Historic Whispers: Inauguration Edition With Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton

This year Washington Whispers turns 75, and to celebrate, we're republishing some of our best Whispers through history. As part of our inaugural coverage, here are some of the best Whispers we found around the time that three presidents—John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton—were being sworn in. The common link? Barack Obama has been compared to each of them.

John F. Kennedy , January 1961

• Capitol Hill rumor: Robert Kennedy will run for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1962. At that time, Mennen Williams will move from the State Department to become Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in place of Abraham Ribicoff, who will become Attorney General, then be named to the Supreme Court when there is a vacancy.

• Members of the Kennedy family are reported to be saying that John Kennedy, President-elect, could not reasonably have denied the Attorney Generalship to his brother after the job Robert Kennedy did in West Virginia to help win that decisive primary.

• John Kennedy is making it clear when inquiries are received that he intends as President to spend at least six months in his office before any ventures abroad. If Khrushchev or others want to talk with him, he will be glad to see them at the White House.

• Lyndon Johnson's first foreign assignment is expected to be a visit to Mexico to pay an official call on his friend Adolfo Lopez Mateos, President of Mexico.

• Kennedy's advisers are glad that President Eisenhower broke relations with Cuba's Castro, thereby relieving the incoming president of that action.

• Newspapermen comment on this basic difference between Eisenhower and Kennedy: Eisenhower hesitated to apply the powers of his office to attain political ends and, in effect, did not enjoy the political game. Kennedy's every move, on the other hand, is made with political effect in mind, and nobody enjoys the political game more.

• Republicans now wonder who in their party is going to be able to compete with a Democratic President for headlines and attention-getting moves in the months and years just ahead.

Ronald Reagan , January 1981

• Officially predecessors Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford are staying away from Ronald Reagan's inaugural in order not to distract attention from the new President. Privately, friends say, Nixon fears drawing a horde of reporters, and neither of the Fords has ever warmed to the Reagans on a personal basis.

• The Carters' rule may be over nationally—but not necessarily in their home state. Georgia politicians already are speculating that the popular Rosalynn would make a strong contender for governor in 1982.

• Capitol Hill insiders report that John Glenn is eying the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. Cited as a clear sign: The former astronaut has started accepting speaking engagements outside his home state of Ohio—something he has rarely done since he was first elected to the Senate in 1974.

• The President-elect isn't the only one raising an eyebrow over news-media rumors and commentary critical of Nancy Reagan. Veteran civil servants at the White House say they can't recall a First Lady who was attacked so vigorously even before she came to Washington.

• White House officials went to unusual lengths to convince skeptics that the President really does write most of his own speeches. They took pains to distribute photographs of the original draft of the inaugural speech, scrawled on a yellow, legal-sized pad in Reagan's own hand.

• Reagan was startled on entering the Oval Office after his inaugural to find the place had been stripped bare of books, files and pictures of departing Carterites. Opening a drawer in his new desk, the President exclaimed: "Gee, they left me some paper clips!"

• Never mind titles and salaries, say administrative insiders—the real key power in the Reagan White House is office location and access to the President. By those criteria, three of his aides—Edwin Meese, Michael Deaver and James Baker—will be on top, with offices close to Reagan's and a guarantee of daily meetings with him.