform himself to resemble anyone he's near.The film was shot almost entirely in...
, the character in Woody Allen's film who is always present in the back row at major events. He sat with the President's family at the Kennedy inauguration and walked not far behind his widow at the Kennedy funeral. When the Kennedys arranged small gatherings at the White House, they avoided pairing people they knew did not like one another, like Billings and a few other friends.
The press frequently reported on his presence at Kennedy family events, such as the arrival of the Kennedy children in Washington in February 1961. He accompanied the President to church, launched a kite for the President's daughter Caroline, and delivered pet hamsters to the Kennedy children. He joined the President's entourage for his tours of Europe in both 1961 and 1963. In 1962 he escorted two of the President's sisters, Eunice Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, DSG a member of the Kennedy family, sister to President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver, and in 1968, the Special Olympics...
and Jean Smith
Jean Kennedy Smith
Jean Ann Kennedy Smith is an American diplomat and a former United States Ambassador to Ireland. She is the eighth of nine children born to Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald and is their last surviving child. She is the sister of the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy,...
, around Europe for more than 2 weeks. When the Kennedys spent the weekend at Glen Ora, their Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
estate, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to join them more often than the President did. She needed Billings to keep the President company while she went horseback riding.
Billings' role as "first friend" was assessed by many observers at the time and since. Ted Sorensen
Ted Sorensen
Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen was an American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and legendary speechwriter. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.”-Early life:Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son...
called him "an admirer–almost a fawning admirer–of his friend." Arthur Schlesinger thought Billings "used to glare at me when we occasionally encountered each other in the company of JFK, and for a time I took this rather personally. Soon I discovered that he glared with equal suspicion at anyone whose friendship with JFK postdated his own." Another said: "Members of the president's staff thought of him as a 'handy old piece of furniture.'"
Most recognized that Billings and Kennedy had been friends from youth and did not question their relationship or Billings presence. Ben Bradlee, a Kennedy friend who worked at Newsweek during the Kennedy Administration, and no friend of Billings, said "they were childhood friends and stayed loyal to each other forever." Billings, he said, "had a natural jealousy. He didn't want to share his friendship with Jack." Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, who was banned from the White House after a run-in with Billings, offered various opinions at different times. He described Billings as Kennedy's "Choate roommate and lifelong slave" and "the principal fag at court." He also thought Billings played an important role as an aide to Kennedy, who was often ill or in pain. "He needed Lem Billings to get around–better than a trained nurse" that would have made his political career impossible. He thought Mrs. Kennedy thought Billings "was kind of a nothing....but Jack needed him and she was practical."
Many testify to Billings wit and ability to help the President relax. He once described the Kennedy family's lack of business awareness: "Listening to the Kennedy brothers talk about business was like hearing nuns talk about sex." Billings also served the President as an artistic adviser, selecting scrimshaw for display in the Oval Office and, on one European tour, quickly assembling a selection of artworks to be presented as gifts.
Billings spent less time with the President in the fall of 1963. One of their friends thought "that Jackie was trying to close Lem out." Billings spent the last weekend of October 1963 with the couple, the last time he saw them together. Billings saw the President for the last time when they dined at the White House with Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
on November 13, 1963.
Later years
In 1964, Billings was named to head a ten-person committee to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center.In 1965, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede
Runnymede
Runnymede is a water-meadow alongside the River Thames in the English county of Berkshire, and just over west of central London. It is notable for its association with the sealing of Magna Carta, and as a consequence is the site of a collection of memorials...
.
He escorted Mrs. Stephen Smith, sister of the late President, to a gala ballet performance in 1966 and Mrs. Robert Kennedy to the 1971 opening of the Kennedy Center,
After the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, Billings became depressed and started to drink. He maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children through the rest of his life. The elder Kennedys at some point discouraged the younger Kennedys – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Kennedy
David Kennedy
David Anthony Kennedy was the fourth of eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy.-Life:...
, and Christopher Lawford
Christopher Lawford
Christopher Kennedy Lawford is an American author, actor and activist and member of the prominent Kennedy family.-Life and career:...
– from keeping company with Billings, feeling that he drank and used recreational drugs too much. In reality, the Kennedy children were already using recreational drugs. After Robert Kennedy's death in 1968, Billings became almost a surrogate father to Bobby Jr.
Billings served for many years along with Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations...
as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts, working from an office in the Pan Am Building.
Mrs. Kennedy included Billings as a guest at a party marking the birthdays of her children Caroline (21st) and John (18th) in 1978.
In 1987, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer and historian, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S...
described how Billings structured her interviews with him. She had to submit questions in advance. Billings then prepared responses and read them aloud to her.
On May 28, 1981, a day before the 64th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's birth, Billings died in his sleep in his Manhattan apartment following a heart attack. He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery
Allegheny Cemetery
Allegheny Cemetery is one of the largest and oldest burial grounds in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.It is a nonsectarian, wooded hillside park located at 4734 Butler Street in the Lawrenceville neighborhood and bounded by Bloomfield, Garfield, and Stanton Heights...
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dying wish was for the young Kennedy men to carry his coffin to its final resting place. When they arrived at the cemetery, it was already in place to be lowered. The young Kennedys took the coffin and carried it around the grave site before returning it to the burial plot.
Sexuality
Some historians believe that Billings expressed his sexual interest in Kennedy in writing in 1934 and that Kennedy rebuffed his advances.Kennedy knew Billings had rightly been accused of homosexual behavior by a fellow Choate student during their years there. In 1942, Billings met an old Choate acquaintance and wrote favorably of him to Kennedy. Kennedy responded with a rebuke that he should not be praising someone who once called him a "fairy" and harped on the subject "for two solid hours" while arguing whether Billings had ever performed fellatio. Kennedy said the fact that the fellatio charge was true did not excuse the accuser's behavior or permit Billings positive assessment of him now.
One instance of Billings engaging in homosexual sex in the mid 1940s has been documented. Friends from the 1970s confirmed that he was homosexual, but not open to discussing it.
In 2006, looking back to the Kennedy Administration, Ben Bradlee said: "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay....It impressed me that Jack had gay friends." At the same time, he admitted that no one ever expressed the idea aloud during Kennedy's White House years. Red Fay, a friend of the President from his World War II service, said of Billings: "I didn't see anything overtly gay about him; I think he was neutral." One historian wrote that after the 1963 assassination Billings was "Probably the saddest of the Kennedy 'widows.'" Though newspapers often mentioned Billings attendance at major social events, they identified him either as the escort of a member of the Kennedy family or included him in a list of Kennedy friends. Otherwise he attended without a female partner.
Charles Bartlett
Charles Bartlett
Charles Bartlett may refer to:*Charles W. Bartlett , English painter and printmaker*Charles Lafayette Bartlett , U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1895–1915*Charles L...
, a journalist who introduced Kennedy to Jaqueline Bouvier
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...
and friend of both Billings and Kennedy, described their relationship: "Lem was a stable presence for Jack. Lem's raison d'être was Jack Kennedy. I don't think it's true that he did not have views of his own, as some have said. He had a very independent mind. He had interests of his own that Jack didn't necessarily share. He certainly didn't have the same interest in politics and women that Jack had." Though Gore Vidal thought Billings was "absolutely nobody," he also believed "it was a good idea that Jack had somebody he could trust like that around him." He believed Billings loved Kennedy.
"Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said. "Because of him, I was never lonely. He may have been the reason I never got married."
Sources
- Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys: An American Drama (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002)
- Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (NY: Random House, 1992)
- David Michaelis, The Best of Friends: Profiles of Extraordinary Friendships (NY: Morrow, 1983)
- Geoffrey Perret, Jack: A Life Like No Other (NY: Random House, 2002)
- Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (NY: Random House, 2004)
- David Pitts, Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship (NY: Carroll & Graf, 2007), ISBN 978-0-78671-989-1
- Gore Vidal, Palimpsest (NY: Random House, 1995)