Murder at the President's House

by J. R. Johnson

  MURDER AT THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE

  By John R. Johnson

  TEXT COPYRIGHT © 2014 John R. Johnson

  All Rights Reserved

  DEDICATION

  To Jacque who inspire me to pursue my writing with a burning passion.

  PROLOGUE

  Murder at the President’s House is a fictional account based loosely on the Murder in the White House by Margaret Truman and a thriller adaptation 1997 action film starring Wesley Snipes Murder at 1600 directed by Dwight H. Little. The 1600 in the movie title refers to 1600 Pennsylvania, the address of the White House in Washington, DC. The film is based on Margaret Truman novel, daughter of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. From the outside, the President’s House appears charmingly and deceptively modest. Except for unobtrusive office wings, it remains in structural outline just as it looked when it was basically completed in Jackson’s day.

  The White House Counsel is a staff appointee of the President of the United States whose principal role is to advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and his Administration. The Office of Counsel to the President was created in 1943, and is responsible for advising on all legal aspects of policy questions, legal issues arising in connection with the President’s decision to sign or veto legislation, ethical questions, financial disclosures and conflicts of interest during employment and post employment.

  The Counsel’s Office also helps define the line between official and political activities, oversees executive appointments and judicial selection, handles President pardons, reviews legislation and Presidential statements, and lawsuits against the President in his role as President, as well as serving the White House contact for the Department of Justice.

  The White House Counsel offers legal advice to the President in his official capacity to the President, and does not serve as the President’s personal attorney. In some instances, controversy has emerged over the scope of the attorney-client privilege between the Counsel and the President. Attorney-client privilege is an American legal concept that protects certain communications between a client and his or her attorney and keeps those communication confidential. The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest recognized privileges for confidential communications. It is clear, however, that the privilege does not apply in personal matters such as impeachment proceedings thus, in such situations the President relies on a personal attorney for confidential legal advice.

  There have been thirty seven (37) men appointed as the White House Counsel. The first was Samuel Irving Rosenman (1943-1946) serving under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. The current White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston since June 1, 2014 under President Barack Obama.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1 A WEAPON OF CHOICE

  CHAPTER 2 THE INVESTIGATION

  CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH IS ON

  CHAPTER 4 EXODUS

  CHAPTER 5 REQUIEM

  CHAPTER ONE

  A WEAPON OF CHOICE

  “And when you shall hear of rumors of wars, be not troubled; These things must needs to come to pass, the end is not yet.” Mark 13:7

  In the most powerful city in the world where the weapon of choice in a town such as this usually there are well aimed targeted rumors. Persistent rumors have abounded that First Lady Ashley Reid was having an affair with White House Counsel Richard Royster. No one can escape these rumors not even the leader of the free world.

  Sometimes these rumors are true. Do you really want to know the truth?

  An interesting rumor was leaked to the Washington Post occurred resulting in the front page headline, “ Ashley Reid Caught Having a Midnight Swim with White House Counsel”

  One of the distinguished members of the White House Press Corps had the nerve to ask the President the proverbial question. The President responded, “This is totally ridiculous and who leaked it is clearly a narcissistic loony toon.” The First Lady is both a devoted mother and a cutthoat strategist. The President had , concluded his press conference on a hot summer Friday afternoon in June. He was preparing to leave the White House for the presidential retreat at Camp David.

  Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States. It is located in the wooded hills about sixty-two (62) miles north-northwest of Washington, D.C., in Catoctin Mountain Park near Thurmont, Maryland. It is officially known as Naval Support Facility Thurmont and is technically a military installation; staffing is provided by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps. Construction was started in 1935 and completed in 1938. In 1942, it was converted to a presidential retreat by Franklin D. Roosevelt and renamed “Shangri-La “(for the fictional Himalayan paradise).

  Camp David received its present name from Dwight D. Eisenhower, in honor of his father and grandson, both named David. Camp David is not open to the general public. Catoctin Mountain Park does not indicate the location of Camp David on its official park maps due to privacy and security concerns.

  Thomas Jefferson Reid, President of the United States. He was forty-seven years old and looked maybe four years longer in his first term in office. He thrived on the presidency. Although his face was deeply lined, his hair was thick and dark. He was hard and thin to abrupt decisive movement.

  Ashley Reid, First Lady was forty-six and looked thirty. She acknowledged a Hollywood surgeon had done creative restoration around her face and subdued some wrinkles, and the she said “she would have it done again whenever she thought she needed it.”

  President Reid turned away from the media group and herded his party towards the presidential helicopter, Marine One. He wavered and brightly grinned to the crowd. He and the First Lady, Charlotte, the First Daughter climbed into the waiting helicopter. The rotor was turning slowly above the helicopter. The red lights on it was blinking. Marine One is the call sign of any United States Marine Corps aircraft carrying the President of the United States. It usually denotes a helicopter operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1 “Nighthawks”), either the large VH-3D Sea King or the newer, smaller VH-60N “Whitehawk”. A Marine Corps aircraft carrying the Vice President has the call sign Marine Two .

  The first use of helicopters for presidential transport in 1957, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower traveled on a Bell UH-13J Sioux.

  The President needed a quick mode of transportation in order to reach his summer home in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as Air Force One could not land at either the White House or the summer home due to its sheer size. President Eisenhower instructed his staff to look into alternative modes of transportation and a Sikorsky UH-34 Seahorse helicopter was commissioned. The early aircraft lacked the “creature comforts” found on it modern successors, such as air conditioning and toilets for in-flight use. In 1958, the H-13 was replaced by Sikorsky H-34, and in 1961 by the VH-3A. Not long after the mode of transportation was introduced, presidential aides the Marine Corps to look into the White House South Lawn as a helicopter landing zone. Ample room was present on the South Lawn, and the protocol was established.

  Until 1976, the Marine Corps shared the responsibility of helicopter transportation for the President with the United States Army. Army helicopters used the call sign Army One while the president was on board. The VH-3D replaced some VH-3As in 1978, and the remaining VH-3As were replaced by the VH-60N beginning in 1987. Improvements were made to both types of helicopters since their introduction to take advantage of technological developments as well as to meet new mission critical requirements.

  DIVERSITY is the real keynote to the 42 Presidents as a group. In physical appearance, temperament, place of birth, family background, role in national life, status of health, political affiliation, the nature and success of thei
r administrations, popular reaction of their times and posterity toward them, and pursuits in later life, they demonstrate exceptional heterogeneity. Yet, in numerous respects, they exhibit similarities.

  Chief among these is ethnic origin. All the President of the United States have been of Northern European extraction and preponderant number of British origins. English bloodlines predominate, followed by Scotch and Scotch-Irish. Both of Kennedy’s parents were of Irish background. Although several Chief Executives carried traces of Continental European ancestry, the only one directly descended from that area were Van Buren and the two Roosevelts, whose names reflect their Dutch forebears; and Hoover and Eisenhower, both of Swiss-German lineage. Most of the parents of the Presidents and their families have spent generations in the United States; only a handful of Chief Executives, who by law are required to be American born, were the children of one or both immigrants parents.

  A second area of resemblance is in occupation, where public service and the law ranks high. Except for Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower, who had been Army generals and whose earlier careers were essentially apolitical, practically all the Presidents played extensive roles in public life on the Federal, State, and local, appointive and elective. The range is considerable large, however Buchanan, for example, enjoyed almost four decades of experience in both State and Federal posts, including the diplomatic corps.

  On the other hand, the only earlier elective office Arthur ever held was as Vice President. Lincoln’s experience consisted only of four terms in the State legislature and a single term in the United States House of Representatives. Hoover, along with Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower never ran for any public office prior to his Presidential nomination, though he had served as Secretary of Commerce, as World War I Food Administrator, and on various national and international relief commissions.

  Thirteen Chief Executives (John Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon and Ford) had served as Vice Presidents. Nine were Cabinet members, Monroe holding two posts: six secretaries of State(Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren, and Buchanan); three Secretaries of War (Monroe, Grant and Taft); and one Secretary of Commerce(Hoover). Other Presidents also held various sub-Cabinets posts and lesser U .S. Government positions.

  Seven served as Ambassadors or Ministers: both Adamses, Jefferson, Monroe, Van Buren, Harrison, and Buchanan--all before the Civil War. Taft held the position of Governor General of the Philippines; and after his Presidency, the Chief Justiceship of the United States, the only President who ever held a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

  Except for twelve (12), the rest enjoyed congressional experiences, all before their incumbencies except for John Quincy Adams who held a seat in the House of Representatives afterward, as did also Andrew Johnson in the Senate. The first five had served in the Continental Congress. The last two of these, Madison and Monroe, also sat in Congress, the former in the House and the latter in the Senate.

  Ten (10) served in both Houses(John Quincy Adams, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Tyler, Pierce, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Nixon); five in the Senate only(Monroe, Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, Harding, and Truman); and eight in the House (Madison, Polk, Fillmore, Lincoln, Hayes, Garfield, McKinley, and Ford).

  Polk was the only Speaker of the House to become Chief Executive. Tyler held the office of President pro tem of the Senate for one session. Lyndon B. Johnson served as both Minority and Majority Leader of the Senate. Garfield, and Ford were House Minority Leaders. Garfield was the only Chief Executive elected while serving as a Member of the House, though he was also a Senator-elect. Ford was appointed as Vice President while in the House, and then assumed the Presidency upon Nixon’s resignation. Harding and Kennedy were elected while sitting in the Senate.

  Sixteen (16) individuals had earlier served as Governors of States or Territories: Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Van Buren, Tyler, Polk, Andrew Johnson, Hayes, Cleveland, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Carter. Four were Governors when they became President (Hayes, Cleveland, Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt), and McKinley had left office earlier in the year that he ran for the Presidency.

  Many White House occupants also served in State legislatures or held such State posts as attorney general, Lieutenant Governor, and comptroller, as well and county and city positions. Despite the prominence of large cities in U.S. history, only one mayor of a major city (Buffalo), Cleveland, ever occupied the highest office in the land.

  More than two-thirds of the Presidents received training in the law, many in the days before formal school training when they “read the law.’ Most of the overall group were admitted to the bar. Some curtailed or abandoned law practice during long periods in public office and never returned to actively. Wilson, for one stopped practicing after a short time, to begin graduate studies in political science.

  Several men, including Van Buren, Hayes, Cleveland,Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Coolidge, worked as county or city prosecuting attorneys or solicitors before they entered the mainstream of political life. Jackson held the position of attorney general of the Western District of North Carolina (present day Tennessee) as well as justice of the Tennessee superior court. Taft also sat on a superior court, in Ohio, and was a Federal circuit judge.

  A number of individuals were once elementary or secondary school teachers: John Adams, Jackson, Fillmore, Pierce, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland (at a school for the deaf), McKinley, Harding, and Lyndon B. Johnson, Arthur and Johnson also served as principals. Of the group, Garfield moved on to college teaching, the one-time principal occupation of John Quincy Adams, Taft, and Wilson, Garfield, Wilson, and Eisenhower, respectively, served as presidents of Western Reserve Eclectic Institute ( later Hiram College) and Princeton and Columbia Universities. Taft was dean of the Cincinnati Law School.

  Several President were, by principal occupation, farm or plantation owners or managers, and those who engaged in other professions sometimes pursued agriculture as an avocation. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, though from an urban background, operated ranches in North Dakota. Other Chief Executives purchased or inherited family farms or estates.

  Other occupations include mining engineer (Hoover), tailor (Andrew Johnson), and newspaper editor (Harding). A considerable number of Chief Executives were professional or semi professional soldiers. None were doctors or ministers, though William Henry Harrison studied medicine for a while; and John Adams and Madison theology.

  During the course of their careers, numerous President followed humble occupations and knew disappointment and failure. Fillmore worked as a wool carder. Grant, as a young officer unhappy with military service, resigned and worked as a clerk and real estate agent, but he was unsuccessful in these fields as well as farming. Truman failed in haberdashery business, as did Lincoln in storekeeping. A number of others at some point in their lives particularly during their early years, were forced to work at menial jobs.

  Another general similarity among the Presidents is that, despite the modest origins of many of them, a great number were either wealthy or well-to-do as they neared the ends of their lives. Hoover and Lyndon B. Johnson were self-made millionaires. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Kennedy. by inheritance. Others Who enjoyed considerable wealth include Washington, Van Buren, Tyler , Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon. On the other hand, Jefferson died in debt and Madison and Monroe ended their lives in genteel poverty, though all three always lived in comfortable circumstances. A few others also no more than modest wealth. At one point in his life, McKinley barely avoided bankruptcy.

  Most Chief Executives have been well educated. The contrast are marked, however, Lincoln enjoyed only a few months of low-level formal education, whereas Wilson earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), the only Chief Execu
tive to do so. Although historically speaking relatively few Americans

  have ever enjoyed the privilege of a college education, twenty-seven (27), or just over two-thirds, of the Presidents were graduates, and two others attended higher-level institutions but did not earn a degree. Of the 27, at least won honors or other academic distinction.

  Five have been graduates of Harvard (the two Adams, two Roosevelts and Kennedy), two of the College of William and Mary (Jefferson and Tyler); two of Princeton (College of New Jersey) (Madison and Wilson); two of the U.S. Military Academy (Grant and Eisenhower); and 14 of other schools (Polk, University of North Carolina; Pierce, Bowdoin College; Buchanan, Dickinson College; Hayes, Kenyon College; Garfield, Williams College; Arthur, Union College; Benjamin Harrison, Miami (Ohio) University; Taft, Yale University; Harding, Ohio Central College; Coolidge, Amherst College; Hoover, Stanford University; Lyndon B. Johnson, Southwest Texas State Teachers College; Nixon, Whittier College; Ford, University of Michigan; and Carter, U.S. Naval Academy). A few of these individuals also studied at other colleges or universities on a preparatory or temporary basis.

  Those attending colleges but not graduating were Monroe (College of William and Mary), William Henry Harrison (Hampden-Sydney College), and William McKinley (Allegheny College). The following nine (9) men did not attend at all: Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman.