President Harding's mysterious S.F. death

Palace Hotel employee Jose Lopez displays a scrapbook of clippings about President Harding's ill-fated 1923 stay. Harding died in the presidential suite. Palace Hotel employee Jose Lopez displays a scrapbook of clippings about President Harding's ill-fated 1923 stay. Harding died in the presidential suite. Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close President Harding's mysterious S.F. death 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

On the evening of Aug. 2, 1923, President Warren Harding lay in bed in Room 8064, the eighth-floor presidential suite of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

Harding had come down with pneumonia on a speaking tour of the Western states and Alaska, but looked to be regaining his health, said official bulletins released by his physicians.

Mrs. Harding sat by his side reading from the previous week's Saturday Evening Post - Samuel George Blythe's story "A Calm View of a Calm Man," about the president himself - when Harding died suddenly at 7:30 p.m. The Associated Press reported his death over the wires at 7:51 p.m.

The death certificate stated the cause to be cerebral apoplexy, following the president's other maladies. Later conclusions indicated congestive heart failure. Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy.

Mixed up with all manner of public and private scandals - including the Teapot Dome and extramarital affairs - Harding's life provided ripe material for conspiracy theories.

Gaston Means, a private detective and convicted criminal, published one such theory in "The Strange Death of President Harding" (1930). The book pointed to the first lady, theorizing that Florence poisoned her husband after learning of his infidelities to protect his reputation. A Liberty Magazine expose three years later discredited Means and revealed that the book was ghostwritten.

The Palace has been "Sheratonized" and "de-Sheratonized" since Harding spent his last days there. The presidential suite, now Room 888, was modified when the hotel underwent major restoration, but the new floor plan occupies the same space on the eighth floor, says Palace spokeswoman Renee Roberts. It goes for an average of $2,900 a night.

Tourists may not be privy to the fancy suite, but in the hotel lobby, they can glimpse Harding's campaign itinerary and scrapbooks of articles on his declining health and death. {sbox}