![]() Travel Service, or ambassador to Denmark. 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. Kennedy administration īillings (second from left) in the White House as Kennedy signs legislation creating the United States Travel Service 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 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. In 1956, he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean to Stephen Edward Smith. On September 12, 1953, Billings was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. In 1958, he moved to the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell as an advertising executive. 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. He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. Career įrom 1946 to 1948, Billings attended Harvard Business School and earned an MBA. Īfter working on Kennedy's successful campaign for Congress in 1946, Billings toured seven Latin American countries with Robert F. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific until being discharged in 1946. In 1944, he received a commission in the U.S. He saw action in North Africa in 1942–43. In 1942, supported by a recommendation from Joseph 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. In 1941, Billings failed medical tests required by the military. In 1939, Billings graduated from Princeton where he majored in art and architecture and wrote his senior thesis on Tintoretto. In the summer of 1937, Billings and Kennedy took a summer trip through Europe which solidified their friendship. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. The Depression had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship. 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 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. While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their strict school. Billings as a teenager was 6' 2", weighed 175 pounds, and was the strongest member of the Choate crew. īillings, a 16-year-old third-year student, and Kennedy, a 15-year-old second-year student, met at Choate, an elite preparatory school, in the fall of 1933. The Billings family were Episcopalians and Republicans. 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. His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts.īillings was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 15, 1916, the third child of Frederic Tremaine Billings (1873–1933) and Romaine LeMoyne (1882–1970). called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. Kirk LeMoyne " Lem" Billings (Ap– May 28, 1981) was an American businessman known for his close and long-time friendship with John F.
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