How do we mourn our presidents and former presidents? Where did all those very public rituals come from? And how much input does a president have in their own post-death ceremonies?
We break down the history and mystery of presidential funerals with Lindsay Chervinsky and Matthew Costello.
This episode of Civics 101 was produced by senior producer Christina Phillps and mixed by Rebecca Lavoie. It was hosted by Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy. Special thanks to Jacqui Fulton.
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Capodice: You're listening to Civics 101 New Hampshire Public Radio's show about the basics of how our democracy works. And today, in the wake of the death of President Jimmy Carter, we have a special episode about how we mourn our presidents.
Archival: But he often said, when the really tough choices come, it's the country, not me. It's not about Democrats or Republicans. It's for our country that I fought for.
Nick Capodice: Right [00:00:30] now, we are listening to audio from President George H.W. Bush's 2018 memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral. And I want you to listen to how Bush is being described as a human being.
Archival: The George Herbert Walker Bush who survived that fiery fall into the waters of the Pacific three quarters of a century ago, made our lives and the lives of nations freer, Better, [00:01:00] warmer and nobler.
Nick Capodice: Now, as the video of the memorial pans over the audience, you can see Bush's family, including his son, President George W Bush. And you also see former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and the sitting president at the time, Donald Trump.
Lindsay Chervinsky: And when he died, there was this incredible outpouring of grief, of memorials, of remembrances, people telling stories [00:01:30] about him. And they were quite laudatory.
Nick Capodice: This is Lindsay Chervinsky. She's a presidential historian and coauthor of Mourning the President's Loss and Legacy in American Culture, where she and her coauthor, Matthew Costello, explore how we remember our presidents when they die. And when she was watching the funeral of George H.W. Bush, one thing stuck out to her.
Lindsay Chervinsky: When someone passes away, you know, family or friends, they want to put the best version of that person forward. But what struck [00:02:00] us as interesting was that people who had been sometimes very critical of Bush 41. Here they were talking about how he was kind and he was decent, and his presidency represented a moment of international strength and international stability.
Archival: I believe it will be said that no occupant of the Oval Office was more courageous, more principled, and more honorable than George Herbert Walker Bush.
Lindsay Chervinsky: And that seemed [00:02:30] to say a lot more about the current political moment that we were living in in 2018 than actually necessarily him. But I think it was more a reflection of the American people's desperate desire to have a little bit more civility, a little bit more stability in our political life, a longing for a time when people on both sides of the aisle could speak to one another, even if they disagreed, and a longing for what the presidency could be.
Archival: Good [00:03:00] evening. Former president Harry S Truman died this morning at age 88.
Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: We are talking about how we as a nation mourn our deceased presidents.
Archival: The Associated Press is reporting at this hour that former President Ronald Reagan has died.
Nick Capodice: We're talking about the funerals themselves, but we are also talking about legacy.
Archival: With the greatest regret. Two priests who were with President Kennedy say he has died of bullet wounds.
Nick Capodice: And [00:03:30] how ceremony, tradition and media coverage around a president's death contribute to that legacy.
Archival: His aims for a better world will be carried on. The president died in harness, still working for the better world he hoped to help shape.
Hannah McCarthy: Nick, I know that we're not in the United Kingdom and we don't have monarchs, but the clearest image I have of a major state funeral is the one for Queen Elizabeth the second in 2022. The [00:04:00] logistics of that funeral, including the fact that the whole operation had its own title. It was called Operation London Bridge. Uh, it was all kind of a spectacle, and it had been planned for years with all sorts of customs that I think we think of as integral to the monarchy. But what about the United States? Do we have specific rules or rituals for mourning presidents?
Matthew Costello: There is really no uniform way to mourn a president.
Nick Capodice: This is [00:04:30] Matthew Costello. He is Lindsay's coauthor and senior historian at the white House Historical Association. And he says that while there isn't a uniform way to mourn the president, it has become a bureaucratic process, one that is folded into the federal government with plans and staff and defined roles. But it wasn't always so official.
Matthew Costello: So obviously, state funerals have evolved and changed over time. And I would say that, you know, the [00:05:00] state funerals, as we know today, are very different. If you go back in the 19th century, you know, presidents and former presidents, most of these things were just paid for and done by the families themselves.
Hannah McCarthy: We should clarify, I think a state funeral means it's run and sanctioned by the government like a state dinner. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: And these days, a state funeral is a three step process that can go anywhere from 7 to 10 days. It includes the marching of the casket [00:05:30] through the Capitol, public viewing of the casket in the Capitol rotunda, and live broadcasts of the funeral.
Hannah McCarthy: The public viewing part of the body. We call this lying in state, right?
Nick Capodice: Right. Yeah, we do state like the federal government. And we know that this went on at least as early as the 17th century in England. But funeral rites of rulers in the early days were probably more about proving that the old monarch was dead and affirming the legitimacy [00:06:00] of the new ruler. I feel like you're.
Hannah McCarthy: Saying it was political.
Nick Capodice: Matter of fact, Hannah and I do think this is something to think about as we talk about presidential funerals in the US, the business of burying a monarch where they were laid to rest, what kinds of ceremonies were performed had a lot to do with the transfer of power and the maintenance of power.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. I'm listening.
Nick Capodice: Okay. So, for example, in the early days and I'm talking like 14th century, 15th century, the monarchy was [00:06:30] not necessarily hereditary.
Hannah McCarthy: As in the former king's son was not guaranteed the job.
Nick Capodice: Right. So the new guy in power might use the former king as political propaganda, you know. Wasn't he so great? Look, I'm just like him. Or let's say the opposite. The old king was deposed. You know, we're looking at a conqueror. Hypothetically, that conqueror might hide or destroy the body of the old king. Pay no attention to what came before me. [00:07:00] I'm the new hot ticket.
Hannah McCarthy: That is cold.
Nick Capodice: It is all part of the game, Hannah. The game of Thrones.
Hannah McCarthy: There it is. I knew we would get it in there one day.
Tyrion Lannister: Dragons do not do well in captivity.
Missandei: How do you know this?
Tyrion Lannister: That's what I do. I drink and I know things.
Nick Capodice: Also, you know, Christianity is on the rise at this time. Why not start to model kings [00:07:30] mausoleums on saints shrines?
Hannah McCarthy: That is a clever move. Basically saying to everybody. The king is godlier than you plebeian.
Nick Capodice: Exactly. So for a while there, new rulers were actually anointed as the new monarch next to their predecessor's tombs. It was a way of saying essentially Whatever he had, I have it now. Rule is a continuum that passes from one body to [00:08:00] the next. Whoa!
Hannah McCarthy: That is how you make a dynasty.
Nick Capodice: All right. To jump ahead here. The lying in state thing in what we now call the UK, had a lot of growing pains. From selling tickets to commoners to visiting hours so crowded and chaotic that in at least one case, looking at you, Queen Mary the Second, people lost their wigs and possibly depending on whether you trust the scuttlebutt, their [00:08:30] lives.
Hannah McCarthy: I bet they didn't get the royal treatment.
Nick Capodice: So the whole post-death ceremony varied from ruler to ruler as we get into the 1700s, but it tended to be less public, less ostentatious, more solemn, sometimes super exclusive, more about the eternal salvation of the soul than projecting royalty to the people. Worth mentioning here that the royal coffers were not always overflowing. In this [00:09:00] era, and giant ceremonies are expensive. Also worth mentioning from the 18th century on, even though England. Suddenly the United Kingdom is becoming a truly global power. Guess what the royals were dealing with?
Hannah McCarthy: Um. Perfecting that wave.
Nick Capodice: Enlightenment.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, yeah. Okay, that was my next guess.
Nick Capodice: Science, philosophy, government structure, individuality, a body politic. Parliament is doing its thing [00:09:30] outside of London. Not many people are paying a lot of attention to the person with the crown. Royal pageantry, frankly, is a little much when you're just hoping the monarch doesn't mess with your plans for global domination. Then one of your best crown jewels, America, calls it quits on you and gets really powerful. And then Germany eventually becomes really powerful. And then Queen Victoria is so sad about the death of Prince Albert that she never hangs out anymore. And suddenly Hannah. Suddenly the people need a little [00:10:00] something.
Hannah McCarthy: A little show, something to bring everybody together.
Nick Capodice: Something to bring everybody together. King Edward the Seventh, Victoria's son, went pageantry everywhere and a proper Westminster lying in state for throngs of crowds to attend. So began a new era of public royal death ceremony that was trying very hard to call to mind an old era of public royal death ceremony.
Hannah McCarthy: In other words, [00:10:30] Nick, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like they are doing the exact same thing that Kings in England had been trying to do like a thousand years ago. Basically, we're telling you that we're popular and important so that you make us popular and important.
Nick Capodice: A penny for the thoughts of the crown. Right, but that feels right.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. It seems like we do something very similar here, do we not?
Nick Capodice: Well, I don't know, Hannah. It [00:11:00] kind of depends on your point of view. Are our presidents posthumous proceedings part of a power play?
Hannah McCarthy: Say that five times fast.
Nick Capodice: Or are they about honor and national tradition, or are they both? We are going to have to leave that for our listeners to decide. Speaking of Civics 101 is about the United States, so I think we should get back on it.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, yeah. Onward. Over the pond.
Nick Capodice: Presidential [00:11:30] funerals. At least a week of grand to do.
Hannah McCarthy: Grand to do. Put on by the federal government. That's right. So you mentioned marching the casket to the Capitol. Days of public viewing in the rotunda. Tons of press, I would guess. Also, tons of security, tons of very important invitees. [00:12:00] Even us commoners have to shell out astonishing amounts of money for our own wakes and funerals. Who is paying for the late presidents ceremonies?
Nick Capodice: The government pays for the labor, transportation and security, and the planning of a state funeral typically involves multiple branches of the military, foreign dignitaries, and coordinating with the media. It's almost like a menu of options the president's family can choose. Like that thing. I don't know if you've seen this, Hannah, where [00:12:30] a riderless horse with empty boots facing backwards in the stirrups indicates that, quote, the warrior will never ride again.
Hannah McCarthy: Seriously, is that is that something that we do that's, like, so heavy with import?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Abraham Lincoln was the first that we know of to have it. And actually, there was a horse named black Jack who carried the boots in Kennedy, Hoover and Johnson's funerals.
Archival: Black Jack had a reputation as a hot horse. He got this [00:13:00] job because he was too wild to ride in the.
Archival: Middle of all this solemnity. There is one full horse having the time of his life.
Nick Capodice: Also, there are special seating arrangements for the services, like.
Hannah McCarthy: In a wedding where the people who know the couple best get the seats closest to them, and everyone pretends not to get their feelings hurt if they're in the nosebleed section. Is that just me who notices that?
Nick Capodice: Actually, Hannah, it's more about avoiding exactly that. You seat foreign [00:13:30] dignitaries in a certain order so that nobody can be accused of having a special seat. Everything. Every last detail is meticulously planned down to where the bugler is supposed to stand to play taps.
Hannah McCarthy: All right. But we did hear that things were not always so complicated. What did presidential funerals look like before?
Lindsay Chervinsky: When George Washington died, he had really specified that he wanted a private family [00:14:00] service. No fanfare, no military participation, no parades, nothing like that. And while his funeral was still relatively modest compared to what we've seen later, it certainly was bigger and had more pomp and circumstance than he intended, including 400 mock funerals across the country where people could attend and pay their respects and mourn. The process, often with an empty casket and an official ceremony in Philadelphia, where Congress [00:14:30] was currently positioned. So they had a funeral for him as well. So that's sort of like the first official one. Several of the presidents after that really did not have any sort of big service, even the ones that died in office.
Hannah McCarthy: That sounds a lot like what you might see these days when a celebrity dies, right? There's a family funeral, but there might be a television special or a public memorial event not necessarily connected to the family, but that is still different from a state funeral that involves [00:15:00] government bureaucracy. So hang on, which president had the first true state funeral?
Nick Capodice: That was President Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated in 1865. Lincoln was the first president to lie in state. And by the way, this isn't just a tradition for presidents, government officials, members of the military and private citizens have also been honored this way. For example, the Reverend Billy Graham's casket was in the Capitol rotunda for two days when he [00:15:30] died in 2018. But that can only happen if both the House and the Senate approve of it. And the reason that Lincoln was the first president with this kind of official government run funeral had a lot to do with the way he died and what was going on in the US at that time.
Lindsay Chervinsky: He was shot on Good Friday. He died the next day. And then that Sunday was Easter Sunday. So there was a real religious sort of connotation to his death that he had died [00:16:00] for the sins of the nation. It was the first funeral in which the telegraph existed, so people were able to learn of his death almost immediately. And so it really did create a national experience.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, of course. Before the Telegraph, depending on where you lived, it might take you a while to learn that the president had died. But afterward, the whole nation could ostensibly learn about it right away.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, and that made it more of a collective public mourning. [00:16:30] I think it's also important to remember that the Confederacy had surrendered to the Union just a few days before Lincoln was shot. So the country wasn't just grieving a president. They were grieving the person who ended the Civil War.
Lindsay Chervinsky: He laid in state at both the white House and the Capitol, and then he was put on a train, and he was taken throughout most of the north of the nation on his way back to Illinois, so that people could see him and express their grief and mourn. So [00:17:00] that was the first one where it was a real to do. It was a big thing. The body was moved several places. There were several opportunities for Americans across the country to witness, and it did have a national feeling because of how quickly news could spread at that point. Most presidents immediately after Lincoln did not have that type of funeral. But then I think the the rise of the state funeral as a regular experience [00:17:30] started to occur with Franklin D Roosevelt.
Archival: This nation has suffered this day a staggering loss at this moment at Warm Springs, Georgia. President Franklin D Roosevelt lies with the problems of the nation finally lifted from his shoulders stricken late this afternoon with cerebral hemorrhage. Why?
Hannah McCarthy: Franklin Roosevelt.
Lindsay Chervinsky: Franklin Roosevelt was in office for 12 years. And so for a lot of people, if they were relatively young, he was the only president they remembered. [00:18:00] And he had led the nation through the Great Depression, through the New Deal, and then through World War two. And so the concept that someone else would be president was almost kind of earth shattering in its significance and really quite scary.
Archival: Everywhere men at first say, no. It is not true. I do not believe it. It could not happen now. Not now. That is the thought of men who drive taxicabs and who sit in offices.
Nick Capodice: President Franklin Roosevelt died [00:18:30] in Georgia on April 12th, 1945, and his body traveled by train to Washington, D.C. it took four days, and hundreds of thousands of people showed up on this train's route, so it was like a giant, hundreds of miles long funeral procession. And when the casket finally arrived in D.C., about half a million people lined the streets to watch it march from Union Station to the white House.
Archival: In this hour of national sorrow.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, [00:19:00] I've seen footage of this. The crowd is like a wall lining the road. And aside from the music played during the procession, it's really quiet. You know, there are thousands of people and you can hear the hoof beats of the horses.
Archival: All the soldiers and servicemen in the crowd stand firmly at attention.
Archival: And now the caisson will start its solemn.
Lindsay Chervinsky: The mourning was akin to that of Abraham [00:19:30] Lincoln, because it represented this cataclysmic moment in American history. And then Truman, who who followed FDR, he had a relatively modest ceremony. But starting in sort of the 1970s, 1980s and moving forward, state funerals really have become a little bit more of the norm for presidents, even when they don't die in office.
Hannah McCarthy: What about what happens after the funeral? Are there any rules for where a president is laid to [00:20:00] rest, or what kind of gravesite it should be?
Nick Capodice: That decision is up to the family. But over the years, presidents have gotten more deliberate about making their burial sites into sort of a destination of their legacy. I'm talking about building a library or a museum, something like that on the site. Now, FDR started this trend when he decided he wanted to be buried at his Hyde Park estate in New York.
Matthew Costello: And Franklin Roosevelt is the first president to officially [00:20:30] designate a presidential library, with the intention of turning over all of his administration's records to the National Archives. National archives were created in 1934, and the plan, in his mind, had always been at some point to be buried back at his home, Hyde Park, and at some point the presidential library that was built there would house the records and artifacts and also related to his administration. And [00:21:00] and he will be buried in the rose garden adjacent to his presidential library. And what Roosevelt starts is this more recent tradition that we've seen where presidents or former presidents are buried at their presidential libraries.
Nick Capodice: And the federal government was on board with this idea, and they made it official in 1955 with the Presidential Libraries Act. This act created a system that allowed presidents and their estates to construct private libraries that were maintained by the [00:21:30] National Archives. And to be clear, the construction and operation of these libraries is not paid for by the government. A president might set up a nonprofit or something to fund the construction of the library, and once it's built, the library is transferred to the federal government, and the National Archives oversee its care when it comes to those government records. But many libraries also have events or programs that are not paid for by the government.
Hannah McCarthy: I feel like this gets [00:22:00] to the legacy question, and it sounds like in this case, that legacy is in large part the receipts. Right. Here's proof of what this person did.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And it makes sense, right. Because after a president leaves office, all that work they did when they were president becomes property of the government. It belongs to the public. And the National Archives makes sure it's properly cataloged and preserved. So it becomes kind of a partnership.
Matthew Costello: Nixon [00:22:30] is buried at the presidential library and his family home in Yorba Linda, California. Gerald Ford is in Grand Rapids, close to where he grew up. Ronald Reagan is at the Reagan Presidential Library out in California. So some of these, you can see where it's kind of, well, they just want to be buried on, you know, near family or, uh, you know, close to their where they grew up. I mean, all that makes sense. But I think the, the decision that they make to place their presidential library where they place them also tells us [00:23:00] quite a lot.
Hannah McCarthy: So these libraries are now being constructed while a president is alive, and that president can have a major say in this tomb slash legacy repository.
Nick Capodice: And these libraries aren't just like a storage place for historical documents. Most of them have museums with artifacts and exhibits open to the public. For example, a lot of presidential libraries have a recreation of the Oval Office as it looked when that particular [00:23:30] president was in office.
Lindsay Chervinsky: Often, if they've been alive for a while after their time in office. And increasingly that is the case as presidents live longer lives post-presidency. Then our memories of their time in office start to fade a bit. What we do then think about them is how do they compare to where we are today? How do they compare to what we have seen? Did they contribute to the problems? Did they help the problems? And you know, what does that mean?
Nick Capodice: Some presidents [00:24:00] have also built institutions that allow them to keep doing their work after they leave office. Take Jimmy Carter, for example. He opened the Carter Center. That is a nonpartisan organization for international peace building, and that is next to his presidential library in Atlanta.
Jimmy Carter: I was one of the youngest surviving presidents in this century. I was only 56 years old. I had a lot of plans ahead of me for the second term that I anticipated, and I wanted to [00:24:30] figure out in my own mind, what can I do to utilize this tremendous remaining influence that I that I carry with me.
Lindsay Chervinsky: President Carter is fairly unique in that he has been able to redefine his legacy through his post-presidential work. Most presidents are not able to change what their legacy is for the American people. And that message is kind of stuck. And it makes sense because the presidency is when you have the most power, you have the biggest bully pulpit, [00:25:00] you have access to the maximum number of Americans, and you're never again really going to have that kind of influence. But for Carter, because I think he only served one term and because he was so humble, he lived a life of service. His foundation really contributed to the eradication of two major diseases and helped with international peace agreements. I mean, it's just really extraordinary work. He's been able to shift how [00:25:30] people think about him.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm sure that a lot of us have thought about what our own legacy will be, or you know, what we'll leave behind or how we'll be remembered. But this is just in another stratosphere.
Nick Capodice: You are not wrong there, Hannah. And presidents make plans for their own funerals pretty much as soon as they get elected to office these days. And there is a reason for that.
Archival: And I'll. You'll excuse me if I am out of breath. A bulletin. This is from the United Press from Dallas. President Kennedy and Governor John [00:26:00] Connally have been cut down by assassin's bullets in downtown Dallas. They were riding in an open automobile when the shots were fired at the president. His limp body carried in the arms of his wife. Jacqueline has rushed to Parkland Hospital. And if you'll excuse me, if I give some directions and we talk about.
Nick Capodice: And we'll talk more about that right after a quick break.
Hannah McCarthy: But before that break, you know, while this episode is absolutely chock full of a lot of trivia about funerals and presidents, you have no idea [00:26:30] how much we don't put in, but we have somewhere else to put it. That is our newsletter. It is called Extra Credit. It is so quick and easy to subscribe to it at our website civics101podcast.org. And not to toot my own horn here, but I actually think that our newsletter is simply one of those joys to open up and read. It's a little bit of information every other week, and it gives you an idea of what we spend the rest of our time thinking about that. Again, that website is civics101podcast.org. [00:27:00] We're back. You're listening to Civics 101. This is a special episode that is asking, in the wake of the death of President Jimmy Carter, what follows the death of a president. We've [00:27:30] covered the broad strokes of their literal wakes, their funerals, their final resting places. It seems like a modern president knows more about what their funeral will look like than Huckleberry Finn did. And, Nick, you said that there was a really good reason a president planned their funeral as soon as they get into office.
Nick Capodice: Yes. There is. It is because of the sudden, violent death of one president. Friday, November 22nd, 1963. President John F Kennedy was assassinated while riding [00:28:00] in an open top limousine in Dallas. He was 46 years old and it was his third year in office.
Archival: From Dallas, Texas, the Flash apparently official President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.
Nick Capodice: Now, Kennedy didn't have a funeral plan in place, but two days later, more than Hundred and 50,000 [00:28:30] people had lined up for the public viewing of his casket, which lasted for 18 hours, and in the meantime officials were planning the memorial services for the next day.
Hannah McCarthy: That is a huge undertaking to pull off in such a short period of time.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, but here's the thing. That kind of rushed planning it won't need to happen again. Here is Matthew Costello.
Matthew Costello: All presidents. Now, when they're in office, they will create a state funeral planning document. [00:29:00] Part of the reason they do this is I think it was in part a lesson learned from, you know, the unexpected assassination of John F Kennedy, because this this stuff was really wasn't planned. You know, he was a young president. And, you know, obviously no one expected him to be killed while in office. I think it was a much more concerted effort moving forward to making sure that the president of the United States, whoever it was when they came into office, that their wishes [00:29:30] were known in the event that they died in office.
Hannah McCarthy: You know, with Kennedy's death in particular, his assassination is a huge part of the story we tell about him. You know, his legacy. Like you said, he had only been in office for less than three years. He was really young. And his death was violent and caught on camera.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Matthew actually compared Kennedy's death to Lincoln's death because they both had something he called the martyr effect.
Matthew Costello: So when we think of a martyr, [00:30:00] we think of somebody who is who was killed, who gave their life in service of others, protecting others. For some presidents, it has made them more memorable. But as we've seen, that this hasn't uniformly applied to everyone. Obviously, with Abraham Lincoln, the country has been at war for four years. The Union Army is closing in, defeating the Confederacy. It appears Facts. The federal government will prevail, and [00:30:30] he's assassinated. Today, we may think of Lincoln as a universally admired and beloved and respected president, but that's how we think about him today, as opposed to how people thought about him in 1865. Now, if you skip ahead, we do have two other presidents who are assassinated James A Garfield and William McKinley. But neither one of them elicits the same kind of response as, say, you know, John F Kennedy in 1963. Kennedy [00:31:00] is a young president. He's assassinated, and he's assassinated very publicly.
Archival: In a warehouse. A sniper with a rifle poised waits. The cheers of the crowd almost muffled the three shots. The assassin's aim is deadly. The area is a swarm with police, rangers and Secret Service men. The murderer slips the net, but a few blocks away, a man is captured after he is reported to have killed a policeman.
Matthew Costello: The Zapruder film, the photographs. I mean, all of this is very, very public and very graphic and [00:31:30] it's very jarring and traumatic for many Americans. So even though Lincoln's time obviously had this larger and really profound historical context involving the Civil War, Kennedy didn't have that as much. But it was something that was it was felt so personally by everyone. And I think part of it was the imagery, the film, the fact that his funeral was held on television. I mean, everybody could watch and experience these things, and everybody [00:32:00] felt like, you know, even people who didn't like John F Kennedy or supported John F Kennedy, it seemed like there was a universal outpouring of grief for Kennedy.
Archival: The sound of the muffled drums sweeps in melancholy waves over the hushed throng, a hush broken only by a stifled sob, a murmured prayer. A whole people is lifted up in common sorrow. And ennobled in their hearts. Down this avenue of sadness they bring President John F Kennedy. Martyred hero. To lie in state under the great dome of the Capitol.
Hannah McCarthy: When [00:32:30] I think about Kennedy's funeral, I cannot help but think about First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, later Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. There's that unforgettable image of Jackie in the bloodstained suit standing next to Lyndon B Johnson as he is sworn in as president on Air Force One, and then later on standing next to her small children. You know, as toddler JFK Jr salutes his father's casket.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And so much of how these things go is influenced by the spouse. [00:33:00] The funeral arrangements, the mourning period. Yeah.
Lindsay Chervinsky: The first ladies are a very interesting part of our history, because that position, of course, is not in the Constitution. So it doesn't have any written responsibilities. It doesn't have a theoretical office. And yet we of course, expect the president to have a spouse. We expect the spouse to play a role with that role is I don't think we've ever fully agreed upon, and I don't think they've ever fully [00:33:30] agreed upon, because each first lady does things a little bit different for Kennedy that that case in particular. He died in such a tragic way, and she was so instrumental to shaping what that that mourning process was going to look like and how involved the family would be.
Nick Capodice: It is remarkable how massive and logistically complicated Kennedy's funeral was considering the circumstances. The First lady had a vision, and she was able to pull it together in a couple [00:34:00] of days.
Lindsay Chervinsky: And Jackie Kennedy was not alone in in the role that she played in crafting those experiences. Most first ladies. Um, I would say on average, first ladies tended to outlive their husbands. And so the families, whether it be the wives or the spouses or the children, they do play a central role in deciding what the funeral is going to look like, who is going to be involved, where it's going to take place, what music is going to be played? Is there going to be a military component? [00:34:30] What is the messaging around the event? These are all things that first ladies and first families usually have. First say.
Matthew Costello: Oh, the former presidents will continue to revisit these planning documents. Um, you know, sometimes things change. Sometimes you decide you want different music, sometimes you decide you want different guests or you want different eulogists. So those are the types of details that can obviously shift and change over time, because we're talking about relationships or friendships or or [00:35:00] even, you know, something like the current climate, you know, something to be thinking about in terms of politics.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. So former presidents aren't just updating, you know, their wills like some of us might. They also have to update their own funeral plans.
Archival: Ronald Reagan was the oldest former president in American history. He was 93 years old when he died. Today. He has been out of the public eye for most of the past decade, since announcing to the whole world he had Alzheimer's.
Matthew Costello: Yeah, Reagan. His last goodbye [00:35:30] to the American people was publicly announcing that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1994. But he lives another ten years. And so this is where, you know, having President Reagan's plan pretty much ironed out. But then entrusting his wife, First Lady Nancy Reagan, and the Reagan family to ensure that President Reagan's wishes were followed and adhered to as agreed upon, or [00:36:00] if they felt that they should change things on his behalf. You know, certainly that's a situation where they could. The Reagans, generally speaking, between the two of them, I mean, they always knew the importance of performance.
Archival: It appears to an observer that after 33 years of marriage, you two are still absolutely nuts about each other. Mrs. Reagan, how do you plead?
Archival: Guilty.
Archival: Guilty.
Archival: Explain it. I mean it. [00:36:30]
Matthew Costello: And I think that was true when they were in the white House. It's true when he was governor of California.
Hannah McCarthy: I know most presidential families have carefully crafted public personas, but I think the Reagan image involved another level of cultivation. I can only imagine that that funeral was extremely detailed.
Nick Capodice: The funeral plan was somewhere between 130 and 300 pages long, and the news coverage was extensive, [00:37:00] with multiple media outlets covering hours of mourning live for almost a week straight.
Matthew Costello: The idea of creating something that was really such a spectacle that, you know, people felt like they were a participant in what was unfolding right before their eyes. I think all of that was true with President Reagan's state funeral.
Archival: It was a poignant moment in a day filled with emotion and somber pageantry, as America came to a virtual standstill to [00:37:30] mark the passing of the 40th president.
Nick Capodice: For example, after the funeral, his remains were brought back to California, where they had another service overlooking the mountains at the Reagan Presidential Library.
Matthew Costello: They're very cognizant of doing it at sunset at the Reagan Library. That really sort of, you know, the sun has set on on Reagan's time here. I mean, it was all very symbolic, I think.
Nick Capodice: In the announcement Reagan wrote in 1994 about his Alzheimer's diagnosis, he [00:38:00] said, quote, I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life.
Matthew Costello: I think Reagan's story in particular shows just the influence of family in shaping and planning the funeral itself, but also how we've come to remember the figure in question.
Hannah McCarthy: You know, over time, it sounds like these funerals, they just keep getting bigger, they become more of a spectacle or, you know, a different [00:38:30] kind of spectacle. And maybe that is in part because we have more access to them with the advent of 24 hour news and social media. But we talked about the British traditions around the death of a ruler. And in the case of the UK, it makes a lot of sense to me because all of that pageantry and idolatry for a ruler who, you know, for a long time people thought was ordained by God worthy of worship [00:39:00] or something close to it. It's also a way to reaffirm this connection between the people and the monarchy, and, I guess, provide one last opportunity to bow before the crown. And I know that we have borrowed a lot from British tradition, but, you know, our process. Is that a little odd in a country that's not monarchical, where the leader is not the ruler, but [00:39:30] technically a member of the public, just like the rest of us?
Lindsay Chervinsky: As we think about how we mourn presidents, and especially as state funerals have become the norm and the tradition. It's worth asking whether or not it should be that way. And the reason I say that is because if anyone watched the footage of George H.W. Bush's funeral and then watched the more recent footage of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, there are a lot of similarities. [00:40:00] And they looked often pretty close. We, you know, we have less crowds, we have less carriages. But nonetheless, there's, you know, there were a lot of things that weren't all that different. And we are not a monarchy, or at least we're not supposed to be. And when the president Dies. They do retain Secret Service protection, and, you know, they can bring in a very hefty speaking fee and often, you know, live in very nice homes. But they are supposed to be just an average citizen. They're supposed to be [00:40:30] just like everyone else. And that's what a republic means. It means that everyone is the same in theory under the law. And so by recording these enormous celebrations, all of the pomp and circumstance and all of the fanfare, is that appropriate for a republic? Is that the way things should be? Or are we sending a message that presidents, even once they leave office, are somehow something else or something different?
Matthew Costello: So [00:41:00] to talk about president's legacy in 1960, you know, it's going to vary probably, you know, by 1980, by 2000, by 2020, you'll see these changes over time a big part of that is shaped by the present moment. You know, whatever experiences that we're going through as a country, as a society, as a culture. And so in a way, even though the presidents are gone, their legacy is [00:41:30] still sort of part of that foil of reshaping and influencing American culture well into the future.
Nick Capodice: If you want more Civics 101, you can find all of our episodes and teaching materials and a whole bunch of other stuff at our website, civics101podcast.org. Music. [00:42:00] In this episode by Epidemic Sound and Chris Zabriskie, Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.