(The Last) Commanders-in-Heat VII: Flatline & Spin.
The first modern presidential death was also the first medical mystery America refused to let go.
Harding’s wife had spiritualists on speed dial. His mistress claimed they conceived his baby in a broom closet. I have a limited-time offer:
Drop While Its Hot
Commander-in-Heat: A Republic, If It Can Survive You
Commander-in-Heat II: Is June James Season?
Commander-in-Heat III: The June 6
Commander-in-Heat IV: James Madison Declined to Die for the Bit
Commanders-in-Heat V: Manuscript or Morphine (Part I)
Commanders-in-Heat VI: Manuscript or Morphine (Part II)
Commanders-in-Heat VII: Dead on Arrival
Commanders-in-Heat VII: The Cookie Monster of Presidential Death Months Devoured 7 Before August
Flatline & Spin
In August 2, 1923, Warren G. Harding died in a hotel suite with no autopsy, five doctors, and a First Lady who ordered the body embalmed before sunrise.
Official cause of death: Heart failure.
Unofficial cause of death: crab poisoning, a murdered conscience, a cover-up designed to save the crooks circling his Cabinet.
Harding wasn’t the first president to die in office, but he was the first whose death felt like a lie. And the first whose administration had primed the country to expect one.
Harding’s “Return to Normalcy” turned out to be the most corrupt presidency in modern memory. Teapot Dome. Veterans Bureau scandals. Blackmailers haunting the White House. Psychic mediums on the guest list.
By the time he dropped dead at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, the country didn’t want closure—it wanted evidence.
Washington crossed the Delaware. You can cross my palm with $6.
Five Doctors, One Convenient Ending
Harding had fled Washington’s summer heat—both meteorological and legal—on what aides called the “Voyage of Understanding.” It was a PR stunt in the shape of a train tour. He never made it home.
On August 2, Florence Harding sat beside him in their hotel suite, reading him a glowing review in The Saturday Evening Post. “That’s good,” he told her. “Go on.” Then he collapsed.
Five doctors were summoned. Heart attack. Maybe stroke. Possibly gallbladder failure. They didn’t agree on a cause. The president was dead, and that was final.
Florence Harding was used to making decisions—an outspoken advocate of women’s suffrage, which passed the summer before Harding’s election, she was the first First Lady to cast her ballot for her husband.
And Florence said asked no further questions. She said yes to an overnight embalming.
Harding’s Death Broke the National Trust
Harding had promised Solicitor General James M. Beck that he would try not to “overdo” it on his trip across the continent—the strain of which would kill him.
The White House lost a president—and credibility.
When the press realized there would be no medical review, no clarity, and no honest accounting of what had killed the most scandal-drenched president in living memory, it filled in the gaps the old-fashioned way: with rumors.
Florence had poisoned him. His Cabinet had silenced him. The cover-up was timed to end the investigations with the man himself.
And unlike earlier eras, Harding’s death landed in a media ecosystem wired for suspicion. Radio, telegraph, and the newly aggressive press corps turned a death certificate into an invitation.
Florence Harding & the Death That Launched a Thousand Conspiracies
“I have only one real hobby—my husband,” said Florence, and her husband was grateful for it.
Warren G. Harding held the title, but Florence Kling Harding ran the show.
“The Duchess,” as he called her, he was key to his political success.
Harding called one of his mistresses “Duchess” too. He cheated with another, Nan Britton, in a White House coat closet. Their child was born while he was in office.
Florence knew about the cheating. Everyone did. It was sloppy, public, humiliating. By 1923, the rumors weren’t rumors. They were chapter headings. So when Florence sat beside him as he died and then made sure no questions were asked, people didn’t see a grieving wife. They saw motive.
No documents? No problem. No transparency? Even better. The absence of evidence wasn’t an obstacle. It was the opening move.
Harding taught America to ask what the diagnosis conveniently prevented. From 1923 on, presidential health stopped being a private matter and started being a national obsession. Every ambiguous medical event became a political test: What is the White House hiding? Who gets to interpret the facts?
Why Florence Matters
“I have only one real hobby—my husband,” said Florence, and her husband was grateful for it.
Warren G. Harding held the title, but Florence Kling Harding ran the show.
Long before modern West Wings learned to spin, she understood the golden rule of scandal management: you don’t have to kill the story. Just keep the facts murkier than the suspicions.
Florence called the press her “pets” and “henchmen,” and treated them accordingly. She leaked selectively, charmed reporters over lunch, and turned the White House into a stage-managed spectacle.
While Harding ducked controversy and ducked out early—dropping dead in 1923—Florence kept the machine running as the scandals detonated: Veterans Bureau head Charles Forbes siphoned millions through kickbacks and fake contracts; Interior Secretary Albert Fall leased federal oil fields in a backroom deal known as Teapot Dome.
She shielded Harding in life, then shaped his legacy in death. No autopsy. Papers burned. Spiritualists summoned.
Her real power was image control. When Attorney General Harry Daugherty’s corruption became too blatant—bootlegging bribes, Justice Department side hustles—Florence allegedly pushed for his ouster.
She was the first First Lady to vote, to brief the press, to act as a political operative in her own right. Her instincts became doctrine: distract, manage, obfuscate. When the truth threatens the story—muddy it.
Flatline and Spin
Harding’s heart may have stopped in 1923, but the real casualty was trust. The next time you see a presidential health scare metastasize into a cable news marathon, know you’re watching the sequel.
No body, no autopsy, no closure. In American politics, evidence is optional. Narrative isn’t.
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Loved this - any recommendations for reading more about Florence??
Presidential history, personalized and very interesting.