Lem Billings

Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 – May 28, 1981) was an American businessman known for his close and long-time friendship with John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family.

Billings was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 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 his great-grandfather Francis Julius LeMoyne was a prominent abolitionist linked to the underground railroad who helped establish what is today known as LeMoyne-Owen College.

The Billings family were Episcopalians and Republicans.

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 Wallingford, Connecticut, in the fall of 1933.

Billings as a teenager was 6' 2", weighed 175 pounds, and was the strongest member of the Choate crew. They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their strict school. While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". The Muckers would pull pranks around the school and even planned to dump horse manure in the school gym, but that fell through after the headmaster found out. Billings' first visit with the Kennedy family was for Christmas in Palm Beach in 1933; after that, 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.

In the summer of 1937, Billings and Kennedy took a summer trip through Europe which solidified their friendship.

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 P. 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 seven 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.

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 to Stephen Edward Smith.

In 1958, he moved to the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell as an advertising executive.

Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid.

Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women.

Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts.

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.

In 1961, Billings declined Kennedy's offer to appoint him the first head of the Peace Corps, director of a new agency to promote tourism, the U.S. Travel Service, or ambassador to Denmark.

He later said: "I realized that I did not want to work for the president — because I felt it would change our relationship."

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 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 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."

The next year, Kennedy named him to a board to plan America's participation in the New York World's Fair of 1964–5.

Historian Sally Bedell Smith compared him to Leonard Zelig, a nondescript character in Woody Allen's 1983 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.